I am lucky. Very lucky.
I have done a number of pregnancy tests in my time and every time I did one
and stood waiting,
waiting and willing the two blue lines to appear
I knew that I was in a position to be able to emotionally
and physically and spiritually care for a baby,
if I was indeed pregnant.
If the test was positive.

Not every young woman is so lucky.
Certainly not Mary.
 No, not our little girl from the Middle East.
Our little girl from O so long ago.
No.

Mary is completely without support
and for her
the impact of the angels message must have been truly ground swallowing.
When writing of the annunciation theologian Jill Edens says:
News of any pregnancy is an unsettling, life-changing event.
Hold a newborn, and all of a sudden,
you experience cars and parking lots differently
and as children grow the world seems edged
with ledges and corners and sharp objects.

In the unfolding of everyday life, pregnant women know what it means to bear another in our bodies – and know too what it is to be overshadowed by a new life that will not only change our lives
but for whom we would be willing to change the world. 
But this overshadowing with new life is not just something which occurs in pregnant women.
Indeed as Meister Eckhart, the medieval mystic once wrote:
“We are all meant to be Theotokos,
or in other words, we are all meant to be, mothers of God.”
Now to be pregnant with a little human is unsettling enough,
but to be pregnant with God is truly life changing.
But if we take seriously the words of Christ when he said that the
‘kingdom of God is within you and you and you’
then we have to take seriously the possibility that we,
along with Mary,
are called to be the carriers of God out into the world.

And that we,
like Mary are called to ponder in our hearts
and then to run out with joy to our cousins and to our community
and share with them
the wonderous news that we have new life within us,
new life that can:
‘scatter the proud in the thoughts of their hearts,
new life that can: bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly; new life that can fill the hungry with good things.’
So how often do we do this?

How often do we run out into our communitys and tell them about the God who is being born within us?
Not very often? Maybe never?
What stops us from sharing this news?
What stops us from sharing our faith?
Is it fear, perhaps, of ridicule?
Fear that we may be mocked?
Fear that we know too little about this mysterious god who grows within us
to be able to articulate to another
even a glimpse of the wonder that we feel inside?

Fear in this climate of rationalism and growing athesism
that we may appear hoplessly out of step with the rest of our world?
Fear that what we feel about God is not ‘right’ enough or ‘profound’ enough
or ‘holy’ enough?
Meister Eckhart also said: What good is it if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not take place within myself?
And, what good is it if Mary is full of grace and I am not also full of grace? 
What good is it for the Creator to give birth to the Son
if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture?
What good indeed.

Mary received news that God was to be born within her.
She pondered this and then she ran forth to share with her cousin
this startling news.

When you came in this morning you were given a little image of Mary.
I’d like to invite you to use this little image as a starting place to ponder upon
your own role as a theocratis- a god bearer.
Does the Mary in your picture appear anxious
or serene
or thoughtful
or calm?
Do you feel any of these emotions when you ponder your own relationship with the Spirit?
What’s your Mary looking at?
Another person?
An internal space?
Something a long, long way a way?
What do you see when you attempt to envision God?
Be as Mary, ponder awhile
and then
when you hear the bowl ring out
I am going to invite you to rise up
and to do as this brave young woman from over 2000 years ago did
Rise up, go forth and then sit down somewhere new
and share with another a little of how it feels to you
right now to be a bearer of God.



This morning I am going to invite you into a time of pondering
and then a time of going forth.
This going forth will require courage.
It will require you to say as Mary said so long ago.
Yes. It will require you to be a little bit vulnerable, a little bit brave
When you came in this morning you were given different little images of Mary
 

To accept the angel’s message, Mary had to embrace a deep displacement in life.  “How can this be?” she asks.  She

One can hardly imagine a more intrusive demand from God than the one to which Mary responds, “Here am I, ser-
vant of the Lord: let it be with me according to your word.”  And, she cannot know how much intimacy with God
will cost.  This gospel confronts us and requires us to get close to a God who calls us to bear him in our bodies and
with our lives.
 
 
Like the unwed mother, when we invite Christ into our lives, we cannot hide it from the world anymore than his
mother could forever camouflage her swelling belly.  Christ will reshape us, displacing our old lives for the new
creation.  O’Connor is right, our friends and loved ones will soon learn that we are not in step with them but are in
the business of fomenting a great displacement where the first will be last, and the last will be first. 
 
Luke knew this.  Luke preached this sermon to a congregation of converts whom he knew would be isolated by this
vision of ministry.  And so he tells a story about what will happen when they, like Mary, become Theotokos, God
bearers in the world.  “See?”  He seems to say.  This is how it is when Jesus is born in you.  Good pastor that he is,
Luke worries about his flock. How can he prepare them for what will happen when they let Jesus in?  When they
join up with those who are smuggling God into the world in their bodies?  There will be exile from friends and fam-
ily who do not share this vision, and there will be rejection just as Elizabeth O’Connor describes it. 
 
If this story is just a nice tale about Mary, then we are the most to be pitied, and the world is without hope because
Mary has served her term and has gone on to her reward.  But if this story is about you and me and what happens
when Jesus starts to grow in us, then we wonder if these bodies are expansive enough to bear such a hope. 
 
Meister Eckhart, a medieval mystic and theologian, wrote, “We are all meant to be [Theotokos], mothers of
God.  What good is it to me,” he said, “if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly, but does not
take place within myself?  And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace and I am not also full of grace? 
What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my cul-
ture?  This, then is the fullness of time: when the Son of God is begotten in us.” 
You now bear the hope of the world in your bodies.  You are the ones who will bear him into the future, old and
young, fertile and barren.  In the unlikeliest of containers God has seeded hope for the lowly, justice for the down-
trodden, and new life for the sinner. Why?  Because with God, nothing is impossible.