The Handmaid's Tale
The Handmaid’s Tale
Luke 1:46-55
As someone who grew up in a Protestant family, Mary was always a bit of mystery. My hometown was heavily Irish Catholic. Mary was definitely around. She could be found enshrined in what looked like a partially buried bathtub in some people’s front yards. She definitely would be found if I set foot in my friend’s Catholic churches (which usually meant that I was trying to sneak into their gyms to play basketball and opened the wrong door.) I would hear the team from the Catholic high school say a “Hail Mary” prayer before a game and wonder, “How did I miss that?” For the most part, though, Mary was a figure in the church Pageant—a quiet, pious presence who floated through the chaos of Pageant morning.
At the Union Church, people from a variety of traditions worship together. This is the quiet revolution of our little church—that people of faith can come together not because we believe exactly the same things but because we share the simple desire to worship God together. As we do so, part of the fun is learning about one another’s backgrounds. Sometimes we discover how much we have in common. Sometimes we discover our differences. The key when we run into those differences is not to feel threatened or become defensive but to learn to ask the question: “Can you tell me more about that?”
This has been my experience with Mary. I love to ask my friends who were raised with a powerful experience of Mary to tell me more. Almost none of those friends focus on the fact that an angel talked to her or that she was a virgin and had God’s baby. (Protestants, I think, often avoid Mary because the virgin birth makes us squirm.) No, for these folks the focus is not on what happened to Mary. The focus is on what Mary did with what happened to her. Let me try to explain…
We can’t really approach Mary without some understanding of the world in which she lived. Mary lived in an incredibly patriarchal time. Women were systematically marginalized. They were not allowed to be out in public on their own. They were not allowed to talk to strangers. They were not allowed to testify in court. They were not allowed to initiate a divorce. When they were widowed or when their husbands divorced them, they were incredibly vulnerable because they had no economic opportunities. And, just to top things off, in a culture in which “cleanliness” and “purity” were pivotal, women were considered unclean. The ultimate evidence of this was the fact that women were designated by law to be the one’s to prepare a body for burial. Since they were already so unclean, they had nothing to lose by being exposed to the unclean dead body.
Now, before we get too judgmental, we should remind ourselves that a little over a hundred years ago, women in our own culture could not vote. In the last century, a woman could be arrested in many places if she wore pants. Economic opportunities have been very limited for women in most of our history. And, in the 1970’s, women still were often prevented from having their own credit card or from signing a mortgage on their own. Even today, women do the same work as men and get paid less.
Historically, women have been oppressed. That is a sad fact. Another sad fact is that religions have played a central role in this oppression. Follow the story of Eve or the story of Bathsheba and you will discover that behind the fall of many good men is the corrupting force of a woman—at least in the eyes of parts of Judeo- Christian tradition. Find a powerful woman—like Mary Magdalene—and sooner or later hints will be dropped that maybe she was mentally disturbed or perhaps she was even a prostitute. Find women who are making inroads into new roles and you will discover that they are being accused of undermining the family. The Bible gets cited all the time as a way to tell women who they should be.
Let’s not get lost, though. What I want you to see is how totally revolutionary it is that when God is ready to do something new, God chooses to partner with a woman. This is what God does. God reaches out to the most powerless group of people in the world—the slaves in Egypt—and makes them God’s people. Jesus will reach out to the foreigner, the slave, the sick and the women—over and over again. Those who have been excluded are put in the very center of things by God. The overlooked and the ignored become the chosen people. Just consider this: God chooses Mary.
Mary was a completely average young girl. She was engaged. She had a future before her. All indications are that Joseph was a pretty good man. (Don’t forget…He is going to stick by her side through what’s coming at great personal risk to himself.) She was ready to live a life that fit within the limits for a woman in her world.
Then, God reaches out to her and blows those limits away. Lots of mystical things happen: an angel appears to her and explains that she is going to give birth to a new king who will be from the house of David and whose reign will never end. The bottom line, the angel tells her, is that with God all things are possible. The bottom line, Mary tells him, is, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”
At this point, it is super easy to think, “Oh…that’s so sweet!” and miss this moment. Mary has just been told that she’s going to have God’s baby. She’s been told that his name is going to be Jesus and he’s going to change the world. And…by the way…the one telling her is some angel named Gabriel. As if all this supernatural stuff isn’t enough, there are some really practical, real world problems. What in the world is she supposed to tell Joseph about how she got pregnant? How in the world is she supposed to deal with the avalanche of judgement that is about to surround her as her belly keeps growing and her wedding day can’t come fast enough? What if Joseph presses charges against her? She could be stoned to death for being unmarried and pregnant.
Mary’s pregnancy puts her in a terrible position in the eyes of the world—a world which will not understand. Yet, what matters more to Mary than being understood or supported is the simple honor of being a part of God’s work in this world. The truth is that responding to God’s presence in this life can still put us at odds with all sorts of customs and practices and even laws of our own culture. Mary is brave enough to choose faith over fitting in or being understood. She is here not to appease everyone around her but to be God’s servant, God’s handmaid.
Far from some floating presence, Mary is incredibly brave. She has this unbelievably mystical, shocking and surprising experience with the angel. She is completely blindsided by the news that her life is about to totally change. She knows that no one is going to understand what’s going on and that she is going to be brutally judged by others. And yet…she says yes to being a part of God’s plans.
What does Mary do next? She goes and spends time with her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, who is pregnant after having given up on ever having a child years before. Mary and Elizabeth do what women have always done: they support each other. That support is incredibly powerful. It should be no surprise that at the end of our text, we learn that Mary stayed with Elizabeth for three months.
In that supported space, Mary finds her voice. (That’s what powerful support does!) In fact, Mary doesn’t just find her voice, she sings. We should listen carefully to her message. Although her culture would have looked at her and seen something contemptible—an unwed, pregnant woman—Mary says that what they should see is God’s presence, magnified. God has chosen to work though a lowly servant like her. She shakes her fist at a world that would have told her to be ashamed and she tells that world that in the future people will call her blessed. At this point, Mary becomes an icon for every person who has ever been oppressed and stood their ground, for every person who has ever been faithful and misunderstood, for every person who has borne the brunt of the world’s judgement.
Mary’s song isn’t about pointing to herself, though. Mary’s song is about what God does. God is merciful to those who fear God. I know that’s tough language for many of us. I think we can clarify it by saying that fear shows us what matters most to us. If the worst thing imaginable to us is being separated from God and straying from the path of faith, then we fear God. If we keep our eye on God’s presence and God’s calling, then God will be merciful to us.
The truth, though, is that our eyes stray. If we are consumed by pride, we fear being shamed. If we are solely concerned with power, we fear losing it. If we think the most important thing about us is a number in our bank account, then we fear losing our wealth. However, if what wakes us in the night is the fear that we might waste this life and miss the chance to serve God, our heart is in the right place.
Then, Mary reminds people of how God works in this world. The proud and the powerful get scattered and the lowly get lifted up. The hungry get fed and the rich get sent away. And just in case folks miss the point, she reminds them, this is exactly what God did in the first place for their ancestors.
Mary is a fierce advocate for the overlooked and the ignored, for the oppressed and the downtrodden, for the excluded rather than the exclusive. She will remain faithful even when it looks for all the world like the worst people are winning, even as her beloved son one day dies on a cross. As a result of that brave, unceasing faith, she has been the one to whom many people have turned when they face the worst things in life and don’t have the power to do anything other than stand their ground. In Mary, we find support and compassion. Like all good mothers, we wonder if perhaps she might have her son’s ear… “Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee…”