By Andrew Geery
Opening Words (Sept 15, 2019)

The Christmas pageant I grew up watching wasn’t really a Christmas pageant. 

Rather than Mary and Joseph talking as they made their way to Bethlehem or the angels shouting the good news to the shepherds, the performance was instead a recreation of famous paintings around the birth of Jesus. The lights go down, the “actors” freeze like the subjects in the paintings, and the lights come up briefly so the audience can see the scene and sing a Christmas carol.

The only actors who have any lines are the prophets from the Hebrew scriptures who open the show. Gluing on long beards to look prophetic, they read from scrolls the words of prophets like Isaiah about the prince of peace and from Joel about dreams and visions.

The first reader, however, is the minor prophet Baalam. The only reason I know this is because my dad plays this role and every year he says the same thing: “Why am I reading this? What does it mean?” And I have to agree that these are strange words to open a Christmas pageant with:

God is not a man that he should lie

Nor the son of man that he should repent

Whatever else a Christmas pageant is about, the central theme is that God has come into the world as a human being and “son of man” is a title that Jesus claims.

Perhaps this is just ten-dimensional theological chess.

However, it does raise a question: Since God is not a human being, why does God come into the world as one?

There have been lots of bad answers to this question but if you look at the ministry of Jesus the answer is “hiding” right there.

Before Jesus was born, Mary sings “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; God has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” 

Jesus opens his ministry by quoting from Isaiah: “I have been sent to bring good news to the poor…to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free.”

In the sermon on the plain, Jesus says: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled.”

And at the end of his life, Jesus preaches: “for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”

Over and over again, Jesus gives the answer of why God is in the world: God loves human beings. And not just you and me and the people here and our friends, but all people — and especially people the world does not consider important — full stop.

We often think of Jesus as giving us two rules to live by: Love God and love your neighbor. But really it is one statement: To love God is to love your neighbor because God loves them.

And this love isn’t thoughts and prayers and other worldly, this love is here and now. It is about food and clothes and homes and health care and jobs. It’s about challenging systems that deny people this dignity.

Lenny Duncan’s book, “Dear Church”, is both a love letter to the church that saved him and also a critique of all the ways that the church falls short of doing God’s work in the world, of dismantling white racism, toxic masculinity and white nationalism.

How in the world is the church going to do this? Duncan writes, “I have bad news. You are the leader you have been waiting for. We are called through baptism to teach the Holy Scriptures, to teach the world about the power of prayer…and now is the time to renounce the forces that oppose God and defy grace. We need to stand up.”

Amen