In Between Certainty and Faith

 It goes without saying that 2020 has been a year of unprecedented challenges, but since you and I are here together, I will say it anyway. This year has been one that has indelibly imprinted itself on us – individually, collectively, nationally, globally…one that has put an undeniable hold on our attention and a seemingly inescapable grip on the movements of our lives. Beyond the global pandemic that has claimed tens of millions of lives worldwide and continues to surge and that has upended almost every aspect of life as many of us knew it before, the events of this year have revealed to us once again how injustice and inequity is built into the structures that give shape to our life together. Beyond the economic and political failings whose dire consequences the general public has yet to fully understand, we must reckon with how the need to be apart physically wears at our senses of connection and belonging more broadly. And yet, in the midst of so much pain, finding opportunities and creating joy is still happening in so many spaces. The circumstances we are living in have laid bare new ground for those who are willing and able to press into the possibility of creating the world they want to see.

 The challenge of honoring our humanity and being faithful in our spiritual practices is that we must develop “ambidextrous faith”, recognizing that joy and grief, blessings and trouble often co-exist and intermingle and that neither is invalidated by the presence of the other. Though the language of faith, more precisely the rhetoric of institutions, rarely makes space for such realities, the truth is that human experience most often exists in the land of “in between”. This land is one where we are able to recognize that the moments and movements of our lives are very rarely only good or only bad, one where we are able to acknowledge that what comes to some of us as favor is experienced by others as a great burden. This Advent season, the season of preparation and waiting for the birth of Jesus Christ in Christian liturgical terms, only highlights the importance of embracing the “in-betweenness” of our journeys. For me, no biblical figure involved in the narrative of Jesus’ birth enlivens this concept more than Mary. Mary is a young girl who we know for her “yes” to God’s plan, but whose story often gets flattened out and buried by debates over the politics of her existence and theologizing about her proper place and sense of agency. Her story is anything but clean and easy, and her response to God’s call raises as many questions as it answers. I believe that the curves and texture of her journey with God are rich and can stand on their own as a model for thinking, believing, honest people on their own journeys to dive deeply into their own questions and wrestlings with God.

So, over a series of reflections, I am endeavoring to explore what living in between can mean for people trying to be faithful and mindful in this season by journeying through the Seven Sayings of Mary. The first of these sayings is found in the gospel according to Luke, Chapter 1 and Verse 34. For context, here is a fuller passage.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”(Luke 1:26-34, NRSV)

The story is brief, but we are told that the angel Gabriel comes to visit Mary in Nazareth. Mary is, as we are told, a virgin and engaged to be married to a man named Joseph. The angel’s greeting is strange, identifying her as a “favored one”. The strangeness of such a greeting really reveals itself in the gap between what Gabriel calls Mary and the task he gives her from the mouth of God. Three times before she is told about God’s plan for her, the angel gives her some form of reassurance: “The Lord is with you”… “Do not be afraid” … “You have found favor with God.” I have to believe that this is not only to calm Mary from the disruption that the angel’s sudden appearance in her life represented but also to steady her for what he is getting ready to say. If we, like Mary, are going to be successful navigators of the land of in between we must learn to internalize that knowledge which is crucial to our survival. Pay attention to what the Spirit keeps repeating to you, to the words that keep coming back to you from moments of impartation. We do not live in ecstatic visions forever and cannot sustain the constant experience of being on the mountaintop with God, and Mary was no different. She would shortly have to inform her betrothed and her family of this announcement. She would have to manage the rumors swirling around Nazareth. She might not have had anyone to believe her story. It is quite possible she questioned her own sanity.

Tradition tells us that Mary was probably thirteen or fourteen years old at the time of the angel’s appearing, and in first-century Jewish culture, a pregnancy out of wedlock would have at minimum subjected her to ostracism and derision. At the worst, her “yes” would put her life, reputation and marriage on the line. But God said she was “favored”…yet that favored status leads her to have to trust a revelation that runs contrary to everything that would have been expected of her. And it will get no easier as her son grows into a man who will be betrayed and crucified. Mary’s puzzling leads her to utter a simple, clear, and completely logical question to the angel. “How can this be?” Mary knew enough to know that what the angel said was not possible according to any natural principle. Mary’s question does what many of our questions do – it seeks certainty. It seeks to understand the mechanics by which the ends that are proclaimed for us will be achieved. It seeks to calculate the deficits and distances between our current reality and our planned destination and then plan accordingly.  

The only problem with this desire for certainty comes when we enter the territory of the miraculous. I love to have an answer. I thrive on finding plausible explanations. I need to have a plan and at least three back-ups. But life has taught me, as I’m sure it has taught you, that some things are not to be analyzed but to be lived and believed. Beloved, the mechanics of blessing are not always our business. It is often more than we can handle to just survive the season. As we journey further into the season of Advent and toward a new year, remember that while there is great value in certainty, some matters simply belong to faith - in the divine, in the common good, in human kindness. Whatever language you need to put on it, believe in something that you can return to when the foundations begin to shake. If you insist on being certain of anything before you launch out on the great tasks God has placed in your hands…

…be certain that the Lord is with you.

…be certain that you need not fear.

…be certain that the favor of God will not take you where the grace of God cannot keep you.

…be certain that the God that started a good work in you will indeed finish it.

…be certain that you were built to survive the heavy moments.

…be certain that you were made for so much more.