Openness and Simplicity
The more chaotic things are in the world and human society, the harder it is to feel secure and hopeful. Trust in God and optimism for the human family are not automatic. We must cultivate these things, within ourselves or our anxiety intensifies. Most people want to do their part for the common good, but to contribute positively comes from the strength of love. Nothing positive comes from fear.
Mary, the mother of Jesus is the figure from the gospels that most beautifully models openness for connection to God in Christ. Her feast day is August 15, so many Christians around the world have been commemorating her witness to the purposes of God this week. I listened last Sunday to the sermon of Andrew Tremlett, Dean of Durham Cathedral in the UK. I did not know the long legal name of the cathedral is “The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St. Cuthbert of Durham. It would never fit on a bumper sticker. The connection of that cathedral through devotion with St. Mary explains why they fully celebrate the Feast of Mary as a patronal feast.
In his sermon, the dean began describing how Roman Catholic Christians celebrate the feast as the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and how Orthodox Christians celebrate it as the Dormition of Our Most Holy Lady, the Theotokos, and Ever-Virgin Mary. It is she who bore God incarnate into the world so she is called the Christ-bearer or in Greek, Theotokos. Though the Roman feast is called the Assumption, the emphasis is not a literal doctrine that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven thereby avoiding physical death. And though the Orthodox feast is called the Dormition, it is not a literal belief Mary was taken into a special sleep rather than death. Both point to Mary’s full embracing of the victory of Christ over death affording her a beautiful experience of God taking her into the Light of divine presence. The feast highlights her special intimate connection with her son, the Savior.
Anglicans, perhaps predictably, take a more generic approach for celebrating the feast of Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ every August 15. We point not to specifics of her movement from earth to heaven, but her unique example of life and faith. In so doing, we are focusing not solely upon her, but pointing to Christ and the redemption he gives, precisely because Mary so humbly and faithfully points to Jesus.
Dean Andrew Tremlett then set the foundation, looking to Genesis 3 to show us something about the nature of sin. After the man and his wife had eaten of the fruit in the middle of the garden, after the eyes of both of them were open and they saw themselves to be naked, they stitched fig leaves together and covered themselves with these crafted loincloths. Then the text reads:
The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze and hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” He replied, “I heard the sound as you were walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself?” God answered,, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I forbade you?” (Genesis 3:8-11 NEB)
The effect of sin, Dean Tremlett points out, is a fear and a hiding, and a closing of ourselves in upon ourselves. It is a kind of fracturing of our human nature. Sin launches a tendency to think of ourselves before others, to think ill of others, to be begrudging, self-concerned, and self-important. It makes us shameful of the dark corners of our hearts. Sin thwarts our chance to be open to others and open to God; it makes us more centered on ourselves—wrapped up in ourselves. Adam and Eve tried to hide from God as if such a thing were possible. They became closed in on themselves. This brings a certain fear of shame, a fear of truth, a fear of God, a fear of ourselves and others. None of us are free from this aspect of hiding. We close our hearts. God must find a way—into our lives and into our hearts.
Contrast this familiar tendency of hiding and closing to the example modeled by Mary. She is the one approached by God through the angel Gabriel. When she learns God’s purpose to come alongside humanity in its predicament of brokenness, she says, “Let it be to me, according to your word.” She opens herself. By taking human nature to himself, by entering into humanity in the Incarnation, God, the Word becomes flesh. So God’s route into creation and the human heart is Mary. Sin has not closed Mary in on herself. In her simplicity and humility, from the beginning of her existence, Mary is open to God.
Mary then is our teacher. We notice her, and we are encouraged to reject being given over to fear. We are encouraged rather to open ourselves to God. And there is another way that Mary connects with us. We are all creatures who experience joy and sorrow, delight and suffering. This vulnerability is an unavoidable feature of our humanity. Mary is in a certain way of thinking an archetype of this range of human experience. In the announcement of Gabriel to Mary, in her visit with her cousin Elizabeth about their expectancy, and the birth of Jesus, we find the very pictures of human joy. In her presence at the foot of the cross, as her son Jesus is crucified, we can hardly imagine a deeper or more agonizing sorrow. Mary is herself, a real human being, and is also a symbol of us all.
Finally, Mary is a model for the Christian believer. There was no person closer to Jesus than Mary at the moment of his birth when God redemptively assumed and wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature. There was no human closer to Jesus when he died, showing us the extent of his saving love. The truth is, Mary shows us in these bookends of the Christ event, that there is nothing more important for us than to open ourselves intimately in relationship with Jesus. To connect fully, in a trusting way to him, is to become a human being fully alive. Let it be, for us all.