There's Something About Mary

Holy Mary, Empress of China, Chu Kar Kui (Gary Chu)

Luke 1:26-38

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.

The irony of this blog is that it is about Art and Christianity and I have yet to discuss the most popular subject in Christian Art. There are a few complex reasons for this: some of them are individual to me and some of them deal with the interaction between all the sections of Christianity throughout history. Despite whatever the reasons for this silence, it ends today. These images, the discussion surrounding them and the Scriptures that inspire them are to important to not be discussed. This controversial image is that of Mary, the mother of Jesus. In Art images of Mary (specifically with her infant son Jesus) is called the Madonna are described by Wikipedia as:

A Madonna is a representation of Mary, either alone or with her child Jesus. These images are central icons for both the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The word is from Italian ma donna, meaning "my lady". No image permeates Christian art as much as the image of the Madonna and child.

So why would any self-professed Christian (like myself) or art enthusiast (like myself) wait so long to address the image of Jesus's mother? That's the question that I've had to ask myself this week. after much soul searching, bible study and historical analysis I have come to the same answer that I had when I started: I'm a Protestant. Though all Protestants aren't theologically or religio-cultarally similar, there is a undercurrent of Protestant Prejudice and mistrust of anything seeming to Catholic that pervades much of our movement. It is like a twist on the old saying "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater"... except in our case we Protestants are throwing out the Mother with the the bathwater and keeping the baby... and in our case the baby is the Christ child and the mother is the Virgin Mary. Now,  I am not pretending that there are not reasons for the differences between the various branches of the Christian religion. I also am not advocating that the distinctions aren't necessary (on the contrary I am a fan of the Reformation). What I am against is the lies that we tell about each other and about ourselves. We can be different and also tell the truth. The greatest of these untruths is what I call the Protestant/Catholic myth. It is the belief that Protestants own the Bible (and the rights to preach from it) and that Catholics own Church history, traditions, Mary and the Saints. the sad irony is that all parties abide by this fallacy as a rule and dig into their territory as a defensive position. In doing so we all are the poorer for it. Since I am a Baptist, I'll speak from the Protestant position. We don't focus on Mary enough and in doing so we exclude a great portion of the Biblical text. Mary isn't just a figure that we find out about through extra-biblical sources, she is there in much of the beginning of Matthew and Luke and then returns throughout the gospels. The four evangelists were intentional in every detail that they weaved into the narrative of the gospels. They understood that telling the story of Mary was integral to telling the story of Jesus. If you, like me, believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of Scripture, then we can agree that God thought that telling the story of Mary is integral to telling the story of Jesus. we can also conclude then as members of the body of Christ, that telling the story of Mary is vital to telling our own story. 

So it is with that conviction that I commit to seeing the story of Mary afresh. It is the story that Chu Kar Kui (Gary Chu) tells in his painting of the Madonna. In imagining Mary as the Empress of China, Chu has not fully reimagined her but rather re-contextualized her so that we can appreciate the detailes of the story that has been told for millennia. In it Mary points us to Jesus, presenting him (in all of his salvific significance) to the viewer. She holds the infant with a telling gaze that testifies of the fullness of his true nature. It is a simple and humble message that is predictive of the cosmic significance of his future ministry. Like this image of Mary and many Madonna images, Mary always points to Jesus. It is a picture of what we are called to be as a Church. That is because in Scripture Mary is often symbolic of the Church. Learning about Mary can teach a lot about the Church as a whole. Mary's story is our story 

The Annunciation, Fra Angelico

Hail Mary

And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!” But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. 

When the Dominican friar and early Italian Renaissance painter Fra Angelico tells us Mary's story he focuses on on a part of the story that has great significance to his own story. Like the writer of the Gospel of Luke, he depicts what is known as the Annunciation. In it the angel Gabriel announces to Mary that she will bear Jesus the Messiah. Like most announcements, Gabriel starts off with a greeting. The greeting was "Hail Mary!" Of course it is lost in the New King James Version translation that I use in this blog, so here it is in the King James Version:     

"And the angel came in unto her, and said, 'Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.'"

As a Catholic priest Fra Angelico would have been very familiar with the text of this greeting because it is what forms the basis of the first part of the "Hail Mary" or "Ave Maria" (in Latin). The text of that prayer reads:

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus..."

"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus..."

This greeting perplexed Mary and indeed perplexes many Protestant believers today. Both wonder what is meant by the "Hail Mary." Mary seems to be troubled by the angel's greeting in fear that he may have come as a messenger of something frightful (maybe even her death), on the contrary, the angel came as a messenger of hope and a new life. Protestants are troubled by the Hail Mary prayer because of the fear that it is everything we fear about Catholicism. In the second half it features praying to someone other than God and asking that person to intercede for us:  

"...Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen."

Now as a Protestant, I don't believe that it is appropriate to pray to anyone other than God. However, I also understand that what Catholics are doing when they pray to Mary or any other saint is not worship. It is asking a fellow believer (who happens to be dead) to pray for you, like you would ask another living believer to pray for you. But outside of this part of the argument, I believe that both parties may be missing the bigger picture. I think that the text of Scripture reveals something that both Protestants and Catholics are overlooking yet these paintings reveal. Mary is preaching to us, just like the angel Gabriel preached to her. In the Annunciation, Mary does not speak of herself but rather of her son...and her God. Mary points us to Jesus In doing this Mary is symbolic of the symbolic of the Church. Not the Church that is but the Church that can be. A Church that doesn't major in pointing out the difference between its members but rather points the greater truth that unifies us: Jesus. 

Theotokos of Kazan

Theotokos

Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

Now if you are a good, judgmental Protestant like myself, then you noticed that I didn't discuss a portion of the second half of the Hail Mary prayer that was jarring to your theological sensibilities and couldn't be swept away. That is the part where Mary is referred to by the title "Mother of God" or in its Greek form "Theotokos." That brings us to our next painting, Theotokos of Kazan. Like most icons, it is not necessarily an original work that is credited to one specific artist, but rather a heavily stylized and symbolic image that it replicated and used in worship. Our brothers in the Orthodox Church are probably the most known for their Theotokos icons but there are other communities who use this icon. The Theotokos of Kazan specifically comes from the Russian Orthodox Church (within the Orthodox Churches). When the Orthodox use the word Theotokos (instead of "Mother of God") they are intentionally doing it to highlight what the word literally means. Wikipedia helps us out with this one: 

Theotokos is a compound of two Greek words, Θεός God and τόκος parturition, childbirth. Literally, this translates as God-bearer or the one who gives birth to God; historian Jaroslav Pelikan translated it more precisely as "the one who gives birth to the one who is God"

 

The distinction between calling Mary the Mother of God and the God-bearer may seem to be a subtle one, it is a distinction with much historical importance in Church history. In understanding the historical significance behind Theotokos we must remember the two truths that constantly appear when discussing Mary: 1) Mary points us to Jesus and 2) Mary is symbolic of the Church. So Theotokos speaks more to what we believe about Jesus than what we believe about Mary. 

Even though the phrase was in use beforehand, its usage became official after the Council of Ephesus in 431. It appears that Nestorius, the archbishop of Constantinople, rejected the use of the title Theotokos due to what many believed was his rejection of Christ's divinity. Nestorius found himself involved in a debate involving the worldwide Church over the nature of Christ and the will of Christ. Specifically it was a question of how much of Jesus' nature was Divine and how much was human, alongside the question of which side ruled Christ's will, the human or Divine? Nestorius argued that Mary was the mother of Jesus' human nature and not his divine nature. Therefore he preferred the title "Christotokos" or Christ-bearer. In hindsight it appears that Nestorius was not an advocate of taking away Jesus' divinity but was merely reacting to popular teachings that arose from the church in Alexandria that seemingly robbed Jesus of much of his humanity. The Council of Ephesus found that Jesus was at all times fully human and fully Divine, even while in the womb of Mary. Nestorius was eventually ruled to be a heretic by the Church but he was accepted back by his followers in Persia (Iran) and Syria. They would break away from the greater church and form what was known as the Nestorians, the Syriac Churches or the Church of the East. The Alexandrian faction that Nestorius reacted to would also be anathematized as heretics and would return back to Egypt and form the Coptic and Oriental Orthodox Churches. Both of these rifts that split the Church would predate the Catholic/Orthodox Schism and the Protestant Reformation by a few centuries. The idea of Theotokos never tries to argue that Mary was the mother of God the Father or the Trinity in totality, Yet it does establish that Jesus is fully God. Its a confusing mystery but it is a mystery that is truth. Eventually the Catholic Church would come to reverse its ruling of the Syriacs (Nestorians) and Coptics being heretics, as they and the Eastern Orthodox would find common ground with the other two communions on the nature of Christ that was separated only by semantics and misunderstanding. These historically separate arms of the Church are now unified in their proclamation of Jesus' full Divinity that saves us, full humanity that died for us and one will that loved us.

 

That brings us back to Gabriel's message to Mary the Theotokos. In telling her that she would bear the eternal Messiah he was also telling her something about us as the Church of Christ. We may not bear the body of Christ in our wombs (especially me, since I am a man and possess no womb) but we do house the Spirit of God within our body. When the Holy Spirit came down on Pentecost to dwell in the believers. Like Jesus, the holy Spirit is fully God. As believers in Christ, that Holy Spirit that is fully God fully dwells in us. I have written the last few sentences carefully in preparation for the following statement: The Holy Spirit dwells in us individually, but He dwells within us more so corporately. When Scripture tells us that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, it is speaking of our individual bodies but when Scripture call us "The body of Christ" it is speaking of us corporately. God works within in us when we work together. We may have separate denominations, parties and factions in Christianity but God has called us to have one will...just like the Council of Ephesus taught that Christ had one will. As the Church, we are those who bear the Holy Spirit in our body. That body is the one, eternal kingdom that Gabriel told Mary that Jesus would rule over. Our one will must be His will... That we all might be one.


The Annunciation, Henry Ossawa Tanner

Impossible 

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?” And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.”

So that brings us to the story as told by the African American, Realist painter, Henry Ossawa Tanner. Tanner was the son of an AME (African Methodist Episcopal) preacher and his depiction of the Annunciation brings with it the treatment, questions and sensibilities of an American Protestant. True to the Realist tradition, Tanner attempts to honor the dignity of the peasant/working class by depicting Mary in her historical setting. She is depicted as a young maiden in a sparse room looking into the light of a mystery. There are no frills in the décor of the room and not much description in the depiction of the angel. But the truth of this image is where Mary's story meets our story.

Tanner's effort at historical fidelity in his pictorial depiction is due to his being a child of Modernity. This painting is not "Modern Art" but Tanner's mind is modern in that it is the product of centuries of thinking based upon Reason and research. These two aspects of Modernity are first widely expressed in the parallel movements of the Renaissance and Reformation. Protestantism is the child of the Church and Modernity. But it is not a line child. Science is the other child of Modernity. In our present day these half brothers in the mold of Isaac and Ishmael all too often play the role of Cain and Abel. We imagine them as always set in contention. All to often Protestantism (particularly the Evangelical and Fundamentalist brands of it) are at the vanguard of the this fight against Science. But that is when we don't tell the whole truth about Protestantism. We theologically conservative Protestants make a practice of ignoring the Liberal Protestant tradition. Though there are many problems in Liberal Protestantism, there are also many important questions that they bring to the table. The opposition between the two Protestant camps need not be a war to destroy each other but rather a competitive comradary to sharpen each other...to challenge one another to be better. We can learn from them to be open to questioning our traditions if thought and practice. They can learn from us to maintain a reverence for Scripture. It is not just about taking Scripture figuratively or literal, but it is about taking it seriously. Likewise we must take Science seriously, because all truth is God's truth. That is where our story converges with Mary's story in Scripture. That is where we meet Mary in Tanner's painting. Like her we are alone in a sparse room looking into the light of a mystery. It didn't take the advances of Modern Science for Mary to understand how babies are made. So she asks the angel how a virgin was to bear a child. Mary had a respect for what we call Science, making conclusions from observable facts. Yet it is because of our contemporary grasp of Scientific and technological advances that we may be able to understand virgin birth. Virgin birth is another way of saying that this child was produced without sex. This should not be as hard for us to imagine since we live in an age where many children are produced without sex occurring. Of course we still need a sperm and an egg to produce these children, but just like it it took someone before our time to imagine the possibility of sexless procreation as a possibility, we are challenged to imagine spermless procreation as a possibility. That is what this whole controversy is about: having possibilities. That is what God is: a being who has unlimited possibilities...or to put it the way Gabriel stated it "nothing is impossible for God." 

We are able to think in terms of these possibilities not in spite of Science, but rather because of the advances in Science. If we have attained these possibilities in time, then what would a Being who is timeless be able to achieve? Mary points us to Jesus. The same Jesus who gives us a picture of the future in the past. If we can start to trust what Jesus' story says about an alternative story to the beginning of life then what about his notions about an alternative to the end of life? Could we trust him when he says that there is no end of life but that he offers eternal life? What about his predictions about a future with peace and no war between men or conflict between species? Mary is symbolic of the symbolic of the Church. Mary was willing to live prophetically as a symbol of a new humanity on the horizon... a new creation. As the Church, the assembly of those who bear the Holy Spirit in our body, are we willing  to live this prophetic truth? It is the truth that we can use to shape a future that honors God and blessed our neighbors and enemies. It is a truth that us our future for nothing is impossible for God.


Madonna of humility by Domenico di Bartolo

Humility 
Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

The story of the Annunciation concludes with the image of the Madonna of humility . Like any depiction of the Madonna, this is a often repeated depiction of Mary. It is the Scriptural picture of Mary's willingness to be a servant. The artists depicts how the gaze, desire and life of Mary point to Jesus. This humble Jewish maiden has been exalted to the handmaiden of The Lord Almighty. That is the greatest lesson for us. Mary is symbolic of the Church. She is an example of a believer who has submitted their life and body as a tool for God. In reward for this service, God has given the highest reward: servanthood. Is that our contemporary aspirations? As the Church, those who bear the Holy Spirit in our body, do we aspire to serve God and serve others. Do we seek the unity of will with other diverse Christians as the body of Christ? Do we look for chances to continuously humble ourselves or do we look for opportunities to promote ourselves? Humility, service and selflessness is the greatest reward that God can give us and we can give back to God. That is what Mary symbolically preaches to the Church. That us how Mary points to Jesus. For it was with his humility, service and sacrifice that Jesus showed us what God looks like.