The Way of Mary: Real!

 Good Tuesday morning, good Advent pilgrims who walk The Way of Mary. My meditative reading this morning was Matthew 2:13–23, the flight of Mary and Joseph into Egypt. As I read it, that particular scene from the Netflix film "Mary" which I watched yesterday kept coming to mind.

And, the word for Mary that surfaced today was "Real".

By which I mean that the portrayal of Mary in that film was anything but. So much so that I want to say, straight up, don't bother to watch it. Your time will be better spent watching a rerun of The Grinch or Frosty the Snowman.

I did watch the whole thing. I'm an optimist. I kept thinking that, anytime now, it's going to get better. And then, I wondered what other liberty they would take with the story. There were so many, I lost track. These are the ones I easily remember:

There were no donkeys to carry Mary to Bethlehem and Joseph didn't walk alongside her. No, they had a horse and buggy.

Joseph wasn't an old or even older man. He was young. And, very much smitten if not in love with Mary, who had more feelings of gratitude than romantic feelings for Joseph. Then again, she didn't know him except as the guy who saw her washing clothes by the river and then asked her father for her hand in marriage.

Herod, on the other hand, was old. Very old. And Very Cruel. He was also surprisingly overacted by Anthony Hopkins.

Which brings me to the caste who were white. Very. White. Decidedly not Palestinian. Indeed, the Prophetess Anna as well as Mary's parents, Joachim and Anne, looked decidedly Scottish. And then, there was Anthony Hopkins who wildly overacts in the role of Herod.

The storyline took some interesting departures from scripture, the authenticity of which is admittedly dubious.

Mary and Joseph did not go to Bethlehem because of the census. They went because Mary was being threatened with death by stoning because of her pregnancy out of wedlock.

Mary did not give birth in a manger next to the inn where there was no room but in an abandoned shell of a building. She did not give birth alone, just she and Joseph and a few cattle lowing, no! Her mother Anne and cousin Elizabeth were there to help while Jospeh paced nearby.

Neither did they flee to Egypt because of Joseph's dream but because Herod's army had gone to Bethlehem to kill all the firstborn male children (another unbelievable, very gory scene) and then found Mary and Joseph in a home where they had stopped on their way to escape Herod's men.

Which is the first scene of the movie. You see Mary and Joseph alone in the desert. Joseph is on a horse (not a donkey) in the foreground and Mary is alone, standing in the desert sand as she holds the Infant Jesus and says, "You may think you know my story. You don't. Trust me."

And, if you do, trust her, you must first give up any ideas you might have had from years of reading and/or studying the scriptural nativity story or acting out own of the characters in a nativity play as a child.

This, the producers of Mary want you to know, want you to believe, is the Real Mary. It helps, then, to know that this whole entire project was the brainchild of none other than Mr. Authenticity himself, Joel Osteen. You know, the televangelist with the expensive tailor-made suits and slicked-back hair, who flies around in his own, personal jet, and broadcasts from his own studio/church, who is relentlessly cheerful as his perfect, blonde, Barbie-look-a-like wife stands by his side, who together deliver an unfailingly upbeat message of Prosperity Gospel, like "You were born to win." And, "Don't take miracles for granted." And, "God is not finished with you yet."

This Real Mary is Osteen's impossible dream of a modern Christian woman - strong yet gentle, fierce yet meek, independent yet obedient, who can ride a horse through fire while holding her infant in one arm and lifting her husband up to the horse with the other. A perfect woman who uses her "woman's intuition" and "motherly instincts" for the purpose of making sure the men in her life make the right choices and stay on the right path.

This is the model of the Christian woman Mr. Osteen is holding up as 'relatable' to modern women to emulate and follow. Osteen can't help it. is an evangelist. The primary purpose of this film is not to tell a modern interpretation of the nativity story, but a pull out all the stops effort of "relatable evangelism" for a new, younger generation of people who, truth be told, don't know much about the details of the scriptural story and, honestly, the details, like the brand of Christianity, don't really matter.

If you accept this as the real premise of the film, Mary, you may actually find parts of it enjoyable - like the cinematography
and the costumes (which look like something out of "Dune") and the scenery which was filmed in Morocco.

I don't know who Mary was. There are as many theories about her as there are Mariologists. I do believe that there was a historical Mary as there was a historical Jesus. I have no doubt she was very real in that sense.

I'm sure her love for Jesus and any other children she and Joseph had was just as real as the miracles Jesus performed which was, in and of itself, a miracle, given the hardships she must have endured as a woman of antiquity.

I love Christology and the way that Jesus is interpreted through the social and cultural lenses of so many different people, races, and tribes. I also love Mariology and the way Mary's life story has so many interpretations depending on the same variables.

This one leaves me cold. I'll take the Real Mary, please, not some relentless need for good Christian men to interpret her life for her, put words into her mouth, and say, "This is the real story. Trust me."

Mary was. That's real enough for me. Everything else is just midrash and eisegesis. Which, btw, I enjoy. I think using one's religious creative imagination deepens and enriches faith. Sort of like the characters in The Chosen. "Mary" is not that.

As long as we can be clear about that, you might actually find the film enjoyable.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.