“Beloved Community”
December 22, 2024
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Here we are, deep in Advent. In the darkest part of the year, for those of us in the northern hemisphere. In church, we talk about the stillness and quietness of Bethlehem. In church, we talk about the gift God has given to us. In church, we talk of new birth and new beginnings. In church, we talk about a light shining in the darkness. While all around us swirls so much light, so much focus on the ending of another year, so much pressure for us to give more and more presents to more and more people, so much to do! No wonder we sometimes arrive at the manger, a little worse for wear, and maybe even a little confused by (to quote the Grinch) “all the noise, noise, noise, noise!”
And so, today, I’d like to ask “What is Christmas all about?” And for my answer in this time and place, we have to back up in the story—back to the amazing news from the angel Gabriel. It’s a rather dramatic story, a shocking story even. And no, I’m not going to get into the spiritual/biological question of how Mary became pregnant! What is shocking about the story is that the angel Gabriel came to a no-body—some YOUNG woman, some young, unmarried female, who in that society had almost no status, no power even over her own body. She was basically property of her father until she was handed over to her husband.
And Gabriel came to this one. God chose this one to be the vessel for the Messiah. Almost incomprehensible. Mary would probably not have been anyone’s pick off of the IVF possible egg donor’s list. She had almost nothing going for her. She wasn’t of royal lineage. She wasn’t of a high society family. She wasn’t wealthy. We have no idea if she was outwardly beautiful. But God chose her because young as she was, she had the wisdom to listen to angels, and the strength to volunteer for this role God wanted her to play.
No wonder she sings a song, based on the song of Hannah, where God lifts up the lowly, and brings down the powerful from their thrones. A song of praise to a God who turns creation upside down.
Now if this were a story we were telling, you know what would happen. Mary would become larger than life. It would all be about Mary (at least until Jesus is born). Because that is what we tend to do. We lift up special individuals—could we call them idols? Or icons? We focus on the one. But this isn’t a story of our own making. It is part of God’s story. And God has this annoying way of doing exactly the opposite of what we imagine. Like choosing the last instead of the first. Like elevating the lowly, and dismissing the mighty. Like being a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home, instead of standing haughtily on his front porch, face twisted in disgust at the mistakes of his son. And so, in this story of Christmas, this story of the beginning of it all, the time when Jesus was being knit together in his mother’s womb, it isn’t a story just about Mary, but a story about Mary and Elizabeth.
Mary gets the news from the angel—and almost immediately, she heads off, away from home, to her cousin Elizabeth’s house. Now was this because Mary needed some time to process what had just happened? Was it because Mary had heard through the family grapevine that Elizabeth was also finally pregnant, with some unusual events surrounding her pregnancy? Did Mary suspect that Elizabeth would be someone who would be supportive? Did she know Elizabeth also had a heart open to hearing God?
Whatever the case, Mary hurries to stay with her kinswoman. And she has no sooner entered Zachariah’s house, no sooner greeted Elizabeth, not even had the time to tell her the amazing tale of the angel and the incredible news, than Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit. And what she says confirms all that Mary might have been pondering in her heart. “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me that the mother of my Lord comes to me?
For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Only then does Mary lift her voice in song. Only then do we hear what has come to be called the Magnificat. “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior…” In our world, we elevate the soloist. In God’s world, two are better than one. Mary lifts up her song almost in response to Elizabeth’s prophetic outburst. The Holy Spirit overshadows these two women and their voices intertwine—with blessing and with praise for God.
Even at the very beginning of this Christmas story there is community, beloved community. This community brings together two who might seem so different, a mature and established married woman and a young unmarried female. But in God’s story, they rejoice in each other and dance around, connected in their commoness of being asked to be God’s servants.
The more I thought about this idea of community, the more I marveled at the Christmas story. It doesn’t have Joseph and Mary traveling to Joseph’s hometown and being embraced, as one would expect, by Joseph’s family, by Joseph’s neighbors and friends, by Bethlehem itself. No, there was no room at the inn. There was no community to count on, it seems—except maybe the community of animals also lodging at the manger.
But we know the rest of the story. Once Jesus is born, that manger, or wherever it was that Jesus was, became filled with shepherds (and I suppose sheep) coming down out of the hillside to see what the angels had told them had occurred. And if we meld Luke’s story with the story of Matthew, as we normally do in our nativity scenes, not only are the lowly shepherds there, but at some time Wise Ones from the east appear as well, following a star.
They are bringing royal gifts for a royal birth, and inadvertently letting Herod know that there was a rival king around.
So there it is, the manger scene that we often see: Mary, and Joseph, and Jesus, animals in their stalls, shepherds and sheep, Wisemen and gifts, in the heavens, angels, and hanging above, a star in the sky. As one of my favorite Christian singers, Matthew Maher puts it in his song, “Love Came Down to Bethlehem”
“Rejoice, rejoice, Glory to God: Hallelujah
Heaven and nature singing together
Glory to God, Hallelujah
Heaven and nature,
Angels and shepherds
Wisemen and beggars,
Praise to the Savior, forever and ever, Gloria.”
And there you have it, the beloved community from the very start. Not a community anyone would have ever imagined. Angels and one of the lowest of mortals, shepherds. Magi and the least of these. Gathered there with lowly, smelly, animals. That is God’s beloved community. And the most unbelievable of all? That in that manger bed of straw lies the King of kings and Lord of lords, Emmanuel, God with us.
Notice that in our manger scene, no one is drawing attention to themselves. No, they are all focused on Jesus. In God’s beloved community, it doesn’t matter where you are from, or where or whether you went to school. It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters who you are. Are you a child of God? Is your heart open to listen to God’s call? Are you courageous enough to act on the advice of angels, or go gallivanting after a star in the sky? Are you ready to find yourself in unusual company? Are you willing to participate in a new day dawning?
For that is what Christmas is really about. Community. Heaven and earth, formerly so separate now brought together in Emmanuel. Animals and humans, bedding down in the same place. Angels talking to shepherds, who end up at the same party as Wise Ones of the east.
Ahhhhh, we sigh. What a beautiful sight. What a beautiful night. Christmas. The question is where do we go from the manger? How do we continue beloved community once we pack up the nativity, and take down the tree, and the Wise Ones and the angels and the shepherds all go home, and we are left with this bedraggled and hurting world.
That is the work of Christmas. That is why Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about a beloved community. A community that included all of us. A community where forgiveness was actually practiced. A community where (as he said) “the ultimate measure of a [person] is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands at times of challenge and controversy.” And, of course, the beloved community as one that is governed by Love. As King put it, “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.”
If I could wish upon a star for us as UPC, it would be that we take the meaning of Christmas and write it upon our hearts so that we might become more and more a beloved community of God: Heaven and nature, angels and shepherds, wise ones and beggars, all praising our Savior, forever and ever, Hallelujah.
May it be so. Amen.