christmas

We Need a Little Christmas

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Luke 2:1-20

This Advent my earworm has been, “We Need a Little Christmas,” from the musical, “Mame.” I don’t actually like the musical “Mame,” although I love the 1958 movie, “Auntie Mame,” starring Rosalind Russell. Mame loses her fortune in the 1929 stock market crash, and tries her hand at a variety of jobs for which she’s hilariously ill-suited. She maintains her good humor and sense of style but finally seems to be coming to the end of her options, and that’s when she suggests they go ahead and start celebrating Christmas even though it’s weeks away. In the musical version, Mame sings:

“Haul out the holly;
Put up the tree before my spirit falls again.
Fill up the stocking,
I may be rushing things, but deck the halls again now.
For we need a little Christmas
Right this very minute …”

This year more than many other years, I’ve had that same impulse. We need a little Christmas. Something cozy and familiar and reassuring. The distraction and gaiety of decorations and parties and all the preparations, but even more, the warmth of family and friends, the comfort of home. Not just the daily news, not only recent tragedies but life in general wears us out. We’ve had enough realism. We need a little Christmas, now.

So, we read the old story, the gorgeous poetry of Luke’s gospel; I choose to read from the King James. The archaic words work as a kind of salve: “And they were sore afraid.” The thing is, as beautiful and familiar as the words of this story are, Luke didn’t intend for his readers to picture a tidy Hallmark card when they heard it. Cozy wasn’t his goal. He was actually going after something completely different, to quote Monty Python. He was going for unexpected.

I don’t know of a better illustration of this than the video entitled, “An Unexpected Christmas,” produced by St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand. All the roles are played by children, but it’s way too slick to call a pageant; great costumes, camera work, script, music, and their New Zealand accents are adorable, especially when they say “baby.”

The video begins as God looks down from heaven’s balcony, shaking his head at what he sees on earth. God says it’s time to step in. God’s warrior angels (there’s Biblical support for warrior angels) suggest sending an army but God says, no, maybe just one person. An angel in big round glasses says, “Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that!” The angels then say if it’s one person, it needs to be someone very powerful and strong. “No,” says God, “they’ll be going as a newborn baby.” “A newborn baby?” screech the warrior angels in disbelief. “Brilliant!” says the bespectacled angel again. “They won’t be expecting that.” And so it goes. This baby won’t be born to a great ruler or a mighty king, but to a peasant girl. And this won’t be just any baby, but God’s son. Born not in a palace, but in a stable, surrounded by animals and animal smells. The angels will be allowed to sing a welcome, but not to kings, only to some shepherds, the folks at the very bottom rung of the social ladder. At each decision, someone says, “Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that!”

This is precisely what Luke intended. “Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that!” Although Luke’s version is much edgier. Luke dares to mention the secular rulers of the time, Augustus Caesar and Cyrenius, for a reason. Luke wants us to see the contrast between the power of the Roman Empire and the power of God through Christ. What people wanted was a king who would unify the nation, rally the troops, and drive out the occupying forces. That’s what a Messiah is supposed to do, right? But the power of God does not look like the power of Rome. When the angels sing of peace on earth, they’re raising a question: Is it the Emperor in Rome and his Pax Romana who will bring you peace, or is it God? Is it human power – power that is external and coercive – or is it God’s power – the power of vulnerable love?

Frederick Buechner describes the difference between God’s power and human power this way: “By applying external pressure, I can make a person do what I want him to do. This is [human] power. But as for making him be what I want him to be, without at the same time destroying his freedom, only love can make this happen. And love makes it happen not coercively, but by creating a situation in which, of our own free will, we want to be what love wants us to be. And because God’s love is uncoercive and treasures our freedom … we are free to resist it, deny it, crucify it finally, which we do again and again. This is our terrible freedom, which love refuses to overpower so that, in this the greatest of all powers, God’s power, is itself powerless.”

That takes us out of comfy-cozy into alarming territory, doesn’t it? It is downright scary to be told by God, “This is the way to achieve real peace: by being as vulnerable with each other, as dependent on each other as an infant; by treasuring each other the way a newborn is treasured. By loving each other the way I love you.” But what’s scarier still are the consequences of our refusal to love each other, which we can see all around us. And when I say “love” I’m talking about the way we act toward each other, not some fuzzy feeling.

We need a little Christmas. Right this very minute. We need the message that God comes to us in a vulnerable baby born to nobody parents in a backwater village, in a stable surrounded by mess and bad smells, with “no crib for a bed,” and the first people to hear about it, those shepherds out on a hillside, are the kind of people you’d never invite to dinner and you’d pray your daughter wouldn’t marry.

John Harvey, one of the poets at the Iona Community, came up with the best description I’ve found of the Christmas we all need. Harvey wrote:

On this night of the year, a voice is speaking – can we hear it?

‘I know the cares and the anxious thoughts of your hearts.
I know the hard time you often give yourselves.
I know the hopes and ambitions that you have for yourselves and for others.
I know your doubts, too – even while you seek to express your belief.
On this night, I want to find a way of saying to you:
You are deeply, deeply loved,
just as you are, forgiven, loved
and challenged to be the very best you can be.
So I’m speaking to you the only way I know how –

from a stable,
in a child born into poverty
soon to grow to maturity,
born to show you
in a human life,
the love of God.’

Brilliant! They won’t be expecting that.
Merry Christmas, everyone.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
“We Need a Little Christmas,” from, “Mame,” music and lyrics by Jerry Herman, (1966).
“An Unexpected Christmas,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM1XusYVqNY
Frederick Buechner, “The Power of God, the Power of Man,” in The Magnificent Defeat (New York: HarperCollins, 1966).
John Harvey, “You Are Deeply, Deeply Loved,” in Candles and Conifers, Ruth Burgess, ed. (Glasgow: Wild Goose Publications, 2005).
Re: Warrior angels: Michael the archangel seems to be a warrior angel (Revelation. 12:7) who does battle (Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1).

The Other Christmas Story

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Matthew 1:18-25

This Sunday we hear Matthew’s Christmas story. The trip to Bethlehem for the census, no room at the inn, the manger, the angels and shepherds – most of what we associate with Christmas pageants is found in Luke’s gospel, and Mary is definitely the star of that show. In Matthew’s gospel, however, the spotlight is on Joseph. It’s a more adult story, not easily translated into to a pageant script.

However, to get there, we need to get past a controversial doctrine that jumps out at us in verse 18. Some people struggle with the notion of a virgin birth; others struggle with the fact that there are Christians who don’t believe in it. I’ll say three things about the virgin birth: First, esteemed Biblical scholars and theologians disagree about it. They do agree it serves to tie Jesus’ birth to the Isaiah passage quoted in Matthew 1:23 (Isaiah 7:14), or at least to the Greek translation of that passage. The Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament) translates the Hebrew word for “young woman” in Isaiah as “virgin.” Second, I agree with the angel in Luke’s Christmas story that nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). And third, whether you believe the virgin birth is fact or myth isn’t nearly as important as understanding the point, which is that in Jesus, God was doing something completely new. Neither Mark nor John’s gospel nor the apostle Paul in all his letters thought it was important enough to mention the virgin birth, or any birth, for that matter, and this tells us that different communities of believers were able to preach and write about Jesus without making the virgin birth an article of faith about him.

So, with that messy question moved aside, let’s turn to Joseph and his mess. Elsewhere in Scripture, people refer to Jesus as Joseph’s son (John 6:42). This relationship is important to Matthew, who wrote his gospel primarily for Jewish Christians. It is through Joseph that Jesus is a descendent of King David. The way Matthew tells it, Joseph chooses to be Jesus’ father; that is the focus of his Christmas story.

Nazareth was a small town. Joseph probably noticed Mary among the marriageable girls and asked her parents for her hand in marriage. It’s likely that they all went to see a rabbi and made a contract. Mary and Joseph were betrothed, or engaged, or espoused, depending on your translation; they were legally married but hadn’t moved in together. They’d begin living together after the wedding, which would be a major event in the life of the community, a week-long party of eating, drinking, and dancing.

Then Mary turns up pregnant. A contract has been violated; a law has been broken. This was serious not only for Mary but for everyone around her. The first century Mediterranean world was an “honor-shame culture.” Honor had to do with your value in the society; it had nothing to do with wealth but rather with reputation, with your ability to do what you need to do to belong, to interact with others in a way that brings you and your group honor. Keeping your honor was like an ongoing contest. You could lose your honor in any social interaction. And to lose your honor was to be shamed.

If Joseph accepts Mary, that will cause him shame. If he pretends the child is his, that, too, is shameful because Mary is pregnant before the wedding. Mary’s news is a huge threat to Joseph’s honor. Matthew says Joseph is a righteous man, which means he is a man who follows Jewish law. Joseph decides to divorce Mary quietly rather than subject her to public humiliation. God’s whole daring plan is suddenly at risk. All pretty adult stuff, right? Marriage contracts, shame, what you can and can’t do before the wedding?

Then Joseph has a dream. “Do not be afraid, Joseph, to take Mary for your wife, for the child is from the Holy Spirit.” William Willimon quips that while there’s a lot art depicting the angel announcing to a serene Mary that she is with child, there is little art focused on Joseph’s dream: “Joseph bolting upright in bed, in a cold sweat after being told his fiancée is pregnant, and not by him, and he should marry her anyway.”

“Do not be afraid to take Mary for your wife,” said the angel. I don’t think it’s possible not to be afraid in a situation like this. I think we make too little of this story and don’t give Joseph enough credit if we simply hold him up as a model of what faithful obedience looks like, as though there’s a simple formula: God speaks; humans are supposed to respond in faith the way Joseph did; now everything is hunky dory. It just isn’t that simple. I don’t believe we’re supposed to think of Joseph and Mary as figures in a stained-glass window. The whole point of the Christmas story – that God is with us as one of us – is that God is with real people in their real, complicated, messy lives. I can’t hear this story without identifying with the sense of betrayal, the disappointment, the shame and a host of other emotions that Joseph must have experienced, and the fear and hurt that Mary would have felt as they sorted out their complex relationship.

One of the quiet miracles in the Christmas story is that on the basis of that dream, Joseph works through it all to make a decision. He lays aside his sense of right and wrong under the law and his offended pride, his shame, and chooses to marry his pregnant fiancée. Trust in God is not a given here, it is a choice. God’s plan is saved because Joseph chose to take a risk, to brave uncertainty.

Joseph, an ordinary man, worked through his cold sweat, took a risk, and Jesus grew up with Joseph as his dad. Where did Jesus come up with the idea that people are more important than the laws you’ve been taught your whole life? That our worth is measured by God’s extravagant loves for us, not by other people’s opinions? Who was his male role model for the vulnerability and courage we see again and again in Jesus’ ministry? Joseph couldn’t know that some of Jesus’ best teaching would be shaped by his own experience of an earthly, loving father. He didn’t have any idea that his son would tell his disciples to talk about God with the tender, personal address of “abba,” which is best translated as “daddy.”

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Herman C. Waetjen, New Proclamation, https://members.newproclamation.com/commentary.php?d8m=12&d8d=22&d8y=2013&event_id=4&cycle=A&atom_id=19018.
Mary Hinkle Shore, “Fourth Sunday of Advent,” in New Proclamation, Year A, 2007-2008 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007).
Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993).
Nancy Rockwell, December 14, 2013, http://biteintheapple.com/joseph-praise/.
Janet H. Hunt, “Just What a Dad Does…”, December 15, 2013, http://words.dancingwiththeword.com/2013/12/just-what-dad-does.html

Which Story?

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Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12

Our traditional notion of who belongs in the Christmas nativity scene comes from a blending of two different Christmas stories. In Luke’s Christmas story you’ll find Joseph and Mary traveling to Bethlehem, no room at the inn, the stable, the sky filled with angels, the amazed shepherds, but no kings. You have to go to Matthew’s gospel for the kings, except they aren’t kings, they’re Persian astrologers, “magi.” What’s more, it doesn’t tell us there are three of them, only that they brought three gifts. There could be 2 or 20, for all we know. And they don’t find Jesus in a stable; they find him in a house.

Part of Matthew’s inspiration for his Christmas story is Isaiah 60, a poem recited to Jews who had been in exile but returned to find the city of Jerusalem in ruins. Isaiah invites his discouraged community to look up, to hope, and to expect everything to change. Yes, he says, darkness will cover the earth. But there will be a shaft of light breaking through the gloom: “Rise, shine, for your light has come. … Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.” That’s where we get the kings.

Matthew’s magi have seen a special star. They know about Isaiah 60, so they go to Jerusalem and take gold, frankincense, and myrrh, apparently appropriate gifts to give to a baby in those days, or at least, a baby king. But when the current king in Jerusalem hears about this, he’s not at all happy. Herod the Great, a vassal of Rome, built his kingdom on political tribute and bloodshed. A new king would mean a new political rival, and as with his other rivals, including his own family members, Herod makes plans to eliminate him.

Matthew’s Christmas story makes Luke’s overcrowded inn seem pretty tame. In his panic, Herod gathers the experts on the law and the prophets, and asks, “Just what does Isaiah 60 say? What’s all this business about camels and gold and frankincense and myrrh?” The scholars tell him: “You’re looking at the wrong story. And so are the magi who just scared the pants off you by telling you they’re looking for a new king.” “Okay, then,” asks Herod, “what’s the right story?” The scholars don’t want to be next on Herod’s hit list so they tell him the right story is Micah 5:2 with a little bit of Second Samuel thrown in for good measure: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.” Not Jerusalem, but Bethlehem. Not Isaiah, but Micah.

Micah was a prophet who was not impressed with wealth and power. He’s the one who said, “God has told you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God?” Micah imagined a different future for the people; he imagined they’d be able to organize and resist rulers like Herod. Micah’s story is about the well-being of the people, not of the empire.

Herod tells the magi about Bethlehem because he wants them to do his reconnaissance for him. He tells them to find this newborn king, and then come back and give him the details so he, too, can go pay homage. We, the audience, are supposed to be imagining Herod twirling his mustache like Snidely Whiplash. What Herod plans, of course, is something more deadly than homage.

The magi travel the nine miles from Jerusalem and Herod, from what is corrupt and deadly, to Bethlehem, to what is humble, loving, and world-changing. Matthew’s Christmas story is the story of two different human communities: Jerusalem, the center of the elite, and Bethlehem, with its rural peasants. In 2025, you don’t have to be from the country to be marginalized, and you don’t have to be from a big city to be arrogant. For us, it’s not about urban verses rural; it’s more about world view. But it is still a choice between two stories. A choice between the story that leads to death and darkness, and a story that leads to light and life.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:

Walter Brueggemann, “Off by Nine Miles,” in The Christian Century, December 19-26, 2001.

Jona Lendering, “King Herod the Great,” http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodians/herod_the_great02.html.

Magnificat

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Luke 1:39-55

   Historically, Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been held up as a role model for women.  In order for her to be the role model that suited the purposes of culture, however, she’s been reinvented as meek, mild, and passive.  The flowing, modest blue robe, downcast eyes, covered head.  That Mary bears very little resemblance to the Mary in Luke.

   The angel Gabriel has told Mary that she will bear a child.  Gabriel then explains that Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, is also expecting.  Elizabeth is “getting on in years,” so this, too, is extraordinary news.  “In haste,” Luke says, Mary goes to see her.  When Elizabeth greets Mary, her unborn child recognizes Mary’s unborn child, and turns a joyful somersault.  In Luke’s gospel, Elizabeth’s unborn son will grow up to be John the Baptist.  The message we’re to take from this is that even before they were born, John the Baptist, as well as his mother Elizabeth, heralded the coming of Jesus.  Elizabeth exclaims that Mary and her unborn child are blessed, and then Mary begins to sing.  We know her song as the Magnificat, named after the first word of the song in Latin.  Biblical scholars tell us that these words are not original with Mary.  The song is remarkably similar to Hannah’s song in the Old Testament – Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel.

   And what a song it is!  William Willimon tells the story of a college student explaining to him that the virgin birth is just too incredible to believe.  Willimon responded, “You think that’s incredible, come back next week.  Then, we will tell you that ‘God has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly.’  We’ll talk about the hungry having enough to eat and the rich being sent away empty.  The virgin birth?  If you think you have trouble with the Christian faith now, just wait.  The virgin birth is just a little miracle; the really incredible stuff is coming next week.”  Martin Luther said that the Magnificat “comforts the lowly and terrifies the rich.”  William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury in the late 19th century, warned his missionaries to India never to read the Magnificat in public; the verses are too inflammatory.  Several biblical commentaries use the same word to describe the Magnificat.  That word is revolutionary.    

   I wonder, if they really gave it some attention, whether more American Christians, or Christians generally, would have a harder time with the story of the virgin birth, or with this song of Mary’s.  Mary’s song blesses God for the victory won over the proud, powerful, and rich for the sake of the lowly and the hungry.  This is not a sweet soprano solo.  One commentator says it’s more like Janis Joplin.  But it’s all about God keeping God’s promises.  God moves, and the people at the top who have organized reality for their benefit but at the cost of others come under siege.  God keeps the covenant, and a teenager, a nobody from nowhere, testifies to wealth redistribution for the sake of the hungry.  The fact that she sings means God does exalt the lowly; that this happened to her means that the overturning of the inhumane order has begun.  She is lowly, and she is lifted up.

   Now, this is a good news, bad news proposition, isn’t it?  Revolution sounds pretty scary to many of us.  Cornelius Plantinga writes, “When our own kingdom has had a good year we aren’t necessarily looking for God’s kingdom.”  At first blush, Mary’s Magnificat might sound even a bit vengeful. But biblical scholar Sharon Ringe notes that a leveling, rather than reversal, is what Luke intends here, as God’s action moves us to a common middle ground, to a world where winner takes all is transformed into one in which all have a place at the table.

   So that is the question for us on the Fourth Sunday in Advent: Can we hear Mary’s song as good news for all people, not just for some, but for all?  Can we truly hear that lifting up the lowly and bringing down the powerful is good news, even for us?

   If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend the little video, “An Unexpected Christmas,” produced in 2012 by St. Paul’s Church in Auckland, New Zealand, a church with a ministry called St. Paul’s Arts and Kids.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM1XusYVqNY.  This video captures precisely what Luke intended in the first two chapters of his gospel, in the story of Elizabeth and Mary, and in the Christmas story as well.  “Brilliant!  They won’t be expecting that!”  Although, to be fair, Luke’s version is edgier.  Luke gives center stage to these two women, ordinary women chosen by God and unhindered by men. 

   If you go to church, you hear the Magnificat and the Christmas story every year.  In the sentimental glow of the season, it’s easy to forget that when the angels sang about good news of great joy for all people, what they meant is this: God wants justice, peace, and well-being – shalom – for everybody, and so God comes to us in a vulnerable baby born to non-white, non-English-speaking, non-Christian, nobody parents in a backwater village in the Middle East, in a stable surrounded by mess and bad smells, with “no crib for a bed,” and the first people to hear about it, those shepherds out on a hillside, are the kind of people you’d never invite to dinner and you’d pray your daughter wouldn’t marry. 

   Which means that God can reach everyone; anywhere at any level, even when things are messy, or all messed up; even when our best laid plans go awry; even when we find ourselves at the bottom of the heap, whatever heap we’re in.  It means it is just like God to be at work in uncelebrated or unexpected ways in other times and places, too.

   Even in us.  Which, my friends, is truly brilliant.  They won’t be expecting that!

© Joanne Whitt 2024 all rights reserved.

Turn Around and Do Something Different

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Luke 3:7-18

I don’t blame any preacher for choosing the Philippians passage over the Luke passage this week. “Rejoice!” feels so much more Christmas-y than “You brood of vipers!” But it’s Advent; it’s not Christmas yet, and John the Baptizer is all about preparing the way. In spite of his harsh and scolding tone, there are some great Advent messages in what John tells the crowd.

The word “repentance” feels like a reprimand even without John’s brood of vipers indictment. As I wrote last week, to repent just means “turn around.” Go in a different direction. There is good news in recognizing and accepting that what you’ve been doing isn’t working. There is good news in making the decision to turn around and do something different. This good news is the beginning of healing, for ourselves and for our society.

What we’ve been doing isn’t working, or at least, it isn’t working for a large portion of the population of our world, and it certainly isn’t working for our planet. When the people ask John, “Okay, so what do we do?” his blunt and fairly simple instruction is to stop acting as though they live in a world in which their actions don’t impact others. Stop being greedy and dishonest; start sharing the wealth.

John seems to threaten that when the Messiah comes, just as in the song, “Santa Claus is coming to Town,” you’d better watch out. We learn when we encounter Jesus that he doesn’t wield a winnowing fork or threaten anyone with unquenchable fire. But like John, Jesus preaches that a life realigned with God’s purposes is good news. Luke is known for “good news to the poor,” and certainly this realignment is good news for the poor. But Jesus proclaims that it is good news for everyone. Years ago, author Barbara Ehrenreich was asked in an interview what she would give up to live in a more human world. She answered, “I think we shouldn’t think of what we would give up to have a more human world; we should think of what we would gain.”

John tells the people who come to be baptized by him, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise.” Those with enough, and particularly those with more than enough, should share with those who do not have enough. As simple as this is, it is countercultural in our society, especially at Christmas. Even with Santas ringing bells on street corners and “Giving Tuesday,” most of our Christmas celebrations are shaped more by our consumption-driven culture than by the nativity story. The forces behind our patterns of consumption are complex and entrenched, and we will not solve anything by scolding people in the pews. The way we consume is a systemic issue, built into our economy and culture. However, systems are created and supported by individuals. We can go along, or we can turn around and try something different. So we might hint that we are challenged, or perhaps even called, to figure out what is “enough.” We might suggest that the reason some people want more and more stuff could be because they don’t think that they, themselves, are enough. We might assure them that our things are not what make us enough, or good, or important, or valuable. Every one of us is precious – just because we are who we are, the way God made us. And we might point out that this planet on which all of us – ALL of us – depend, is suffering from our consumption patterns.

A handful of resources you might use for a gentle but critical delivery of this good news:

1) An excellent 20-minute video entitled, “The Story of Stuff,” a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
2) A terrific children’s picture book by Kaethe Zemach that isn’t just for kids, entitled, Just Enough and Not Too Much (New York: Scholastic Press, 2003).
3) An oldie but a goodie: Jo Robinson and Jean C Staeheli, Unplug the Christmas Machine: A Complete Guide to Putting Love and Joy Back into the Season (New York: William Morrow Paperbacks, 1991).
4) John De Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas Naylor, Affluenza: How Overconsumption Is Killing Us – and How to Fight Back (Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014).