The following sermon was preached on our Patronal Festival on 9 September in the 9.30 Service.

About a month ago I did my usual routine of popping into the Parish Office in the morning, when Patricia, our Parish Secretary, handed me an envelope of a company called Biblelands. ‘Do you know who this is for?’ she asked. ‘Whose name is on the envelope?’ I asked. ‘It’s not a name I know’ she said. And when I looked I saw she was right in a way. It was not a name of a person in our Parish, or at least not a name of a person anywhere on our records. Actually I brought the envelope to show you.

The address label reads:

To Ms M Virgin
Church Path
Merton Park
London SW19

Do you know anyone by the name of Ms M Virgin?

You may have worked out by now that of course the envelope was intended for the Church of St Mary the Virgin, and Biblelands must have made a mistake in addressing it to a person by that name, but it does leave us with an interesting question. What if there was a Ms M Virgin in our parish? What if she was an unmarried mother? What if she had a child who turned out to be not like any other child? How would we react? Would Ms Mary Virgin be welcome here, with all that had happened to her, with her history, her boldness, and her faith?

Today we celebrate the Birth of Mary, a feast that has been observed in the Western Church since the eighth century. It is primarily a feast of preparation for the Messiah, sort of halfway between Easter and Christmas.

Each child must have a mother, and we remember this every Christmas when we think of the birth of Jesus. But every mother was also once a child new-born herself. As Solomon says, no one has any other entrance into the world; everyone arrives naked and small and crying. There is not one of us who was not helpless, dependent and weak in infancy, relying upon a mother or mother-substitute, to care for and nurture us. We share a common condition whoever we are.

Emerging from the womb we may have looked just like any other baby. To our mother we appeared entirely special and beautiful. That is why families like to celebrate birthdays. It is as if we are telling those who are close to us that we are glad they are alive. That life for us would not be the same if they were not there. That their presence enriches the whole group.

What Mary looked like as a child we have no means of knowing, though we like to think that her inward beauty must have been reflected in her outward appearance. But when she was actually born she must have looked like any other infant, red, wrinkled and prone to whining, as she was taken from her mother to be washed and swaddled.

We know nothing of the circumstances of Mary’s birth and parentage. Was her grandmother at the scene to advise her mother? Was there some disappointment that the infant was not a boy? The latter seems unlikely in that Mary, in view of her destiny, would be provided by God with parents who cherished and affirmed her, though at the time they would be quite unaware of her future role in salvation history. Who were her parents? The Bible doesn’t tell us anything about them; not even their names are recorded. Tradition has it they were called Joachim and Anne, but we don’t know much more than that. But whatever the circumstances, Mary is the daughter given to her parents as gift, just as is every child born into the world.

To celebrate Mary’s birthday is a way to thank God for her life. It’s a day too, to thank God for our own life, for the gift that we so often take for granted. Every baby is a sign of hope, a new beginning, and a new attempt to embody the mystery of being. Reverence for life then is so important in our world, which is characterised by a ‘throw-away’ culture. Mary in her infancy, like all infants, has nothing to commend her except her precious existence.

To celebrate her birthday is to acknowledge the mystery of every child born into the world, and to offer a welcome. How appropriate then that we celebrate this feast at the beginning of the academic year, as Sunday Club prepares to start again and as our schools begin the work for our children.

But it is not the only reason we celebrate today. Today we also celebrate our Patronal Festival. Our Church has been named after Mary, whose birthday we celebrate today. What does that really mean a Patronal Festival? The meaning of the word patron is someone who protects. Is that what we believe, that Mary protects us? For many of us, that will not be a comfortable concept. But if we dare to change the meaning of patron saint to someone who can give us a glimpse of truth and reveal to us more about the glory of God, then Mary becomes very significant. Especially in our world and our time. May I share with you 6 short glimpses of Mary, which I as a woman in the 21^st century find helpful in seeking my own Christian lifestyle:

Mary was a girl whose desire to understand God, not just with her heart but with her intelligence as well, freed her to cross-question the Archangel Gabriel in person.

Mary was a woman who, because of her understanding of her own vocation, contracted a partnership radically different from the social and religious norms of her time.

Mary was a woman with so little sense of personal pride that she put up with the continual public humiliation and even impertinence from the younger person she recognised as her teacher, even though he was her own son.

Mary was a woman with so little sense of public shame or fear that she stood openly under the gallows on which her criminal son was being hung.

Mary was a woman of such faith that she did not need to see the resurrected Christ in order to believe.

6. Mary was a woman who identified herself with the poor, the hungry and the oppressed and extended her loving mothering to those in need and so to the infant church itself.

That is a faith I would like to grasp, that is a courage, which I would hanker after, that is a patron who I am happy to remember. Because here is a person who is not dictated by the laws or social customs of the times, but by the knowledge of God and the knowledge of herself.

So today I say Happy Birthday to Ms M Virgin, and I thank her for showing us that being different may actually be a way of showing God in this world.