Mary: Rising Above Shame

Seen and not Heard
My grandma had the most beautiful penmanship I have ever seen. As a little girl, I remember watching her write so slowly and so methodically and wishing that someday I would be able to write as neatly and beautifully as she did.

Sadly, that never happened.

Now, as I think back over those times, it isn’t only her penmanship I admire; it is what she was writing. My grandma was an encourager. I remember her spending hours sitting and writing cards and notes of encouragement. She never really talked about. She didn’t announce that she was going to the mailbox so she could mail her 20 cards for the day. She didn’t lament the time she spent or even mention it in passing. For years, she quietly wrote her notes and mailed them.

My grandma was a woman whose actions spoke more loudly than any words ever could. My grandpa was a bit of a fiery, angry little man. I remember him standing at the edge of our dirt road yelling at the drivers of cars he thought were driving too fast. For every ounce of positivity and grace my grandma possessed, my grandpa possessed a pound of negativity and anger.

In spite of this, I never heard my grandma say an ill word about him, react with impatience, or even show annoyance.

She was the kind of woman of influence you watch and admire and long to be like.

Mary: A Woman of Influence
As Christmas approaches, I can’t help but think of another woman of influence who I have to think I would have watched, admired, and longed to be like: Mary.

But, I think my reasons for watching, admiring, and wanting to be like Mary might be a little different than the quintessential Christmas thoughts we associate with her. If you’ve been in church for even one Christmas, then I would be amazed if you haven’t heard at least one pastor/speaker talk about Mary’s plight: 14 yr old, engaged but not married, pregnant girl whose fiance was going to divorce her quietly because she was knocked up with the son of God. Oh, and she gets to birth the savior of the world in a barn.

And while I have thought about all of those things for many years, this season I find myself thinking of Mary in a little different light. Think with me for just a minute about Mary in terms of what her life must have actually looked like:

She was an unwed, pregnant Jewish teenager.

We know how the story ends, but Mary’s family, friends, rabbis, and neighbors didn’t.

Think about that. Mary knew she was carrying the Messiah, but do you think everyone else knew that? And, even if they had heard that rumor, do you think they believed it? Remember, the Jews never did accept Jesus as the Messiah, so think about what that meant for Mary.

What was it like for her to go to the Market and see the women turn their noses up at her as they silently judged her for promiscuity that never existed.

What was it like for her to look at Joseph everyday and wonder if he truly believed she was carrying the Messiah?

What was it like for her to sit with her family members and her friends and have them secretly whispering about her and whether or not her story was true?

How many times did she walk into a room only for the whispering to stop and everyone to stare at her?

How many times did she walk out of a room and the whisperings and musings begin?

You know what I think it must have been like for her?

Shameful.

Mary was a human, teenage girl who had to have faced constant judgment, gossip, whispering, and humanity every time she showed her face in public. And, even though she had done nothing wrong, I have to think the weight of all that scrutiny had to weigh on her, regardless of the fact that she knew the truth of her situation.

And knowing a little bit about shame myself, I can imagine that Mary probably had to take a deep breath and remind herself to hold her head high every time she walked into a public place.

I can imagine Mary probably scanned every public place she entered for people she knew, people to avoid, and people who would accept her.

I can imagine Mary probably struggled at times to even leave the safety and sanctity of her own home because going out in public was just too exhausting.

And I don’t think that ended for Mary when Jesus was born.

How many years passed where Mary, Joseph, and Jesus walked into the market, and the Pharisees looked at them and thought, “bastard?”

How long do you think it took for Mary’s family to accept Jesus as the Messiah and not secretly continue to judge her for what they thought was her sin?  

Did it take until Jesus was 12 and teaching in the temple before Mary’s story was finally accepted?

And even then, how many Jews were still skeptics?

So, while we admire Mary for being the unwed teenage virgin mom of the Messiah, this Christmas I’m admiring Mary for how she must have truly been a woman you watched, admired, and wanted to be like. We talk in churches about God’s choice of Mary as the mother of Jesus, but maybe we need to take that talk even further. Maybe we need to talk about how God chose Mary because he knew she could take the scrutiny, because he knew she could take the judgment, because he knew she could take the whispers, and because he knew she could handle the undeserved shame.

I have to wonder how often Mary wanted to scream at people that her story was true.
I have to wonder how many times she was at the end of her rope.
I have to wonder how many times she cried out to God because it was more than she could handle.

Often, I would think sometimes even daily, Mary had to have been overcome by these emotions. Somehow, though, Mary consistently found the strength to continue to hold her head high, to put one foot in front of the other, to remind herself to breathe, and to continue moving forward.

Because that’s what God had called her to do.

I see Mary as an incredibly strong, quietly resilient woman Brene Brown would brag on for days. And I have to think that’s why God chose her to be the mother of Jesus.

And I admire her and desperately want to be like her.

Watch what they Do:
It’s so easy to say the right thing, especially if you’ve been raised in the church. We know the exact times to toss out the “I’ll be praying for you” or the “hate the sin, love the sinner.” But, what if instead of saying these things, we lived them? What if instead of simply saying we love the sinner, we actually go out of our way to show love to the sinner? What if our actions spoke so incredibly loudly that we never had to?

I pray that today is the day you choose to live louder than you speak, that today is the day you become someone people simply watch, admire, and desire to be like.

Until next time...

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