Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

Yesterday was the Feast of Saint Mary in our Episcopal Church calendar. It has always been a meaningful one to me and I think it has to do less with any great theological complexities and more with simple realities. The reality of what Mary accepted is our own reality. Of course we now look back with the lens of 2000 years of church history and countless images of Mary ranging from sweet and saccharine to cosmic and mystical. Ultimately though the call she heard is the call you and I hear every day.

The angel asks her if she is willing to carry Jesus for the world. Would she be willing to say yes when God asked her to become a way for the world to come to know the love of God?

Quite simply, this is the Christian vocation - our work and task every day. We are called by God to bring Jesus to the world around us. The world will doubt Scripture. The world will question doctrine. The world will refuse to see miracles or hear testimonies. But the world cannot unsee a life lived with faith a grace. The world cannot unhear loving words, forgiveness, and mercy. The world cannot unfeel the joy of seeing someone fully alive with the love of God in their hearts and eyes and voices.

Ultimately what God asks of Mary is one and the same call we hear over and over. Are we willing to become a way for the world to come to know the love of God? For some of us this will mean lives of saintly virtue and magnificent piety. For most of us though, whose lives are less immaculate, it will mean small moments with folks that become a window, the briefest glimpse, of the divine. When someone forgives me I am often shocked. When someone truly loves me with no expectation of anything in return it bowls me over. When someone welcomes me at my worst so that I can recover and remember who I am at my best it is a profound gift. When someone reminds me of the gifts I have it is an immeasurable mercy.

Those are the kinds of moments when we have the opportunity to choose to say yes to God. We all have chances day in and day out to say yes and to remember that we too have the great gift of being God-bearers, of being outward and visible signs of love and grace, each and every day.

Yours in Christ,

Robert