Community Christian Church
Dr. Roger Ray
Luke 1:26-382014 is drawing to a close now and not many of us are going to miss it. We have been pummeled with horrible news. Much of which reminds me of when Mark Twain said, "I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened." We have spent months being warned about the tragic mistakes and cover up in a scandal around Benghazi, which, after several investigations, turned up no scandal, just a very sad and violent attack and equally sad and mentally deficient politicians trying to scare us.
26In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, 27to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary. 28And he came to her and said, "Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you."29But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. 30The angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. 31And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. 33He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end." 34Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" 35The angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. 36And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. 37For nothing will be impossible with God."38Then Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word." Then the angel departed from her.
Many of the same have tried to frighten us with images of bloody murders committed by members of Isil. And, of course, the special in the run up to the fall elections was the outrageous misinformation campaign about the threat of Ebola in the United States. Winner of the award for biggest "pants on fire" politician in America had to be a United State's senator from our neighboring state of Kansas, Sen. Pat Roberts, who rolled all of the talking point fears together and warned that Ebola infected Isis terrorists could stream across our porous southern border to kill us all.
You could not make this stuff up.
But, for the more informed, beyond the fake Benghazi stories, the hysterical Ebola scare, and the push to get us involved in the tribal civil wars of the Middle East again, there have been some pretty sorry things going on. You only need to consider how much air time was given to these exaggerated issues to realize the gravity of the news blackout on matters of real importance, like the fact that 90% of the growth in our current economic recovery has benefited only the top 1% of the wealthy in our country. To the best of my knowledge, that hugely important fact has hardly been mentioned.
The political power of people like the Koch brothers continues to bend public policy toward making them richer as seen in the push to build the Keystone XL pipeline that will poison our air and may poison our water and will do very little for anyone other than Koch industries.
The news has covered a series of horrifying police killings of unarmed black men and there have been demonstrations in many major cities... enough to make elected officials pay attention. However, the demonstrations have also revealed the prevalence of racial prejudice among uniformed officers in cities across America as well as in otherwise seemingly sane people we all thought were our friends.
Recordings were made of some of the most egregious CIA torture practices but the CIA managed to destroy most of the evidence before they were investigated, though enough evidence remained to make every thinking American more than a little nauseous.
Here, at the end of this racist, violent, infected, impoverished, politically inept or corrupt year, finally comes Christmas.....and you thought that I had forgotten!
Having demythologized the New Testament's birth narratives, we don't go nuts around here with crèche scenes, we don't have a hanging of the greens service, there is no Advent wreath and no midnight candle light services. But having swept the angelic hosts from the skies and mucked out the stall where the cattle have been lowing... along with other things... I would like to take a more sober look at the story of Jesus' birth.
The first versions of the gospels did not contain a birth narrative. Mark never had one and it is fairly obvious that the nativity accounts in both Matthew and Luke were tacked on long after the original works were composed and made popular.
But modern progressives need not be too haughty about having figured out that the virgin birth account and the incarnational theology of the first century are not fit for modern consumption. The people who wrote these birth narratives knew were babies came from. Even if you had prudish, puritanical parents like I did, you don't have to spend too much time around the farm to get the birds and bees story.
The gospel writers were not gullible or ignorant. They were storytellers. Stories of heroes and super humans who were born of divine parentage have been around as long as there have been paintings and writing.
The ancient rulers of Egypt were depicted as standing under gigantic images of their gods to support their claims that there was divine blood in their veins. The Greeks and Romans had hero stories of semi-divine historical characters who were only half human until current rulers began to wrap themselves in the mantle of divinity.
The gospel writers did not think that they were writing historical accounts of the birth of Jesus, they were writing a polemic, a sermon. When early Christians announced that "Jesus is Lord," what they were specifically saying is that "Cesar is not lord," or, more completely, "I have chosen the message of Jesus over the authority of my government."
That was a dangerous thing to say back then. Standing up to government authority.... Well, you could end up living like a prisoner in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for a couple of years as Julian Assange has, or be exiled in Russia as Edward Snowden is.
Just as Chelsea Manning is in prison for leaking information about war crimes committed by American soldiers though no American soldiers were ever put on trial for the murders of civilians that Manning exposed.
And, now that we know with certainty about the CIA torture of prisoners, you might expect criminal prosecutions. So far only one person has been sentenced to prison related to American torture of prisoners. Was it the guy responsible for chaining a naked man to a wall in a cold cell until he froze to death? Was it the agent who beat his prisoner so hard that he put out one of his eyes?
No, so far, the only CIA agent in jail is John Kiriakou, and he has been in prison for two years now for leaking information to the media about our torture program.
So, you see, saying that someone other than Cesar is lord can be a very dangerous thing to do. But the gospel writers knew very well the stories about how their rulers had miraculous virgin births.... That the Cesar's were incarnations of God. They had read on the Roman coins that the Cesar was their savoir, their lord.
And so, they wrote about Jesus being born of a virgin, not because they were so stupid that they didn't know where babies came from but because they were so brave that they were going to adorn a Palestinian peasant with the accolades usually reserved for their rulers.
You have always heard the Christmas story told with an emphasis on the humble circumstances of Jesus' birth but I want you too see that it was not told this way as a "rags to riches" story. It was told this way as an alternative to the glorious royal stories of Hebrew Kings and Roman dictators.
It was told this way to say that Jesus comes into the world where there is manure on the ground, in the stinking part of town where people live in barns and abandoned buildings, under bridges and in cars that don't start anymore.
The narrative, and I invite you to do with it what you will, but the narrative insists that God is not indifferent.... God isn't cloistered in some cathedral or temple... God isn't simply standing behind the king.... Saying the prayer at the opening of the day in Congress before any congress members have bothered to arrive and take their seats.
God, these narratives say, enters the world where the CIA tortures prisoners, where the media purposefully deceives, where the government is run by the corporations it is supposed to regulate, where police authority is exercised along racial lines, and where the poor are having their pensions taken from them to pay bigger bonuses to bankers and corporate bosses.
Because the gospel writers didn't want you to accept that the corruption we experience is the last word or that things are the way that they will always have to be. I try to avoid anthropomorphizing my religious language but in the Christmas story it seems almost necessary to say it this way....
Yes, the world is violent, unfair, discriminatory, and the wrong people always seem to have the power but you should not let yourself believe that God does not know and does not care about your plight. The Christmas story says that God was born right into the middle of all of it, at the bottom rung of the ladder, chained naked to a wall in Abu Ghraib, born in the back seat of Ford Tempo whose heater doesn't work. God enters the world as a refugee, an unemployed grocery union worker, a retired employee who is made to feel like his meager Social Security check is some kind of a hand out after paying into the system for 50 years.
Your life story is known to God. You are not alone. We are not the silent, compliant, subjects of the throne, no matter who is holding the scepter this year. For unto you is born this day a savior, who lives among you as a voice of justice, a voice of reason, a heart filled with compassion, and a generous advocate for you. Let the people say, "hallelujah."
