Risky Business

 Last night I was wondering what the church attendance would be like 

            for Christmas Eve and for today.

We were nicely spaced out in numbers over the three services,

            and that made it safer for us all.

 

For these Christmas services one might feel like attending 

            would be sort of like

                        running a gauntlet through a COVID infested environment, 

            but then most of life could be seen as running a gauntlet 

                                    in one way or another.  

We are surrounded by life threatening things all the time –

                        walking across a street,

                        slipping in the bath tub, … you name it.

 

Think of this, for instance:

It’s amazing how many babies actually make it into this world 

            survive the teen years, 

            and live to adulthood, 

            maybe or maybe not having to deal with war, 

            and now facing world wide pandemic and global climate catastrophes. 

 

This gets me to thinking about just how risky it was for Jesus getting born –

            risky on many levels:

                        the wrong time of the year,

                        while on a journey,

                        during a time in world history of military and imperial domination,

                        no room in the inn (let alone a hospital), 

                                    and certainly no room for the poor.

 

So the birth happens in a stable,

            a place not fit for human habitation.

 

And so too is the place of birthing 

                                    that occurs spiritual in the human person.

            Our hearts may not always be welcoming 

            and may have their own unsanitary conditions to hinder a holy birthing.

 

The birth of Christ does not occur in human hearts in a place of abundance, 

            but most usually in a place of poverty 

                                    and in the places unfit to live in.

 

Let me share with you what one of my favorite Franciscans has written –

Richard Rohr:

 

“There’s really nothing necessarily pretty about the first Christmas. 

We have Joseph breaking the law, 

knowing what he should do with a seemingly “adulterous woman,” 

            but he doesn’t divorce Mary as the Law clearly tells him to do, 

even though he has no direct way of knowing 

            that the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 

It can certainly lead us to wonder why so much of Christianity 

            became so legalistic 

when we have at its very beginning a man who breaks the law 

            to protect the dignity of the woman he loves. 

Then we clearly have a couple that is homeless 

and soon to be refugees or immigrants in their flight to Egypt 

            shortly after Jesus’ birth.”

 

How tenuous this birth was, how uninviting the world,

            and yet this was the divinely right moment for such an important birth.

 

Wherever in our hearts there is despair, darkness, sin, deep wounding,                                                 betrayal, abandonment, failure, disaster, oppression, 

            it is there that the human heart out of desperation will open

                        and become a manger in a filthy, stinking stable

            to welcome a tiny, hopeful birth

of the One who brings with him the unfolding and expansion of the K of G.

 

It is to those who walk in darkness 

            that the great Light comes.

 

And for those who show up for church this Christmas, 

            my prayer is that God who took on human flesh, 

                                    who so identified with us out of love, 

                        will fill us all with a sense of this divine presence 

            so that we will have the courage we need 

                        to face whatever is in front of us 

                        and to do that with a deep abiding sense of joy and love.  

 

Make each home a Bethlehem,

            make each heart a Bethlehem, 

                        a place to welcome newborn Love,

                        newborn awakening to the radiance streaming from him,

                                    greater than all the Christmas lights,

                                    revealing to us the Divine Light,

                                    filling us with Light.

 

Fear not, the angel said, and I try to agree with that.  

 

May you have a blessed Christmas.