Good Friends,
My Christmas shopping is done. My plan for Christmas dinner is made (my family is doing various charcuterie trays and I'm providing the veggies).
I don't need a Christmas eve sermon, nor one for longest night, for the first time in a very long time. I'm loving attending worship at Advent without any planning responsibilities.
But the season isn't as easy as I expected. Its end of the year things at work, and I have quilts to be be made an friends to visit. It's surprisingly busy. Still, there is snow on the ground, our tree is lit in the backyard, and I'm looking for the light in the darkness.
I hope you have some moments of peace.
-Liz
Where is the Joy in Christmas?
City sidewalks, busy sidewalks. Dressed in holiday style, In the air, There’s a feeling of Christmas. Children laughing, People passing, Meeting smile after smile, on every street corner you'll hear: Silver bells! I love that song.
We just had a glorious sharing of Sing Christmas! with a nearby congregation. It was so full of the Joy of Christmas. We didn't sing Joy the World, but it's another favorite of mine. I have us sing it year round.
In my family we always play "the green record," a promotional piece put out by my grandfather's business. It opens "Christmas is a time for singing" and the album is called: Sing it Outdoors. (He worked in outdoor advertising, get it?)
And this holiday is one of family, of giving, of bright and cheery thoughts. I love that. Except I don't think it very accurately covers that first Christmas story.
This year we very appropriately read Matthew's Christmas story, which is not one of cheer or joy. Matthew's birth story is followed immediately by the Empire choosing to kill children in the fear that one might be a contender for Herod's throne. It includes the holy family's warning in a dream and escape to Egypt as refugees. They were crossing borders to protect their lives.
Mary has little control of her decisions, or her life in the Matthean story, waiting to hear if Joseph will put her aside. And while the Lukan stable version might look cute when your youngest kids are dressed as sheep, neither that version, nor the more spare story in Matthew was actually beautiful for Mary.
I am sure she felt as many new mothers do, entranced by the beauty and fragility of her first child, and perhaps she basked in the quiet joy of this child. But all of that was in a context where the Roman Empire was keeping her, and her people, in their place, and where society gave her little notice. There are no honoring shepherds in this year's nativity scene.
I imagine her pulling a blanket around to keep out the difficulties of ordinary life under an oppressive regime.
I suspect that first Christmas was not much different from Christmas for immigrants in the United States today. In a world where you can follow all the rules and end up pulled out of line just before you are given your citizenship. In a world where you attend a required hearing and are arrested when you arrive. In a world where young children are held as bait to get their parents out of the home. In a world where it is not safe to go to work.
Christ was born in the midst of a world that did not treat people with compassion. In a world that was grossly unfair. In a world that was not motivation to break out in gloria in excelsis deo.
The Christmas story is good news for us, today. The incarnation, in my view, is the best thing ever, the promise of a different world, the promise of a new way to see ourselves as created in God's image. It is good news all around, and thus calls us to celebration. It is about victory that defeats oppression.
But we must see that oppression, that sad story, the violence around us, to appreciate the fullness of the Christmas story. I'm not suggesting we don't sing What Child is This, or Away in Manger. But I am suggesting we do it at the same time as we recognize the evil being done in our name.
While my family is gathering together, other families are being torn apart. All of this is part of Christmas. We must sleep in heavenly peace, and yet recognize the kingdom is not fully with us yet. We must pray that it is coming, on earth as it is in heaven.
When is your Christmas pageant? What is your church's Christmas style? Reply to this email to let me know what's happening.
The story of people's organizing and warnings to deal with ICE in Chicago. It is as sad story, but also uplifiting in how the ocmmunity has tried to protect each other. 54 minutes.
In Boston we are singing Christmas Carols at the Ice detention center, and on Tuesday at 7:15 pm, throwing Ice into Boston Harbor! Local news article.
I don't know why this didn't become the best Christmas Song ever. Mary Chapin Carpenter recognizes everything isn't okay, but we still ring bells. (3:35).
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