Adapted from a sermon preached December 24, 2014, First Baptist Church of Denver
Luke 2:1-20 Census, Angels & Shepherds, Holy Family with pondering Mary
I try to be grateful for my Christian privilege, grateful that I have mostly had my high holy days, my feasts, off of work, for example. If I have a last minute present to get, the giving of gifts on 12/25 being normal in most Christian traditions, the likelihood of finding an open store is high, of finding an appropriate card, certain and of shipping it in time, decent.
There are awful effects of religious privilege in this country, things like mosques forced out of neighborhoods or Sikhs attacked as terrorists. I grieve but I also own my agency and participation in a system that uplifts my own faith over all others. I cannot do this in a way that wallows in guilt or shame but rather one that chooses to behave differently.
There are many ways to wield whatever privilege society gives me as a Christian. One is engaging in interfaith work, of being someone around any table who may speak from a Christian perspective but who gives it her all to invite, encourage, support, honor and collaborate with other voices of faith.
This is not all limited to the individual good or use, of course. Tonight is the 100th anniversary of the famous Christmas Truce, happenings of sharing, celebration, camaraderie and amnesty between German and British troops during WW I on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, 1914. It is extraordinarily moving that this happened, that this was possible at all.
Of course, wars themselves have been fought because of religion, and I think we all notice some of the damage done by being the dominant paradigm. Our actual sacred narratives are distilled, diluted, and distorted. Christmas becomes about good feelings and family visits and a frightening consumerist ethic.
Many of us try hard to mark this season as people of faith. Some may observe Advent, and some will increase works of charity and giving and many will tonight tell the story of Jesus’ nativity instead of The Night Before Christmas. But even we die-hard types can gloss over the real meaning of Jesus’ birth, over the radical and world changing truth of God made human, and instead focus on pretty nativity tableau, Christmas tree decorations, and shining angels singing Handel’s Messiah
And thanks be to God for those things, for the trappings of Christmas, for they capture some part of the heart, of the soul, and open up space within us for God to enter our world.
We must be made open, willing to be transformed. Perhaps here in this liminal season of solstice and light, of longest nights and changing of the year, we will be re-made. Perhaps in this time that we Christians have chosen to mark Jesus’ birth, we can renew our discipleship, our faithfulness, as we consider the infant Lord.
Because the Incarnation demands it.
God made human changes everything.
Tonight, we heard Luke’s nativity, a narrative of the simple birth of a son to a travelling couple then heralded by angels to nearby shepherds. The shepherds, who were probably a mess, were terrified but were also changed by the angels’ message. Do not fear! I bring you good news. Go and see. Glory to God and peace to God’s favored! And so they went to see the child, the first disciples, the first of those pulled into relationship with Jesus.
This baby Jesus is a tiny, dependent, impoverished infant who will soon flee to a foreign land with his frightened parents. We Christians tend to focus on the grown up Lord, both as human Jesus and as resurrected Christ, and we miss fundamental attributes of the Divine, of our God, that are wrapped up in those swaddling clothes millennia ago.
The infant child of Mary and Joseph inspires ministry with and for children and young people. Advocacy for youth who are homeless or for public policies that support healthy children might be the result. The vulnerability of infancy reveals God’s preference for the compromised, for the marginalized, in our lives. The embodiment of incarnation means that form, the body matters and that it can all be messy as hell
The Incarnation declares we cannot separate our faith lives from our common lives. It tells us that how we are a people has meaning, that we are all bound up together.
The Incarnation requires that we reject those things that separate us and divide us, that we transform our understanding of race, of class and gender, of human sexuality and ways of being for God has become one of us, all of us.
To celebrate the birthday of Jesus is to welcome this transformation, of ourselves, of our lives, of our world, as God is continually made flesh. How will you use your Christian privilege to live out the call of the Gospel? Do you have racial privilege, gender privilege, class privilege? Privilege that acts virtually without any of your intent or energy but which still divides, oppresses, punishes and rewards?
Our faithfulness to the Incarnation must include an honest look at all the ways we participate in the systems of privilege and oppression that perpetuate division. To love and follow this newborn God is to be reborn ourselves, as people of the Kingdom of Heaven and the Incarnate Word
I have made and now re-make a commitment to acknowledge those ways in which I have privilege, those ways in which who I am simply as a human being affords me benefits, and I am strengthened in that resolve by the truth of today, of Christmas. God came to dwell among us, to know humanity completely, and to transform what it means to be human itself.
As candles are lit throughout the sanctuary, we will pause for a moment of reflection before moving to sing Silent Night together on our portico. I invite you to welcome Jesus into your heart this Christmas in a new way, in a way that changes how you are in the world, with eyes newly open and a heart full of joy and purpose.
Let us pray.
Little baby Jesus,
We are so grateful for your birth. We pledge care and faithfulness to the ways we make you known in the world as your people. We pledge to see and love you in our fellow human beings, honoring every life as sacred and important. May we look into vulnerable eyes and see you, the infant Christ. And may we be changed. Amen.