Stinky Night, Holy Night

Ever wonder what that first night was really like?  What it would be to travel back in time to Bethlehem when everything was happening, the chaos of a baby’s birth in such a strange place in an insignificant town in a tiny remote province of the great Roman Empire?  It wouldn’t have been as pretty as a Christmas card, that’s for sure.  The mom and dad were wandering from place to place, looking for a roof over their heads for the night and not even finding a tent to keep the snow off.  No cell phone to find an Air BNB either.  The desperation Joseph felt searching for somewhere safe, the frustration Mary had, and maybe fear of having to go through an ordeal she had never personally experienced before, and to do it far from her family and community, is not what we talk about when we think of the first Christmas.

And the stink would not have been mentioned either.  Animals kept indoors will do what animals do.  No litter boxes back then, no paper training or air freshener there.  No toilet paper either.  All the time travel novels don’t mention that the hardest part of going back in time would be the smells because our plumbing systems and soap for personal hygiene didn’t become popular or affordable until the crusades!  

We don’t think about stinks and spirituality combining, and yet isn’t that the picture we see when we look deeply at a Christmas card?  A holy baby, glowing with a special radiance, right beside the animals, the cows and sheep and donkeys and camels and probably a few rats as well, hiding in the hay.  That is the scandal of the Christmas message.  The scandal that when something so special, so unusual, so surprising, so hopeful comes into our world, that you would think belongs in palaces or beautiful places, that’s not where it comes.  It comes into our messy everyday lives even in the midst of chaos and confusion.  We may be living the stress of finding a place to live, or the frustration of feeling out of control of our world.  We may be living in the fear of what may happen next, of politics being done to us rather than with us, of decisions being made far away that will impact our daily lives.  All these frustrations and fears and anxieties were present in Mary and Joseph’s world.  They knew war and hunger and strife.  They lived in a land where they had no vote, where the only police were the occupying army, and where there was only justice and law for wealthy Roman Citizens.  Into this time of uncertainty, a baby was born.  He grew up to be a man of such extraordinary ideas and incredible vision that his followers wrote stories to try to put into words all that he meant to them.  In a time when very few people had the skills and knowledge to read, never mind write, this would have been astonishing.  More writing was done about Jesus than any other person until that time.  Writing was also for keeping track of records or sending instructions and was expensive.  Hard-working peasants who had to work to keep from starving, were not going waste their precious time or money to get someone to write down their memories of some guy they knew, any more than they had time to take a bath with a bar of soap.  

And yet this man turned their world of fear, anxiety, hopelessness, and conflict on its head, so much so that they wrote that on the day he was born, the first good news was that humanity was not to be afraid, that there were tidings of great joy.  This surprising message of hope was delivered to the stinkiest place in town, a stable full of animals and homeless refugees.

We need tidings of great joy.  We may have soap and sanitizers and air fresheners, but our souls, our character, our thoughts may be needing a thorough scrubbing.  What would it look like if we could hear those words of the angels with fresh ears, “be not afraid” in ways that gave us life and energy?  These words have inspired great change and great hopes.  Where would Gretta Thunberg be if she let fear hold her back?  Where would Barack Obama be if he let fear hold him back?  Where would Mother Theresa have been if she had let fear hold her back?  Where would Volodymyr Zelensky be if he let fear hold him back? 

In 1961, Dr. Howard Thurman wrote: The symbol of Christmas… is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stirred with the newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil. And from a German prison during World War 2, Dietrich Bonhoeffer said: “Human beings are dehumanized by fear but we should not be afraid.”  Living fearless compassionate lives changes the world for the better.

The surprise of the Bethlehem story is that the strength to live fearless lives comes even in the strangest, stinkiest places, and if it comes in a manger, that surprising gift of hope will come even into our lives no matter how chaotic or painful, like the most gloriously surprising song of angels and shepherds, cows and sheep.  Thanks be to God for this wonderful Christmas present, given freely to us all! Amen.

Stuck in our own ditches, Investing in sheep

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, it is helpful to remember the reality of working with sheep.  They can be very smart, especially the bell weathers, and at other times they can be, well, not the cleverest animals you have ever met, and just as prone to mistakes as we humans can be. Here's a video to remind us what sheep can be like: (99) Sheep gets stuck in trench, jumps back in - YouTube. So they can get into ruts and need help getting out, only to fall into bigger and deeper ruts.  Not unlike humans.  We can get caught in emotional ruts and intellectual ditches unintentionally, we can get stuck and not know how to extricate ourselves from the holes we are in.  

Cue the shepherd, and not just any shepherd, the good shepherd as mentioned in our scriptures this morning.  One thing I learned this week was the word for ‘good’ used in the original Greek might be better translated as ‘model’.  So, although the shepherd in our scripture is contrasted with a hired hand who doesn’t have a relationship with the sheep other than their paycheck, it’s not so much that the shepherd is ‘good’ and the hired help is ‘bad’.  It is that a model shepherd, an ideal shepherd, the kind you want to hire to take care of your flock, invests more than time into the flock.  It’s not just about the paycheck, it’s about where the heart is invested.

Both our scriptures talk about Jesus, our model shepherd, as being so invested in the flock that he was ready and willing to sacrifice even his life for those sheep.  To be so into a loving relationship that the gospel writer later wrote, “greater love has no one than this that someone lays down their life for another”.  Our model shepherd loves so deeply that they will risk their body for not just another person but a whole community.

That is quite the model to follow.  That’s quite the inspiration, that’s quite the big shoes to step into.  Jesus said that this love was so big that it encompassed others who were not a part of the inner circle, the disciples and followers that were part of the flock.  Jesus specifically spoke about the other sheep that were also needing a shepherd.  The ones who were lost, the ones who had wandered off, the ones who were isolated, the ones who were in pain or in danger.  Jesus wasn’t there just for the 12, or just for the people of Israel.  Jesus was there for the big picture.  Jesus was deeply, emotionally invested in the wellbeing of each and everyone in the world.  That’s quite the model.

We see plenty of examples where people are not following the model of being invested in the wellbeing of everyone.  Anti maskers who want their businesses reopened and so what if a few old people die here or there.  Racists who think it’s fun to use a microphone with a noose attached to it during a public demonstration in Northern Alberta.  Politicians who don’t support their own party’s stance on health regulations.  A legal system that throws out tickets issued to people flaunting the health regulations. Police officers who think it’s okay to kneel on someone’s neck for nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds.  Plenty of stories of people who are more like hired hands than role models.

We too are called to listen for the Shepherd’s voice and become loving, invested role models for our community.  This is not easy work.  How do I love the person who thinks that I am bad or political when I wear a mask or sign up for a vaccine?  How do I love the person who tells me I am a sheeple, and stupid for believing doctors, scientists, and politicians?  How do I love the neighbor who thinks it’s okay to pollute the world with facemasks?  Or the family member who promotes conspiracy theories every time we call?  Sacrificial love is not easy in these situations.

Where are the role models who care to the point of sacrificial love?  I recently learned about a movement in Minneapolis that started after the George Floyd murder.  One lady courageously donned her clergy collar, e-mailed her colleagues, and went out into the riots to listen and support protestors.  She became part of a growing team who wear bright orange t-shirts with the word ‘chaplain’ on it in bold letters.  They hand out everything from bottled water and pizza, but mostly they listen.  They listen to trauma, fear, anger, frustration, racism, injustice and more.  And day by day, they are modelling what it means to be a caring and loving presence in the world.  It is not easy work, it is not safe work, but it is work that they have felt called to do.  To bring healing in a time where the world feels out of control.

Sacrificial love for ordinary sheep is the model shepherd’s highest intention.  The model shepherd is not me, and not you, but we can become inspired to imitate that model to our best abilities.  Just as Jesus had very clear intentions centered around loving his flock, we need to wrestle with our intentions.  Why do we feel the need to pick up that phone, write that letter, talk to that person?  Is it out of love for our community or is it out of anger or fear?  Can we see that individual as part of our flock that we are called to guide?  There are some sheep that are in a deep hole of anger, distrust and fear because that’s how they are meeting their needs for safety.

And we need to be aware that we can feel more like the hired hand than the shepherd.  Our ability to love that sacrificially might not be there yet.  We may not be as healed as we’d like from our own feelings of fear and anger.  We may not be invested in their welfare as much as our own.  This may be the Model Shepherd’s voice calling us to rest patiently until we gain our own strength and safety before we try to rescue others.  It’s very easy to think we can fix things and people when we are stuck in our own ditches.  And trying to fix other people because we know best is the very definition of colonial oppression which led to residential schools and other racist interventions; because we did not have our intentions grounded in sacrificial love. 

And maybe we need to recognize that we are not the shepherd called to help them out of that hole, or that this is not the right time for us to help. Our most loving action may be to rest and pray that we be pulled out of our own ditches and that they may find someone wise and patient who has the skills to pull our neighbors out of their ditch too.  There are many resources that we can refer people to. But we can choose to invest in the most loving outcome for people who are struggling, just like us, to make sense of the world.

We are not Jesus, the model shepherd who is deeply invested in our welfare.  But we can listen for Jesus and remember to do our best to love others as we have been loved, deeply, unconditionally, and love ourselves as well especially when we feel like we’re caught in a ditch like a silly sheep.  We are loved, even then, and thanks be to God for that sacrificial investment of love!