The God Born in a Barn
"The Lord will judge the nations: and they shall beat their swords into
plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."
- The Prophet Isaiah
"He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly."
- The Magnificat (The Song of Mary)
Our focus this morning is the story of Jesus' birth, but I want to begin with a different story.
It's a West African tale that takes place in a jungle on a day when all the animals gathered for a contest to see who could display strength. The plan was to begin right away in the morning, but one of the animals was late - the human being. Unbeknownst to the animals, he was busy hiding something in the bushes - his gun. Finally, with the gun well hidden, the human being emerged from the thick jungle and announced with his characteristic flair, "I'm here! Now we can begin!"
The contest started with monkey stepping forward first. He flexed his long strong arms and then flew up to the top of a tree, pulled two large branches together and then tied them into a knot. When monkey reached the ground, all the animals erupted into cheers, "Strength! Strength! Strength. That is strength!"
Next was deer. She glided into the center of the circle with her beautiful and powerful legs. In a flash she burst from the circle, ran three miles to the edge of the jungle and then back again. She wasn't even the slightest bit out of breath. Again, all the animals erupted into cheers, "Strength! Strength! Strength. That is strength!"
Then leopard walked to the middle of the circle of animals, flashed his awesome claws and, in a matter of seconds, dug a hole big and deep enough for all the animals to fit into. The animals didn't hesitate: "Strength! Strength! Strength. That is strength!"
Elephant then sauntered to the edge of the jungle, lowered his giant shoulder into a large tree and pushed it into a row of other trees. One by one they toppled to the ground, making a clear path right through the center of the jungle. Cheers filled the jungle, "Strength! Strength! Strength. That is strength!"
Finally, the human being pranced to the center. He did a cartwheel, then a summersault and ended with a head stand. "Ta Da!" he said as he turned to all the animals. Silence. No cheers. "Well," said the animals, "that was entertaining. But it wasn't really strength." The human being was insulted. With a beet-red face he ran to a tree, climbed to the top, grabbed a coconut and tossed it to the ground. "Well how about that?" said human being. Again the animals paused in nervous silence, finally saying "Well it was certainly interesting. But, sorry, it's not really strength."
The human being was furious now. He immediately stormed to the bushes, grabbed his gun, walked over to elephant and pulled the trigger. BAM! Elephant fell to the ground, dead. "There!" screamed the human being, "You can't deny it now. How's that for strength?!"
But there was no response. The human being looked around. He was alone. All the animals had fled into the jungle. Finally the animals regrouped by the waterfall. "What was that?!" they asked each other. "Was that strength?" said the monkey. Everyone paused and thought. Finally, deer spoke up, "No. That wasn't strength. That was death. That was death."
And to this day, among the animals, the human being is known as the creature who can not tell the difference between strength and death.
I share this story for two reasons. First, because I believe there is nothing today more urgent and important for us as a society than developing the ability to recognize the difference between strength and death. And the second reason is because "what is the difference between strength and death?" is precisely the question to which the story of Jesus' birth addresses itself.
Of course, this is not the usual way of thinking about the meaning of the Christmas story. Most often, we as a society focus on the other meaningful messages embedded in the Christmas tale. We talk about the miracle of babies and the child-like ability to see the world as full of magic and surprises. We talk about allowing the spirit of God - the spirit of life - to be born in each of us every day, not just in one tiny baby in a barn two thousand years ago. We talk about hope against all odds, the defeat of cynicism, the potential of human beings and the importance of charity and taking care of the poor.
But what we don't talk about - and this is very important to notice if we want to do justice to the message of the Magnificat and the prophetic tradition about which our choirs sang today - is how dangerous and threatening the story of Jesus' birth really is. Simply put, this is a story that radically condemns and confronts our modern understandings of power, yet we've turned it into a quite tame celebration of kindness and goodwill.
And we should admit right away that there's a big part of each of us that needs it to be this way. Frankly, we deserve a few tame and celebratory weeks. We've got enough condemnation, confrontation and calls to change in our personal lives as it is. We don't need Christmas adding more. No, we need Christmas to make us smile and warm our hearts.
But this is not what the world needs. And a big part of us knows that too.
To look at current events going on around the world is to know that something is indeed off with our society's understanding and exercise of strength. Even if we can't articulate it, we sense on some deep level that the line dividing strength and death is being crossed at increasingly frightening rates. For three years now we've watched our country dominate others and control the world, but instead of leaving us hopeful, it's only left us hungering for another way.
Which, friends, is exactly what this ancient Christian story of God being born in a barn is all about. But to hear this call for another way clearly, we have to listen to the story in a slightly different way than we're used to. We need to hear it told from the perspective not of the wise men's journey, the shepherd's journey or even Mary and Joseph's journey, but of God's journey.
The first thing we need to remember from this perspective is that - for the Christians telling it - the Christmas story marks a radical shift in the life of God. Prior to that night in the barn, God - the source of life, the redeeming power of the universe - sat above the earth ruling it as a great king, sending the message to his people that redemptive power is dominating power, that salvation and peace on earth come through imposing divine will.
We see this in the way God broke the oppressive rule of Pharaoh by bringing "shock and awe" to that selfish and soulless kingdom, freeing the innocent and oppressed Jews and guiding them as a father would guide his children to a new promised land of milk and honey, peace and self-rule. We also see this reliance on dominating power in the way the Christian God blessed the bloody rule of King David. Through direct revelation God taught and reminded David over and over that intimidation and military might were what keep evil and enemies at bay. But then, with no warning at all, the story of the Christian God takes a radical turn. In an earth-shaking moment of great mystery, God - the spirit of life, the source of human redemption and wholeness - is said to renounce it all. In a singularly shocking and revolutionary act, this God of great power, this king of the universe, voluntarily lets go of his place of dominance, safety and control and allows himself to be born in a barn as a weak and vulnerable illegitimate child. He gives up kingship and takes the form of an outcast, a member of the oppressed, who grows up possessing no power whatsoever except the power of radical empathy and an understanding of self that transcends all boundaries.
This "God turned child" grows up to say things like "I have no mother or brother or sister; every single human being is my mother, my brother, my sister."
To those who rule he warns, "What you do to the least of these, you do to me."
In this one simple but also unbelievably amazing moment, the world - according to the Christian tradition - was turned on its head. Love replaced might. The power of empathy and solidarity was declared to be the world's greatest source of strength; the power of kings, the power of dominance and control - once God's favored approach to peace - was declared, by God himself, to be nothing more than death. In allowing himself to be born in that barn so long ago, this God said to the world, "I was wrong; we must do this another way!"
This "other way," this reliance on the power of empathy rather than the power of domination, was spelled out dramatically in an exchange I heard recently. A Christian minister was addressing an audience, analyzing our country's recent military efforts to control and change the shape of the world. He acknowledged that certain parts of the Bible do indeed support our society's claim that God blesses and is working through our military efforts. But he said the Christmas story absolutely does not support this.
In order to conclude that God blesses the Iraqi war, he explained, you have to completely ignore or renounce the incarnation. He pointed out that the Christmas name for the divine is Emmanuel which means God with us, not God over us - indicating that, for Christians at least, God now dwells in acts of radical empathy and solidarity, rather than acts of might, control and the imposition of one's will.
A World War II veteran was in the audience. He raised his hand and asked, "So are you saying that to be a Christian one must be a pacifist?"
The speaker replied gently but quickly. "No, it doesn't mean that. What it does mean, though, is that every military and political decision you make must be made from the posture of radical connection and oneness with others."
It's a fascinating and important phrase: "Radical connection and oneness with others." The speaker went on to explain this idea by saying, "It means that when you are considering whether or not your plans to avenge 3000 World Trade Tower victims and promote democracy around the world are really worth the price of tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, you need to make that decision NOT as a military commander calculating abstract collateral damage, but as if each and every one of those civilians was your brother, sister, mother or father. According to the incarnation, making the calculation this weighty and personal is the only way your decision will even have the possibility of being a decision that serves the spirit of life rather than the spirit of death." "And personally," said the speaker, "if that was how I was assessing the decision, I don't see how I would do anything but find another way. If it was tens of thousands of my brothers and sisters at stake, I'd pay $20 a gallon for gas and freely give away over half of our nation's military budget before I'd authorize the all too easy and life-destroying method of salvation by bombs."
The minister finished by saying, "The people of the Middle East are right to doubt our claim that we are dropping bombs out of a deep empathic concern for their well being. We ourselves have called this a defensive military mission. In so many ways we've made it absolutely clear that we are there to ensure our safety, not the world's. And according to the story of Jesus' birth, strength that asserts itself for its own sake has nothing whatsoever to do with divinity or redemptive power." Or to go back to the story that started us off today, he could have said strength that asserts itself for its own sake is not strength, it is death!
Let me end this morning with my Dad's yearly Christmas question. It seems that every Christmas my father - a retired Christian minister - asks me, "Why do you do it? You're no longer a Christian. Your Unitarian Universalist tradition has long left most of the Christian story behind. So why do you make such a big deal of the Christmas story every year?"
I have many answers to this, but the one that rises above the others is simply: "I need it." I need the story of the incarnation to challenge my life, because I constantly need reminding that there is another way.
Which is exactly what I think our society needs to be reminded of as well. I don't believe our society regularly confuses strength with death because it is evil or selfish. I think it mostly has to do with a failure of imagination, a deep inability to envision another way. To correct this lack of imagination, we as a society desperately need someone to share and inspire us with new stories like the one we're honoring today. That's fundamentally the only way I know that we will ever move from an ethic of dominance, control and death to an ethic of empathy and life.
And it is my hope that we here will be part of making that so.
Amen.
December 12, 2004