Advent 4C
In the name of God: who endows us with courage and boldness. Amen.
Have you ever heard of the Bechdel Test? It was created in the 1980s by a graphic novelist, Allison Bechdel. She had a bit of resurgence of attention a few years ago because her autobiographical graphic novel, Fun Home, was made into a Broadway musical – about her life growing up with a chronically depressed and repressed father who was the funeral director in their small town.
But the Bechdel Test is, essentially, a feminist tool for evaluating the way women’s stories are handled in books, movies, and other media. The test is pretty simple. There are three measures:
·
First, the story must feature at least two
female characters, and they must have names – not just some other character’s
mother or sister or wife.
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Second, they must have a conversation with each
other – without men present.
· And finally, the conversation must be about something other than a man.
There are critics of the Bechdel Test that say it doesn’t go far enough – that it doesn’t address issues like cultural inequality or pay equity. Some say that having a conversation isn’t enough – that the characters must have their own independent arcs that don’t leave them dependent of the agency of a man. But whether it goes far enough or not, the fact is, it sounds like a pretty simple measure to consider. But even as simple as it is, it’s surprisingly hard to find many stories that meet those small criteria.
And, when we consider the canon of Holy Scripture, stories that pass the Bechdel Test become very hard to find.
But the gospel lesson that we read this morning, the story of Mary and Elizabeth, is one of those rare instances that pretty much gets us there. If you’re willing to embrace, as I am, that God is something greater than just “a man” – then we get there easily.
The story of Mary and Elizabeth is a story of two, named women. They both have significant relationships with men, but they are not, themselves, defined by those men or those relationships. And today, we read about a conversation that they had, themselves. Without men present to guide them or judge them or censor them. And finally, their conversation isn’t about a man. It’s about the ways that they are in ministry with and for God, and about their own interpretations of scripture, and about their own hopes for the ways that God will work through them to change the world.
Many of you probably know that I was on retreat this week at a nearby monastery. I try to go twice each year – once in or just before Advent, and once in Lent. I use that time to refocus myself and for like a kind of “tune up” on the machinery of my prayer life. And because there’s a lot of time for quiet and reflection, I try to use it to think ahead about the liturgies that I’ll be leading in these busier seasons.
This year my retreat was a little later than usual, so the brothers at the monastery were, understandably, deep into their Advent observances. But I heard those liturgies a little differently as I’d turned my own mind to the story of Mary and Elizabeth. The brothers hold a deep veneration for Mary, the mother of Jesus. There are images of Mary all around the monastery. Each day, at Compline – their last prayers of the evening – they sing a song in praise of Mary.
And, as much as I love and am fed by my time there each year, this year it struck me how different this story is from the vision of Mary that’s lifted up in their veneration – and indeed from the vision of Mary that’s typically lifted up in the observances of the church throughout time and around the world.
The church has usually lifted up Mary as a sort of saccharine figure – overly sweet, inhumanly gentle. In the images of Mary that we usually see, she’s typically depicted demurely – with an expression that lives somewhere between the smirk of “I’ve got a secret” and terror, or dread.
To put a finer point on it – the way the church has typically depicted Mary has been patronizing. “Look at sweet Mary… Doing woman’s work because God, our Father, told her to.”
The problem is, when we read about Mary, like we did today, the stories don’t point to a woman who “knows her place” as the patriarchy might imagine it. Mary, if you strip away the burdens of tradition, isn’t timid and afraid. She’s a bad ass.
Listen again to the words of the Magnificat – her own interpretation of the ancient scriptures based on her own experience of God. She says,
“My soul proclaims your greatness, O God, and my spirit rejoices in you, my Savior. For you have looked with favor on me, your servant, and from now on I’ll be remembered as blessed. For you, God, have done great things for me, and you are holy. Your mercy reaches from age to age for those who respect you. You have shown us your strength; you have put in their place the self-righteous who thought too highly of themselves; you have deposed the mighty from their thrones and raised up the humble to high places. You have filled the hungry with good things, even while you have sent the rich away empty. You have come to the aid of my oppressed people who are your servants, mindful of your mercy – fulfilling the promise you made to our ancestors – to Sarah and Abraham and to their descendants forever.”
(adapted from The Inclusive Bible)
This isn’t a woman who is timid and afraid. This is a woman who is looking to overthrow the power structures of her time – and really, of all time. This is a woman who is looking to change the world. She is a woman who feels perfectly comfortable coming for the patriarchy.
Though she’s so often depicted demurely, I’ve come to prefer the image I’ve seen from time to time of Mary and Elizabeth, holding each other’s pregnant bellies, with their heads thrown back in uncontrollable laughter. It’s as if they’re saying, “Look what God has done! Look how God has called us!”
But even so, through the years, the powers and patriarchies have kept trying to put her “back into her place”.
It’s our job, as people of the revolution God is bringing into the world through Jesus to pull her back out where she belongs – to pull her back out, in our own consciousness, to the place where she put herself.
Mary is strong and determined. The Mary we read about isn’t the Mary of tradition. She isn’t the Mary, who in her weakness, submitted to God’s demand.
This is a Mary who, in her strength, said yes. Who, in her strength, agreed with God. The Mary we read about in scripture is a Mary who, in her strength, volunteered to partner with God in a calling only she was brave enough to hear and strong enough to follow.
Throughout the coming year we’ll be reading a lot of the Gospel of Luke. As we take this journey, it’s important to remember that Luke begins and ends the story of Jesus with strong, powerful women of agency who are doing the work that tradition has told us they were incapable of doing.
At the beginning, Mary is the one who bore God into the world. And then, at the end, it was the women at the tomb who first proclaimed the gospel of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were the first Christian preachers – preaching the good news, not from an ancient text, but from their own lived experience. Like Mary, the mother, had done all those years before.
Listen critically. And remember that no matter what the powers and structures of the world say, God works through whom God chooses. And that’s us. All of us. Even the lowly. Even the least. Even the unmarried, pregnant girl who could see what God was up to when no one else could imagine it. Even her aged, pregnant cousin, who could sense God’s presence, even where others could only see scandal.
That’s our Gospel.
That’s the work of the God we follow.
That’s the calling we’re meant to take on, too. Amen.
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