Posts Tagged ‘catastrophe’

Open to possibility, Mary’s “yes” to God

December 23, 2023

Advent 4 – 2024

Luke 1:26-38

Marian Free

In the name of God who gives us courage to face life’s challenges and who through them brings new things to birth. Amen.

When I told my mother that I was expecting a third child her first reaction was to ask: “Was it planned?” It was not that she was not happy for me, but she wanted to be able to support me if I’d been caught off guard and if my life-plans had been turned upside down by this turn of events. She knew that an unexpected pregnancy would bring with it all kinds of anxieties like – can I/we afford another child? will I/we need a new car? how will this impact on my/our older children? will it make a difference to my/our career? what will other people think? 

Those are the questions and then there are the realities. Even if a pregnancy is planned or greeted with joy it comes with significant discomfort – morning sickness, swollen ankles, and the discomfort of another body inhabiting one’s own. After the birth, there are the sleepless nights, the nappies, and the constant demands not to mention the multitude of accessories that go with infancy.  My pregnancy was planned, as was the new car, but for many people news of pregnancy is not a joyful experience, rather a time of confusion and fear. I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to know that you are carrying a child and to know that it is the last thing that you want.

Luke’s brief account of the Annunciation carries none of the emotion that one might expect to accompany such momentous news. It is a highly romanticised depiction of an event which seriously understates the terror that an angel would inspire and which ignores the possibility that Mary might have experienced any disquiet at such an unexpected announcement.  Remember, Mary is young and unmarried, far from ready to take on the responsibility of pregnancy and motherhood.  She lives in a culture in which she could be stoned for adultery and, out of the blue, an angel pops by with some shocking, incomprehensible news. “You are favoured by God and by the way, God will demonstrate how favoured you are by making you pregnant in a culture that could stone you to death for being pregnant outside marriage.”  

Note that Mary is not offered a choice, she is simply told how things are. The angel goes on to tell Mary what her son will be, but he gives her no suggestions as to how she might manage the situation – how to break the news to her parents – let alone to Joseph, how to face her neighbours’ contempt and judgment and above all, how she is to manage as a single mother.

From now on Mary’s life will be irrevocably changed (possibly for the worse) and Luke expects us to believe that she simply bowed her head and said: “OK whatever God wants”. I wonder how many women, let alone girls, you know who would be so unperturbed by the angel’s perplexing and terrifying announcement?

While Luke’s account does tell us something about Mary’s humble submission to God’s will, might it not also be challenging us to consider how we respond to interruptions to our plans, asking us to think about how we might adjust, adapt, and even see God’s hand in life-altering events, especially those that at first glance appear to be calamitous. I’m thinking of devastating diagnoses, destructive natural disasters, traumatic ends to relationships, loss of a child, termination of a job, or any number of things for which we do not (cannot) plan, but which dramatically alter our life’s trajectory.

When we receive unwelcome news we usually go through a number of stages – disbelief then fear or anger, and then acceptance or resistance. In my experience, people of faith almost always choose acceptance. No matter how awful the circumstances, we find strength in the knowledge that God is with us and will give us the courage to carry on. We know too that the God who created the universe out of nothing and who brings life from death, is able to transform tragedy into possibility, and “to conceive hope in the midst of every tragic loss.”[1] In retrospect we can see the seeds of new birth in what appeared to be the death of all our hopes and dreams. As our lives take on a completely different direction, we grow in ways that we had never imagined and which, had we continued on our previous trajectory, would have been impossible.

Let me be plain, we do not have a fickle God who inflicts pain and sends disasters to shock us out of our selfish ways, rather God is a very real presence in times of upheaval. God stands with and beside us, ready to pick us up and to walk with us even through the valley of death. Circumstances may force us to radically re-evaluate our lives, which as a consequence of illness or loss are irrevocably change. But, if we are open to the Holy Spirit, we may witness God bringing to birth something completely new and unexpected, that would not have come to fruition without the tragedy that preceded it..

When the angel appeared to Mary, her world was turned upside down. Her initial terror turned to confusion and finally to acceptance. It is her acceptance that life is not going to be the way she planned that opens her to the possibility that the alternative (with God’s help) might be OK, and frees her to get on with the business of living.

Ultimately, we are not in control.  We cannot plan our lives to the last detail.  When things do not go as expect, we have a choice. We can resist change and rail against God and the universe, or we simply bow our heads and, like Mary say “Yes”, put our lives into the hands of the living God, and believie against all evidence to the contrary that our present pain and confusion will bring to birth something new and life-giving. Our “yes” to life’s circumstances, however awful, mirrors Mary’s “yes” to the angel’s awesome news and allows God to bring to birth new possibilities for ourselves and, in some cases, for the world.

Love

            Margaret Wesley (Rector Parish of Ashgrove)

This Christmas, may love be born in you,

As he was in Bethlehem,

To parents unprepared for such a gift

(Since, who could be?)

May love find you unprepared yet willing 

To receive its smiles and tears,

Its painful truths and gentle silences,

Its gifts and sacrifices.

This Christmas, may love be

The awkward guest at your table,

And in the New Year may it take your hand

And lead you into the street to dance with your neighbours.

[1] I am grateful to Dr M.  Craig Barnes for introducing another perspective. https://nationalpres.org/sermons/how-can-this-be/

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Looking back, looking forward

November 27, 2021

Advent 1 – 2021
Luke 21:25-38
Marian Free

In the name of God, Earth-Maker, Pain-Bearer, Life-Giver. Amen.
On the 26th of July, Marmour Kunpeter wrote for Anglican Focus: “I fled South Sudan for Ethiopia when I was 11. The journey across the desert without clothing or shoes was very bad. We travelled for many days – we walked for more than a month across the desert to escape the persecution of the Khartoum government who wanted to abduct boys so they couldn’t join the rebel groups once they became older.
More than 20,000 boys walked across the desert as unaccompanied minors. We are known as the ‘Lost Boys of Sudan’. There were seven from my extended family and we walked with 13,000 others. I left my parents with only the food I could carry, which my mum packed for me, and a two litre container of water. My mum packed simsim for me, a sort of produce like peanuts that doesn’t need cooking so it was easy to eat. I didn’t see my parents again.

We travelled at nighttime, mostly so the Khartoum government military in helicopters could not find us. We ran out of food quickly and ate wild animals, although not all of us would get a portion. It was a struggle. The desert was very dry and it was dangerous. We could be abducted. Many were eaten by wild animals. Some children were eaten by lions. Most children who died just fell asleep and did not get up as they were too weak to walk any further.” Once the group entered Ethiopia it took three months before the United Nations came with food and water, by then many more children had died.

Unless we have had a similar experience, it is impossible to really understand the privations that some people go through and still come out the other side – the death camps of the Holocaust, the civil war in Syria, people-trafficking, the persecution of the Rohingya are just a few of the horrific examples that come to mind.

The gospels were written at a time when the violent and murderous march of Titus through Galilee and the subsequent destruction of Jerusalem were fresh in the minds of many. Not only had the siege of that city by Rome led to starvation and desperation, but the in-fighting between the different sects of Judaism had made the situation even worse. After five months, the Romans entered the city and razed it to the ground so that it could not once again become a focus for dissension and rebellion. Those for whom the gospels were written would have known only too well how uncertain and precarious life could be. Jesus’ words as reported by Luke, would have provided reassurance and a sense of optimism to his community – reassurance that catastrophic events such as the destruction of Jerusalem (and with it the Temple) were not unexpected, and a sense of optimism that God is present even in the very worst of circumstances.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the church year, yet we begin at the end of the story – Jesus’ warning of future events in the days before his death. This is perhaps because Jesus is referring to an end that is also a beginning, to devastation that has within it the seeds of the future. As Advent continues our readings will move us from upheaval, through promise to joyous expectation. Together they serve as a reminder that, with or without faith, life rarely runs smoothly, that there may well be times when our hopes are dashed and our expectations shattered, when we are forced to face difficulties and obstacles for which we were unprepared.

As the church year continues, we will experience the full gamut of human emotions – terror and hope, despair and joy, disappointment, and surprise, wonder and confusion. In the stories of Jesus’ followers, we will witness excitement and expectation as well as foolishness and betrayal. The gospels are not a record of dry, historical events, but a microcosm of human experience, a reassurance that our experiences are not unique but are shared (to a greater or lesser extent) by all humanity. All of us will at some time or another have our lives turned upside down – by external events (war, COVID, natural disaster), by personal issues (the death of a loved one, a diagnosis of a terminal or deteriorative disease). At such moments, Jesus assures us, God will not have abandoned us. Indeed, as many of us can attest, it is often when our world seemed to be falling apart that we discovered that God was closer than we had thought.

In the midst of his unimaginable travails, Marmour found God. “It was at this time when I was 11 years old that I began to have a relationship with God. In Ethiopia there was a church that I went to. It was there that I found out about the Israelites and how they travelled a long way on foot. After hearing their story, instead of thinking so much about going back to my parents, I thought to myself that this is what I had to live with, that this is my life now. I thought about what I had experienced and decided that there had to be some kind of power – something that was sustaining my life.”

Now in Brisbane, Marmour is married with six children and studying for his Bachelor of Theology. His story is a powerful illustration of God’s presence in the worst of circumstances and a reminder that, at the start of another year, a year in which anything could happen, that in good times and bad the kingdom of God is near and that “Heaven and earth may pass away, but Jesus’ words will never pass away.”

May we face whatever lies ahead with courage and with confidence that when we need God most, God will be most near.

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