Now as they were traveling along, Jesus entered a gentrified warehouse district and a wellness blogger named Martha welcomed Him into her farmhouse-inspired loft.
She had a sister named Mary who was seated on the floor beside a reclaimed barnwood coffee table, near the Lord’s feet, listening to His word and fiddling with the doily she was crocheting.
But Martha was distracted with all her preparations: looking for the harem pants that matched her jaunty hat, serving a round of home-fermented probiotic drinks, and resetting the shutter speed on her camera. And she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to literally serve the kombucha alone? Then tell her to help me.”
But the Lord swirled the kombucha in his glass as he peered moodily over His Bonhoeffer glasses and said --
“Wait, Lord!” said Martha, “Let me see if I can catch that light.” And she did take a picture. “I think I got it?”
“Martha, Martha,” Jesus said, “you are worried and bothered about many things, but only one thing is necessary. A high-contrast filter.”
Jesus sipped his fizzy drink and continued. “Truly I say to you -- did you know that wine and kombucha have basically the same alcohol content?”
Mary looked up from her hook and yarn. “You know, I think I read that somewhere, too.”
-- Luke 10:38-42, JFTTTV (Jokes From 2010 Version)
Charity Erickson and her husband live and work together in the north woods of Minnesota. Check out her blog for more of her writing and follow her on Twitter @ecumystic.
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The Sunday before Christmas, I attended a church service with my family. The pastor was discussing a familiar passage from Luke 1, commonly known as “The Annunciation,” where the angel Gabriel came down to Nazareth and informed Mary that she was going to “conceive and give birth to a son.” I’d heard it dozens of times before, at least once every Christmas, and year after year I listened as preachers praised Mary for her obedience, her willingness to carry a child into the world at the risk of cutting herself off from all good society. I prepared to tune out for the next few minutes.
But this time, hearing the story from my rather newly-formed liberal-feminist ears, I was offended. It seemed misogynistic and just plain creepy that God would (somehow) impregnate a woman and force her to have a baby. And given Mary’s status as an unmarried woman, the next nine months and potentially the rest of her life would be hell since her acquaintances would assume she’d committed adultery. Part of me, hearing the story this time, wanted Mary to stand up, look the angel in the face, and say, “No.”
I realize that would leave me and the rest of the human race completely screwed. If we accept what scripture says, it’s precisely because of Mary’s subservience, her desire to do what God asked of her that our salvation became possible. We could argue that it was her choice to obey, and someone more fundamentalist than I am would probably say that the act of obeying is in fact defiance against the pressures of society. But was it really a choice, considering God’s power and the relative powerlessness of Mary?
Luke makes it clear that Mary was excited about it, or (twist!) at least a really good faker, as she later says to her cousin, “My soul glorifies the Lord … for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.” But think what would have happened if she hadn’t agreed to it. IF she even had a choice in the matter, it was between obedience and, perhaps, going mute or blind until she relented and agreed to give birth to the kid. Before you excommunicate me, Catholic Church, remember what happened to the many others in the Bible who didn’t obey God immediately? Like Zechariah? Adam and Eve? Uzzah, who was struck dead because he reached out to steady the Ark when the oxen stumbled?
All this to say, while listening to the Annunciation story, my carefully watered, Biblically liberal, skipping-Ephesians-4-when-I-read-the-Bible Christianity-in-a-pot began to wither. A part of me had been convinced that, if I focused on the “Jesusy” passages in the gospels, I would get to the heart of what Christianity was, and not have to worry about troublesome things like the sexism all over the Bible. But this isn’t even a passage that you can skip over. This is the story of how Christ was born – it’s kind of important. And even this story is problematic.
For a moment, though, I was able to step out of my anger. As I sat in my chair staring at the pastor, silently boiling and wondering why this had never occurred to me, I realized I was relieved to be offended. It was a good thing that I hadn’t grown completely stony and impassive to this story. All too often, we sit in the pews and let this insane, radical, life-changing stuff bounce off of our seats as if we had force-fields protecting us. We need to let ourselves react, whether it’s in joy or anger or simply confusion. I don’t want to sit in church and think, “That’s nice.” No, it isn’t. If something in scripture makes you uncomfortable, that’s meaningful. Think about it; examine why.
For me, it’s often passages that I see as anti-progressive that make me squirm. And then there’s all the scripture that condemns greed and wealth, verses from Jesus himself that ask us to give away all our possessions to the poor. I dig them, but they don’t exactly make me feel like a saint.
Non-believers have asked me, “If you’re so offended, then why are you still a Christian?” I don’t know. Perhaps I’m a lousy feminist. Or perhaps because there are fundamental human rights that I firmly believe in, and I think God ingrained those beliefs in me, even when they seem to contradict the scripture that makes me believe in God in the first place (yikes!). There are a lot of confusing and offensive passages in the Bible, and I still don’t really know how to think about them. At the same time, there are many other passages that I can get behind, verses like this one from Isaiah: “Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” Yeah!
Despite my knee-jerk revulsion to parts of scripture and even some fundamental parts of orthodox Christian faith, I know that I don’t want to believe in a higher power that is just a better version of me. If I’m never challenged by my worldview, if there is nothing in my beliefs that seems sort of contradictory, then I may as well have made it all up. I can’t expect to understand, or even agree with, a being that’s supposed to have existed for all eternity and will continue to do so forever.
I could end with some wise quote from C. S. Lewis or Tim Keller or the book of Job, but I don’t want to. I don’t want anyone to nod along to what I’ve “concluded” and say, “Oh, that’s nice.” It isn’t nice. Faith is anything but nice.
Rebekah Mays is a Barnard College graduate originally from Austin, Texas. She currently works and writes in Prague, Czech Republic. You can find more of her writing on her blog The Prague BLOG or follow her on Twitter @smallbeks.
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My favorite song this time of year sounds nothing like Christmas on the ears, but it sings with unspeakable beauty to the heart. Tom Waits' rendition of Silent Night, complete with accordion, calliope, angel, gypsies, howling dogs, and who knows what else, is perfect - a rough and tumble, broken-voiced growl of heartfelt praise - a hard-edged cacophony that does something more to me than all the choirs with all their idyllic voices combined. It’s the fragmented beauty of that singular silent night, the one that lies at the very heart of the Advent season.
It gets dark early now; the days are short, the clouds are sifting snow. Blue-tinged shadows run far across the fields and dawn awakes to a world wrapped white in hoarfrost. There's a chill that seeps into one's bones now, and feet stay cold beneath the blankets. The warmth of a mug or a fire grows more precious with each passing year, and the reasons for straying from the hearth grow, yearly, less compelling.
But far, far away, and twice, at least, as long ago, moonlight flooded down on a dusty little village perched on the hillside of a temperate valley. Three lone palm-trees stood on the horizon beneath a sky of crystal stars, and there was no room in the little hovel of a house on Barley Street, its narrow floors packed with relatives and strangers. No more room at all in a village filled to bursting. A young girl, belly big with child, slept restlessly in the cold stableyard, seeking warmth amid the animals.
Who, with humility, carried Christ within herself.
Theotokos, God-bearer.
“But what if,” you wonder, as you warm your slippered feet beside the fire, “what if it wasn't just little Mary, sleeping that silent night between her man and a mule, between heaven and earth, belly full of God? What if you walked about (from Nazareth to Bethlehem, from 4th Street down to Main) with Christ somehow in you, pregnant with good deeds, expectant of miracle? What if you bore within yourself the Son of God? What if God dwelled inside of you?
You stop wondering; the words have struck you square, and meekly you lift your eyes and speak softly to the heavens, "Behold, the servant of the Lord; may it be unto me according to thy word."
And stepping out into the snowy fields scratched with blue shadows, where the fox goes stalking and the fieldmouse hiding, suddenly there is glory streaming down from heaven, and someone comes shining, announcing good tidings of great joy. The whole sky is lit up with them like white-flamed stars. The fox goes still, the mouse squints up at bright splendor. The host of heaven sings, scratchy and hard-edged and cacophonous and beautiful.
"Go back inside," they say to you, "by the hearth you shall see him, clothed in flesh and blood, a kind of second incarnation." Emmanuel, they call him; Theotokos, their word for you.
Advent has come. We await the coming of Christ our Savior. We await the angels singing in the skies, their rough and tumble song of heartfelt praise. Advent has come, and with eager anticipation we await the Lord, and yet we also know, already he is among us, within us, and all round about.
Sebastian Faust is an avowed heretic, armchair theologian,and a self-styled canary in the coal mine of pop culture. He takes life by the reins, bulls by the horns, and tigers by the tail, all while living in Nashville. You can't follow Sebastian on Twitter because he doesn't understand technology. You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology. If you'd like to support what we do, you can donate via the button on the right of the screen. You might also like:
