4 - 9 - 18 The Three Big Questions (4 minutes)

What is? What will I do? What will be?

Readings

³⁸ Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.

There are three things in this sentence that suggest phenomenal ways to live your life.

1. Acknowledging and accepting reality in its basic, factual sense “Here am I”

2. Creating a role and an identity “the servant of the Lord”

3. Accepting the future and those things beyond our control, “let it be with me according to your word [God’s Will]”

I was listening this morning to a podcast about Adam and Eve and self-consciousness. One of the things he discussed was a fear of nakedness and the development of shame.

I’ve been working a lot in my own life to decrease my feelings of shame and try to live more forthrightly, hide less. The blog is part of that, but I also try to always say what I feel, as well as I can, when I’m talking to people. It’s difficult and uncomfortable, but it seems to have paid enormous dividends in that I’m happier and have better relationships.

This being naked is a pretty terrifying thing, at first. As anyone who’s been part of a dance or theatrical troupe or a sports team that changes in a locker room can tell you, once you grow comfortable with those people, it’s not too bad anymore. 

An aspect of Ignatian prayer I really like plays off this same idea. There’s an exercise where you just stand before God and let Him examine you. Not that he can’t always see you fully, but you consent; you fully open yourself to His full knowledge of you.

So that first step of Mary’s response is really quite incredible if you dig a little bit deeper into it. Here I am, in all my iniquity, in all my weaknesses and failings and derangements. I’m okay with you, God, seeing all the hurts I have, everything broken in me.

The second portion is where Mary creates a role and an identity for herself. Now that we’ve acknowledged reality, the present, the state of the world-as-it-is, it’s time to consider what we’re going to do about it. This triad response digs into the three main questions we usually ask ourselves: What is? What will I do? What will be?

And what an identity she chooses! I’d really like to be able to choose that as my primary identity every day. To wake up and answer the question of what defines me with “I am the servant of the Lord” would clarify so many decisions. Being able to make that response would be so invigorating and freeing.

Because there are no requirements for being a servant of the Lord other than being. And the only people who can evaluate the kind of job you’re doing is you and God. God’s not going to judge, so so long as you’re not too hard on yourself you won’t have to deal with people attacking what’s most fundamentally you.

It’s a beautiful commitment she makes. And it really is a choice. Everyday we can choose whether or not to strive to live according to God’s will.

The last bit is where we don’t have a choice and the declaration Mary makes is obviously very faithful, but it’s immensely practical as well. It reminds me of the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.

The second line parallels Mary’s declaration of her own identity; she will act as a servant of God. The first line of the Serenity prayer most closely mirrors Mary’s “Let it be done to me according to thy word.”

The reason I see this as practical is that we cannot know or change the future. Neither can we know the mind of God unless he shares that information with us, “My ways are above your ways.” So to acknowledge the reality  that we cannot know, and may not be able to change, (which requires a good deal of humility) and then consciously articulate that (which requires faith and courage) is a tremendously good strategy for living life. We worry about the things we can control and submit to what we cannot.

It’s just seventeen words, but it speaks a wisdom that would take a lifetime to fully understand. Through careful consideration of what Mary’s mind and spirit must have been like to be able to answer in this way, I think we can garner a lot of strength and wisdom.