From the Margin to the Center (a meditative midrash on the nativity stories in the gospels of Matt and Luke)

It all began simply enough:  Boy meets girl… girl and boy become engaged. 

Mary was betrothed to Joseph:  betrothal is a covenantal arrangement in which a couple are promised to one another in marriage.  As customary in first century Palestine, once the betrothal was settled, Mary left her family and moved into the home of the Joseph’s family, to become part of their household.  The wedding would take place at some time after her initiation and incorporation into her new family.  As I say, it all began simply enough…but then it began to get complicated.: Mary, turns up pregnant.

 Now, it was not all that unusual for a young woman to get pregnant between the betrothal and the marriage… the child of such a union was considered to be legitimate.  But here’s where it get’s problematic:  Joseph knew that the baby was not his!  Mary had some wild story about how an angel appeared to her in the kitchen one day, telling her that she would become pregnant by the spirit of God, and would give birth to God’s child. 

 Joseph seriously doubted that.  Being a kind soul, he determined to dismiss her privately and quietly. 

 

But, this child was to be neither quiet nor easily dismissed.

 

An angel visited Joseph and confirmed that Mary’s pregnancy was, indeed the work of God, and that he should not be afraid to take her as his wife.  And so, he decided to stand by her.  Scandalized, Joseph’s family could not accept this.  They expelled both Joseph and Mary from the family compound, forcing them to make it on their own.  They lived as outcasts as Mary’s belly grew. 

And so it was, that when Emperor Agustus called for a registration, Mary and Jospeh set off on the three day’s journey to Bethlehem by themselves instead of in the company and safety of their extended family.  When they arrived at their destination, they found all the rooms filled by large family groups, and no one willing to share with them. 

When Mary went into labor, they found their way to a stable, where she gave birth to her first born son without the aid of mother or midwife, but with her husband at her side.  This pushed them even further to the margins, as a woman who had given birth was considered ‘unclean’ and now, by extension, so was Joseph because he had assisted in the birth.   

 

But this was not to be a child who observed divisive categories of clean/unclean, saints/sinners.

 

Exhausted and feeling quite alone in the world, the small family huddled in the stable, with the infant wrapped and sleeping in the manger. 

In the middle of the night, their solitude was interrupted by the animated arrival of a group of common shepherds, fresh from the pasturelands.  As the shepherds excitedly approached the child, they told his bewildered parents that a great host of angels had appeared in the night sky to them and told them about the birth of this child… and that this child was the Messiah, the one who would save Israel.  Mary and Joseph had hoped to keep this a private matter…

 

but this child was not to be a secret for only a select few.

 

 A few weeks later, Mary, Joseph and the baby, whom they named Jesus, were visited again.  This time it was not lowly shepherds who came, but scholars and wise ones from lands far away.  These pagans, these non-Jews, came to celebrate the child’s birth, and to offer him gifts fit for a king. 

 

But this child was not to be a King of the ordinary kind.

 

And so it was that the ministry of Jesus began.  Even before he was out of diapers, the Messiah had gathered a new family… a family that included peasants and scholars; Jews and gentiles.  Thus began his life’s work of healing and reconciliatio, and inaugurating the Kingdom of God.    

…in Jesus’ creativity and life, in Jesus’ gathering of prophets and prostitutes, soldiers and lovers and lawyers and losers and any who would break bread with him, in Jesus’ healing and teaching, in Jesus’ forgiving and reconciling enemies… is what … has been the very heartbeat of the world from it’s very beginning.  And in Jesus’ life – in what he said and did throughout his life – we can see what this God whom Jesus proclaimed, this God whom Jesus incarnated, is about in the world. 

Jesus’ life in its wholeness showed us that … everything really could be made whole.  God is whole.  And Jesus, who was broken by the worst our brokenness could dish out, is whole.  [1]

 

We come to the manger tonight from a world with more than its share of war, turmoil, disease and poverty.  We come as rich and poor, saintly and sinful, believing and skeptical, to gather again around the manger, and there to renew our joy and to give thanks for the amazing thing that came to life that night so long ago in Bethlehem.  And may we, on this night, also renew our commitment to the mission of the one we have come to worship — Christ the King, the One in whom all things hold together.