Heirs of God, Ancestors for the World to Come; Reflections on World Peace Day and the Solemnity of Mary

On January 1, 2023 I had the honor of sharing my reflections with my church community. These are the thoughts-in-process that I offered, leaning heavily on the wisdom of others.

Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

Happy New Year! Happy World Day of Peace! Happy Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, though I’m not sure that last one is actually a thing people say. Though every new day, hour, minute, breath gives us an opportunity to lean into possibilities, there are particular times when we turn toward reflection and action so that we may live into our values more deeply and more expansively; the new year is one of those times.

I have been sitting with today’s readings and also Pope Francis’ message for World Day of Peace, whose theme is No one can be saved alone. Combatting Covid-19 together, embarking together on paths of peace. I wonder what it means to receive God’s peace, to be adopted heirs of God, to honor Mary, Mother God, and how these ideas might guide us together on paths of peace.

Considering these questions, I can’t help but think of Lamont Collins, founder and CEO of Roots 101 African American Museum. If you know Lamont or have heard him speak, you’ve probably heard his invitation to become a better ancestor. If you ask Lamont how he’s doing, his consistent answer is, “I’m blessed.”

As heirs of God, we receive God’s blessings, peace, and freedom. As heirs of other flawed humans, we’ve inherited, as Pope Francis writes, “the fractures in our social and economic order that the pandemic exposed, and the contradictions and inequalities that it brought to the fore.” He notes that the pandemic “exposed any number of forms of fragility.” That fragility reminds me of Frida Kahlo’s words: “not fragile like a flower, fragile like a bomb.” The ongoing breakdown of unwieldy systems threatens all of us, but it is already harming and will continue to harm most explosively those whose support systems- whether the physical structures of a frail body or unstable shelter or the emotional, mental, and spiritual structures of fractured community- are already weak and fragile.

Pope Francis writes that “the greatest lesson we learned from Covid-19 was the realization that we all need one another. That our greatest and yet most fragile treasure is our shared humanity as brothers and sisters, children of God. And that none of us can be saved alone. Consequently, we urgently need to join together in seeking and promoting the universal values that can guide the growth of this human fraternity.” While I believe that we sometimes recognize our shared humanity as a treasure, sometimes we also retreat from the reality of interconnection, recoil from the idea that all people are beloved children of God, and reject opportunities to work together across lines of difference. Instead we create silos in which we protect the well-being of only people we like or only like-minded people, identifiers that may change according to our whims. 

If we focus on becoming better ancestors, not knowing who or how many descendants will follow us, we are invited to embrace the legacy of God’s love and move from a posture of collective humility and responsibility, asking ourselves, “What do we want to pass on to the generations that follow us?”

Mary M. McGlone writes: “Luke's Gospel emphasizes that the birth of Christ came to pass because Mary identified herself as the servant of the Lord who, like her son, made it her life's goal that God's will be done through her. The birth of Christ, God's personal incarnation in history, took place through Mary's collaboration. She made herself available for God to do what God could not do without her. This brings us to two of Christianity's most radical claims. First, the fact that God depended on Mary for the Incarnation reveals that God's power is vulnerable love that has nothing to do with domination. More radically, Mary is not unique: Jesus himself said, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it’ (Luke 8:21). Thus, as Meister Eckhart explained 700 years ago, ‘We are all meant to be mothers of God.’” If we are meant to be not just heirs of God, but also mothers of God, and, thereby, ancestors to God’s birth and rebirth beyond us, “we must,” as Pope Francis writes, “think in terms of the common good, recognizing that we belong to a greater community... We cannot continue to focus simply on preserving ourselves; rather, the time has come for all of us to endeavour to heal our society and our planet, to lay the foundations for a more just and peaceful world, and to commit ourselves seriously to pursuing a good that is truly common.”

Mary McGlone writes that “The Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, invites us to marvel at the God who comes to us in loving vulnerability and dependence.” Mary, Mother of God, said yes to the vulnerable uncertainty of parenting.

On this World Day of Peace and day honoring Mary, we, too, are called to loving vulnerability and the uncertainty of parenting a world in evolution. We are called to expose with care how and where we and our systems are fragile. We are also called to recognize how and where we have inherited blessing, peace, and freedom. With this awareness we can tend to the places most likely to break and protect those most likely to be harmed in the breaking. We can practice interdependence, appreciating those who care for the fragility within us, allowing our vulnerability to connect us rather than separate us. Together may we co-create for our contemporaries and descendants a world of greater justice, peace, and love, a world that is whole and whose holiness is common, shared, and accessible to all.