Mary: Proto-Disciple
Kathleen Coyle, S.S.C.
Mary responds to the news of Jesus’ conception with the words: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord, be it done with me according to your word” (Lk 1:38). To appreciate Luke’s message, we have to see it in the context of another Lukan passage, Lk 8:19-21. This passage is a positive interpretation by Luke of the Markan account in Mk 3:31-35 where Jesus’ mother and brothers are calling for him. “Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ But he said to them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it’” (Lk 8:19-21)…. In the Annunciation story Luke simply transposes these words to the first person and affirms that Jesus’ mother heard the word of God and did it.…
In the Acts of the Apostles Luke places Mary with Jesus’ followers in the upper room in Jerusalem praying and awaiting the coming of the Holy Spirit with the rest of the post-Easter community: … we find Mary with the members of the Jerusalem community, gathered together and awaiting this “power from on high,” the gift of the promised Spirit at Pentecost. For Luke this last appearance of Mary in the New Testament after the death of Jesus is important. It was at Pentecost that the Spirit descended upon them, inspiring boldness to preach the gospel, thus initiating a movement that would witness to Jesus’ message of unselfish love. A commitment to this Jesus movement meant centring one’s life in Christ and his mysteries, and choosing the values of God’s kingdom, for which he lived and died. Mary is the figure standing between the two testaments, sharing and savoring the new liberating experience of her Son’s movement, which offers equal discipleship to men and women….
God’s Spirit comes on Mary as it did upon the community in Acts as an “overshadowing” cloud; an image that points to God’s presence, God’s Shekinah. According to Luke, what was experienced as the Spirit’s overpowering in the upper room in Jerusalem had already begun thirty years earlier in Nazareth…. Mary allows herself to be moved by the “power of the Most High” … that preserved her radically from sin down to the roots of her existence.
The annunciation story therefore is not about acquiescence but about empowerment. It is about a young woman in a patriarchal society carrying and bringing her child into the world: “the Lord is with you … you have found favour with God, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son … the Son of the Most High … and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:28-33). It is not a story about a passively perfect woman, overwhelmed by divine duty, but about a “self-possessed, self-focused and self-conscious” poor woman who finds favor with God and is willing to cooperate with a wild plan of salvation. It is about a woman strong enough to risk believing something incredible about herself – “the Lord is with you.” She must be envisioned then as an autonomous person, responsive and receptive, courageous and creative, intelligent and apostolic. An exegesis of the Lukan texts leaves no room for an escape into immature piety. It gives Mary back her concrete history. She cannot be separated from those women and men who placed their hope in Jesus and whose journey ended at the foot of the cross….
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