When Obstetrics Became Revelation
David C. Myers
December 24, 2008
10:00 pm service
The Nativity Story
Luke 2:1 - 20
My Christmas observances aren't complete without either seeing or reading Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" (Avon, 1979). It is an uproarious, irreverent, and above all, deeply moving account of an unforgettable Christmas Pageant at the Second Presbyterian Church, in which the chief culprits were "the horrible Herdmans", who were:
Absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cursed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken down tool-house.
What the Herdmans - Claude, Leroy, Ralph, Imogene, Ollie and Gladys - do to the Nativity is a story - well, let's see. We enter the story at a scene in which the director of the pageant tells the Christmas story to the children who will be actors in the pageant. On this particular year, the aforementioned Herdmans had started coming to church. The Herdmans had never heard the Christmas story before, and they listened with the wide-eyed wonder that comes from first hearing something so strange. (The narrator of the story is the daughter of Pageant's director):
The director begins, ". . . Joseph and Mary, his espoused wife, being great with child . . ."
"Pregnant!" yelled Ralph Herdman.
Well. That stirred things up. All the big kids began to giggle and all the little kids wanted to know what was so funny, and the director had to hammer on the floor with a blackboard pointer. "That's enough, Ralph," she said, and went on with the story.
"I don't think it's very nice to say Mary was pregnant," Alice Wendleken whispered to me.
You can understand Alice Wendleken's point. What a way for Luke to open a Gospel! William Willimon notes that while the other Gospels focus on the religious miracle, Luke's Gospel begins with all the details of the facts of life. Matthew centers his opening action on Joseph, while Mark jumps right into Jesus' adult ministry. John begins with high-sounding poetic abstraction. But Luke, true to his interest in the role of women, begins with Elizabeth and Mary. His first two chapters sound like conversation in an obstetrician's waiting room.
Both Elizabeth, Mary's (quite a bit) older cousin who will soon give birth to John (as in John the Baptist) and Mary meet. But not until after the angel Gabriel counsels them. Elizabeth who is about six months pregnant then counsels Mary, and the babe jumps for joy in the old woman's womb. Finally the time comes for Elizabeth to be delivered, followed by Mary's delivery in the stable at Bethlehem.
Luke turns gynecology into theology and obstetrics into revelation. It's embarrassing, especially in church. In one of my previous churches when my church youth group did, or perhaps more aptly put, undid the Nativity story, I should have known which part of the story would interest teen-agers. While writing their own script for their version of the drama, they took their cue from Luke and focused the whole pageant on Mary's pregnancy and Joseph's response. Among other embarrassing scenes in this high school romance, we were treated to a five-minute tirade as Joseph sulked and fumed around the stage screaming, "Mary, how could you do this to me?!" The congregation squirmed in their seats. As one woman muttered to me afterwards, "I've never thought of the Nativity as Soap Opera before."
Well, the Nativity is somewhat soap opera - at least Luke's Nativity. But then again, part of the reason that soap operas are so popular (so I'm told, anyway) is that they relate to real life. And isn't that what the Nativity is all about - relating to real life?
Well, all of this (and many church school "Bathrobe Pageants") have led me to a new understanding of Nativity. The child-like embarrassment, with the confusion, the flubbed lines, the over-all awkwardness, the seeming "was-this-ever-rehearsed?" appearances; all this reveals more about the Advent and birth then we would first suppose. Because Jesus' birth comes so simply, and so totally filled with the unexpected. Or as the author of Hebrews said, "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our ancestors by the prophets; but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son." (Hebrews 1:1-2a) And in this time of year, through a baby - and those of you who have had their lives interrupted by the birth of a baby - and my experience says that no matter how well you prepared, or how much you wanted your baby - your lives were still interrupted - you folks know that at the time of birth, even the birth of the Christ child, there is no rehearsing, and there are no roles that are down pat.
So why is their so much emphasis in the Christian faith on babies? Martin Luther once said that "when God speaks to humanity God always speaks in baby talk." God does this, Luther said, because God is love. Therefore God never forgets that no matter how old or how big we become, we are still helpless, dependent, unknowing babes so far as our faith is concerned.
So God bends down to reach us at our level of faith. For example, God does not bother Adam or Eve with lessons of animal husbandry. God simply says, "You're in charge. But stay away from that tree over there." Like any busy parent, God never gets around to telling them why, God simply tells them the way it is. And as good children, an explanation of "why" would go largely unheard anyway. But you know about Adam and Eve. From the beginning, they, and we, want to know too much for our own good.
God speaks to Moses out of a burning bush, knowing that children are fascinated with fire. But when God speaks, it is with unbelievable simplicity, "Go tell people that I AM sent you."
And the Ten Commandments. Why that's basic kindergarten morality (as literally translated): "You no kill. You no lie. You no steal. Honor your mother and father."
And the prophets: Stories of whales, broken jars and eaten scrolls - good object lessons for children; talk of lions lying down with lambs. It's all baby talk.
All subsequent chatter of learned theologians, says Luther, is but a series of footnotes on the primal baby talk. These later, abstracted, generalized reflections, called theology, must not deafen us to the first, simple childlike ways in which God speaks to us. When we turn a deaf ear, we begin to complicate our faith, talking big, claiming to know more than we have experienced, and forgetting our essential condition. Babies do not have to be told what Mommy or Daddy means by "Cootchie, cootchie coo." Love, you see, needs no explanation.
And so stooping once more down to our level, bending over into the violent playpen we call earth, God again speaks - this time not simply speaking to babies, but coming as a baby, as one of us. You see, at the first nativity - at that unforgettable, scary night for Mary and Joseph and the few witnesses - there is Truth. Truth not as a complex theory or a lofty ideal, but Truth wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Hebrews said, "In many and various ways God spoke of old to our ancestors by the prophets;" - those were the rehearsed lines, the abstracted, generalized reflections - "but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son," a baby.
And you know? When the Christ-child matures, He still speaks in stories, parables - simple declarations of the way things are now that God has come in the flesh. With a crisp "follow Me!" He invites all to a Kingdom where only the little ones are citizens - the very young, the very old, the very oppressed, the very sick, the very poor - a Kingdom where to receive a child is to receive God. You remember how Jesus said, "unless you turn and become like children, you shall never enter the Kingdom of Heaven." (Mt.18:3)
Here is a place where everything is turned upside down, the lowly ones are great, the great ones are brought low, and there are surprises for everyone. In this Kingdom, grown-ups who use words that are too large and pray prayers that are too long and get too big for their britches have trouble getting through the door.
Baby talk is the price of admission.
God's gift to us of God's Son is like that. God came to us in common, ordinary life and claimed no special advantage over us. And that is the beauty of the Nativity story. Obstetrics becomes revelation - the birth of a baby reveals God - within our midst!
As the horrible Herdmans revealed in Barbara Robinson's The Best Christmas Pageant Ever we know that the talk of babies can bring all sorts of consternation to families - even the family of God.
And yet, as we also learn from the horrible Herdmans babies also have a way of bringing people together. And God gave us the wonderful gift of coming to our life, walking among us as one of us, hearing our stories, living our lives, experiencing our pain, just because God loves us.
And we, whether we are ready or not, will recognize that the Almighty has stooped down to our level and spoken some simple baby talk to us, even if we don't fully understand why, or even if we are not fully prepared.