Epiphany 2
In the name of the God of
courage, strength, and resistance. Amen.
You may have seen this week –
making the rounds on the internet and cable news shows – there’s a new
commercial out for Gillette razors. Now,
it’s not often that news broadcasts pull out their breaking news banners for a
new commercial (though I’m sure they’re not far from that kind of pandering for
viewers…) – but this commercial got the attention of the masses because it
speaks to our particular cultural moment, and from a somewhat unexpected
source.
The commercial is about toxic
masculinity, and the ways that men can be conditioned to contribute to it, or
the ways that we can choose to stand up to it.
The idea of toxic masculinity can be challenging to address, because
it’s so often understood as an attack on “masculinity”. But that’s not what it is. Toxic
Masculinity isn’t true manhood or maleness, but it’s the part of culture that
celebrates and demands a very narrow expression of certain aspects of what
society has defined as examples of ideal manliness – things around violence,
aggressiveness, and hypersexuality. The
idea of toxic masculinity isn’t an attack on masculinity, but a way of calling
out this narrow definition of masculinity as unhealthy.
The commercial was remarkable
because it was a marketing campaign for a product that’s typically designed for
use by men, directed at holding up a mirror to the men of the world, to help us
see the parts of ourselves that we’d been missing.
People have gone crazy over this
commercial. In the context of the “me
too” movement, and the increasing prominence of the leadership of women in the
world, it struck a chord. And, among
some men, who don’t see the underlying issue, it hit a nerve.
But that came to mind for me this
week reading the story of the Miracle at the Wedding Feast of Cana – Jesus’
first public miracle. It’s a story
that’s cited as evidence that Jesus supported and upheld (and even blessed) the
institution of marriage. But aside from
that, it’s a miracle that largely struggles to find much of a purpose in many
people’s lives and reflections on the life of Jesus.
I’ll never forget, in one of my
first religion classes as an undergraduate, we were studying the works of the
Christian Scriptures, and when we came to the discussion of this story, one of
my classmates pushed back hard against the professor. Why was it there? What purpose did it serve? Finally, this student – by all accounts a
real life “red neck”, gruff and sort of limited by his experience in his
ability to grasp and express more complicated situations – finally, he
exclaimed, “So what you’re saying is, it was basically just a ‘holy beer run’ –
that it really served no purpose except they wanted to keep partying.”
That’s the context of this story
today. It’s a miracle. It’s lifted up by the church. But it
struggles to fit in to the larger context of the life and meaning of Jesus.
But the thing that kept jumping
out to me this week – this week that was so tinged with explorations of toxic
masculinity in our wider culture – was the often-overlooked role of Mary in
this story.
We, in the west, tend to look at
Mary through a very particular lens. She
submitted to the will of God – an admirable thing to be sure – but we’ve
somehow interpreted this to see her as “submissive” only. We see her as if the world just happens to
her. When you think of the images we
have for Mary, with her head covered and in her blue robe, think back to how
her face is often portrayed in Western imagery.
She’s usually seen with soft features, sort of “sad” eyes, often
avoiding eye contact. She’s lifted up as
holy and ideal, and that holy ideal for women is portrayed as dominatable.
But in the story of the Wedding
Feast at Cana, Mary doesn’t exactly come across so sheepish and wilting. She doesn’t fit the mold that the dominant
masculine culture has cast for her. “They
have no wine,” she declares to her son, the chosen incarnation of God. He refutes her. “Woman, what concern is that to you and to
me? My hour has not yet come.”
Most of us, faced with a
conversation with the Christ would probably let it go there. Even the boldest among us, the ones most
comfortable standing up to authority – we’d have a hard time doing what Mary
did. She didn’t argue. She didn’t plead her case. She didn’t demurely fall into the shadows and
submit. She just looked over at the
servants and said, “Do whatever he tells you.”
And of course they did. And of
course he did just as she’d suggested.
Even though he said, “My hour has not yet come,” she knew that it
had. And she stood up to him and
mothered him. As only a strong woman
could.
Think of this story the next time
you see an image of Mary. Think of it as
the resistance that’s always been lurking underneath the centuries of toxic
masculinity that the church has supported and encouraged in order to maintain
the status quo. Remember that this woman
– this ideal that’s been lifted up – is an ideal of strength and courage, not
just one of submission.
There is room for all of us in
the story of Jesus. Even those of us who
can’t just sit quietly by when we see that something needs doing. Even those of us who need a little
encouraging (or sometimes mothering) now and then. Even those of us who just need a little more
wine. Thank God for the wideness of the
room. Amen.
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