Sermon: In Memory of Mary (The Eulogy)
Introduction:
When I was preparing this Sunday’s sermon, I decided to continue an exploration of the theme of remembering through this advent at Immanuel, and so I would write the eulogy in memory of Mary, in my style.
Our memories of Mary are mostly confined to or focused on the nativity story, the birth of Jesus. (Most women in Bible stories disappear after they give birth to the male heir.) But it is also true that we have a few more surviving, fragmented memories of Mary in the Gospel of John & the Acts. My point would be that only when we understand those memories - what was really going on in those later parts of her story, together with the stories of the Angel’s visit, her pregnancy, the holy night of giving birth and the communities which gathered around the humble stable (animals, shepherds, Magi, perhaps BNN reporters, too) can we have the fuller picture of Mary, what was truly revolutionary about her individuality, and of the Kingdom of God movement.
I hope that we will gain a new understanding of Mary’s loss and faith from the traditional Buddhist teaching of A Life of Non-possession.
This eulogy of Mary, in her memory, will be the finale of our Advent theme series of remembering, resilience and revolution.
Sermon:
In this fourth Advent worship, I would like to celebrate the memory of Mary. Here’s my eulogy…
Mary is my ancestor. As I have never had a personal encounter with Mary, this eulogy is primarily memory work, which depends on memories from the past, as they were told and shared and written in the Gospels, mostly by the men of 2000 years ago. However, even if our recollections of Mary, as they are, have been produced by the writings of men, it is also inspired by God and the courage of outstanding women, so it is also faith work.
Memories of Mary survived in the men’s world, because she became the mother of God, Emmanuel, because of her son who we confess as our Saviour, but I believe that was not the only reason. Mary’s memory survived not as a leader nor a prophet; she was remembered as “woman” and “mother” as most of her own Jewish foremothers had been before her. And that is so important. Her memory survived because she said yes to God’s dreams, and through God’s dreams, she lived her dreams, not nightmares.
Mary was not the victim of the story; she was a survivor. We know a lot of ink has been spilled to determine what the improbability of her pregnancy by the Holy Spirit might mean in our faith. Mary was a survivor like many of her Jewish foremothers — the women prophets, wives and mothers, like Miriam (the name Mary originates from Miriam, the contemporary prophetess of Moses), Sarah (who had an improbable pregnancy in her elder years), the young girl Dinah (who was raped), Ruth (who seduced Boaz into a marriage agreement in order to insure survival and protection for her and her mother-in-law Naomi). These extraordinary women who chose to live dreams, not nightmares, are the ancestors in the long genealogical list that begins with Adam and Eve, runs to David, then goes all the way up to Jesus. In the ancient Jewish time and tradition, Mary was not just an individual. People thought in collective terms. Mary represents all women, all mothers, all foremothers, all women prophets, even though all celebrate their unique contribution to the history of awaiting the Messiah. They all survived silence (or being silenced), when Mary sings, “My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my Saviour.” In other words, “My soul magnifies God’s goodness and love”. We understand that, through Mary, the promise from the ancient time was fulfilled, “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means God is with us.” We don’t need to look outwards, always to see who those “we” are. We look in among us and see many Dinahs. Many Ruths. Many Marys.
We have memories of Mary, that have survived, that have been fragmented. Many have seized onto the image of Mary on that holy night, and this fragment of her story really tells us who she was. Mary held in her heart and bosom her helpless newborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him on animal straw “Because there was no room for them at the inn.”
Mary “treasured” all these things in her heart.
Most of the Bible’s stories centre on men. The matriarchs appear at key points, (like the East Star), in the patriarchal sagas to assure that God’s promises are passed on to the rightful male heir. Then after they have served their purpose, they disappear from the story. But Mary didn’t disappear. This young woman (called “virgin”) grew old, (She was a year shy of 50 at the crucifixion, if she gave birth to Jesus at 16.) and lived the fulfillment of the prophecy of Simeon to experience “The sword piercing her soul also.” But, (and this is the important But) I would like to remember and celebrate with you one unusual fact about Mary: she did not seem to experience the departure of Jesus as “ her loss.” This understanding was inspired by a time when Gerry (the partner of Linda Murray whose health was in a critical state about this time last year after Christmas; she died in January.) came to church last Sunday.
From time to time, I remember Linda. She was the first person I had met who made me think, “Wow, she’s like me!” At our third meeting in person, she made me think, “Wow, I feel that this person really gives me unconditional love.” Then, I was so excited about the possibility of a good friendship. After she died, I considered her death a deep loss.
Then, this week, I asked, “What is loss? If that means, we have ‘lost' something or someone, we define the relationship in light of ‘possession', like 'I’ve lost the coin, I’ve lost the chance.' In other words, 'I’ve lost something that is my possession, that is supposed to be my possession, that could be my possession.' And such a sense of loss defined by the absence of the possession can beget feelings of bitterness and aching pain.
At this point, I was, then, reminded of my past learning from Zen Buddhist tradition, especially the teaching of A Life of Non-possession.
In the English-speaking world, we don’t seem to question how our mind is so used to understanding loss, (and how this cultural understanding of loss is already linguistically defined), in terms of possession. For example, if we look at the expression, “I lost my mom,” I wonder if we may translate it to mean: "Someone who was like ‘Eden’ ('everything or the great source of comfort and love') to me does not exist any longer in the world of mine, in the manner that I used to have had.”
In the Korean language, (and all languages reflect their culture) traditionally, when we explain a sad situation and express grief, we seem to say more predominantly, “After my brother departed from us,” or “After (I/we) sent him back”, rather than “I lost my brother, or “since the loss of my brother.” In the Korean language, I don’t think that ‘loss’ is the primary description, at least traditionally, at least for the older generations who have been less influenced by Western individualism - in which we are so obsessed with possession. When Koreans refer to the matter of life and death and loss, the religious view of non-possession is profoundly in our language: that when we are born, we come to this world with empty hands. When we depart from the world, we go back in the same way - empty hands.
I wonder if moving away from a structure where we are so used to defining any kind of relationship in terms of ‘possession’ (i.e. wealth, power, ministry, intimacy, love, friendship) — to understand and be in relationship with others or things in light of non-possession, what that would be like. I imagine that the spirituality of non-possession and non-permanence would show us that we all are guests in this world, therefore, we are called to practice hospitality, welcome, open doors, all of that., in the belief that we are all part of a whole. Person by person, we are each one part of a greater world, intimately intertwined.
Now let’s go back to the memory of Mary. It seems to me that Mary “treasured” her relationship with her son not in terms of possession, as “her” son, as very clearly from the beginning, Jesus is the son of “the Most High.”:
Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for God has been gracious to you; you will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High.” (Luke 1)
Another memory from the Gospel of John is that Mary stood beneath the foot of the cross at Jesus’ death, and Jesus said to Mary, pointing to his beloved disciple, “There is your son,” then said to the disciple, “There is your mother.” The kinship relationship was rearranged in light of faith, rather than blood.
We do not have the memory how, when, where or with whom Mary died. But the Acts tells us the last memory of Mary, as part of the group of followers in a new church. Mary was a dreamer, but not a leader. Mary did not claim her status among the followers as Jesus’ mother, but “Treasured all these things” and understood the revolutionary aspect of the “new kinship” of Jesus’ Kingdom of God movement. She was the mother, but was not powerful. She chose to be with the group gathered together in Jerusalem, following the departure of Jesus, as a lay participant. She was with her new kinship group on whom the Spirit came at Pentecost, which included, then, female and male disciples, with the companions of Jesus, the new kinsfolk of faith, beyond the death of Jesus. In my memory, Mary was a scandalously courageous woman of inspiration, but because she “treasured all things” in the faith and light of non-possession, her love of God, her love of Jesus, her love of the world, her love of herself was resilient and revolutionary. She didn’t just survive the loss of her son. 'Loss' was not the right term to describe the end result of her revolutionary love and faith. This Advent, I pray that we remember Mary.
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