DISCLAIMER: This blog will present Mary’s visit with the angel, Gabriel, with a lens reflecting the #metoo movement.
Last year around Christmastime, I was in Eugene, OR working as a part-time campus minister at the University of Oregon. The center where I worked was called the Koinonia Center. That first image on the main page was taken by me – I digress. While there, I had a colleague who I partnered with to produce a podcast called “That’s What She Said.” In it, fellow campus ministry leader, Clare Josef-Maier, and I discussed topics that were raised by students in our care. We aimed to provide an honest and theologically sound take on toothy issues from our different faith traditions. Being that she is Lutheran and I am Presbyterian, there was little disparity regarding theology, but our diverse life experiences offered a compelling dynamic. One example of this would be Clare’s interpretation of Mary’s angelic visit as recorded in Luke 1: 26-38.
As a youth, Clare was distressed by the lack of consent given. Gabriel visits Mary to tell her what will happen to her body and not to ask if she is willing to be a vessel for the Savior. Mary has no autonomy. What is described in the text is another instance of a personified male figure dictating what will be done to a female’s body. Clare rationalized that if God could demand such a sacrifice of a woman’s body once, could God not require a similar sacrifice again? By similar, I mean a woman’s body being viewed as an object upon which a male-figure can exercise his will. This reading of the text presumes the practice of males enacting authority over women’s bodies. Additionally, in the interpretation are implications for an association between the predominant treatment of modern-day women by their male counterparts and notion that women are passive inhabitants of their bodies; the will and desire of the other – male other – is from where the woman’s will and purpose derives. Now, eventually, – after many years of reading the text at Christmastime and seminary training – Clare does conclude that consent is given, albeit after the initial congratulatory greeting, in verse 38 with the phrase, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”
In the era of #metoo, we, as the Church have to be empathetic to people’s interpretation of the text because it may be through the lens of trauma. This is not to suggest that trauma was the source of Clare’s interpretation, but her perspective engaged the Christmas narrative in a way that showed that she was living with the text; it was a part of her life. As the Church, we have to share how this pronouncement of unasked for impregnation was an act of love and yet, be willing to listen to interpretations that disagree with our own. The Good News: God sends a heavenly being who speaks peace to a humble, earthly creature and tells her that God has chosen her, a young woman, to be a part of God’s salvation narrative. Verse 38 could have described a scene with a recoiling, fragile, and timid maiden obligated to say yes, but instead, we read about a reverential young woman who gave her uncoerced consent.
