Overcoming fear with Mary of Nazareth: Women’s experience alongside Luke 1:26–56

Introduction

The faithful often remember Mary of Nazareth as the picture of meek submission—a static character embodying a virginal innocence and quiet holiness that are unattainable and “unapproachable,” as Thérèse writes. This picture is, at best, not very useful, and at worst, destructive for women who have been given the message that Mary’s submission to God is a model for womanly submission to men.

Luke’s portrayal of Mary of Nazareth, however, is far from the untouchable, ever-obedient and unmoved Mary of our collective imagination. In Luke’s gospel, Mary is dynamic. Her narrative has movement and purpose that is identifiable and relatable. I want to spend some time reflecting on the Lukan Mary as she grapples with and grows into her God-given calling, living by faith just like ourselves. While not exactly a sermon, I hope this expository reflection will do some good by making Mary more approachable.

Her story is relevant for all believers. Luke’s gospel portrays Mary as a true and even ideal disciple who hears and believes God’s word. ² Even so, Mary’s experience in the first chapter of Luke parallels the experience of women particularly. It is “the Mary of the gospels, on whose lips is placed the Magnificat … who is seen as a colleague, reference point, and symbol by women from around the world who are discovering that they have their own identity and a mission in society and church.” ³

A threefold progression emerges in Mary’s narrative that is intimately familiar to and relevant for women in the church today: (i) the experience of fear, isolation, and uncertainty in her calling; (ii) the discovery of solidarity and collaboration in community with other women; and (iii) bold proclamation from a position of marginality. By lingering with these significant moments in Mary’s life (ones that are often overlooked or rushed through on the way to the Nativity), we find her to be in close proximity to our own dealings with gender and fear in the present.

The Annunciation: Calling in the face of fear and isolation

The woman we often imagine as a one-note character—steadfast, mild, reliably quiet, submissive, and unmoved—comes onto the scene in Luke’s gospel in deep fear, and for good reason. The angel, Gabriel, whose appearance terrified (ταράσσω) the older male priest, Zechariah, earlier in Luke’s narrative, now really terrifies (διαταράσσω) the young, unmarried Mary: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” ⁴

Many English translations downplay Mary’s fear, perhaps in an attempt (conscious or otherwise) to contain her character in the docile, subdued, unemotional mold that centuries of church history have forced upon her. The image of an amusingly confused but reflective young woman, quietly wondering to herself, springs forth from the NRSV translation: “But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be” (1:29). The verb ταράσσω was previously translated “terrified” when Zechariah was the subject (1:12), but when the intensified version, διαταράσσω, is used for Mary, she is merely “perplexed” (1:29). While a male character in one of Jesus’ parables “thinks” ⁵ or “reasons” ⁶ (διαλογίζομαι), and the scribes and Pharisees actively “question” ⁷ or “reason” ⁸ (διαλογίζομαι), the same term is translated “pondered” ⁹ when Mary is the subject. This is misleading. Mary is not just a bit unsettled as she contemplatively reflects upon the angel’s entrance. She is terrified through and through, and she immediately starts reasoning, thinking, and questioning her experience.

If we miss the fear in Mary’s reaction, the angel’s response, “Do not fear, Mary!” (1:30), spells it out for us. Despite the angelic imperative, Mary’s fear and reasoning continue even as she hears and consents to her calling from God to bear the Son of the Most High who will reign on the throne of David. Mary sets the grand political claims aside for a moment as she questions the logistics: “How will this be, since I am not sleeping with a man?” (1:34). This is not only a question of bodily possibilities, but cultural customs and laws regarding unwed mothers. Her question is “a word of alarm and perhaps also of protest.” ¹⁰ The angel, Gabriel, responds by declaring that nothing is impossible for God, who will empower Mary and be present with her. He offers, as a sign, the news that Mary’s formerly barren relative, Elizabeth, is now in her sixth month of pregnancy.

At this, Mary gives her consent, “I am the Lord’s slave; let it be with me according to your word” (1:38), and then sets out “with haste” (μετὰ σπουδῆς) to see Elizabeth. This phrase “with haste” (μετὰ σπουδῆς) calls to mind not excitement or eagerness, but rather “overtones of terror, alarm, flight, and anxiety.” ¹¹ In the Greek translation of Exodus, for example, the people readying for flight from Egypt are told to eat the Passover lamb μετὰ σπουδῆς. ¹²

Why is Mary afraid? For one thing, her experience is not only the annunciation of a pregnancy. It bears the hallmark traits of a personal call narrative. ¹³ Mary’s call is reminiscent of God’s commissioning of warriors, prophets, and leaders of Israel. Alongside the likes of Moses, Gideon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, Mary experiences a divine encounter (“[the angel] came to her”), fear (“she was terrified/distressed/troubled by his words”), commissioning (“you will conceive and bear in your womb”), objection (“How can this be?”), assurance (“the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the most high will overshadow you”), and sign (“your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son”), and she consents (“Let it be with me according to your word”).

Her words of consent, “I am the Lord’s slave. Let it be with me according to your word,” have been misused as a model for women’s passive submission to a male authority; however, in the Old Testament, “the slave of the Lord” is a prophetic designation. ¹⁴ Womanist theologian, Diana Hayes, calls Mary’s consent an act of “courageous and outrageous authority … a prophetic ‘yes’ to God, standing alone yet empowered.” ¹⁵ The angel’s assurance that God will “come upon” and “overshadow” her emphasize not necessarily the mode of conception, but more likely God’s empowerment of and presence with Mary as she goes forward in her calling. As the Holy Spirit “comes upon” the disciples in Acts 1:8 to empower them and send them out as witnesses, as God “overshadows” the mount of transfiguration in all three synoptic gospels, so God “comes upon” and “overshadows” Mary. Alongside Mary’s commissioning to bear a child is her calling as a prophet, and this is terrifying.

The fear that any newly commissioned prophet experienced was magnified for Mary by her place as a young woman in a patriarchal society. As a woman, she had no power and was not considered a reliable witness, so being pregnant outside of marriage would put her in an incredibly vulnerable position. She would be at the mercy of the men around her for protection as the people of Nazareth assumed her conception was through fornication or rape—things that carried great shame in Mary’s culture, as well as our own. When Mary later speaks of God looking upon her ταπείνωσις, her “humiliation” ¹⁶ in 1:48, this must be at least part of what she’s referring to.

She is young. She is a woman. She is still betrothed. She does not seem like the right person for the job. The task before her will be difficult and humiliating. Mary has much to fear. Why is it important to realize that Mary’s story begins in fear? Because if she is the ideal disciple who provides a model for us all, it is important to know that she started where women often find themselves: with anxiety in the face of disbelief and accusations of sinfulness, questions regarding how God’s call on their lives will be possible, and fear of their own inadequacy. Far from modeling an easy, blind, and immediate submission, Mary thinks and reasons about her calling, and she answers God’s call in the midst of her fear.

The Visitation: Women’s collaboration and empowerment

We do not know how long Mary held the angel’s message alone. Unfortunately, this kind of isolation is a norm many women learn to live with. As isolated as Mary was during and after the visit from Gabriel, the sign that God gave her (a sign in which women continue to find hope and empowerment today) was that she was not alone. Her relative, Elizabeth, who had been barren for years and was “advanced in days” (1:7), was also unexpectedly and impossibly pregnant. In her fear, Mary set out to see Elizabeth, hoping for confirmation of the angel’s words and for a chance to find someone who might believe her story.

When Mary arrives at Elizabeth’s doorstep, we encounter a rare biblical moment dominated by women who speak to each other. Elizabeth’s husband, Zechariah, had been struck mute when he disbelieved that his wife would bear a child (1:20–22), and now he is nowhere to be found. In contrast to the noticeable absence and silence of men in this scene, Elizabeth’s female presence is described in vivid bodily terms (“the child leaped in her womb”), and she speaks loudly and with exultation upon Mary’s entrance. The women encounter one another on their own terms, and in their own domestic space. Before Mary can utter a word of explanation for her visit, Elizabeth (along with the bouncing baby John) interrupts. Mary is not asked to explain herself, but is seen and valued in her calling immediately.

Despite their differences in age, location, and life experience, Mary and Elizabeth understand and believe each other. Both women were the recipients of seemingly ill-timed commissions from God. Elizabeth’s pregnancy seemed as ridiculously late as Mary’s seemed shamefully early. Elizabeth was secluded for most of her pregnancy (1:24) and Mary’s pregnancy was likely not yet revealed. At the point of their meeting, “Each needed to talk with another woman who knew what it meant to grapple with God’s intentions.” ¹⁷ It is in this space of vulnerability and trust that the Spirit enables both women, and they embolden one another to speak.

Elizabeth speaks first with a triple blessing—of Mary herself (“Blessed are you among women”), then Mary’s child (“and blessed is the fruit of your womb”), and finally Mary’s faith (“blessed is she who believed”). Her words validate and celebrate Mary, who begins to believe what Elizabeth declares. In what seems like an impossible situation, she is blessed. Elizabeth gives Mary words—words that Mary will pick up and claim for herself later in her own prophetic speech (“all generations will consider me blessed”).

Elizabeth’s blessing roots Mary firmly in “the long heritage of women whose creative action, undertaken in the power of the Spirit, brings liberation in God’s name” ¹⁸ alongside the likes of Jael, whom Deborah declares to be “most blessed of women” (Judg 5:24), and Judith, whom Uzziah calls “blessed above all other women on the earth” (Jdt 13:18). These are not mild-mannered, submissive women. These are warriors.

In the midst of her blessing, Elizabeth makes an astonishing Christological confession (the first in Luke’s gospel) as she refers to the embryonic Jesus as Lord: “Why has this happened to me? That the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (1:43). She simultaneously connects Mary to what God has done throughout Israel’s history and affirms something radically new that God is doing in and through Mary. Elizabeth’s brief, Spirit-inspired speech is fraught with implicit political and religious claims, and she creates a space in which Mary’s own prophetic voice can blossom.

This meeting is not a giddy baby shower. Rather it is what Tina Pippin calls a politics of meeting—a “‘politically’ charged encounter with dangerous ethical implications for men and women in the first and the twenty-first centuries.” ¹⁹ The relationship between Mary and Elizabeth is a model of women’s empowerment and solidarity outside of patriarchal structures. In their world and in ours, where women’s truthfulness is regularly called into question, the Holy Spirit helps women see and validate each other. This is no less transformative for women today than it was for Mary of Nazareth. The mass courage of women speaking out against sexual assault in the #metoo campaign by telling their own stories, believing each other, and joining together to disrupt patriarchal norms that attempt to keep them silent provides one example.

In my own experience, a small group of women friends who deemed ourselves the “Strong Women” (a title none of us would have claimed for ourselves, but that together, we were able to claim for each other) has played a transformational role in my life and calling. Like Elizabeth and Mary, we have heard and believed each other, helped interpret God’s word for each other, and called each other “blessed” and “strong” until we believed it about ourselves and were able to live into our God-given identities and callings in new and unexpected ways. ²⁰

Women have the unique potential and ability to dispel fear and call out the prophet in each other. This validation of women by women provides a significant counter-witness to a culture that thrives on domination, competition, and limited power. When women lift each other up, we create a space for each other that disrupts patriarchal norms of a competitive culture. “The power of women’s solidarity is a power that increases when it is shared. The recognition that one is not alone, that women working together can accomplish what one woman cannot, is a strengthening experience.” ²¹ How might Mary and Elizabeth’s politics of meeting both judge and transform a politics of abuse and fear?

The Magnificat: The reversal of fear

Through her relationship with Elizabeth, Mary moves from fear to empowerment and embraces her prophetic call. She claims the identity Elizabeth affirms for her as “blessed,” and sings a song of liberation in the tradition of her foremothers, Miriam, Deborah, and Hannah.

She praises God, because God has looked upon, God has seen, her humiliation (ταπείνωσις, 1:48). This term goes beyond the “lowliness” and “spiritual unworthiness” that are often read into translations of the song. ²² Mary’s humiliation could refer generally to her social position, as a young female in a people group that was ruled and exploited by a foreign power. Exploitation and oppression of those on the lower rungs of society are certainly in view given the content of Mary’s song. When used in the LXX in reference to women, ταπεινόω refers specifically to the sexual humiliation of women on multiple occasions, as in the rapes of Dinah (Gen 34), Tamar (2 Kgs 13) the Levite’s concubine (Judg 19–20), and the women in Zion and Judah (Lam 5). Mary’s pregnancy would have looked to those around her like the result of this kind of humiliation. As an unwed mother, the assumptions and cultural consequences she was subject to would have likely been the same. Mary’s fear and the dangerous position her pregnancy placed her in are specific to women’s experience of being overpowered, humiliated, and shamed by men, whether in the legal system, religious life, or in their own bodies, and “[t]he Magnificat voices the dream of a time when women have no more fear of sexual humiliation by men who overpower them or of rape being used as a weapon of war.” ²³ Her experience of being favored and lifted up by God carries forward to all women who are silenced, shamed, and oppressed.

Mary finds her place and voice among other women subject to the abuses and distrust of men, and she recognizes and draws power to speak from this position of marginality. By embracing this position instead of being silenced by it, she is no longer bound in fear by the structures of power that oppress her. She is free to speak against them. Such is the dangerous role of the prophet. Susan Ross writes of the power of marginality, “The marginal voice of women is a critical voice that seeks to expose abuses of power and from this marginal position draws its strength.” ²⁴ It entails a “freedom from ties to structure” in which women “are free to develop new ways of being, alone and in community, that are not determined by those at the center.” ²⁵ When Mary owns her position of marginality, her humiliation, she is able to unleash a prophetic critique and condemnation of those who wield power, as well as a radical vision of a new order in the world in which the humiliated, like her, are lifted up.

Mary’s paradoxical identity as both humiliated and blessed prompts her to speak with power on her own behalf and on behalf of all those who are marginalized and oppressed. As is often the case with marginalized people in the present, the injustice she experiences attunes her to the injustice experienced by others. What Mary praises God for doing for her personally soon expands to all the poor and humiliated of the world, whom God lifts up, fills with good things, helps, and remembers (1:52–54). Mary’s song is intersectional and demands that her hearer’s search for justice be so, as well. Her prophetic song goes beyond the joyful exaltation of the oppressed to declare a radical social reversal in which those responsible for oppression are themselves humiliated: the proud are scattered, the powerful brought down, the rich sent away hungry (1:51–53).

Mary’s song is not a sweet praise song or lullaby, but “a hard-hitting proclamation of a God who overturns the common order of society.” ²⁶ Her prophetic and politically charged words represent a threat to those in power then and now—so much so that in the 1980s, the Guatemalan government attempted to ban public recitation of the Magnificat for a time. ²⁷ Mary’s subversive agenda was apparently passed down to her son, who later in Luke’s gospel carries on his mother’s prophetic work of pronouncing blessings on the poor, telling the hungry they will be filled, and pronouncing woes on the rich and powerful (5:20–26).

The first chapter of Luke depicts the transformation of a young woman whose story began in deep fear into a fear-inducing prophet. God’s upending of the social order, of power, wealth, and strength, is paralleled and embodied in the reversal of fear in her own experience. In the context of Mary’s narrative, one powerful effect of her song is the upending of powers that govern female fear, and that are themselves based on the fear or avoidance of the claims of women. The silencing and distrust of women like Mary, and like you and me, is rooted in fear of women’s truth and the exposure of male violence. Abusers deny, belittle, and devalue women’s voices for fear of the truth coming out.

The Magnificat is an invitation for women to recognize that female fear is itself a product of the sexist powers that have everything at stake in keeping women isolated and quiet. There is a reason that men might fear women’s calling and empowerment: as in Mary’s narrative, women’s collaboration with the Holy Spirit and with other women emboldens them to speak a truth that condemns the patriarchal systems of power that men have historically worked to keep in place at all costs. Women’s truth-telling is dangerous for the powers that be, and Mary invites all women to participate in the condemnation and upending of these powers. The invitation for men is to participate in the social revolution Mary announces by being willing to acknowledge the content of Mary’s judgment—by practicing listening to and learning from women’s experience and truth.

Conclusion: Nevertheless, she preached

In place of a typical conclusion, I would like to tell a story of the movement from fear to empowerment by women in the contemporary church that occurred through the grassroots Nevertheless, She Preached conference in Waco, Texas in September 2017.

The conference came about because of the fear and isolation of two Baptist women pastors: myself, and my fellow Strong Woman, Kyndall Rothaus. As women in a field dominated by men and marked by sexual predation (see the #churchtoo movement for an astounding number of examples), we saw and felt a need for support that was not being met by our institutions and networks.

We both attended a seminary that prides itself on its support for women in ministry, but in which we had never had the opportunity to take a preaching class taught by a woman. We watched as our called and gifted female colleagues graduated without pastoral opportunities and moved into other fields or denominations. In the real world of ecclesial life, the theological and scriptural support of our institutions was unfulfilled, or conditionally based on our ability to be good denominational daughters in a context where women are not equally valued or heard.

Emboldened by the truth we recognized in each other, Kyndall and I decided that if we could not find the support we needed in our institutions, we would create it for ourselves. We began with dreams of a rally where women’s preaching would be celebrated, unquestioned, and unapologetic. After consulting with several other women pastors, we decided to name the event Nevertheless, She Preached. The “rally” soon morphed into a two-day conference with nine featured speakers, three workshop leaders, and a concert. From the women who recognized its importance and dropped everything to fit the event into their speaking/teaching schedules ²⁸ and the hundreds of people who made donations and bought t-shirts to support the event (we raised over $20,000 over the course of about 2 months—enough to cover all conference expenses and to give us a good start on fundraising for a second event in 2018), to the plethora of eager volunteers and the over 200 attendees, the primary message we received was that this event was much more needed and longed for than we could have imagined.

Those three words, “Nevertheless, She Preached,” tell the story of every woman preacher ever. In a field dominated by male power, women came together in a kind of politics of meeting to tell their stories, to say to each other, “You are called, you are blessed,” to call out the prophet in each other. Across denominations, races, gender-identities, and sexual orientations, the common experience of womanhood transcended our difference. The importance and uniqueness of a space that lifted up all women’s voices without apology or hesitation was palpable, and the grassroots nature of the event allowed us to create that space without being beholden to big donors or institutional demands. Owning our marginality empowered us to create a new way of supporting each other, bypassing traditional patriarchal structures. God gave us the same sign given to Mary: that we are not alone.

This kind of solidarity—experiencing a group of women who assume your truthfulness, grant you authority as a preacher, and acknowledge and condemn together with one loud voice the destructive powers of patriarchy, abuse, and sexism—is transformational. Women emerged from each other’s presence emboldened, embracing our God-given identities and callings, and empowered, like Mary, to go about our work of turning the world upside down. Many men, while noticeably absent from leadership and speaking roles, participated in support roles and by watching and listening to the experience of women. One male participant called the opening worship service “one of the most evangelical, good-news-filled worship experiences I have experienced in years.” ²⁹ The power of women’s solidarity and truth-telling has the potential to transform the lives of men, as well, if they are willing to acknowledge the content of women’s claims as valid and learn from them.

While many denominations have supposedly accepted and affirmed women’s leadership in the church, this does not mean that sexism has gone away or that the context of fear and manipulation that women must navigate has suddenly evaporated. The need for meeting and creating space for women outside traditional structures is crucial for women’s prophetic witness to both the church and the world.

Mary’s Magnificat was not spoken in the halls of political or religious power, but by an ordinary woman in an ordinary place. When we remember Mary rightly, and not in the way that best serves men by picturing her as meek, mild, submissive, and subservient, she provides a model and embodiment of the progression from fear to solidarity to bold proclamation that all women can identify with and be empowered by. Mary’s story is our story. Alongside Mary, we can accept God’s calling despite our fear, empower and be empowered by other women, and unleash truth that strikes fear into the hearts of the powerful.