There may be no bigger challenge at this time of year than to reclaim Jesus’s birth narratives from the grip of Christmas pageants. Admittedly, pageants play a helpful, if sentimental, role in introducing the story that changed the world to generations of young children, and perhaps, even to adults. But we are not yet at Christmas, despite the superficial visual testimonies along Lancaster Avenue and even—gasp—in some churches. And yet, here we are today on the Fourth Sunday of Advent with St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’s birth. It might be that hearing this well-known story in the context of the diminishing days of Advent is precisely what we need to rescue this story from Christmas pageant renderings.
If I’m a bit critical of Christmas pageants, it’s because they tend to oversimplify the story. All the crinkles and inconsistencies are papered over with a thin veneer of narrative uniformity. Little do many people realize that Christmas pageants put both St. Luke’s and St. Matthew’s birth narratives into a blender and spit out something less mysterious than what we have with two different accounts.
And so, this time of year as we anticipate Christmas, the temptation, I think, is to read or hear the birth narratives in one of two ways. The first is precisely what often happens in Christmas pageants. Jesus’s birth is overly romanticized. After a brief quest for room in an inn, the baby is born, cuddled in a cozy manger with warm animals nearby. And Mary and Joseph, I’m afraid, are dangerously reduced to little more than naïve, obedient simpletons who readily accept an upending of their lives.
The other way to read or hear the birth narratives is through the lens of the cynic. The cynic scoffs at belief in a virgin birth. The skeptic queries whether Mary had any agency in her assent to the angel Gabriel’s surprising news that she will bear the Son of God. The critic labels Joseph a fool for heeding information gleaned in a dream and marrying a woman who seems to have been unfaithful and is now expecting a child. In such a view, there is nothing but injustice and unfairness in the Bible’s birth narratives.
But today, focusing on St. Matthew’s birth narrative, even in the waning days of Advent, I wonder if there’s a deeper, more helpful way of understanding Joseph’s response to the angelic visitation in a dream. Although Mary makes no direct appearance in St. Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth, she is, of course, there in the background. What can we learn about Mary and Joseph? What can we learn about ourselves and God?
I fear that in an overly rational world, which is increasingly less tolerant of mystery, Matthew’s birth narrative seems to be full of holes. How, we ask, can this virgin birth take place? How can Joseph receive news of the miraculous birth in a dream? How can he even believe any of this? How can Mary so readily say yes to God? How can Joseph so readily say yes to God and Mary?
But stay with me for a moment. Let’s pause in our quest to make logical connections. Let’s play with trustfulness for a time rather than skepticism. Let’s be poets rather than logicians. Let’s entertain the possibility that there may be more to Mary and Joseph than we give them credit for. Could it be that there is more to this story than mere obedience on the part of Mary and Joseph? Could it be that in them we learn what it means to see everything as pure gift?
As our children’s Godly Play curriculum so beautifully says, during this time of year, people are hurrying to and fro, running through the malls, doing this and that. Everyone is so very busy, but they completely miss the mystery of Christmas. We have lost an ability to pause and understand the nature of a gift, especially a gift from God, and Christmas buying, giving, and receiving will probably teach us little about that.
In our day, gifts are predictable. They are material things we need to get at various points in the year. We buy them, sometimes to prove how clever we are, sometimes to compete with others for the best gift. When we give, we so often expect something in return. And all too often, we are given gifts that disappoint us, or things for which we have no use. Gift-giving these days, is a commercial exchange, even though we find moments of joy and blessing in it all.
But this is wholly different from how God gives. God’s gifts are usually surprising and unpredictable. Sometimes they please us and are recognizably generous, but maybe more frequently they don’t seem like gifts at all. At times, God’s gifts seem like misfortune, curses, or conditions of our lives that are most unwelcome.
God gives even when we don’t like his gifts and even when we reject them. God continues to give even though we may offer him no love or adoration in return. God doesn’t always give us what we want, but God always gives us what we need. God doesn’t force us to receive his gifts, but he invites us to accept them.
But there may be nothing more controversial about God’s gifts than the fact that they are meant to be received, not controlled. And this we usually struggle to understand, because we tend to hoard our gifts. We cling to our money as if it’s ours, and when the world is anxious about it, we imagine that we should cling to it even more, rather than give it away. We cling to our children or family as if they shouldn’t have independent lives, because letting them go is one of the hardest things we can do. We tightly grasp power and status because they promise to give us security and self-worth. We flaunt our talents as if they are the products of our own making and not marvelous gifts from God. We don’t usually treat these things—our money, our property, our children, our friends, our talents—as if they are gifts, because they are meted out and handled on our own terms, not on God’s terms. But the true gift extends beyond itself.
And this is why Joseph and Mary are the supreme recipients of gifts. It seems that the most surprising gifts are the ones most liberally shared. The advent of such gifts can’t be predicted, and so they have less ability to be controlled. It is so with the gift of Jesus.
Why should we imagine that Joseph and Mary couldn’t have understood that Jesus was a gift to them and to the world? Maybe they said yes to God precisely because they understood more than any of us what a gift is. We underestimate their spiritual depth and intellectual acumen when we assume that they simply said yes out of fear or brute obedience. We do a disservice to them, and to God, when we imagine that they had no say in the matter of whether to receive the sublime gift that God offered.
Jesus’s miraculous conception and birth, in a mysterious way, itself points to its being pure gift. Conceived and born in any other way, Jesus could have been owned or coopted by biological lineages. But in the miraculous way of his coming to us, he is unblemished surprise. Unable to be possessed, the gift of Jesus to Mary and Joseph was to be shared with the world. Neither Mary nor Joseph could protect Jesus from his death. A gift is received, even when first contact with the gift brings uncertainty, doubt, sorrow, and confusion.
Our approach to gifts may be very similar to the way we read the Christmas birth narratives. If we only romanticize our lives, then good things alone are seen as gifts. We recognize gifts when they seem obviously good for us and when they surprise us with their abundance and generosity. But if we are cynical, then the bad times are devoid of gifts. They are merely trials to bear, and we can’t imagine that God might hand us a gift when all seems bleak and dark.
But if we could only let go of our money, our status, our possessions, even of those most dear to us, and most especially of our fear, God will surprise us. God always does. In all things, God teaches us the art of receiving a gift. The truest sign that we have received his gifts is our willingness to share them with the world.
In Christ, we have been given the greatest gift of all. He is not for us to control, nor can he be controlled by us. Christ is to be received into our hearts, where we are to open the many rooms of the mansion prepared within. And then, if we truly accept him as gift, we are to share him with the world, abundantly, prolifically, and without fear.
As Christmas draws nigh, may the intercession and witness of Blessed Mary help us become obedient in response to God’s gifts to us. May the intercession and witness of Blessed Joseph help us aspire to more than mechanical faithfulness so we can become blessed receivers of God’s gifts. And may everything, by God’s wondrous grace, be a gift to us.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 18, 2022