Worship

Sermon Archive

Sunday August 14, 2005
11:00 am - Saint Thomas Church
Preacher: Fr Mead

Luke 1:46-55

Mary's "Yes" to God

For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his Name.

In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.

In the evening of every weekday at Saint Thomas Church, the words of today’s Gospel from Saint Luke are said or sung as part of Evening Prayer or Evensong, one of the jewels of our tradition. These words are the Song of Mary, which the expectant young Mother of Christ sings at the time of her Visitation to her kinswoman Elizabeth, who is also pregnant, bearing Jesus’ cousin and prophetic forerunner, John the Baptist. The unborn prophet leaps in the womb of his mother, saluting the unborn Messiah and inspiring an exchange between the mothers which culminates in Mary’s song.

We know the Song of Mary as the Magnificat, a canticle which is beloved in our own Prayer Book translation by Miles Coverdale and is sixty years older than the King James Bible. Mary sings, “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour…” – words that have been set to music by some of the greatest composers in Christendom. It is a particular blessing at Saint Thomas to have many of these sung by the Choir of Men and Boys on Sundays and Weekdays for Choral Evensong.

Today let us look to Mary herself. August 15 is the great feast of Mary which Roman Catholics call the Assumption and Eastern Orthodox call the Dormition (or Falling Asleep) of Mary at the end of her earthly life. The Episcopal Church, together with much of the Anglican Communion, simply calls this the Feast of Saint Mary the Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we use the same lessons and prayers as Rome and Orthodoxy to celebrate the fact that from the beginning to the end of her extraordinary life as the mother of Jesus, God has “taken her to himself.” She is, as Scripture attests, the highly favored one, full of grace, for the Lord is with her.

In preparation for this sermon, I looked up the new Joint Statement on Mary by the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC), issued this past May after years of work. It is thirty pages long. It is truly biblical, ecumenical, and faithful to the traditions of both churches. It is also readable, and I recommend that you look up the statement; it is published and you can find it on the Internet. In itself it is a solid education in what is called Mariology, or the theology involving the place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Christian faith. The joint statement is also a quiet sign of hope. In this time when Christians, not least we Anglicans and Episcopalians, have been obsessed and divided over other issues, here, just as she does in the Gospels, appears the figure of Mary, standing quietly and faithfully. Perhaps now, at last, she will help draw Christians together.

One of the striking paragraphs in the document cites the very high view of Mary taken by Reformers such as Martin Luther and our own English Reformers (Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, John Jewel), all of whom emphasized her importance as the Mother of God and as Ever-Virgin (that is, solely and exclusively the Mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God). Following Saint Augustine and the early church writers, these pioneer Protestants were also very reticent to call Mary a sinner; but rather, they affirmed she was set apart and protected by a special grace from her Son and Redeemer. Clearly, the ecumenical convergence now being experienced has roots in authentic Reformed and Catholic soil.

Concluding his now famous and beautiful private prayers, Lancelot Andrewes, the principle translator of the King James Bible and a great prince of the Church of England in the early 1600s, wrote this: “Making mention of the all-holy, undefiled, and more than blessed Mary, Mother of God and Ever-Virgin, with all saints, let us commend ourselves, and one another, and all our life, to Christ our God.”¹

I want to conclude this sermon by saying one thing about Mary that every one of us can take to heart and live by. Mary became the Mother of Jesus because she said Yes to God’s message about Christ. She believed, in spite of her fears and doubts (“How can this be, since I know not a man?”), believed that God would provide. She believed that God would supply the necessary grace for her, come what may. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Let it be!

Most of us, being sons and daughters of the fallen first mother of the human race, Eve, repeat Eve’s example and say No to God, and become enmeshed in the devices and desires of our own hearts. But here is a new beginning. Mary, the new Eve in the family of Christ the new Adam, says Yes to God. Jesus intended all of us to be members of this new family of adoption and grace. Mary’s Yes is the way in.

The figure of Mary is a perfect personification of the faithful Christian and of the faithful Church. She is certainly the Help of Christians, and the Mother of the Church; truly, “our Lady.” Think of how she carried that word, “Let it be” right to the end. Through the hard days of the Nativity and the Flight into Egypt. At the wedding feast at Cana, when they ran out of wine and she went to Jesus, at first he put her off; but she persisted and told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” When she was afraid for her son’s safety and tried to get him to come home, she heard the sting of the words, “Whoever does the will of my Father is my brother, my sister and my mother.” And supremely at the cross, keeping her station to the end with John the beloved disciple. And there she was after Easter, in the Upper Room on the Day of Pentecost. She said Yes, once and decisively, to God, and then again, and again, all the days of her life. She endured to the end, and was taken back to God.

I finish with words by Austin Farrer, a great Anglican theologian and priest of a generation ago, meditating on the taking up of Mary to God at her death. “The bond of the Incarnation is unbreakable, and Mary, dying, is united with her Son. He came from her womb, she goes into his mystical body; once she was home for him, now he is home to her. She surrenders to him the flesh from which he had his own. He takes up the pieces where she lays them down and remakes her life in the stuff of glory. He cherishes the dear familiar body, entirely her own in every part, and entirely the work of his hands.”²

Let us honor Mary by saying Yes to God.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

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¹The Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes, translated from the Greek by John Henry Newman, prayers for Thursday morning.
²Austin Farrer, Lord I Believe, Cowley Publications; Cambridge, MA, 1989