2023.12.24 | Being Present with Love
“Being Present with Love”
Rev. Brenda Loreman
Designated Term Associate Minister
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Sunday, December 24, 2023
Luke 1:26-38
The season of Advent and Christmas is the one time in the church year when we Protestants are, if not exactly enthusiastic, at least not too uncomfortable with talking about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Ever since Luther—or most likely Calvin—Protestants have had a problem with the Catholic devotion to Mary as the intercessor between sinners and God, choosing to see it as veneration bordering on idolatry, which takes away the proper focus on Christ. So we Protestants tend to keep her in a box for most of the year, taking her out like a favorite sparkly Christmas ornament at Advent and forgetting about her the rest of the time.
For centuries, Mary has been a favorite subject of artists, who have added to the image of sparkly Christmas-ornament Mary, or, as theologian Alyce McKenzie puts it, Mary as a “figure in a snow dome, silent, immobile, gazing at the manger.” (1) The moment of God’s revelation to her that she would bear Jesus, called the Annunciation, has been of particular interest for painters. And there was a particular symbolism that grew up around her that artists used to communicate that this was a painting of the annunciation, particularly in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance paintings. In her poem, “Annunciation,” American poet Denise Levertov recalls these symbolic conventions:
We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; alway
the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest. (2)
In his painting of the annunciation, Leonardo da Vinci has all the typical conventions: the lectern, the book, the lily, the grand wings, Mary welcoming the angel. She is not dressed as the ordinary peasant girl we know she was, but as a royal woman in costly blue silk, already Queen of Heaven. She looks totally composed and calm, not disturbed at all that a huge angelic being has just landed on her patio, interrupting her in the middle of her reading and telling her she’s going to give birth to the Messiah.
Even in the more modern annunciation painted by Henry Ossawa Tanner—which I love—the artist has Mary in a humble posture, receiving the momentous news calmly from the beam-of-light angel. At least Tanner presented a more realistic teenaged Mary in a typical peasant home, rather than the grand palace of the Renaissance figures.
When I was at the Louvre a few years ago, I found an annunciation painted by Carlo Braccesco, which at least gives a hint of the sort of freaking out I imagine a teenager would do if an angel suddenly swooped in and said God had favored her.
All this is to say that all of us—Catholics, Protestants, and artists—have tended to miss something important about Mary’s part in Luke’s nativity story. Whether we venerate Mary as the intercessor and Mother of God, or reduce her to her biological role as mother of Jesus, we fail to recognize that Mary is not merely a passive receiver of God’s presence, but a person of deep faith, and an active participant in the revolution that God promised with the birth of Jesus. Her “yes” to God meant a “yes” to the history-changing, hope-giving, in-breaking of God into the world. Her willingness to be present to God in the most intimate way– by carrying and giving birth to God’s divine presence– was not a passive act, but a bold and prophetic act of love.
Rather than observing Mary as a passive and obedient woman in a snow globe, we should be imitating her radical call to overthrow the status quo and find ways that we, too can be present with love in a world that, like hers, is so desperately in need of love. What Mary demonstrated with her radical “yes” to God was the way that love can become liberative, for ourselves and for those around us.
I recently came across a poem by Maya Angelou that I had never read before. It’s called “Love’s Exquisite Freedom,” and it speaks to the way love draws us into life and into liberation:
We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.
Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.
We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free. (3)
Love arrives in various forms. It may arrive in the form of a baby. It may arrive in the form of a friend who shows up at just the right time, with just the right gift. Nearly twenty years ago when my dad died midway through the first semester of the school year, One of my best friends called me and said, “I could send you flowers, but I’m not sure that’s what you need right now. What do you most need?” I admitted that I was finding it impossible to concentrate on reading my student essays, and grades were due. So Cathy, who was an English teacher too, showed up one afternoon and spent two hours with me, reading Macbeth essays and helping me get my grades done. Her gift of showing up and being present with love was the exact thing I needed. Love comes in the form of those in our lives who know our “ancient histories of pain” and help us tend those old wounds with tender care. Love also comes in the form of a community that supports us on our spiritual journeys and gives us courage “to strike away the chains of fear from our souls.”
Throughout this season of Advent, we have been focusing on the theme of being present– that the best gift we can give to others is not tangible things, but the gift of our presence. And the best gift we can receive is that same gift of presence from others. As we bring our Advent series to a close this morning and with our evening candlelight service, I ask you to ponder with me how you have experienced the gift of presence in the past week. Let’s put aside the to-do list that we’re all still checking in order to be ready for Christmas tomorrow, and spend some time in quiet reflection. (4)
I invite you to take a deep breath in, and let it out, and close your eyes if you feel comfortable doing so.
Ponder this: Who was a gift of presence to you this week? Take a moment to recall this gift of presence in your mind’s eye, seeing it emerge like opening a gift. If you cannot recall such a moment, it is OK… allow yourself to notice these moments more deeply in the days to come.
[pause for a bit]
Next, consider this: How did you offer yourself as a gift of presence? What did it feel like to extend your attentiveness and availability beyond yourself? Did you notice how it made a difference to someone else for you to be truly present to them?
[pause for a bit]
Finally, think on this: Is it possible that God’s presence is felt more acutely in these moments when we truly tend to one another? What could you do this coming week that would allow God’s gift of Love to flow through you to someone else? It may be as simple as finding opportunities to speak an encouraging word. Or as complex as actually lifting up someone’s circumstances through volunteering or donating.
[pause for a bit]
Friends, my prayer for us all is that we feel the presence of God through the presence of those around us, and through our own willingness to be the presence of love to others.
One of my favorite writers and podcasters right now is Kate Bowler. She and her friend Jessica Richie have a lovely book of blessings called The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days. I leave you with this lovely blessing for love:
God, we are waiting for love,
not the simple kind or the sweep-you-off-your-feet kind,
but the absurd kind.
The kind wrapped in rags,
resting in a bucket of animal feed.
Love enough to save us all.
Blessed are we who look for Love
Deeper, fuller, truer—than we have ever known,
Than we could have ever hoped for.
Blessed are we who seek you,’the light that dawned so long ago
In that dark stable.
Love given
Love received.
Receive now this gift, dear one.
Love has come for you. (5)
Amen.
(1) Alyce McKenzie, “A Mother's Wisdom: Reflections On Luke 1:26-38,” Patheos Blog, December 12, 11 <https://www.patheos.com/resources/additional-resources/2011/12/mothers-wisdom-alyce-mckenzie-12-12-2011> Accessed December 19, 2023.
(2) Denise Levertov, The Collected Poems of Denise Levertov, ed. Paul A Lacey and Anne Dewey (New York: New Directions, 2013), 836.
(3) Maya Angelou, “Love’s Exquisite Freedom,” posted by Shellie M. Poe in “Love Has Come For You,” on the Women in Theology Blog, December 21, 2023. <https://womenintheology.org/2023/12/21/love-has-come-for-you/> Accessed December 22, 2023.
(4) Marcia McFee, The Worship Design Studio. From materials designed as part of the “Gift of Being Present” worship series. Used with permission.
(5) Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days (New York: Convergent, 2023), 216-17.