Inner Authority

I worked in my yard for a while yesterday, and before I knew it, I was pondering Mary’s “fiat”, her “yes”. And I’m still thinking about it this morning. I’ve wanted a “yes” as resolute as Mary’s for many years, but this morning it means more than “surrender”—more that “I’m your handmaiden—whatever you want”.

You know, I’ll never be a “virgin”, and I’ll never again have a special baby, but I really believe Mary’s story has to be mine for today, or it’s not part of a transformational gospel. Like Meister Eckhart said, not to belittle the birth of Jesus, but it doesn’t do us much good that Mary conceived the seed of God and gave birth to the Christ, unless I am able to conceive that seed and birth Christ for today. So, in light of all that…

What did it mean for a woman in Mary’s day to say “yes”? We think we live in a patriarchal age, but a lot of changes have taken place since Mary boldly spoke her “yes”. In her day, it was still believed that a woman couldn’t have a relationship with God without a man’s intervention. She had no authority on her own to say “yes”.

I was pretty impressed a couple of years ago when I found out that the Aramic word for “virgin” simply meant “without the intervention of a man”. Even to this day, many of us in our current patriarchal society are taught that the man is the head of the house, the spiritual leader, the final authority. Years ago, I felt God calling me in a definite direction, but my pastor disagreed with me. He tried to talk me out of it, and finally in desperation turned to my husband and said, “Jim, as Sheila’s spiritual authority, what do you think?” I was flabbergasted—and Jim was, too!

Women are still deemed unworthy and/or unsuitable for the priesthood or pastorate in many denominations, including my own—based on a male-biased interpretation of Scripture and the science and reasoning of 2000 years ago. We’re still spiritually relegating women to second class citizens, because of the words of our spiritual forefathers, like Thomas Aquinas who spoke of a woman’s need to be governed by others wiser than herself when he wrote: “by such a kind of subjection woman is naturally subject to man, because in man the discretion of reason predominates”. (Emphasis mine) And this is only one example of a patriarchal culture that continues to subordinate women as the “God-given order of the world.”

All that to say that Mary defied those boundaries when it came to having her own personal relationship with Love. She heard Love speak for itself, and she believed what she heard in her own heart, and she chose to act on what she heard and believed of her own volition. She didn’t wait to have what she heard and believed correctly interpreted for her, nor did she wait to have the male spiritual leader agree with her, giving her permission to continue that relationship.

In fact, when her “spiritual authority” questioned her hearing and her response, a Messenger was sent to tell him, “Listen up—Mary heard right, and what she said is true. Believe her.”

For Luke to even include the story of Mary’s encounter with God is a pretty big deal.

So that’s what I’ve been thinking of over the last couple of days. Mary led the way for us, not as a docile, quiet little dependant woman, but as a brave, bold “thinking- for-herself” kind of woman—unafraid, or maybe courageous. She believed in her own inner authority, and her story encourages me really desire to KNOW for myself. She gives me courage to do this journey MY way. And I’m grateful Luke told the story for women of today.