Mary, both ponderer and prophet
In a noisy, unfair world, there’s no activism without contemplation.
I grew up with images of the mother of Jesus as an idealistic, serene lady quietly sitting in the background. Maybe you did too. Mary was “meek and mild,” a docile observer, patiently “pondering” all the lovely things around her. Recently, I heard a preacher critique this sanitized portrayal. He explained that Mary was actually a bit of a rebel-rouser. She didn’t just sit there pondering. She stood up and called out injustice. She was a prophet.
In recent years, for very good reason, portrayals of Prophet Mary, the subversive activist, have supplanted those of Ponderer Mary, the passive observer. These two versions of Mary are often held in opposition to each other: Mary the graceful, ever-observant mother who “ponders all this in her heart” (Luke 2:19) and watches as strangers honour her golden-haired, tearless baby; and Mary the powerful, revolutionary prophet who belts her protest song about the hungry being filled and the rich being sent away empty (Luke 1:53). The mother of God either sits with a serene child on her lap or stands with her fist in the air.
She is both
But what if Mary is both ponderer and prophet? What if we resist the urge to make her two-dimensional, to reduce her to one of two maternal ideals? Let’s not pretend that women are either quiet, lovely and peaceful, or powerful, outspoken and assertive.
I’ve come to think of Mary as a pondering prophet. Ponderers are attentive to the world and tend toward contemplation. Meanwhile, prophets call attention to how things currently are alongside the promise/announcement of what can be.
Perhaps it is precisely because of Mary’s ponderousness that she is able to prophesy.. Mary’s Magnificat tells us that she notices the injustice in the world around her. She’s attentive to the state of the world, knows poverty firsthand. She’s pondered the words of the prophets that have come before her and knows the world is not as God intends it to be. She sees the oppression and greed, the pain and abuse built into the system. She’s been thinking about it, perhaps stewing, perhaps seething, perhaps grieving. She knows the solution to these injustices is a radical overturning of the system, a turning of the tables that can only happen at a supernatural level.
Wisdom for us
In a culture of consumerism, workaholism and constant noise, pondering is counter-cultural. It is not easy to ponder when our phones ping with alerts every few minutes, when it feels we cannot go anywhere without being advertised to, and when everyone walks around with headphones or earbuds. We have nearly lost the art of pondering, but how can we prophesy if we are not paying attention to the world around us and the Spirit’s movement in that world?
Profound prophecy can’t take place without contemplation. Contemplation draws us into hearing God’s voice in unexpected ways – in angels that appear out of nowhere, shepherds that rush in from the hills, magi who have travelled across the world to tell you what you already know, but perhaps needed to hear again while living in exile. Contemplation draws us into imagination, into a place where we can envision a different world, a world full of flourishing and restitution. Contemplation gives us space to form the words that often just rock around us as longings or groans. Contemplation in our culture, and perhaps in Mary’s world under the shadow of empire, is absolutely a counter-cultural act.
The season of Advent calls us into a posture of pondering, of noticing the darkness in the world, of waiting, observing and noticing the subtle ways the Spirit is hovering and preparing creation for God’s coming. It is also a season of prophecy, of reading the ancient scriptures wherein prophets long for change, remind people of God’s vision for a world of righteousness and call God’s people to justice and restoration.
Mary’s propensity to contemplate is what cultivates her attentiveness to justice. In this season of Advent, I want to follow her example, taking a posture of pondering to nurture a spirit of prophecy.
Thank you for this ‘course correction’ for those of us inclined to be activists. I feel sad, however, that many people are neither ponderers nor activists.
Hi Curt, yes, I appreciate that sadness, and that the Advent season has become one of consumerism instead of contemplation and activism. Hopefully we can encourage both in our communities.
I just re-read your piece on pondering. Then our priest spoke about it as a calling, so to speak, for us (this at a Christmas Eve service). It strikes me that a number of us think that pondering means “thinking things through and coming to the proper conclusion.” I hope that those who do not affirm the Christian gospel will ponder things, even if their pondering leads to scathing criticism. And those of us who do affirm the Christian gospel could well ponder our certain certainties (cf. T.S. Eliot). The saying attributed to Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” seems to me to be similar to Mary’s pondering, too.