Mamma Mia!
by Rev. Dr. Amy Chilton on 05/11/23
Have you ever googled images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus? I love religious artwork - but I especially love artwork that depicts Jesus with his mother. I came to appreciate Mary late, primarily because we Protestants abandoned her when we left the Roman Catholic Church 500+ years ago. Given that it is nearly Mother’s Day, it seems right to spend a few minutes retrieving Mary from storage.
Far more than a religious icon, Mary was not only a devoted follower of Jesus, but she also birthed and raised the perfect child. Now, let’s think about this for a minute. If Mary struggled to breastfeed, she couldn’t blame it on Jesus - he was, after all, THE MESSIAH. If Mary struggled to figure out how to teach Jesus to do chores, again, she couldn’t blame it on him. If she struggled to parent him through the teen years, she couldn’t blame him either! He was God, after all! To all the moms and dads out there - I truly hope, for Mary’s sake, that Jesus didn’t know he was perfect. You all know how hard it is to parent teens when they do!
Back to the religious artwork. We don’t know a whole lot about Mary from the Gospels, primarily that she was a young woman from northern Israel who agreed to carry the Messiah (Luke 1:26-38). We know she was almost cast off by her fiancé before God intervened (Matthew 1:18-25), that she traveled while pregnant to birth her firstborn away from home and in an animal barn (Luke 2:1-7). We know she fled even further from home as a refugee in order to save her infant from a crazed king’s jealousy-fueled infanticide (Matthew 2:13-18). We know she was the one who convinced Jesus to do his first miracle when he turned water to wine and enlivened that wedding reception (John 2) - which kind of annoyed him. We know she was there when her son died (John 19:25-27). But, where was Mary the rest of the time?
For two millennia, artists have expanded on these stories of Mary, primarily imagining her as a mother (she was also a disciple, but for today, let’s focus on her role as mother). In some images of her, she spins yarn and in others she nurses the infant Jesus. Just two normal things that mothers have done for millennia (well, perhaps not spinning - but definitely acquiring clothes for their kids!). If you search you can find images of Mary knitting, holding Jesus, even spanking Jesus! Like all women, Mary was complicated and multi-faceted. She raised Jesus and his siblings and she followed him to the cross as a disciple. She buried her first-born and she got reduced from a flesh-and-blood human doing her best to a shiny icon for millennia to come, her human curves flattened out.
Friends, I know that Mother’s Day weekend is complicated for a lot of folks. I live across an entire continent from my momma, but am lucky to still have her. Many of us have mothers who are no longer alive. Some of us are mothers who have lost children to premature death or relational breaks. Some of us have mothers who have deeply wounded us. All of us have mothers who are complicated, flesh-and-blood human beings.
Mary, the flesh-and-blood Mary, is part of that great cloud of witnesses the author of Hebrews paints so vividly for us:
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God” (12:1-2).
As we remember the folks who have mothered us this weekend, in all their and our complexities, may God grant us the grace to see God’s presence around us. And may these memories of Mary, as one of our cheering witnesses, encourage us as we remember the ways that God calls and gifts normal human beings as actors in God’s great story of grace.
Blessings,
Pastor Amy
PS - If you are interested in some of the recent work done on recovering Mary’s full humanity, see Elizabeth A. Johnson’s Truly Our Sister: A Theology of Mary in the Communion of the Saints.
