Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
More Voices
“Let It Be” (A Progressive Christian Lectionary Commentary for the 4th Sunday of Advent)

“Let It Be” (A Progressive Christian Lectionary Commentary for the 4th Sunday of Advent)

Last updated on: December 29, 2014 at 9:44 pm by Carl Gregg

“Let It Be” (A Progressive Christian Lectionary Commentary for the 4th Sunday of Advent) 2014-12-29T21:44:39-05:00 Carl Gregg

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The following is the second of two lectionary commentaries on the Gospel lesson for the 4th Sunday of Advent.The first is titled “Hail Mary, Full of Grace” and focuses on the first part of this week’s this week’s reading from Luke 1.

Focal Question 1: What would Christianity look like if the focus were birth, not death; human flourishing, not suffering; and this world, not the next?

Focal Question 2: How is God inviting you in the coming days and weeks to echo some form of Mary’s words of humble openness and acceptance: “Yes, I see. I’m ready. Let it be with me just as you say.”

In my previous lectionary commentary, we heard the angel’s words to Mary that inspired the beginning of the Ave Maria: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.” Her first response to the Gabriel’s appearance understandably was stunned silence. In the words of scripture, “she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.” Accordingly, the invitation of Advent is to wait patiently for what is already in the process of being birthed resonates with Mary’s shock that God was taking the initiative. Mary didn’t ask for a messenger from God to appear; the angel simply showed up unexpectedly. The parallel for us today may be that God is always birthing new life in our midst in ways that we are not consciously aware of beforehand.

One of the parallel lessons we are invited to learn in this season of the liturgical year is that God is always at work in surprising ways. And God is engaged in this surprising work in all ages, not merely in the first century. The 14th-century German mystic Meister Eckhart phrased this idea provocatively when he wrote: “What is the good if Mary gave birth to the Son of God 2000 years ago, if I do not give birth to God today? We are all Mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”

One of the most stunning part of the “Hail Mary” prayer is the title attributed to Mary, “Mother of God.” The conception of Mary as “Mother of God” has provided a much-needed feminine balance in the heavily male-dominated Roman Catholic tradition. The Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition also has a strong emphasis on Mary as the Mother of God, which can be seen in the frequent use of the term Theotokos in Orthodox Christian writings. The Greek word theo-tokos literally means “God-bearer.” It speaks most specifically to Mary as the one who gave birth to God, but more generally to the way all Christians are called to emulate Mary’s willing vulnerability to use her life, her body, her very self to bear witness — to birth — God into the world.

Jesus’ life shows us what it looks like when God is birthed into the world. Jesus also pointed us toward what birthing God into the world looks like whenever he talked about the “Kingdom of God.” Martin Luther King, Jr. was likewise calling us to birth God into the world when he called us to become the Beloved Community.

Life, birth, and growth: Mary’s unexpected pregnancy, Jesus’ life, and the lives of all those like Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, and Dorothy Day show us what it looks like to birth God into the world. Tragically, male-dominated Christian theology too often has pointed us in the opposite direction: toward death, suffering, and loss. But in recent decades feminist theologians such as Grace Jantzen have proposed that we should shift our focus from theologies that are “preoccupied with violence, sacrifice, and death, and built upon mortality” — and instead “begin with birth, and with the hope and possibility and wonder implicit in it.”

She similarly asks, “What would Christianity look like if the focus were birth, not death; human flourishing, not suffering; and this world, not the next?” Advent is a time for pondering these possibilities.

As we turn from Mary’s silent pondering to her reply, we hear her ask first, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” My inclination is to proceed cautiously because I believe the most important point being made here is not about biology, but about theology and politics. Jesus was neither the first nor the last person whose origins were attributed to a “virgin birth.” Perhaps most significantly in this case, Julius Caesar was said to have been born of a virgin. Decades before Jesus‘ birth (in 19 B.C.E. to be precise) Virgil published the Greco-Roman classic The Aeneid, which claimed a divine origin for the line of Caesar: “From this noble line shall be born the Trojan Caesar, who shall extend his empire to the ocean, his glory to the stars, a Julius name descended from the great Julus!” So, first and foremost, the story of Jesus’ virgin birth is similar to the declaration that “Jesus is Lord”; both are different ways of declaring one’s allegiance to Jesus instead of to Caesar.

That being said, there are many different aspects of the virgin birth story to consider. When I toured Israel as an undergraduate, one of the places we visited in Nazareth was the Basilica of the Annunciation, a church built on the spot where tradition holds that the angel announced Jesus’ conception to Mary. While there I remember some of us discussing — half-jokingly and half-seriously — how exactly Mary broke the news to her parents. Since the angel appeared to her and not to her parents, what was she supposed to say? Something like, “Don’t worry, Dad, it’s God’s baby?” Settling aside any potential blasphemy for a moment, I believe that we are so familiar with this story that we sometimes fail to consider the many difficult implications of Mary’s situation as an unwed teenager. At the same time Advent invites us to focus, not only on Mary’s socially-suspect pregnancy, but also on the hope, possibility, and wonder associated with all births.

And Mary’s second response, following her incredulous initial question, is humility. Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Just as Gabriel’s greeting, “Hail Mary,” inspired the Ave Maria prayer that has been prayer countless times and rendered into unforgettable music, so too, Mary’s response, “Let it be” has also inspired artists — perhaps most famously as the title track of the Beatles’ 12th and final studio album: Let It Be.

From the perspective of Advent, I invite you to hear the Beatles’ “Let it Be” as if for the first time. Listen with the words of Mary echoing in your ear. Listen with an openness to how God may be calling you to slow down, open your eyes in wonder, and expectantly wait for is already in the process of being born. How is God inviting you in the coming days and weeks to echo some form of Mary’s words of humble openness and acceptance: “Yes, I see. I’m ready. Let it be with me just as you say.”Give yourself permission to be still and listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdopMqrftXs

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, in his Advent book Ponder These Things: Praying with Icons of the Virgin, writes that: “There is a poem by Rilke, ‘The Angel,’ in which the poet warns us against inviting angels into the house, because they will turn the whole place upside down and seek out all the hidden corners and mould us into new shapes.”

When we open ourselves to God, when we echo Mary’s prayer, “Let it be,” we may find ourselves turned upside down and our prioritizes rearranged, as Mary experienced when Gabriel appeared in her house. A few verses from our focal scriptural, we see a model of reshaped priorities in Mary’s Song, called “The Magnificat.” (For more, see my lectionary commentary on “Magnificat! Learning to Sing Mary’s Song.”)

For now, I invite you to pause in a few moments of contemplative silence. During this time, I invite you to continue to ponder:

How God is surprising me this Advent season?

How am I being called to slow down or let go?

How does it feel to begin to pray an echo of Mary’s open-hearted response, “May it be so. Just as you say. Let it be. Let it be. Let it be.”

Take some time to prayerfully journal how God is speaking to you in response to these questions.

Notes

1 Grace Jantzen, Becoming Divine: Towards a Feminist Philosophy, 2.

2 The paraphrase of Mary’s words is adapted from Eugene Peterson’s translation, The Message.

3 I was unable to located the exact Rilke poem titled “The Angel” to which Williams refers. Perhaps he is quoting from memory and couldn’t find the exact poem either since he doesn’t footnote a reference! If you know where I can locate a copy of the poem, please let me know in the comments section. (Note: One reader suggests this link may be the poem in question: http://rainer-maria-rilke.de/080032derengel.html. If I ever meet Williams in person, I hope to ask him.)

Resources for Reclaiming a More Meaningful Advent and Christmas Season

Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Birth.
Michael Slaughter, Christmas Is Not Your Birthday: Experience the Joy of Living and Giving like Jesus.
Anna Getty, I’m Dreaming of a Green Christmas: Gifts, Decorations, and Recipes that Use Less and Mean More.
Bill McKibben, Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case For A More Joyful Christmas.
Jo Robinson, Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season.
Rick McKinley, et al, Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World?

The Advent Conspiracy: www.adventconspiracy.org
New American Dream, “Simplify the Holidays”: www.newdream.org/holiday
- “Tips for Parenting in a Commercial Culture”:www.newdream.org/kids/kids-brochure.pdf
Buy Nothing Christmas www.buynothingchristmas.org.

The above is the second of two lectionary commentaries on the Gospel lesson for the 4th Sunday of Advent.The first is titled “Hail Mary, Full of Grace” and focuses on the first part of this week’s this week’s reading from Luke 1.

The Rev. Carl Gregg is a trained spiritual director, a D.Min. candidate at San Francisco Theological Seminary, and the pastor of Broadview Church in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland. Follow him on Facebook (facebook.com/carlgregg) and Twitter (@carlgregg).

Lectionary Commentary

Sermons

Previous Post

December 10, 2011

“Hail Mary, Full of Grace” (A Progressive Christian Lectionary Commentary for the 4th Sunday of Advent)

Next Post

December 12, 2011 The Artist’s Way for Advent: Matthew Fox’s "Via Creativa"

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advent Anti-Racism Archaeology Atheism Baptism Best of the Year List Book Reviews Buddhism Catholicism Christian Education Church and State Church Planting Climate Change Conscientious Objection to War Creation Spirituality Death Penalty Didache Disability Rights Discernment Easter Ecology Emergent Church Movement Empire-Critical Ethics Evolution Feminist Theology Film Reviews Gandhi Gospel of Mark Gun Control Hinduism Immigration Reform Interfaith Islam JFK Judaism Jungian Spirituality Lectionary Commentary Lent Letters to the Editor LGBT Marriage MLK Multiculturalism Mysticism Nonviolent Activism Occupy Paganism (Earth-centered Religions) Parables Paul Pluralism Politics Process Theology Quantum Physics Requiescat In Pace Seminary and Divinity School Sermon Series Retrospective Sermons Spiritual Direction Spiritual Practices Stewardship (Fundraising) The Book of J The Wheel of the Year (Paganism) Theoblogger Challenge Triathlon Uncategorized Unitarian Universalism Worship Resources Youth Ministry

Select a Month July 2026 May 2026 March 2026 November 2025 October 2025 August 2025 February 2025 December 2024 October 2024 March 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 August 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 August 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 July 2019 June 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 August 2009 July 2009 May 2009

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Apocalypse" mean in Greek?

Select your answer to see how you score.

The End God's Wrath Destruction Revelation