Advent 4 The Blessed Virgin Mary 20th December 2009

Mary is there for us without getting in the way.

Do you know what I mean?

We should be there for people, especially at times of need, but without getting in the way.

This is the art of Mary – and it should be ours as well.

Sometimes people are so ready to help others that their desire to help becomes a hindrance.

I’ve mentioned C.S. Lewis’ lady before, the one who said she lived her life for others. Lewis writes how she did so, sadly, without discernment – so you could tell “the others” by their hunted look!

By contrast Our Lady discerns where she’s actually needed. She accepts God’s appointments – at the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation, Cana in Galilee, Calvary, Ascension, Pentecost – we can trace her faithful appearances right through the New Testament.

Mary is so good at being there for Jesus that for centuries Christians have entered her prayers to draw themselves to Christ by following through his life in the mysteries of the Rosary.

She is there for him. Only once does she slightly seem to get in the way. There’s a passage in the Gospel where we read of her coming with her family to pull him back from some task and being given something of a cold shoulder.

Mary’s art, however - pretty well a perfect art - is first to be there and then second to put her Son and not herself centre stage. Do whatever he tells you she says at the marriage in Cana making herself the humble instrument of solving the wine crisis by pointing to Jesus.

I am the handmaid of the Lord she says the first time we meet her in scripture, when the Angel came to announce her divine motherhood: Let what you have said be done to me.

Shall we not love thee, Mother dear, whom Jesus loves so well

To love Jesus is to love his mother – and to take a leaf out of her book.

Trust, obedience, humility, expectancy, persistence, faithful love – all of these we see in you, Mary, Mother of the Lord and our Mother, Mother of the church. Our Lord Jesus gave you to us as he gave you to St John on Calvary: Woman behold your Son, Son behold your Mother!

The church invites us to look this morning towards the mother of Christians, Mary most holy.

Behold the one who brings Christ forth so that you and I in turn can be Christ- bearers!

We’ll do nothing to bring Christ into the world unless we’re there for God and for people.

We’ll do nothing, either, to bring Christ into the world if we serve God and other people dutifully whilst deep down serving them on our terms rather than theirs.

That’s not the religion of the child in a manger but the religion of the dog in a manger!

We Christians are called to let Christ and his kingdom prevail. This means being like midwives who come sympathetically alongside people and situations that cry out for attention and help what God wants to come to pass. We stand by, we facilitate, we pray, knowing our place as unprofitable servants – and, praise God, we see Jesus build his kingdom.

When someone we know loses someone they love we go to them to be with them. No sermons on life everlasting, thank you, just being there and making them the centre of attention and through that helping them see the source of our attention for them as if in God.

We get in the way very often when we speak spiritual truths to comfort – I’m speaking as a preacher and one who’s still learning this one. In everyday life people want love and the promise of prayer before they want theological explanations let alone encouragements to come to church.

When Mary went to Elizabeth in today’s Gospel she listened to her cousin first and praised God second. The evening prayer of the church would be all the poorer if Mary hadn’t praised – we love her Magnificat. Its context though is telling. Mary’s Magnificat came out of a time of listening. Our Lady came from listening to God in her Annunciation to the hill country where she first listened to Elizabeth and to her story of her child leaping in the womb. Mary listened and affirmed Elizabeth, bringing the two of them to God in prayer.

Mary is there for people without getting in the way. To learn from Mary is to be a pupil in a school of listening because listening brings us close to people and to God.

The world cries out for people ready to listen! There’s so much around us telling us what to buy, who to trust or not trust, where to go on holiday, how to spend our time, improve our health, invest our money – there’s so much information coming at us day in and day out, so much that tells us, so little that will listen to us.

Who will make us their agenda so to speak?

They say that the rising demand for alternative medicine is less about confidence in aromatherapy or whatever as about buying someone else’s time for an hour’s attention.

At the heart of the renewal of the church’s healing ministry is the truth that being a good Christian is being a good listener to God and neighbour and, yes, self.

You can’t actually be a good listener to other people unless you get discernment from listening to God as to the people who need your ears and the self-awareness that stops you putting your foot in it when you listen and attend to others.

Mary could forget herself and be there for God because she knew herself as loved by God. Because she had an ear to God and to her own dignity she had an ear to the needy – to this day!

Holy Mary attends to your needs and mine right now interceding for us before the Lord!

We’re entering a celebration which will bring many of us close to relatives for longer times than we often spend with them. Can we see a missionary opportunity?

We’re soon to be in a position where we can give something more of ourselves to our friends and family. How can we best do this?

By listening to God with Mary. Mary treasured the things of Jesus we’re told and pondered them in her heart.

The more real Jesus becomes to us and in us, not least through Christmas Holy Communion, the more our actions over Christmas will be loving as he is loving. It’s not how much we do or say or even listen that matters so much a how much love we put into it so to speak, which is why our listening to God is so important.

How can we best give more of ourselves? By listening to God and then secondly to ourselves with Mary. Mary encourages us to a positive self-regard. The Almighty has done great things for me. Take stock of all that Jesus is doing in your life and rejoice! Take stock also of the ingrained selfishness, the ‘dog in the manger’ bit so you can give it to God in confession. Take stock of how you and I at times put the work of the Lord before the Lord of the work. It’s when we get too busy in the Lord’s work that our own selfishness can become sadly all the more evident.

Why must we be so busy? What’s the agenda? My kingdom or God’s? The quiet voice of the Child in the manger or the bark of the dog in the manger?

If I have plans to serve the Lord through my family or neighbour or church beware! Listen to yourself as Mary did and distrust yourself if necessary.

Maybe Jesus is more interested in making you a waiter who waits for orders than a workman who plans to work for his master as he or she sees fit and messes up. We mess up in life very often as a result of not checking up with God on the best forward course of action.

With Mary let us see what God wants be done in and through us and in and through our church.

Let plans to serve give way to waiting for orders!

Listen to God, listen to yourself, sift and purify your agenda, then listen to those God puts your way who need your ears!

As we listen to others in these coming days with our outer ears let’s keep two inner ears listening to God and to our own reaction to what you hear lest it get in the way.

Like Mary let’s be there for people without getting in their way. Being surrendered ourselves, as at this Eucharist, to whatever God wants of us, to be made a Christ-bearer under the watchful care of the Mother of believers.

Jesus who was first carried by Mary at Bethlehem, who is carried to us in Bread and Wine this morning, waits to be carried by you and me to a waiting world!