Born in a cow shed

The story has a unusual cast of characters.  The man is a landless laborer;  the woman is an unwed teenager. They are homeless and will soon become refugees from a tyrant.  The only shelter that they can find for their child of promise, their child of hope is a cow shed.  Is it possible that the poor and outcasts of this earth find something in the story that transforms them and expresses their yearnings, something that we in our security and affluence may not appreciate?

The enlightened and progressive at the beginning of this century believed that the Christmas story was an unfortunate left over of an unscientific age, a myth just like all those other myths of kings born of virgins.  In my Unitarian Sunday School there was an attitude of apology for the Christmas story;  this didn't happen, that didn't happen, and the real meaning of this season had something to do with the solstice.  Happy Yule!  Midwinter festivities come and go, but never seem to grip the hearts of the masses. It is the beginning of a new century, a new millennium, and despite all the de-mythologizing, it is Christmas time again.

We are Unitarian Universalists, we live in affluent North America.  For the most part we are highly educated, privileged, and enjoy middling affluence.  Most of us are upright, moral people. we don't mean anyone any harm, and in large measure we support good causes.  Most of us want social justice.  Most of us are liberals.  As liberals, when we discuss crime, we blame it on poverty. When we discuss the social decay; we cite unemployment, homelessness, lack of education.  Behind these social concerns, there lurks an implication; without a well paying job; a home;  good education,  and all the opportunities we take for granted  people will be less than human.

This is a story that challenges us in our blind spot;  that presumption that the poor can see all so well in our well intended philosophy.  By implication we are saying that well educated, affluent, cultured gentlefolk are more spiritual, more moral, more thoughtful than your average homeless child of a landless laborer, or even your basic offspring of unwed teenage mother.  If only the poor would become more like us, they too could be thoughtful, wise and good.  Because we are good,  we long to extend our opportunities and access.  We wish share our own version of stability.

The Christmas story is not a liberal story.  It isn't about opportunities or access or the benefits of stability.  It isn't a story that makes one feel compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves.  Maybe that is why so many of the poor of this earth identify with this story, and find its message empowering.  Does it surprise us to learn that the poor find something condescending about paternalism?

Is this a "revolutionary" story?  If it were a story about revolution, it would teach that the poor and the outcasts must organize and struggle for power and that the enemy is the affluent and powerful.  It would make the claim the poor and the outcast must resort to whatever means necessary,  that the end is to gain political power for the poor and oppressed at the expense of the rich and affluent.  No this is not a story about revolution, not at least as the revolutionaries have taught us to understand that term. This is a story about being blessed, about hope's presence in a most unlikely child.  And because it offers blessing, it speaks to those who are outcasts, those who are impoverished,  those who are despairing of hope, as few revolutionists have ever been able to do.

Not a story that comforts the liberal, nor a good agitation tale for the revolutionary.  Yet the Christmas story is an amazing story, if we can acquire the ears to hear it.  Children of promise aren't always born into a good home, don't always have model parents, don't necessarily have an annuity put aside to pay their tuition.  Children of promise are being born right now, in poverty, in conditions of lawlessness and disorder, in oppression, as refugees on the road to freedom and hope.  Yes, the poor continue to be with us, and we continue to permit the Herods to kill their children.  The crisis of our ecology, the future of our democracies,  the challenge of  freedom in the face corporate wealth all require a new way being human;  one that includes, rather than excludes, one that is goes beyond violence, and exploitation.  Can we in our privilege participate in this new way of being human?  Will our isolation from the condition of vast majority of our fellows preclude our understanding?  I believe we have not only been invited, we are expected to become part of the community of care, of inclusion.  But for us to enter into that community;  we must come to know our privilege, we must to seek to overcome our isolation, we must recognize how our power has been misused, and we must seek renewal of our connections with all humankind. 

This I believe is the great revelation of Christmas,  that every time a child is born, whether into affluence or into poverty, whether into the inner circle of privilege or the outer circle of powerlessness:  Emmanuel has come; peace is again possible on this earth; we have been blessed once again.