Sadly
enough, there was no Merry Christmas, no Happy Holidays and Happy New Year
greeting offered on the first Christmas morning; just a gentle and matter of
fact word from the angel not to be afraid. I've spent the last few days
thinking about this, about why this command shows up here but is also so
prominent in our nativity story - it's the angel of the Lord's favorite intro.
It's an interesting word, right? Do not be afraid. And it seems like an apt one
for the angels to tell these shepherds. I mean it's not everyday that God's
angelic entourage shows up at the office, and I suspect that if something
marvelous like this did happen all of us would be sufficiently spooked. But I
wonder if there is something else going on with their command. I wonder if they
realize that the shepherds, just like all of us, need their fears allayed
before they are ready to hear the news of God showing up.
After
all, in our day there is no shortage of fear that enshrouds this notion of God
and religion. We live in a society that is fraught with fear, is nervous about
the influence of religion in the world, in the public sphere: Conservatives are
nervous about Christ being taken out of Christmas, and the Liberals are nervous
about their right to define God however they so choose. But I suppose the
nervousness about God is even more fundamental: for if God does show up, (and I
mean much more than making a casual appearance on a Christmas bumper sticker)
and if religion gains any more footing, will it continue to occasion one groups
power play over and against another? Will it continue to factionalize and
irritate communal differences to the point of violence? Will it downplay and
possibly even obliterate the history of one people at the expense of another?
Is God's favor partial to one nationality, or race, or culture? Is God a
liberal, or is he conservative? Understandable questions, I presume. And
questions that I take to presuppose no small amount of fear. And yet I don't
think these questions are merely the concern of us enlightened 21st century
folk. I can't help but wonder if those shepherds - those philosophizing
shepherds - had similar questions that first Christmas morning.
Do
not fear, the angel tells them, tells us.
God
is showing up we are told, but God is not coming in the way we might think. He
is not coming as a hostile force, or as an some kind of apocalyptically enraged
rule keeper. God is not showing up partial to one group over and against
another. The angels tell us today that God is far more creative, and far more
creatively compassionate than that. Indeed, if you want to know what God
showing up looks like you are going to have to go look at a baby, THE baby:
"this will be a sign for you, (the angel says) you will find a child
wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And thus, God's power is
more like the tenderness of that child than anything else we can imagine. As
one poem captures it: "his battering shots are babish cries, his arrows
looks of weeping eyes."
Do
not fear, we are being told, for God is being born in our midst, working in us
and among us to bring joy and freedom and love to our histories, not at the
expense of others, but in fraternity and fellowship with them. Not coming from
without in power, but from within in weakness; not coming from without to
affirm one group's story over and against all those other "moral
failures" "or sexually confused" or "mentally
unstable" or fill in the blank, but instead he is being born in our midst
to redeem and recreate all of our stories, infusing them with a surplus of
meaning and love. Do not fear, instead: Rejoice! Today is a wonderful day
indeed. God is showing up, God is being born as a child, that we all might
recognize, with the shepherds, that we are being called to live into the joy
and freedom of knowing ourselves as children of the Most High. "Glory to
God in Highest" and peace to you all this day. Amen.
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