Reality Check”

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55
Advent 4
December 18, 2011

Last month I referenced a CBS reality show called Undercover Boss. Now I’m not a huge fan of reality shows, but there is one yet to air that has captured my attention, and you should be curious about it too. “Buck Wild,” which will air in a few months, was filmed here in West Virginia. An MTV press release says the program will “follow the colorful antics of a group of friends just out of high school in rural West Virginia.” And while West Virginia welcomed the production to come to the state and film it, they weren’t so accommodating when it came to giving the production a break on the taxes they had to pay to the state.

Apparently, WV can award up to $10 million in tax credits annually to film and TV productions that apply on a first come first serve basis. But there is a list of criteria that crews have to adhere to such as, they have to spend a minimum of $25,000 in the state, it can’t be a game show, and other things.

But apparently Buck Wild didn’t meet the criteria. Specifics haven’t been given why the tax credits weren’t awarded, but there are three criteria that automatically disqualify it: pornography, sexual situations involving minors, and the portrayal of West Virginia in a derogatory manner. Which if I was a bettin’ woman as they say, that last one—about portraying WV in a derogatory manner—was probably high up on the list.

Former Marshall University football player Ashley McNeely was one of the people the show followed. And he isn’t convinced of how good this show will make WV look. He said “They showed me as the most hickish, redneck they could. How they edited the show made me the dumbest…person there was. All these reality shows are about drama, getting drunk and partying. I don’t see how in any way shape or form [this] could have a good spin on West Virginia.”

The “reality” in “reality TV” is a funny adjective if you ask me. The “reality” they create is, as McNeely said, what is edited out and what is kept in. Just ask the Italian American communities in New Jersey how they feel about the reality show “Jersey Shore” and how it really portrays the lives of Italian Americans. Fighting Italians and redneck West Virginians aren’t reality. They’re stereotypes.

The truth can’t be captured in highly edited 30-minutes. The reality of West Virginia’s story is complex. It’s a story of great natural beauty and great devastation. It’s a story of highly educated persons as well as one of the top most illiterate states. It’s a story of rich resources and grinding poverty. In such a “reality” the truth behind the edited reality show is much more complex.

Mary would probably agree. The reality behind who she was as a woman, a mother, a wife can’t be captured in the six short snapshots we have of her in scripture. Did you know she’s only mentioned six times?: in the birth and infancy story, of course; then at the temple for Jesus’ circumcision; again at the temple in Jerusalem when Jesus runs away from their Passover plans to sit with the rabbis, much to her chagrin; the ultimate party planner at the wedding of Cana; a mother worried about her son being ostracized by a crowd; and then, a place no mother or father pray they will never see, at the feet of her dying child, when Jesus turns her over into the care of John, the disciple Jesus loved.

She’s seen six times. In only less than half of these she speaks. And in today’s scripture is the most she speaks at one time, and probably has had the greatest affect in defining who she is as a woman than any other act or words than scripture gives us. The truth of her feelings about the severe inconvenience a pre-marital pregnancy brings can’t be captured in the poetic and beautiful words of her song of praise, known as Mary’s Magnificat. The reality behind the reality poem was probably much more complex.

There are lots of holes in the Mary reality show. Which makes those of us who grew up Anabaptist or Protestant a bit curious about how other traditions such as Catholics could have created such a theology around Mary. (Here’s your brief Church History moment). Well, we know there are many early writings about Jesus that did not get into the Bible as we have it today. Humans, people, men (to be specific) chose which writings should go into the Bible and which should be left out. Which were valid and which weren’t. To be fair, I do believe that the movement of the Holy Spirit was among them to guide them, but I can’t dismiss that a lot of other “realities” were part of it as well. Wouldn’t that be an interesting reality show? “The Council of Treat: What makes the Cut, and what gets left out”

Among those that were left out we now call the “Infancy Gospels” which give more information about Jesus’ childhood than the final book of scripture contains. Some of the information about Mary that we see other traditions revering probably came from these infancy gospels, as well as other lesser known sources, and these were not chosen to go into the canon, or the finished work. Traditions about Mary spring up after the creation of our canon as well, so…

For a variety of reasons, there's not much information about Mary in our Bible, and Protestants have tended not to trust non-canonical texts and church traditions that sought to fill in the gaps. Needless to say, we have not had much of Mary in our church life, except, of course, at Advent…when we marvel at what sort of woman would willingly accept this tremendous, terrible, honor. (OK church history moment over.)

Elizabeth Soto Albrecht is an ordained minister in the Mennonite Church in Colombia and also the moderator-elect of Mennonite Church USA. Elizabeth grew up Catholic in her home country of Colombia. In the most recent edition of The Mennonite she reflected on how Mary has been, and continues to be, important in her spiritual journey. She observes that there is little room for appreciating Mary in the Mennonite church today (and to be fair, we should say the Church of the Brethren).

“We have thrown out the basin with the bathwater,” she says. “We have kept Jesus, but not the womb that bore him, the woman who created with God.”

I like to imagine Mary talking to an interviewer about the Mary Reality Show. Would she say “They portrayed me as the meekest, most mild mannered mother that ever was. Don’t they know I could have been executed for being pregnant and not married? Didn’t they see me hyperventilating on my way to Elizabeth’s, or weeping to Joseph? Hives! Look at these hives! ”

We have the impression of Mary as a demure receptacle of the holy. When she says “let it be with me as according to your word” we picture a submissive vessel, willing to be impregnated by the divine. But let’s not forget, the power of the Magnificat: the powers that be falling, the economic realities turned its head, beauty replacing devastation, a culture of peace replacing a culture of exploitation—this doesn’t sound meek. This sounds like anarchy to any power loving Roman that read it and this. …this will be the one who bears the Messiah? Not so demure, perhaps, after all.

When Ashley McNeely reflected on the negative impression Buck Wild painted him in, he said “Even after it all, I’m still glad I did it.” No doubt a nice check helped him feel ok about it. But I’d like to think—I hope—that Mary would say the same thing. No matter how the story shaped her into a holy mother, or a despised icon, even though she saw her son die, even if she felt rejected by him (which I’m sure all mother’s do)…I hope she would say the same thing: I’m still glad I did it.

So you might be wondering why all this talk about Mary. Shouldn’t we be talking about Jesus, after all, Christmas is about his birth?

Well, how about for one week, as we approach the birth with tired feet, aching limbs, groaning breaths, and exhausted bodies…how about for one week we don’t throw out the basin with the bathwater.

Because here’s this week’s reality check…it’s not just Mary birthing Jesus.

You are the basin. You hold the Christ waiting to be born.

“Every day Christians are invited to live into Mary’s paradox of being the small place where the maker of all places can dwell,” says Henry J. Langknect. “ As members of the church of Jesus Christ, we have opened our lives up so that we can be the dwelling place for Jesus.”

So let’s hold onto that basin, if only for a week, and :
Every time you are hit with fear, make it a home for Christ.
Every time you overcome your fear, fill that home with a song.

Every time you create with God, by sewing acts of love, you open the door of your home to Christ.
Every time you stop and say “I am your servant,” you embrace Christ at the door

Every time you make someone jump for joy or hold them in their hives and fear, deck your home out for Christ.
Every time you labor, and groan under the pain of bringing to birth something new—something tremendous and terrible--welcome Christ into the messy reality of your life.

Because messy reality is what Jesus was born into, God knows.

And so does his mother.