Pitt Street Uniting Church, 25-Dec-2013 Embodied, Earthy, Love A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Christmas Day Luke 2: (1-7), 8-20 The day is here. The time is now. The modern festival called Christmas is a celebration of story, myth, customs and ritual. It has a secular meaning for many and a spiritual meaning for others. Since its inception it has been debated, ignored, celebrated, banned, and reshaped. For many people today Christmas is just that... Christmas! An accepted part of the annual cycle of events, and something to be entered into and enjoyed. life can be. At its best, the Christmas spirit is a mirror in which we see reflected the very best that When we see ourselves moved by generosity, encouraged by hope, uplifted by love. But now it is Christmas morning and we are gathered here in this sacred space. We are searching for the something more of Christmas that is found in the stories of Jesus. This season, the harsh realities of our Empire s powers-that-be, make that hope of a world transformed seem about as far-fetched as it did in the outer reaches of the Roman Empire where once the angels sang. Is it Christmas on Christmas Island? Was the night silent and holy for political refugees or hostages? Is it Christmas for those living with AIDS or those dying in the cold? Is it Christmas for the hungry and the homeless? If is Christmas for the queer youth who are not welcome at the family table? A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 1 of 5
Only in faith, can we answer yes. Christmas is in those places and Christmas is here among us. Christmas comes primarily when we are in solidarity with the excluded, the outcast and the forgotten. That's why God chose to come as the homeless child of a poor uppity and unwed mother. God did not want us to miss Her point. There are two gospel readings commonly heard Christmas Day. One is the story we heard read from Luke and the other is the first chapter of John s gospel, which speaks of the Word made flesh, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. Both stories have implications for our bodies, ourselves and the earth. Both gospels tell us that the relationship between God, Jesus, and us, is eternal and extraordinarily intimate. Both gospels tell of embodied, earthy, love. The outrageous claim the Word became flesh tells of the full participation of the heart of God in human life. And the Word lived among us, is literally translated as the Word pitched a tent among us! What a wonderful image for our summer time Christmas. So today we remember the Bethlehem narrative of Mary, Joseph, the baby, star, and shepherds, not because of its historicity but because of its eternal truth. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, is also anything but factual. It s not even rational. But God s glory becoming human and dwelling with us is what incarnation means. The sacred among us, enfleshed, embodied. It is un-theological. It is unsophisticated. It is undignified. But according to our faith stories, this is the way things are. Religious traditions, our own included, have a tendency to value and emphasize the spiritual. What our tradition is telling us this Christmas morning is that religions and philosophies that deny the reality, or the significance, of the material, the created, the fleshly, the earthbound, are misguided. Moses at the burning bush was told to take off his shoes because the ground on which he stood was holy ground. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 2 of 5
Incarnation means that all ground is holy because God not only made it, but walked on it, ate and slept, loved and worked, and died on it. If we are saved anywhere, we are saved here. And what is saved is not some airy-fairy essence of our bodies and our earth, but our bodies and the earth itself. Our God is earthy and embodied in the person of Jesus, but not just in Jesus. For we know Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ. In Jesus Christ, and in every christic person and experience, the Word becomes flesh and lives among us. This Word embraces the Word of Justice, the setting right of what is wrong, the establishment of right relation. The inclusion of the excluded, each one made in God s image. The Word embraces the word of Creation, which cries out to us for eco-justice. It speaks to us of its pain in bush fires and floods. The word is the Word of Compassion, of everlasting love and simple kindness. And the Christmas Word calls us back in the name of justice, new creation and compassion to the old, stubborn, arrogant, prideful world waiting in poverty and oppression for the coming of Christ. It calls us to love in action. And it empowers us to respond to this call because we know ourselves to be beloved. Christmas is the celebration and blessing of our embodied selves. In so much of Christian theology and practice, we deny our bodies. But in celebrating the flesh that the Word has become, we also bless our own bodies. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 3 of 5
Jesus was born through the labours of Mary, in agony and ecstasy. He was massaged and embraced and loved into life. She held him to her breast and nourished him with the milk that flowed from her own body. We deny our bodies so often in church, and yet this story is telling us of the good of bodyliness. For through our bodies we know and encounter the world: earth, animals, plants and people, and God among us. It is through our bodies that we have the capacity for intimacy with one another: whether through a gentle touch hand on hand, or the passion of love-making in our bodies we meet one another and we meet our God. And if God comes to us, embodied, then surely God also cares for the hurts and injuries and illnesses we experience in our bodies. Many of us are out of touch with our bodies, with God blessing our bodies, because we have been hurt and abused. If our bodies were just the containers of our eternal spirits, it would matter less when human bodies are sexually abused, starved, tortured, or killed. But we are body-spirit beings. Body and spirit intertwined. It matters terribly. For those of us whose bodies have been violated, abused, or hurt, there is also a Christmas message. For the story tells us that our God knows the experience of embodied being, our God knows pain as well as pleasure. God that was only spirit could never know; could never share the hurts the way that the Word made Flesh, God-in-Christ, is able to know. Christians are empowered by the memory and the presence of Jesus. The one whom we call Christ mirrors our own vocation: to love our neighbors as ourselves, despite the pain and emptiness we sometimes feel, and in so doing to offer to God the one spiritual sacrifice God requires of us to take the risks involved in standing with humankind on behalf of a better world and a sacred earth. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 4 of 5
We look to Jesus born this day as a brother, an advocate, a friend, a liberator, because he stood with us on the earth. (second last page) The texts insist that what is remembered is no accident of history. What is remembered is, quite simply, what God has done, what God is doing, and what God intends to do in and through us. Incarnation is God s spirit living and breathing through us. Together, we are God s body on the earth with one common vocation: to live in right relation with the earth and with one another. In Christ, we stand with Jesus as we stand with one another and work toward the making of justice. We love Jesus, the baby and the human One, when we love one another. In doing this, we love and honour God. Blesséd be our bodies, which are blessed of our God, the one who comes to us. Good is the flesh that the Word has become! And on the earth, and in our hearts, peace. A Reflection by Rev Dr Margaret Mayman Page 5 of 5