Pruning Christmas

December 10th, 2009  |   

Last year, I told my readers that just before Christmas Judy sends me out to snip some magnolia and holly to decorate our home. Don’t come back, she says, until you have a bag full of holly covered with lots of bright red berries. Christmas won’t be merry without the berries. So under the cover of darkness I play the anonymous tree-trimmer in town, clip branches, without notice, and return home with a bag full of greenery.

That confession last year drew an ireful response from a reader who thought it disgraceful that I would steal other people’s holly and magnolia. So this year there will be no confessions. I promise to be good for goodness sake.

Tree-clipping for decorations, is an appropriate image for this Christmas issue of Notes because I want to prune a few extraneous branches that surround and conceal the Christmas message.

The Bethlehem event is a radical prophetic parable with social, economic and cultural implications often lost in the baby-in-the manger-story as it plays out in tinsel-land. So I prune without, I hope, doing damage to the joy that’s associated with the birth of Jesus.

No Context—No Creche

Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan, in their book “The First Christmas,” talk about the importance of the context in which the Christmas story is written from the vantage point of Matthew and Luke. (There is no birth narrative in the oldest written record about Jesus—the writings of Mark and the letters of Paul.)

Context is critical for understanding anything. For example, how in the world could someone discuss Mahatma Gandhi, with any intelligence, without understanding British imperial India and the powers that Gandhi confronted?

Or how could the witness of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. be appreciated or understood if the subject of the racism he faced in America was ignored or bypassed?

Even closer to our own day-and-age, how could we understand our military invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan without taking 9/11 into account?

It is impossible to understand Christmas without taking into account the political, context and cultural context into which he was born. One could say, no context, no creche.

And because there have been 2000 years worth of adoration and devotion toward Jesus, let alone a fascination and debate around his birth in Bethlehem, one must delve into the story to discover the timeless truth that has been passed on from generation to generation.
What began in ancient Palestine now plays out in our contemporary world. It was, as Borg and Crossan point out, an overture to the story as it is being played out today.

The Day The Roman Troops Came To Galilee

There are numerous stories told by Jews all over Europe whose lives were affected—changed forever—by the arrival of Nazi troops in their town. One need only remember the young Dutch girl, Anne Frank, who kept a diary as she was hidden away in a claustrophobic attic prior to her death in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

We can assume as well that the invasion and occupation of Palestine by Rome was, likewise, a significant event for the child Jesus, who as a grown man was finally put to death by the Roman Empire on a hill outside of Jerusalem.

Jesus lived with his family in Nazareth in the territory of Galilee. Galilee, north of Jerusalem, was the locale of militant revolutionary activity against Roman occupation. By way of analogy, Galilee was like the province of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan where Afghan rebels launch attacks on Kabul and U.S. military presence.  

The town of Sepphoris is located four miles north of Nazareth. Four years before the birth of Jesus the Roman army beat back a rebellion there by killing and raping people and burning the town. It would have been impossible for Jesus, as a child, not to have known about this event—the day the Roman troops came to Galilee.

Matthew, unlike Luke, does not write about the birth, swaddling clothes, stable and manger, angels, and shepherds. He gets right to the point. Jesus has arrived on the scene and King Herod the Great, the Roman client king of Galilee, the self-proclaimed King of the Jews, wants to kill Jesus. Like Pharaoh, who was willing to kill all the baby boys in order to get rid of Moses, Herod is willing to sacrifice children in his attempt to rid the land of a potential threat to the Roman Empire’s occupation of the land. Imperial powers always want to take our children away from us, and arm them with the weapons of war.

Roman emperors saw themselves as God and the zealotry of revolutionary Galilee was a threat to their kingdom—a kingdom with  the mission of conquering enemy territory, subjecting the people, and proclaiming peace through violence. The Kingdom of God proclaimed by Jesus, however, called followers not to armed rebellion but to nonviolence. It embodied the prophetic dream of a land where divisions would cease, the fruit of the earth shared, where military weapons would be put aside—recycled into plows—and where peace would reign not by military might but by cooperative effort.

The question arises: Are the differing accounts of the birth of Jesus recorded by Matthew and Luke fact or fable. Marcus Borg and Dominic Crossan acknowledge the existence of Jesus, but refuse to choose between fact and fable. I share their belief that the stories are parables designed to point to a truth that needs the assistance of poetic story-telling to deliver a timeless message based in history.

The timeless message is one that all empires have failed to learn—the truth that peace will not be won with military might. Our nation—the most powerful nation in the history of the world—lies at the end of a long list of empires that believe they could rule by establishing military bases around the world. We have over 700 military bases in 130 countries around the world. We spend more on our military budget than the rest of the nations of the world combined. And now we are sending more troops to Afghanistan. We are still incapable of learning the lesson taught by the Prince of Peace— that peace will not come through violence.

Blood Red Holly Berries

A few days ago I walked through our local farmers market. The tables once overburdened with fruits and vegetables were gone. The luscious summer odors— corn, tomatoes, earthy beets and potatoes, apples and peaches—had been chased away by winter. 

The good news is that there is a new odor—a winter smell—the crisp, fragrant smell of fresh cut trees, holly, wreaths and roped greenery. Once again it is the holly with dotted with bright red berries that holds my attention.

Holly has been a religious symbol all over the world for over 2000 years. Ancient Romans associated holly with their Sun God, Saturn. And Celtic folks in pre-Christian Ireland cherished holly and decorated their homes with it.

Druid religion ascribed mystical and medical power to holly branches capable of blooming and surviving in the most frigid winter weather. A tea brewed from holly leaves was thought to cure arthritis, kidney stones, and bronchitis. Celts believed that by placing holly branches around the doors and windows evil spirits trying to get into the house would be captured. 

Early Celtic Christians saw the holly as a reminder of the crown of thorns Jesus was forced to wear when he was crucified, and the red berries symbolized the blood of Jesus shed because of the sins of the world. Some even believed that Jesus was crucified on a holly tree.

A verse from the song, The Holly and the Ivy, captures the mystical message beneath the red berries of the holly tree. “The holly bears a berry/As red as any blood,/And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ/To do poor sinners good.”

Red bows, red Santa suits and hats, red vests and bow ties, red dresses, red candles, and red punch, identify Christmas in a bright and festive way. And, God knows, that’s not a bad thing. And yet amidst this festive redness one hardly thinks about blood. Unless one pays added attention to the red holly berries and the red “Rose e’er blooming…amidt the cold of winter” alluded to in a familiar Christmas hymn. And, like an ancient Druid, I do.

Red Blood Cells Cross The Mexican Border

Last Sunday’s New York Times business section delivered this headline to my attention: Is Money Tainting the Plasma Supply?

The story was about Mexicans who are crossing over the border from Piedras Negras, Mexico, to Eagle Pass, Texas, to sell their blood to one of only five U.S. plasma corporations. They relinquish their plasma for $30 and can make twice that amount if they give twice a week. The $60 dollars earned by women often equals or exceeds the weekly pay of their husbands—men working for inadequate wages.

There are about 15 other plasma collection centers in border cities from Brownsville, Texas, to Yuma, Arizona. Mexicans, along with Central Americans, not only cross the border to process our poultry and beef, harvest our fruits and vegetables, tend to our children, wait on our tables, and do our gardening—they also bleed for us.

Dr. Roger Kobayashi, an immunologist in Omaha, who is critical even of his own use of this border produced supply of plasma, says this: “You are taking advantage of economically disadvantaged individuals, and I don’t think they are worried about their health.” He is referring to the fact that many of the donors, some workers who have just finished their shifts at Mexican factories, are not able to maintain their own health because they cannot afford the vitamins necessary for replenishing their own red blood cells.

These workers, and their families, who shed their blood, sweat and tears, are the modern- day equivalent of the shepherds we read about in the Bethlehem Jesus story. Shepherds were the poor peasants of their day. They provided the food and the clothing for folks—just like poor workers who produce the Christmas turkey, the table fruits and vegetables, and the trees upon which we hang lights and tinsel.

King Herod foresaw that this Jesus in the manger was a threat to the unjust economic system of the Roman Empire. Later, Jesus overturned the money changer’s tables in the temple. This was an early warning sign that followers of his message would also be called to challenge and upset every unjust economic system based upon violence and inequity.That includes Wall Street greed, Washington’s lobbied corruption, and global corporations that live off of the blood, sweat and tears of the poor.

Frosty the Snowman or Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer are holiday tunes with words most of us can recite by memory. Walter Russell Bowie’s words from a hymn he wrote may not be so familiar but somehow they speak a challenging word to me as a Christian as I confront the greed and warfare that exists today. “O shame to us who rest content while lust and greed for gain in street and shop and tenement wring gold from human pain, and bitter lips in blind despair cry, ‘Christ hath died in vain.”

I can take back a Christmas gift I don’t need or want. But this Christmas gift from God in Bethlehem 2000 years ago—a gift that promises a crown of thornes yet ultimate peace and joy—is one I am challenged to keep, for better or for worse.

Matter Matters

Over the years, as a preacher, I have lived inside a tension worthy of explanation. It has to do with the material world all of us live in each and every day of our lives. If you put on clothes and feed your face, you have entered the world of matter and it does matter.

Preachers are prone to preach the message that material things will not give us ultimate spiritual satisfaction. But every time I hear someone preach that message, or hear the words from my own mouth, I feel ill at ease.

Perhaps my queasiness is the result of the work I have done over the years with migrant workers, single mothers, immigrants, prisoners, and others who live on the poor side of an unjust economic system, the victims of corporate greed, sinful systems. Time and time again I’ve found remarkably centered and faithful folks in this mix— people appreciative of the spiritual dimension beneath what little they possess.

And yet the myth of the happy worker blessed in his or her poverty is a lie. Poor people, by-in-large, have less education, are denied adequate health care, are unemployed or under-paid, become victims of crime and the criminal justice system, and die younger than folks with money. That reality has informed my entire ordained ministry, along with my faith in Jesus, who addressed injustice on behalf of lost and suffering human beings.

The Christian faith, boiled down to basics, is all about the material world. Heaven can take care of itself. Matter is what matters. It matters what we produce, how we produce it, and that material goods are divide equitably. The Babe from Bethlehem carries a DNA that reproduces more life—life that celebrates flesh and blood wherever it is hallowed and not abused. The materialism that pollutes the Christmas message is an affront to the beauty of the material world. God incarnate means matter matters.

Nature Is Not Singing Here In Appalachia

There’s no more joyful Christmas carol than Joy to the World. With words by Isaac Watts and music by George Frideric Handel, it has to bring joy to our hearts. “And heaven and nature sing, and heaven and nature sing, and heaven and heaven and nature sing.”

Unfortunately, nature is not singing here in West Virginia. Our mountains are groaning and crying out mournfully as they are raped for coal and reduced to rubble. The hills are not alive with the sound of music.

This week I attended and spoke at a demonstration against mountaintop removal. Mountaintop removal blows up mountains, buries streams, pollutes water, and endangers people lives, so that our nation can have cheap carbon-laced energy. Mountaintop removal is a sin against God’s creation.

Robert Kennedy, Jr., the director of Waterkeeper Alliance, asked these questions at the rally. What would you call someone who destroyed a mountain daily with dynamite the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb? What would you call someone who poisoned the streams with mercury and heavy metals thus making fish dangerous to eat? The crowd’s answer was obvious—a terrorist. The companies destroying our mountains and reaping profit from the coal extracted and the rubble left behind, and the politicians and state and federal agencies that stand idly by are home-grown terrorists and criminals.

Episcopal clergy and laity have signed a statement condemning mountaintop removal. It ended with these words: “We are moved to speak because we cannot stand by quietly while our beautiful mountains are destroyed, our streams are buried, plant and animal life is extinguished, and our water supply is poisoned.  Our souls cry out when we watch the destruction of “summits bathed in glory like the ‘Prince Immanuel’s Land,’ as our state song proclaims.  We pray that we may once again be faithful stewards of creation.”

My Gift To My Readers—An Appalachian Carol

While writing these Notes, I’ve been listening to an old Appalachian carol, I Wonder as I Wander. I love it. It’s my gift to you, sister and brother wanderers.

When Mary birthed Jesus ’twas in a cow’s stall/With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all/But high from God’s heaven, a star’s light did fall/And the promise of ages it then did recall./If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing/A star in the sky or a bird on the wing/
Or all of God’s Angels in heaven to sing/He surely could have it, ’cause he was the King/I wonder as I wander out under the sky/How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die/For poor on’ry people like you and like I;/I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

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