“The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.”
It feels a little strange to be reading the Annunciation so close to Christmas. It’s a powerful story – and it can be a lovely moment in the Sunday School pageant with Mary looking resolutely demure, eyes fixed on the carpet in the chancel while the narrator solemnly intones Luke’s words. But reading it at my table this morning, I’m feeling rather like it’s all a little nine months ago, don’t you think? Maybe last week’s birth poem settled me into the a different kind of waiting. (On an update note, that first baby was born and number three looks to arrive any day…)
Why are we reading this announcement story when we are so close to the birth? Because that’s how stories work. We want to hear them again. To begin at the beginning and let them unfold, even if it means overlapping tellings. Maybe in the overlapping, new meanings come to light.
In this first glimpse of Mary’s mothering, we see her obedience. It is her “Let it Be” moment. But there’s more than that. She’s perplexed and she ponders, and not for the last time, either. Whoever else Mary might have been, she was a thinker. She listens to the angel’s strange words, and then she frames her question.
How can this be?
She’s strong enough to know that it’s okay to ask. Like mother, like son. Because isn’t that part of the strong and beautiful message that her son also shared?
Last week, I went to a lecture by Dr Emma Percy from Trinity College Oxford. She spoke about mothering as a metaphor for ministry as both relationship and activity. As mothers are, so clergy might be. Homemakers. Community builders. Cherishers. Nurturers. Comforters. Challengers. Celebrators.
Percy talks about the need to articulate and value relational ministry, using the metaphor of mothering to new light to the work of ministry. She says that mothering involves “a blending of being and doing in which the character of the one doing shapes and enhances the relationship.” I like that. A mother’s character influences her mothering. Who you are shapes what you do.
Mary’s own thought-filled questioning shaped her obedient response to the news about her pregnancy. And, of course, all the days that followed, too. The days of settling her infant, of learning to feed and soothe him. Days of wrestling with her toddler. (You can’t tell me that Christ’s full humanity did not include the natural wilful exploration in his toddler days.) Days of storytelling and scraped knees and but-I-am-hungry-again and learning how to be with other kids and learning to be away from home. I’m sure that Mary’s heart was full of questions and so were her prayers.
But it doesn’t end there. Mothers teach their children how to live, and in turn, are taught. We become the mothers we are because of our kids’ personalities. Christ’s own questions would shape Mary’s thinking heart. Christ’s own love would give form to her loving. Mary finds her identity as mother in the identity of her son. Questioning and offering obedient answers. Constant to the end. Brave.Vulnerable.
Like overlapping stories and generations, too, there are so many layers in these metaphors. Context shapes. Who are you shaping in your relationships? Who is shaping you? Because, birth mothers or not, ordained or not, as Christians, we are all mothers and ministers, one way or another. We all share our lives and our stories with others, and take on the work of comforting, cherishing, teaching, weaning. Being present, individually, with many people in many contexts. The work of love is broad. And, like Mary, we’re never quite sure what its result will be. There are blessings and shadows, too. We can’t see too far ahead, just hear the constant call to love.
And hear, too, the words that the angel spoke to Mary:
Nothing is impossible for God.
