We are all mothers of God
Last year, I was able to cross an item off my bucket list: seeing the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, a NYC tradition since 1933. There were Rockettes dancing in a line and big stuffed animals dancing to the Nutcracker. And then came the grand finale… the parade of the Nativity story. Real live camels, donkeys and sheep paraded the stage and the angels rose in the air and wise men came dripping in gold and the orchestra boomed familiar Christmas carols. It was truly spectacular with every bit of Big Apple effect thrown at it.
In the midst of the pomp and circumstance, I shook my head with amazement that an event that was such a non-event – a teenage mother giving birth to a baby in a Middle Eastern country – should be now reenacted with so much pomp on one of the biggest stages of our world.
It’s hard for us to get the Radio City Music Hall version out of our heads when we read this story. It’s a part of the cultural Christianity that most of us have inherited. How, on this night, do we reach past the layers of culture and millennium to find something that is authentic and real?
Scholars tell us that we may have gotten it wrong in terms of where and how this story happened. Kenneth Bailey, who lived and studied Middle Eastern peasant culture tells us that there is no way Mary and Joseph were by themselves in a stable. One, because hospitality is so deeply rooted in that culture that it would have been inconceivable to have turned them out, particularly since it seems Joseph had family in Bethlehem. Even a 2nd cousin, 5 times removed would have been culture bound to let them in. And two, the homes in those days actually had a room on one end where they brought animals in for the night. So, it’s more likely, Mary and Joseph were in that in home stable in a house full of relatives. So ladies, just imagine that the story is worse than we’d thought. Mary is not alone in a stable with Jesus giving birth, she is in a room full of her inlaws!
As the small drama of Jesus’ birth played out in Bethlehem that night, the world stage was filled with dangerous politics… emperors, kings and religious leaders driven by their egos, displacing whole groups of people, blind to the suffering of those on the bottom of their economic structures.
This story is beautiful because there is the birth of a baby and the gathering of strangers in response to the fulfillment of an ancient promise of peace.
This story is terrifying because it is set in the world’s most desperate circumstances – a refugee family, uncertainty, and a coming genocide by an insecure despot.
Which reminds me of on my favorite sayings is by Frederick Buechner: “Here is the world, beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”
Do not be afraid. These are the words the angels speak over and over as they come to visit the various players in the story. Do not be afraid of your unwanted pregnancy. Do not be afraid of the news that God is about disrupt the entire system. Do not be afraid that there may be more to the story than you have seen. Do not be afraid.
“Here is the world, beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”
This year has held a lot of terror. When I arrived as the pastor of this church in September, every week held more bad news… hurricanes in Texas, the Caribbean and Puerto Rico… shootings in Las Vegas and Sutherland Springs, Texas… fires in the North Bay and now in Southern California. We have every reason to be afraid. Life on earth is fragile.
“Here is the world, beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.”
As we take it all in, may we turn to Mary, the vulnerable new mother holding her even more vulnerable newborn baby. She comes to us as a pillar of wisdom, strength and perspective as we watch her take it all in.
When she found out that she was carrying the Messiah, her response was this:
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
His mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”
Mary has the beauty and terror in perspective. She knows she is significant even when everything around her says she is nothing. She sees the frailty of the world’s power structures. She surrenders to God’s presence within her. She chooses not to drink from the well of power, violence and fear. Instead, she chooses to drink from the well of love, faith, promise and peace. And in that choice, God is birthed into the world.
Meister Eckhart, 13th century mystic wrote this: “We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”
Mary’s surrender and choice reach through the years to ask us if we will also choose to reach past our shame, our fear of failure, our self absorption and allow God to be birthed in us… in our bodies, in our souls, in our action in the world.
God is born when we sing a song like Mary’s.
God is born when we drink from the well of love and not of fear.
God is born when we reach out beyond our own interest and recognize that we are all interconnected and that our destinies our tied together.
How is God being born in your life?
“We are all mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”