Nativity

Christmas I – Nativity of the Lord

At Night: Isaiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

I’m tired. Tired of the pandemic.

I am weary. Weary of the hateful and racist name calling and behavior of members of Congress. The lies, the divisions, the walls. I’m appalled by the silence of…well, pretty much everyone else in the face of such outrageous disrespect against the human dignity of women, Asians, Jews and Muslims and people of various coloured skin.

I am saddened. Saddened by the continued unraveling of our Catholic Church. The scandal, the cover – ups, the departures, the lackluster participation, the destruction of people’s lives and reputations.

I’m numb from the school shootings. I don’t even pay attention anymore; no one really cares. Children killing children. While we adults clench our “constitutional rights” and our obsessive worship of guns and violence under the guise of a deformed idea of freedom.

I feel helpless in a world where corporate wealth and greed and national pride and power is valued more than future generations. In the face of mega–hurricanes and tornadoes, rising sea levels, extreme wildfires, and melting polar caps, we cannot even muster enough courage and strength to value our own lives.

In this world that we’ve created for ourselves, where is God’s presence?

When God chose to mingle divinity with humanity by becoming a human being this night and slip silently into our lives, the world was not so different than our own. It’s hidden right before us within the texts with which we have become so familiar.

“In those days a decree went forth from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled”. It sounds innocent, doesn’t it? A historical point.

Yet the verse disguises a very cruel and violent empire. An empire where people were bought and sold and discarded. It doesn’t cost anything to discard a person after a business deal, sex, or a loveless relationship. …doesn’t cost anything except our integrity and dignity. I wonder, how much does a person cost these days on the human trafficking market?

The verse disguises an empire that forces people to travel so as to be counted like cattle. It is 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. About 31 hours by foot. A five, six day journey. I expect longer with a pregnant woman on a donkey. How many hours…days…months does it take to travel from El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras through Mexico to our southern border? From sub-Saharan Africa to the Mediterranean coast? From Iran, Syria and Afghanistan to Greece, Belarus, and Turkey? How many pregnant women make the journey?

“She wrapped the child in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger,because there was no room for them in the inn”. Christmas pageants offer us a grumpy innkeeper. 80 million refugees today find much harsher realities then grumpy innkeepers. They encounter governments who cruelly and needlessly separate children from their parents. Countries who refuse to let overcrowded boats dock as they watch people drown in the sea. Nations who weaponize refugees as political pawns. To what purpose?

“Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fieldsand keeping the night watch over their flock”. Shepherds living in the fields keeping a night watch is a job. That is different isn’t’ it from living under train trestles, on city streets, in cardboard boxes, in cars, over subway grates or in Walmart?

In this world that we’ve created for ourselves, where is God’s presence?

“And this will be a sign for you:you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger”. Signs point away from themselves. The child is the sign. Tonight is therefore not about the child. What does the sign of a vulnerable, newborn child direct our attention toward? Is it not our weak and vulnerable selves?

Might it be that God can only enter our lives and be present when we are exhausted and have nowhere else to turn?

If God is to be found this night, might it not be in a manger, but rather in our weariness and sadness, in our fears and feelings of helplessness?

Is God waiting until we grow so weary that we finally surrender and admit we need a saviour?