Lady Madonna ........

Who are the Gabriels of our day?

Who stands before us and offers the compelling thought that, 'God is with us'?

If ever there was a time and a season when we needed the reassurance that 'God is with us' that Time is now. If the newspapers are to be believed, despite the Vaccine 2021 may well yet turn out to be little different than 2020 has been.

And what a tumultuous year it has been.

Two commentaries have suggested that the most unprecedented thing about it has been the use of the word unprecedented and another comment was that we have experienced not only a pandemic but an infodemic!

But here we are on this fourth Sunday of Advent 2020 praying with Mary that we also may receive the word of Gabriel to reassure that God is indeed with us.

As Gabriel visits an unsuspecting young girl, Mary, so may the divine visit us.

May the weariness and disruption and furloughing, the closure of pubs and schools, the vicissitudes of so many peoples lives in care homes and colleges and universities be viewed through this conviction that God is with us.

As this young girl was affected and challenged and shocked by what she was hearing and worried, as she might well be, by the social realities of her day, so we are immersed in and challenged by the social realities of our own day.

But if we listen carefully, if we pay attention, then it may well that the Gabriels' of our day remind us, assure us, even offer comfort that, yes, 'God is with us'.

The Church of England has struggled with sexuality and gender for years but other denominations, in particular Methodism, has over the years recognised that alongside the Bible and the Churches teaching we should also recognise the spirit of the age.

People change and society changes and we can sometimes look back on the past as though it was a foreign land, where people spoke a different language and practised different customs altogether.

I recall the treatment that my 21 year old wife received when, after removing her wedding ring on the advice of the paramedic, she was admitted to hospital following a miscarriage.

It was simply assumed that she was unmarried and had knowingly brought the miscarriage on herself, I arrived at the hospital later to find her in tears, distressed because of the judgements that had been made.

I am sure that after Gabriel had spoken Mary would have been distressed by the thoughts of how this news would have been met by family, friends, strangers and of course, not the least by Joseph, her betrothed.

Amongst the many Gabriels' with whom we are surrounded it seems to me that popular music has produced more than a few.

Pop music has often been the source of comment, reflection and sentiment about the world we inhabit and the people we know and meet on a daily basis.

The title of this blog was suggested by a reference to a song by The Beatles and this reflection on Mary the mother of our Lord has also been inspired by a song from the Beatles:

Lady Madonna, baby at your breast
Wonders how you manage to feed the rest?

See how they run

Lady Madonna, children at your feet
Wonder how you manage to make ends meet

Paul McCartney has given two recollections of the song and the story of its being written.

In the first he observes that he saw a picture in the January 1965 issue of National Geographic captioned Mountain Madonna with one child at her breast and another smiling at her.

McCartney immediately thought no, not Mountain, but Lady, Lady Madonna.

Commenting on the line containing the words 'baby at your breast' he admitted that using the words in a pop song was a little adventurous at the time but he also suggested that it was not that controversial 'because every painter has done a 'Madonna and Child''.

In his book, Many Years From Now, McCartney also observed that the original title of the song was Virgin Mary, linking it to his childhood memories of the many Catholic families in Liverpool and so the song became symbolic of every woman; the Madonna image applied to ordinary working class women  in his home city of Liverpool.

Mary. becomes the woman who as scripture tells us carried these things in her heart and pondered them. 

To a girl named Mary an Angel came and her life changed forever until from the Cross Jesus entrusted her future to the beloved disciple John, whose feast day we celebrate, as our patron saint next Sunday.

But Mary not only accepts the angel's message, she also speaks a privilege rarely given to women in scripture, women speak 15 times in Luke's Gospel but only Mary is given the privilege of a full speech, a song that we have already sung with her today, The Magnificat.

She becomes for us, as she was celebrated by St Luke, as the model, the example of obedient, contemplative discipleship.

So on this fourth Sunday of Advent we are invited to pause for a moment and imagine Mary's pregnant body as it continues with the rhythms of a fishing community, carrying water from the well, planting and gathering the Harvest, gathering grain, kneading it for the evening meal.

Imagine Mary in our world today as she continues with the rhythms that shape and form our own world whether as a teacher, a nurse, a mother working in a shop or raising her children alone, 'children at her feet, wondering how she will manage to make ends meet'.

So as we prayed in our Advent prayer, this Christmas come to the manger of our hearts, invade our souls like Bethlehem bringing peace to each and every part of our troubled world and let us say, with Mary and the Angel, 'God is with us'.