Mary Christmas: The Virgin of Guadalupe
Jim Burklo, sermon, Sausalito Presbyterian Church
12-18-05
Every so often, somebody we least expect comes along and solves a long-standing riddle. Somebody without the official credentials that we think ought to be required to come up with the solution.
I used to be the director of the homeless program in Palo Alto, and our organization got flooded with calls at this time of the year, as literally thousands of folks asked to volunteer to serve the meal at our Christmas dinner. When we told 95% of them that we had all the volunteers we needed that day, but didn't have enough help for the other 364 days of the year that we served food, quite a few folks were downright angry at us. And then there were the homeless folks. The drunks got drunker at Christmas, the mentally ill got mentally iller, because they were quite understandably upset at having to go to our Urban Ministry for Christmas dinner instead of having families and homes of their own. It was a mess, really, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it. Then our office manager proposed the solution. She said, make it a potluck. Housed and homeless alike can bring food, sit down, and eat it together. Everybody is invited, no limit. Of course, most folks wanted to volunteer at arm's length - not actually sit down and eat with the people of the streets. So it self-selected down to a manageable size. Homeless people and housed people indeed brought food, set it on the serving table, and ate it together. And it was wonderful. It was indeed what Christmas is supposed to be all about - humility and conviviality, gathering together as a community to share and remember our common humanity and divinity. Our Christmas dinner problem was solved by someone we didn't expect to come up with the answer.
Big problem, 500 years ago, for the people of Mexico. They had been conquered by the Spaniards, who were imposing an alien religion on them - Christianity. They found much good in the new religion but it was wrenching and strange and painful to be forced to give up their old religious traditions. How could they hold on to their spiritual identity as native Meso-Americans, and be baptized Christians at the same time? They were being told by the Spaniards that it was impossible. That the old ways were evil. That the old gods and goddesses were false, which just didn't seem true.
Deep in the soul of a recently-baptized Indian named Juan Diego, this troubling question stirred. He had no credentials. He was but a campesino - a common man. No education, and no expectations from anyone else of having any theological answers.
But then he went up to meditate on the top of the hill where once the goddess Tonantzin had been worshipped. And on that hill, later called Guadalupe, he had a powerful visionary encounter with the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus, who looked like a morenita, a beautiful, young, dark-skinned Indian woman. It took a lot of convincing, but finally he got the local bishop to see for himself when after repeated visions, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was seared onto his tunic. It was the first tee-shirt art in the Americas! And it shocked the bishop into realizing that a tough riddle had just been solved by this ordinary Indian peasant. How to connect the old religion of the Aztecs with the new religion of Christianity? Through a copper-skinned divine Mother who bridged the cultural gap. In the Virgin of Guadalupe, resonance was felt with these lines from the Song of Solomon (1: 5,6):
"I am very dark, but comely,
O daughters of Jerusalem,
like the tents of Kedar,
like the curtains of Solomon.
Do not gaze at me because I am swarthy,
because the sun has scorched me."
Mary herself had a lot in common with Juan Diego. Perhaps that is why he felt so bonded to her, so ready and able to see her on that Mexican hilltop. She was a peasant woman, a nobody, just like Juan Diego. And like Juan Diego, a serious theological problem was stirring within her. It was the old riddle of how a human being, who is limited and mortal, can have an intimate relationship with the divine, which is unlimited and immortal. How can the profane and the holy make contact? How can humans, with limited consciousness, become conscious of a higher level of consciousness?
Mary had a flash of insight. An idea came to her – no, not just a concept. A conception. There are a lot of ways to interpret the Christmas story, and let me offer this one: Christmas is what happened when a woman realized that a new kind of life could come out of her, a life beyond her own, an output that was more than the sum of the inputs. We like to wrap presents, and we love to unwrap them, too – Christmas is all about mystery and surprise. Mary unwrapped the mysterious reality that divinity could emerge from humanity. The surprise of the holy birthing out of the everyday. The surprise of the rup-a-pum-pum beating its way out of the hum-drum and the ho-hum. Mary solved an ancient problem with her insight that the baby within her belonged to God, who liberated him into the future. Her son didn’t belong to human beings who were stuck in the past. Her child was not bound to be like all others had been, not bound to react like all others react, not bound to take an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth, not bound to hate those who hated him, not bound to follow the same absurd and unjust social conventions as others. This child is capable of doing divine kindness, divine compassion, divine creativity, divine healing. Mary knew it, and she put it out there: this child growing in me is not Joseph’s. It is not even mine. This child is of the essence and substance of God. So watch out, world – get ready to see what an extraordinary thing can come out of an ordinary-looking woman.
Within you is this same mystery. This same surprise. Out of you, yes, you – as you are, including all the things about you that you wish were very different. Out of you, as you are, a new kind of life can be born. A divine life. Divinely forgiving – having lost all interest in judgment against others for disappointing you or failing you. Divinely humble – having no need to hype up the good parts or play down the hard parts of who you are. Divinely compassionate – naturally opening your heart to the people you encounter, even to those you’ve never met who are far away, whose suffering touches you. Naturally seeking out whatever way you can find to be at their service. Out of your very human story, with the mixed bag of events and experiences that have shaped you – from this very mortal mix a higher spiritual reality can gestate. Your life is human, but within you a life that is divine is growing, and at Christmas, we welcome it into the world. People really can rise above their human fallibilities and instincts, and be divine beings that do divine things. That is the promise of Christmas and it is the present most worth waiting for.