Grace and peace to you
It may surprise us to know that back in the Biblical day the idea of God taking on human flesh was actually not such an outrageous idea. There were many emperors and pharaohs of the Greeks, Romans and ancient Egyptians who were considered deity in some form or other.
What made the declaration that Jesus was God born among us so outrageous is that he came from the under-class of society. His parents were peasant working people. What was worse was that his mother was not impregnated by his father – giving Jesus and his parents full marks in the social outcast category. The Gospel stories are clear that he was not born in a palace but rather in an overcrowded hovel – sharing accommodation with animals because they didn’t make the cut for anything more worthy. You don’t get lower than this.
And this is the shock of Christmas – not that God would share our flesh per se – but that God would share the flesh of the lowest among us. This turned the orthodox theology of their day up-side-down for in those days everyone believed that the healthy and wealthy were the ones who had been blessed by God while the poor and sick had been cursed by God. But if it were true that the lowly-outcast-Jesus was God’s en-fleshed representative then one’s entire perspective of God would have to change, as well as one’s perspective on life and living.
When the emperors and people in power are believed to represent God then the status quo will be bent in their favour. Any challenge to the status quo that serves the elite will not only be considered treason, but sinful. To challenge the king is no less than challenging God. This is very convenient theology for the King after all, who wants to mess with God?
But when God is represented by the lowest – the least – the ones society makes no room for then the elite serving status quo is given notice. Every day the status quo excludes and exploits the poorest of the poor God is aggrieved and offended. In short, the elite are messing with God and you don’t want to do that!
Christmas is the great challenge to all elite-serving systems. It declares: If you mess with the poor you mess with God. In South Africa, Christmas 2015 comes to us as a stern warning: Start honouring the poor or else …
Alan
A Psalm of Bringing to Birth
People of CMM, what will we bring to birth in the world of the new creation?
Wisdom and justice, peace and compassion, concern for all God’s little ones, for the homeless and the destitute, the hungry, and all who bear the brunt of indifference and oppression.
People of CMM, what will we bring to birth on the earth of the new creation?
A deep respect for our planet, its winding and its waters, its topsoil and its forests, and a oneness with the wilderness that is image of our soul.
People of CMM, what will we bring to birth in the church of the new creation?
A total disdain for power that diminishes or destroys, divestment of wealth and status, a sharing of human resources based on mutuality and the sudden surprise of grace.
People of CMM, what will we bring to birth in the hearts of the new creation?
An unbreakable bond in the Spirit that binds as one all brothers and sisters, transcending class, colour, culture, religion, sexual orientation and gender, that treats no personal preference, no physical or spiritual difference as aberration or handicap.
One has been born among us who heralds such liberation. Human liberation, our liberation has taken flesh among us and in Spirit dwell with us.
Holy the woman who helped this happen. Blessed are we when we give birth to the Word made flesh in us.
~ Miriam Therese Winter in WomanWord [adapted]
