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Intersecting the stores of Hagar and Mary … expanding the immaculate conception

Submitted by: Delfin Bautista

Mary Visits Elizabeth: Luke 1: 39-45

In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth.  When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit  and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me?  For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy.  And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’

 

Genesis 16.7-16

The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, ‘Hagar, slave-girl of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?’ She said, ‘I am running away from my mistress Sarai.’ The angel of the Lord said to her, ‘Return to your mistress, and submit to her.’ The angel of the Lord also said to her, ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude.’ And the angel of the Lord said to her,

‘Now you have conceived and shall bear a son; you shall call him Ishmael,for the Lord has given heed to your affliction. He shall be a wild ass of a man, with his hand against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; and he shall live at odds with all his kin.’

So she named the Lord who spoke to her, ‘You are El-roi’;* for she said, ‘Have I really seen God and remained alive after seeing him?’* Therefore the well was called Beerlahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. Hagar bore Abram a son; and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

 

Genesis 21: 8-21 

The child grew, and was weaned; and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac.  So she said to Abraham, ‘Cast out this slave woman with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac.’ The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, ‘Do not be distressed because of the boy and because of your slave woman; whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named after you.  As for the son of the slave woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered about in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.

 

When the water in the skin was gone, she cast the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot; for she said, ‘Do not let me look on the death of the child.’ And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, ‘What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make a great nation of him.’ Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.

 

God was with the boy, and he grew up; he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran; and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

 

 

 

 

 

I would like to start off with a short selection from Alice Walker's The Color Purple …  

 

CELIE: God forgot about me!

 

SHUG: God takin' his time getting around to you, I admit, but look at all he give us. Laughin', and singin', and sex. Sky over our heads, birds singin' to us. I think it piss God off if anybody even walk past the color purple in a field and not notice it. He say,"look what I made for you."  

 

I use the story to engage the stories of today's bible passages …  

The story of Mary and the story of Hagar …  

2 women who transgressed borders

2 women called to be mothers but not limited to motherhood.

One has been exulted and divinized,

The other has been forgotten and ignored …

It is their stories that we will look at today to

Wrestle and grapple with the church's teaching on the immaculate conception.  

 

Llena de gracia…full of grace  

 

Catholics around the world accept the teaching of the Immaculate Conception.

However, what does it actually mean?

In 1854, Pope Pius IX stated:

"The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin."  

What does it mean that Mary was preserved from sin?

It is the belief that because of her unique mission,

Mary was conceived immaculately in her mother's womb

So that sin would not pass on to her child, Jesus, who as son of GOD is free of sin.

It was a common belief in Israel

that the sins of the parent were passed onto the child.

If Jesus was to be free of sin,

His mother would also have to be free from sin.

 

My queries are…

where does the cycle end…if sin is passed from

generation to generation, was Mary's mother, Anne, also free from sin?

How far back does the immaculate lineage have to go?

If Mary was not marked by sin, did she really have a choice ...

would she come down with sinfulness if she had said no? 

By focusing on conception for future conception,

have we limited, distorted, and reduced Mary

and by extension Hagar and all women

to worth based on biological breeding?

 

This feast and dogma has wider implications than explaining

that Mary was a suitable receptacle for a son--

it impacts how the church treats women and their bodies. 

It is a source of much division among Christians …

with some believing that women should be subservient to their husbands as baby factories

(those who cannot are defective machinery)

while others affirm the right of women to be ordained and preach.

It is dogmas like the Immaculate Conception

That lead to confusion and misunderstanding about Mary

And I believe a neglect of women like Hagar,

we coerce their womanhood into mindless biological assembly lines. 

It is this theological marginalization that we need to address

So that we can proclaim all as being

Llena de gracia, full of grace.

 

In this place,

I invite us to relook at what it means to be la Imaculada Concepcion…

To be conceived immaculately.  

 

In proclaiming Mary as the Immaculate Conception,

We are also proclaiming

our own immaculate conception as children of GOD.

The feast is not about Maria as an exception to the rule,

But a celebration of who we are and who we will become.

We are all conceived immaculately,

each of us is llena de gracia, full of grace

 

If we look to Genesis,

We are told that we are created in GOD's image

And that creation is good.

From the beginning we are holy, we are perfect.

Regardless of the goofs up that we may do upon entering the world,

Regardless of the run ins with the Sarah's of the world who

reject us and castigate us for being different,

We are good, we are llena de gracia.

Past all the mistakes and oopses,

Past all the things we coulda woulda shoulda,

We are good, we are llena de gracia.  

 

Hagar, like Maria after her,

Is called to be a mother.

What does this calling mean?

What about those of us who cannot conceive children?

Are we less filled with grace?

No … regardless of our capacity or ability or willingness to

Give birth biologically …  

We are all called to give birth to the divine

in our actions, words, and deeds …

We are called to give birth through our vocations and callings.

We too have been entrusted with baring GOD to the world.

GOD has consecrated and created us with a mission

from the time of our birth.

The prophet Jeremiah tells us that

'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,

and before you were born I consecrated you;

I appointed you a prophet to the nations."

We are all llena de gracia.

 

 

 

 

As the Psalmist proclaims,

"For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother's womb."  

Regardless of the defects that society says we have

or how denominations may tell us that we are unworthy

for being a woman, black, or transgender,

or when we are looked down upon for standing in solidarity with the oppressed,

may we hold unto, remember, embrace

that we are created, conceived and consecrated

as good, as holy, as llena de gracia.

No one can take that away… We are Llena de gracia, full of grace.  

 

Like our foremothers Hagar and Mary,

we all have a purpose and personal vocation.

It is a calling that we will learn to live out,

That we will grow into,

That will be revealed to us

Through out our lives,

Perhaps with angelic visits in the deserts of life,

Moments of prayer in chapel,

Proclamations received through loved ones.  

We are not just born and that's it …

No, no,

GOD has a special something for all of us to accomplish.

Mother Teresa is humorously quoted as having said,

"GOD as entrusted me with a specific amount of things to accomplish in this life, I am so far behind in my work, I will never die."

If we look to all the births that were announced in Scriptures,

Isaac, Ishmael, Samuel, John, Jesus…

The child born always had special vocation to live out.

This is not limited to Biblical figures,

All of us come into this world with a special calling to live out,

To be the change, holiness, and love GOD wants in this world.

There is no right or better calling or right or better way to express it...

it is expressed through a marian enthusiastic yes and

through hagarian righteous anger.

Immaculate conception does not mean we are passive and submissive,

but like Hagar and Mary we embody spiciness and chutzpah to care for those who are sacred to us. 

The call to motherhood is not about breeding like rabbits or

limited to female bodied individuals,

we are called to be fruitful through the evolving multiplication of our abilities

to listen, cook, design buildings, theologize, preach, and

understand how the physiological makeup of fungus has implications for sexual ethics. 

By expanding our understanding of the immaculate conception,

By honoring both Hagar and Mary,

We celebrate the prophets and disciples we are all called to be,

Of who we are now on our journeys of faith and

who we will become in the desert.

We are llena de gracia, full of grace,  

 

In our callings to be

hospital chaplains, professors, Parents, immigrant rights activists, 

reproductive health advocates,

parish priests, youth ministers…all of the above, none of the above…

in our calling to be human,

we are full of grace, llena de gracia.

 

In the chaotic joy of living into our multiple callings,

We must remember, hold onto, internalize, and put on a post it

That we are not forgotten by GOD as Celie lements in the color purple,

We are not abandoned or sent alone.

We must old onto Shug's reminder of how GOD provides through

laughter, singing, and sex. 

GOD does not forget about us for GOD is with us,

Just like GOD came to Hagar in the desert twice,

meeting her where she was …

Just like GOD was with Mary at the foot of the cross …

Just like the names Emmanuel and Ishmael ...

GOD with us and GOD listens ... 

GOD is always there and is always here

We may not feel it or believe it in our moments

Of grief, confusion, depression, chaos ... when anger causes us to flee from the world into deserts of despair.

In our earthquakes and hurricanes and pervasive brokenness…

In our desolation for being rejected for fulfilling a task given to us--

GOD is there, GOD is here…

Through a friend, through an email, through a butterfly,

through an angel who tells us we will be cared for, despite our belief.

GOD is there and GOD is here…

through the fact that we manage to get up and

face the desert despite our exhaustion.

GOD is there, GOD is here, for we are llena de gracia and full of grace.  

 

The womb is not only the biological

Construct that nurtures us while in our mama's belly,

But the places that hold, nurture, and prepare us

for the adventure of GOD's calling to be profetas of la lucha.

It is our homes, our families, our church communities,

our friends, our schools…it is the desert that Hagar fled to with Ishmael,

and the smelly cave Mary gave birth to Jesus in.

Our wombs and deserts are places like Lewisville, TX and Jewett City, CT

Our wombs and deserts are schools like Greensboro College,

Western Connecticut State University, and the University of North Carolina.

We are all being formed in the womb and desert that is YDS,

With all its enlightenment and snarkiness.

We are being knit together, being consecrated,

Being deconstructed to be reconstructed,

Being filled with grace through

classes, worship, role plays, exegesis papers, homilectical exercises, Friday Fellowship…

through our run ins with Bart and Rahner,

headaches caused by historical critical interpretations of the Bible,

wonderings of what is meant by the fantastic hegemonic imagination,

anxiety over resumes for phd applications and job postings,

and, yes, even in our frustrations with the content or lack there of

of Ministerial Misconduct.

The birthing pains and joys, heat and sweat of YDS

helps us to fulfill the evolving and radical call that GOD has entrusted us.

It is this desert and womb that allows us to recoop like Hagar

to find new direction and consider the unconsidered.

It is this desert and womb that allows us to question unjust systems

and allows us to be like Mary and Hagar who sought justice

rather than comfort.

We are reminded and re-membered that

We are full of grace, llena de gracia.  

 

In this time of Lent as we prepare to celebrate

the Paschal mysteries of our faith,

May we remember our own births,

How we were divinely knit,

How we are lovingly woven together with purpose.

Though this homilitecal engagement is perhaps heretical

and not what the good ol' boys in Rome had in mind,

I like Mary and Hagar will not sit and wait,

but will be counter-cultural and provide a counter narrative--

we are the immaculate conception.

We cannot let the sarahs, churches, schools, ideologies

take away that we are immaculately conceived

with sacred and sassy chutzpath!

We too are good, we too are consecrated with purpose,

we too are llena de gracia, full of grace.

Amen!