Mary is pregnant in difficult times. She embodies the circumstance of so many women across history and across our world. Who will be with Mary through the difficulties? Who will guide her in bringing beautiful new life to birth? Women have always been with women. Midwives are women who ‘stand with’ pregnant women. Mid is not derived from middle so much as from amidst. A midwife stands amidst the difficulties and the labor and the hopes and the birthing. A midwife is with a woman who is with child. To be with child and to be with someone who is with child, helping to bring new life to birth, is to be life’s ultimate guide. History, however, has not regarded women, particularly midwives, as guides. History has certainly not regarded Mary as such. But what if Mary of Nazareth is history’s ultimate midwife, ultimate guide? Not as a caricature though, shaped from patriarchal myths. Women from such myths serve their male scribes as necessary delivery canals for their fantasized warrior gods. For example, the Babylonian Tiamat. Her body is dismembered by a War Lord god, with an arrow to her belly acting as the explosion spawning the cosmos. Also, the pregnant Alcmene and her midwife, Galanthis, spawning Hercules and his tales of conquest and killing. So too Wendy of the Rittenhouse klan spawning Kyle, a current War Lord deity. There is in such violent myths of warrior deities no birthing of life; no creation, no nurturance, no midwifing. There are no guides bringing beautiful new life to birth. And then, there is Mary. Mary conceives a different ‘god.’ Not a War Lord killer but a peacemaking power. Mary is history’s midwife to the birthing of healing energy as our creative Source, our God. She stands amidst the difficulties and the labor and the hopes and the birthing of a new world. Mary is our guide. She is Jesus’ guide. Mary guides her son Jesus to live a new spirituality. It is a spirituality of giving birth, of being a midwife to life. It was once only women who lived such spirituality and they were ignored for living it. Now, in Jesus, a man will live it, a man will be a midwife to birth. Attention will be given to Jesus and it will be because he is a man who lives the spirituality of a woman. 2,000 years ago, Mary and Jesus gave all humanity the opportunity to be guides to life. What have we done with that opportunity? Have we, men especially, converted to being life-giving guides who are peaceful and powerful, like Jesus? We are all needed to “stand with,” to be midwives with all those who are, in their way, pregnant with life. We are needed amidst the difficulties and the labor and the hopes and the birthing of a new world.
Prayer: Spirit, with your power we stand with all those giving birth.
Question: Who is asking me to stand with them to bring new life to birth?
November 28, 2021 Gospel Luke 21:25-36 First Sunday of Advent