Christmas Incongruities and Hope from the Margins

As the celebration of the birth of Christ approaches, I’ve had a few emails come to me with reflections on the holiday. I read this today:

In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. (Luke 2:1-7 TNIV)

Imagine the announcements being sent out...

I’ve heard this story year after year and yet something new strikes me almost every time. Today reading that on the bus I recalled some things I’ve been told by the church in the past and noted an incongruity with the message of this story.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that Christians should be very careful about how their lifestyles might be perceived from the outside as non-Christians may presume hypocritical living. And of course there’s a degree of truth to this, but also a vast amount of room for legalism, self-righteousness and a lack of transparency to occur with this practice.  Yet in this story, the very birth of himself, God initiates a total scandal for this young woman (teenager more like), Mary, and her fiance Joseph. We all know that but think about it a minute. Think about how ludicrous it is.

One measure I’ve been taught of how to know if something is God or not is how ‘honouring’ it would be to him- in other words, how ‘right’ and ‘moral’ does it seem to the observer or how compatible is it with scripture. Little Mary, heavily pregnant and not married was certainly not right nor moral in those days and seems to conflict with some laws somewhere in the OT. It’d be foolish to imagine that she wasn’t ostracized and rejected- marginalised by her culture for being a whore of sorts. ‘No, really guys, this is God’s baby!’ would only lend her to be further condemned by her society as a lunatic or fanatic. Joseph’s contribution to the conversation of not being the father would probably lend more credibility to him as a man but contribute to her negative image even more so.

Reflecting on all this makes me rethink what I’ve been told about discerning God’s activity around me and in my own life. It confirms to me that he’s poised to bring his kingdom through actions that would make the average church goer squirm in their pew. Of course I’ve known this, it’s just good to be reminded and to have a few more of those wobbly walls in my cozy Christian construct be dismantled.

And it’s also comforting to know that as unkind as it may seem on the one hand to give someone such a burden of rejection to carry through life as he did Mary and even Jesus the bastard himself, I’m not alone in living this way and great things come from living in the margins.

Paul wasn’t the only Christian jail bird

If you Google ‘Paul in prison’ and check out the images you’ll see a host of inspired artwork of a pensive, well groomed man, frequently gripping a quill as he stares off into the distance recalling stories which he then presumably scribes for you and I to read in our Bibles today. You’ll also find colouring book pages for those of us with less artistic prowess to indulge our creativity. I wonder if it was really like that.

Rembrandt's Idealistically Imprisoned Paul

My thinking about Paul was spurred by my husband’s arrest a couple weeks ago for supporting striking public sector workers in London, merely with the intention of distributing tea and biscuits. As Christ-followers involved in the activist scene locally, we have friends from both spheres who have supported us via text messages, emails and social media in this time. Rob’s activist friends who have a great deal more familiarity with the process of being arrested, either having been there themselves or having supported others before were unflinching in their ability to provide information and ensure that we were well looked after.

Our Christian friends, while very good at sending message of support and offering prayer were not so great at offering practical help. I hope that this experience of ours will serve to enlighten our Christ-following friends in ways that they can help out in a more hands-on way where possible, but that’s for another day and another post.

Along with offers for prayer we were overwhelmed with statements comparing Rob’s arrest and 12ish hours in jail to the apostle Paul who was also imprisoned and wrote much of the New Testament letters during that time. I wondered why with every new message sent comparing Rob to Paul I went from shaking my head in good humour, knowing that this was an example of Christians taking experiences totally out of context, to becoming increasingly frustrated with the comparison. I just couldn’t put my finger on why I was so annoyed as I know that every person who sent such a message did so intending to give encouragement and identify with the experience in possibly the only way they knew to do so.

We escaped to the seaside the weekend after the ordeal and sat on the beach talking about why I felt so miffed. As we talked on, I realised that my issue with this comparison stemmed from the fact that Rob was arrested with 36 other people also doing good in their community. Maybe they weren’t doing it as an act of love for their neighbour explicitly following Christ’s example, but nevertheless they were doing it equally. It seems like a real double standard to select the Christian for a biased pat on the back, neglecting the others who were unjustly repaid for the same good deeds.

This is one of the real problems we’ve got with the church right now- the near inability to see or acknowledge Jesus values that are embedded all around us. Perhaps if we did so others would feel a closer kinship with Jesus rather than an increasing sense of alienation.

I also realised that this is a great example of an unhealthy tendency I’ve seen the church charged with before – the tendency to align itself more with Paul than with Christ. Listen to Christians in Bible conversation and you’ll probably hear more reference to Paul than Jesus. We spend more time studying his letters than the gospels and life of Christ. I wonder why people felt compelled to compare Rob’s arrest to Paul instead of Jesus who also was imprisoned without cause. Who exactly are we following? A guy who, I have to be honest, at face value seems like a real sexist jerk sometimes* or a guy who we confess to believing lived a perfect life?

Not to seem thankless to those who have offered their support and been inspired by a fellow Christ follower who ended up charged with violence by following Jesus’ call to love his neighbour. Just to challenge and provoke thought.

* When I first started reading the Bible for real I actually crossed through some of what Paul said about women because it infuriated me. I could think of several things to call him before ‘apostle’. Having studied a bit more and getting a cultural context for what he said and looking into the way things were badly translated I know that he has been misquoted in most of our translations and isn’t such a bad guy after all and actually quite pro-women. But I have real empathy for anyone reading the Bible without this understanding.

Jesus wants to save gophers.

Recently I’ve found inspiration from the strangest of places. My only brush with these creatures in real life has been in the dreaded appearance of mounds of dirt in my parent’s garden while I was growing up. Caddyshack famously expressed most people’s loathing for these little furry beasts when the character Carl Spackler said, “In the immortal words of Jean Paul Sartre, ‘Au revoir, gopher’” as he attempted to dynamite the earth burrower’s hole. Yet while on holiday at my in-laws’ house I found myself strangely identifying with gophers- those of Mt. St. Helen’s to be specific.

While watching PBS a NOVA programme came on called ‘Mt. St. Helens: Back from the dead’. Being a bit of an ecology nerd (apologies to my fellow geek friends) I was consumed by the telling of the explosion that happened in 1980 resulting in death, destruction, and sweeping panoramas of ash and black. Scientists told how they wondered if anything survived and how on earth anything would ever make a comeback to such a desolate location. As the ground continued to shift and rumble while the volcano remained active for some time, brave scientists began walking and flying around in search of signs of life. Months and months in to this search with absolutely no hopeful glimmers, a man in a helicopter spotted something different- a fresh mound of earth. As the pilot landed and the researcher walked towards the soil which stood in stark contrast to the dense blanket of ash, fresh revelation hit: some little critters that had lived below the surface of the earth- pesky varments though they were- had survived the eruption and their lives continued on, though with fewer fresh roots to chew on. 

Cloudless Days with No Sunshine

Walking to work this morning, the sky was a great s t r e t c h of cloudless blue.

Yet the sidewalk below was a drab gray, dark and cold. 

I knew that there must be some light out there ……………………..

………………… but it just hadn’t fallen across my path. 

On I walked and as the buildings rose HIGHER, the path grew darker, yet I could see the warm glow far overhead on the sides of the glass and concrete and metal far above. 

I came to enjoy the game of searching for (pockets of light) in the darkness, reflections of the sun that was surely out there                                                                       somewhere.


Through crevices between houses, along the backside of gardens overgrown with weeds and thorns, dancing in the windows. Eventually I caught glimpses as the buildings   spaced     out yet still it ducked and dived from my sight.


As I approached the open square, the intensity around me began to increase and build.


Finally, as I broke through my surroundings, there it stood as it had all along.
It hadn’t changed.


Only my own position had.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

I wrote this piece not as a way of ‘preaching it’ to my atheist or ‘unbelieving’ friends but as, well, a good kick in the bum for my ‘believing’ or ‘orthodox’ friends- or more specifically to those who are pretty certain they know what truth is and can recognise what it isn’t. 


I use to make such claims and probably still am enlightened arrogant enough to do so now on occasion (well, don’t we all?). I recall a conversation I had recently with someone who reminded me of the good old (?) Christian proverb (not the kind in the bible… the kind that someone made up and it’s followed us around doggedly for aeons) that just a bit of untruth makes the whole thing a lie. I think most people put it a bit more whimsically than that but the exact phrase now escapes me, but you get the gist. I use to wield that one around myself but as it was reiterated to me I thought, now wait, that’s not exactly right. 


I’m in a place in life now where I believe that God does dwell, as the psalmist claims, everywhere, in everything- even in the worst of places, Sheol (death). Yes there’s a load of rubbish in this life but there are gems buried in deep within the dust and debris. I believe that were we to demonstrate to people where God was already at work in the world and in their own lives, more people would want to know him. 


As we journey though the urban landscape of our lives, the light may not be blinding us. It may be that we seldom, if ever see the sun. But often times we perceive it in its reflection in the glass and we wouldn’t recognise the shape of shadows if it was absent. People may be closer to the light than we give them, or Christ, credit for. 


Look for the glimmers of light and help others recognise them. It can be a fun game.

"G-d"

I’ve been listening to the new mewithoutyou album, ‘It’s all Crazy! It’s all False! It’s all a Dream! It’s Alright!’ and I love the last track ‘Allah Allah Allah’ but I can see why it might leave some followers of Christ unsettled. In fact, the band themselves are followers of Jesus but they’ve chosen to use a name of G-d that most Christians are uncomfortable with for fear of praying to the ‘wrong God’. But the fact is that Arabaic Christians use the name ‘Allah’ for the ‘Christian God’ with no hesitation because Allah is simply their vernacular for God. Perhaps Christians should first consider our usage of the word GOD as it’s offensive to the Jewish believer in that you’re not even meant to say it- it’s such a holy name. Perhaps we should take the splinter from our own eye before casting judgement on those who use the word Allah in the Christian context? What do you think?