Christmas Reflection: Birthing God in Uncertainty
Hayley brings us to the provocative, beautiful suggestion from 13th century mystic Meister Eckhart that we are all called to be mothers who give birth to God -- bringing God's Spirit into the uprootedness of life, into the most unfathomable of circumstances. (Art by @osageandfern)
SPEAKER NOTES
Christmas Reflection: Birthing God in Uncertainty
- This time of year always feels particularly nostalgic for me, and I’m sure for many of us. It’s interesting how we can have emotional attachments to lights and decor and cookies- the festive rhythms.
- Decorating the tree was always a big event in my childhood home.
- And growing up, there was a certain ornament I was very attached to.
- The image of it makes me chuckle now, but it was a small figurine called the kneeling Santa: Santa kneeling before baby Jesus in a manger. (Ask to put on screen)
- When I was around 2, my family went to a Christmas store in NH and they had a big display of these kneeling Santas— my mom says I walked around looking amazed and saying “Aw!” Over and over. So of course we had to take one home.
- Some years later, our decorated Christmas tree fell and many of the treasured ornaments broke. Including— you guessed it — the Santa and baby Jesus. It was quite the dramatic scene with baby Jesus broken on the floor. And I was distraught.
- There are far more weighty reasons for Christmases to shatter than a broken ornament on the floor
- grieving loss, prevailing hopelessness, family tensions, overwhelming despair— there are many reasons we can feel less than festive.
- When pain comes up against joy it can feel dishonest or forced to proclaim goodness when there is clearly suffering.
- And so this year, I’d like to reflect on Christmas as a story in which things are already going wrong.
- A story we can approach with our pain and joy and every feeling in between.
- A story of brokenness in which God arrives anyway.
- It is a story of comfort AND it’s not comfortable.
- It’s a story of being uprooted again and again and again.
- When we are uprooted in life, when things are not going to plan, we need the reminder that this is the very context God breaks through.
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- The birthing of God into the world is not a tidy arrival.
- We have Mary, whose entire life is uprooted because of this news that she will sacrifice her body and carry a child that will humbly bring down the powerful.
- We have an inconvenient census, an uprooting of an entire people group— the empire tells them to move and they must move.
- We have a birth in stable which I’m sure was not in Mary’s birth plan.
- There’s the threat of Herod- a violent uprooting in which they must flee.
- And the slaughter of the innocents, the uprooting of a generation, the killing of children under two done at the hand of the powerful.
- There are such clear parallels to the violence we are witnessing globally today.
- Uprooting and violence are just as much a part of the story as rejoicing. Disruption and threats to life are pieces of the story.
- Even so, Mary sings and the angels sing and there is “good news of great joy”.
- Even so, God arrives.
- Acknowledging the fact that nothing seems to being going to plan — that the Christmas story is one with brokenness built in — does not cheapen the good news the angels beckon. It deepens it.
- How much more is the world in need of a different story. One of peace and hope.
- As Cole Arthur Riley writes in her book This Here Flesh: Our hope can only be as deep as our lament. And our lament as deep as our hope.”
- And how does this story of hope arrive? It is birthed into the world.
- The very act of labor shows us joy and pain can be intertwined. Anxiously awaiting the beauty of new life while wrestling with the pain it requires to bring that life into existence
- I’ve heard it painted as Mary’s circumstances being unfathomable as there was no room in the inn and she was forced to give birth in a stable.
- And yet, how unfathomable is it for the mothers of Gaza giving birth amidst the rubble.
- Or mothers departing Venezuela with newborns in their arms and traveling for months.
- Mothers unsure of how they will feed their newborns, traveling on foot immediately after giving birth.
- Babies everywhere who are born into the utmost of uncertainty and danger.
- Mothers keep giving birth- courageously and necessarily— in unfathomable circumstances. This is not poetic, it is heart wrenching and visceral.
Even so, God arrives.
- I imagine Mary, in awe and disbelief whispering over her fragile newborn “You are here, despite it all, you are here”. Longing to wrap him in safety and keep him from harm.
- Do not be afraid, mothers whisper to their children
- Do not be afraid the angels call
- Do not be afraid, God is with you
- How can we forget that Jesus arrived in the world world weeping, crying out.
- We all do- it’s the very sign we are alive.
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- I came across a quote from the mystic Meister Eckhart recently.
- He says “We are all meant to be mothers of God…for God is always needing to be born.”
- How beautiful to view one another as bearers of God — God is being birthed in near impossible circumstances over and over. Making a way out of no way.
- An honest Christmas story is an invitation to join in the birthing.
- And when we lean into this call to be mothers of God, we can and will hold the tension of beauty and pain.
- These births are not magical appearances of God breaking in but embodied instances of God breaking through, even within the unfathomable
- Birthing God in the world is a choice of entering into labor. Laboring for justice. Laboring for healing. Laboring for hope.
Even so, God arrives.
- Pain and joy accompanied the birth of Jesus. And they can be our guiding companions as we walk through things not going to plan. As we navigate things not as they should be.
- Being hopeful is not a passive disposition. Birthing hope in the world is an active practice we get to embrace.
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- The other night I was attempting to rock my daughter Sadie to sleep, Christmas lights just turned off, freshly in darkness.
- Despite my best choreographed efforts of rocking and bouncing and shushing and walking, she was not having it.
- I felt my frustration soften as I thought about the privilege it is to rock a crying baby somewhere safe and warm.
- All I could think of to do in the moment was say to her “I love you, I love you, I love you” over and over again. And she drifted off to sleep
- I thought of all those holding children in the fresh darkness of night, in uncertainty and fear
- And I imagined Mary singing over Jesus “I love you, I love you, I love you” as she rocked him to sleep.
- The very love that formed him from womb to resurrection. In uncertainty and brokenness, it is this love that will prevail. A love embodied, a love sacrificed.
- The love we celebrate in Christmas as God is birthed into the world again and again.
Emmanuel- God with us
As we breathe we take in the hope you have called us to. Would this be a sustaining hope- there is good news of great joy. You will scatter the proud. You are with us. And when these things do feel true, would you increase our awareness of you. Not as some distant far off God but a loving God who is with us as life unfolds. Would we respond as you call us to join in the birthing, to embrace both joy and pain. Would we labor for healing and labor for hope. Amen.