The Shadow of the Cross

"It was now about noon, and darkness came over the land..." Luke 23:44-46 

In the Gospel accounts of Jesus' crucifixion, we are told it became very dark from mid-day until three in the afternoon. During the three hours leading up to Christ's death, the cross cast no shadow! So how can we speak of a Shadow of the Cross? What might that darkness be? Perhaps that darkness is our shadow, the collective shadow that is cast by all of us. 

The Crucifixion was human darkness made manifest, the culmination of a plot by religious leaders to turn public opinion against Jesus and persuade the political rulers to use the force of law to execute him. The religious leaders were envious of Jesus. They hated him. They feared him. But it the end, they came up with a pragmatic reason to do away with him:

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.” —John 11:47-48

They thought they were going to lose their temple and their country. (They lost them anyway). 

The desire to preserve an identity, a status, a way of life, and a social order can motivate human beings to take action. But the fear of losing these things can move human beings to do awful things and turn a blind eye to the suffering of others in the process. Fear drives the dark side of humanity. It is humanity's dark side. Humanity's shadow if you will. And the shadow is not just a general darkness of humanity, it is the dark side of each one of us!

We like to consider ourselves "good-hearted" and most of the time we are. However, we may carry a hidden and deep-seated resentment. Or more often, a deep seated sense of self-importance. It’s the kind of thing we slide through much of life not even noticing it until something brings it to the surface. We have a shadow, but it is hidden until something brings it to light. Often the trigger is something mundane. Someone cuts us off in traffic. Or takes too long at the self-checkout. Or disagrees with us in front of others. And then our "dark side" comes out. For me, impatience and anger are the shadows I know I've cast. But there are others: 

The Shadow of Misogyny The belief that the male is the provider and protector and controller of the agency of women whether they be his employees, his spouse, or his daughters. If there is an issue of his anger, his lust, his temptation, then fault must lie with the women in his life. The man projects the shadow of his flawed relationship with himself onto women.

The Shadow of Poverty The belief that I had complete agency over the station in life I inhabit. That my success had nothing to do with my birth, my upbringing, my race, my family's wealth, or that all these factors had nothing to do with my success. If on the other hand someone is poor, that is their fault. My shadow accuses poor people of making bad choices and ignores the environment in which they are forced to make those choices. Society's shadow is how wealth is built at the expense of the poor:

"The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you." —James 5:4

The Shadow of Racism This is really the shadow of our caste system as marked by race. We don't believe we are racist, claim people of other races as our friends, and we would probably vehemently deny it confronted. Yet we are quite comfortable at our place in the social hierarchy and more often than not, vote for people who promise to secure our place in it, even if it means oppression for others. Our shadow is the darkness we project on others:  

"The white man's unadmitted and apparently, to him, unspeakable private fears and longings are projected onto the Negro" —James Baldwin

The Shadow of The Market  The shadow of "the market" is its amorality. It is the economic framework of social Darwinism. The market assumes winners and losers and if you lose, too bad for you. The other shadow of "the market" is it's failure to account for externalities, the costs it keeps off the books. Things like damage to the earth wrought by extraction, industrialization, the discarding of waste to the damage done to humans by robbing us of the time we need for social reproduction, our capacity of "birthing and raising children, caring for friends and family members, maintaining households and broader communities" —Nancy Fraser 

The Shadow of The Valley of Death  Our shadow believes in "eye for an eye" justice. We may venerate the "Stations of the Cross" pondering the steps that led to the execution of Jesus, and yet support the death penalty and an ubiquitous gun culture which kills more children than any other cause. Our shadow enables a profit-focused agribusiness that drives family farms out of business, poisons land and water, and manufactures cheap, unhealthy food for the masses. Our shadow enables a for-profit healthcare system that charges exorbitant fees and denies care. If we are privileged with wealth, we can choose to eat healthy and exercise, shielded from the most pernicious consequences of this system, which fall like a consuming shadow on the working poor.

We are formed by these shadows, but we also form and reinforce them. Our shadows multiply as the sum of all of us into what we call "society":

"If you don’t know how your mind reacts, if your mind is not aware of its own activities, you will never find out what society is . . . because your mind is part of society; it is society. . . . It is not distinct from your culture, from your religion, from your various class divisions, from the ambitions and conflicts of the many. All this is society, and you are part of it. There is no “you” separate from society."  —Jiddu Krishnamurti [1895–1986] 

Society defends its image by punishing those who would make its shadow visible. The Roman Empire used crucifixion on a cross as both a punishment and a warning to would be disrupters. In those days Roman roads in Judea were lined with crosses on which hung malcontents, zealots, murders, and thieves. In an arid and sunny land the shadows of crosses testified to the brutality of men. The last thing the condemned would see was their own crucified shadow. But on the day the Son of Man hung on a Roman cross, there was no shadow. The darkness of what humanity had done was overwhelming. 

The ultimate evidence of our shadow is our denial that we even have one. Western civilization tells a flattering story about itself that lists its achievements in the arts and sciences, technological prowess, but downplays and denies its darkness. If the darkness is not denied outright, then it is spun into something good. The annihilation of the indigenous becomes "discovery." War becomes "liberation." Separation becomes "equality." Religion is particularly adept at this. The Crucifixion of Jesus becomes our salvation. Baptism becomes our citizenship. Confession becomes absolution. But none of these things, nor our beliefs about their efficacy, confront our shadow. The only solution is to admit to our shadow. But our ego gets in the way:

“We can patiently accept not being good. What we cannot bear is not being considered good, not appearing good.” —St. Francis of Assisi

In order to appear to be a good person to others, we deny, suppress, and try to hide our darkness:

“Abstract speculation can create an image of God that is foreign to the human heart. . . [A God that does not contain our shadows.] Then we try to live up to the standards of a God that is purely light, and we can’t handle the darkness within us. And because we can’t handle it, we suppress it. But the more we suppress it, the more it leads its own life, because it’s not integrated. Before we know it, we are in serious trouble.” —Bro David Steindl-Rast, The Shadow in Chrisitanity

We cannot purge out all our darkness. The best we can do is humbly admit that we have it and integrate it into the wholeness of our being. 

“Consider Gandhi, Oskar Schindler, Martin Luther King Jr. Add to them Rosa Parks, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Óscar Romero, César Chávez, and many unsung leaders. Their inspiring witness offers us strong evidence that the mind of Christ still inhabits the world. Most of us are fortunate to have crossed paths with many lesser-known persons who exhibit the same presence. I can’t say how one becomes such a person. All I can presume is that they were all called.

They all had their Christ moments, in which they stopped denying their own shadows, stopped projecting those shadows elsewhere, and agreed to own their deepest identity in solidarity with the world.” —Fr Richard Rohr

So when will we stop denying our shadows? And the shadows of society? Because when we do, we will have our “Christ moment” and a true salvation will be at hand.

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The Fullness of Time

 

"in the fullness of time, Christ was born" —Galatians 4:4

2020 has certainly been a turbulent year. A disorienting year. The year of COVID. A year when the conflicts that have been festering in American society rose to the surface. A year when the scabs covering racial wounds were torn off to reveal the open sores that had never healed. A year when our health care system and its practitioners were strained to the breaking point. A year when so many have died. A year of added economic hardship for the many who were barely surviving.  A year when increasing inequality made record profits for a few. 

A year when so many daily rituals and routines have been upended. A year when it has been difficult to define or even mark time as one day blurs into the next. Christ also arrived in a turbulent year; his birthplace was under occupation. Religious leaders conspired with rulers of the empire to maintain power over oppressed people. It would seem to have been the worst time to bring a child into the world. Yet it was the fullness of time, the completion of time, or better yet, the right time for Christ to be born.

How can a wrong time be the right time?

The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” —Luke 1:28-33

Mary was perplexed:

“How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” —Luke 1:34

For Mary, this was not the right time.  Yet it was.  The Romans had brought a system of roads, common language, and trade connecting Palestine and Judea with the rest of the known world. The Roman Empire encompassed a huge swath of land, from the Britannia to Persia and India. The reality of travel and communication that was inconceivable in ancient times was now possible. The world was ready for the gospel of Christ to spread.

Hannah Arendt called this time of possibility, this time of new life, natality.

“The miracle that saves the world, the realm of human affairs, from its normal, natural ruin is ultimately the fact of natality,...  It is, in other words, the birth of new men and the new beginning, the action they are capable of by virtue of being born. Only the full experience of this capacity can bestow upon human affairs faith and hope,... It is this faith in and hope for the world that found perhaps its most glorious and most succinct expression in the few words with which the Gospels announced their "glad tidings": "A child has been born unto us".—Hannah Arendt

Prior to the birth of Christ, the people had endured centuries of darkness and uncertainty. The Babylonians conquered the land and took the people into exile.  Persia conquered Babylon and sent the exiles home to rebuild Jerusalem. A moment of hope only to be crushed by another conquest, this time by Alexander. The Maccabees stood fast against the heirs of Alexander to ignite an insurgency against oppression, celebrated to this day as Hanukkah. Another moment of hope. And then the final crushing blow came when the Romans conquered the land. To generations of a people, barely clinging to hope, the times seemed darker than ever. Then, something happened, that Hannah Arendt expresses as “something so unexpectedly and unpredictably new that neither hope nor fear could have anticipated it... [which] set the stage for an entirely new world”. The birth of Christ was about to change the world.

Ironically, news of this pivotal event was not given to the leaders in the halls of power, but to the "essential workers" out in the fields:

“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. ” —Luke 2:8-12

Thirty years later, Jesus would grow up and begin his ministry echoing the words of Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

This right time was “the year of the Lord’s favor.” But the right time is rarely a safe time. Proclaiming the right message at the right time almost got Jesus thrown off a cliff:

 “I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.”

They were not angry with Jesus for proclaiming benefits of healing, freedom, and forgiveness of debt ("the year of the Lord's favor.") They were angry because Jesus touched their idol, their religious nationalism, when he suggested that Elijah was sent to people other than Israel. 

So what about our time? In many ways this is a dangerous time. A plague has overtaken our land. Many are in economic distress. Politics are more divisive than ever. Religious nationalism has reared its ugly head. The sense that this is a dark time is hard to miss. This is definitely a pivotal moment. Things could go either way. As Sikh activist and author Valarie Kaur asks, “Is this a darkness of the tomb or a darkness of the womb?” Is this dark time the transition to the birth of something new? It all depends on how we respond to questions of this moment. 

The fullness of time always culminates in a specific moment. A live birth or a stillbirth takes place. In this moment is juxtaposed the promise of new life along side the risk of death. In choosing to say "Yes" to this moment, new possibilities arise. Possibilities we had not considered before.

We don't get to choose when we encounter these moments. Life asks the question and offers its fulfilment as the answer. Will our response be born of preparedness? Mary had no idea what would be asked of her, no comprehension of the joy and heartbreak that awaited her, but she was prepared to answer. 

So the question is: is this our moment? And what question is life, in this moment, asking of us? Mary answered "Yes". What will our answer be?

A Journey of Faith into Politics

My first vague awareness of politics was November of 1963. I was sent home early from school. All I knew was that something bad had happened. When I got home, the news of the JFK assassination was playing on all the major networks. While I didn't understand the gravity of the event, the solemnity lingered.

I don't remember growing up in a particularly political household but it was a union household. I remember going to union picnics. I remember going to the plant where my dad worked when there was a strike. I didn't know why he was on strike. As I got older, I learned the issue was health care. I remember that my dad was frequently laid off. My other distinct memory of those times were the green painted walls of the Michigan Employment Security Commission. No mailed checks or electronic deposits back then. You went and you waited. All day. My mother worked, so I had to go. I don't recall how I passed the time. I might have brought a book. Or stared at the drab green walls. As a child, I did not understand the intersectional relationship of unions, economic justice, and politics.

I lived in Detroit in 1967 when the city exploded in violence and flame. The air was filled with the smell of burning wood. National Guard personnel carriers drove down my street while helicopters flew overhead. When the riots were over, for-sale signs sprouted up and down our street. We moved to an adjacent suburb. Meanwhile, images of Vietnam flashed across the evening news. I had a growing awareness of politics and how it might affect me directly. In 1968 I had a hope, an idealism that men like MLK and RFK would lead to a better, more hopeful future. Their assassinations were a gut punch to me. I was totally undone.

I was not raised in a particularly religious household either. My maternal grandparents made sure I was raised Catholic. I grew up going to Mass, Catechism, and Confession. I learned the creeds, the Commandments, and the Stations of the Cross. I was confirmed when I was 10 years old. As I grew into my teen years, I drifted away from the Catholic Church. Just before I turned 20, I had an Evangelical conversion experience. I met my wife in church and for the next 30 years we attended various Evangelical churches together. For most of those years, I focused on trying to balance work, family life, and church. The church we married in went though periods of turmoil with two pastors leaving in quick succession. That sent us on our spiritual road trip through a number of churches. Each change was made in the hope of finding a church where there was true grace and acceptance. Each expectation was met by disappointment.

The last church we attended was the smaller plant of a larger church. We were attracted because of the small church's outreach into the community and its acceptance of people who did not traditionally attend the denomination: homeless, alcoholics, addicts, single moms, and people of color. We threw ourselves into the work. For a time all was good, but trouble was brewing. A number of people were uncomfortable with the new direction the church was taking and with the associate minister who was leading the charge. Ultimately he was driven out. The church went back to its old ways. In the end, we left.

This led me to deconstruct my faith. I did not lose my faith, but I had to understand how faith, if it was valid at all, would lead me to live in the world. Specifically, what did the words of Jesus mean for me today and how was I to follow his teachings? While groping in the darkness I chanced to start reading Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Bonhoeffer. Mother Teresa. and Dorothy Day. Each of these people brought me back to the Gospels, the "red letters", the words of Jesus. This was my pivot into a different understanding of faith, a faith lived out. Along the way I found and joined a team of believers who formed a non-profit providing semi-independent housing to young people transitioning out of foster care. I became a mentor, tutor, and driving instructor to young men in the program.

I began to understand that the lot of the poor was not because they were not "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps." I learned that some people don't even have "boot straps" to pull themselves up by. I learned what generational poverty does to people and how hard it is to break out of the cycle.  I also learned that poverty is entrenched by systemic factors: red-lining, inadequate schooling, poisoned water, a dearth of financial services, and lack of transportation. On top of all this, predatory capitalism swoops in like a vulture into poor neighborhoods and entraps people.  Payday loans, exorbitant auto financing, and overpriced insurance to extract the last drop of life out of people for profit. I learned that a lot of this was the product of public policy and that could only be changed through the political process.

Engaging politics would force me to take sides. Up to this point, I could remain publicly apolitical. Church life did not encourage open political advocacy, except to always vote for the "pro-life" candidate. Nearly all the sermons had to do with personal piety and "getting right with God", but only personally and spiritually. Rarely, if ever, did I hear systemic injustices addressed. At most, I might be encouraged to give and participate in a charity, to, in MLK's words, "fling a coin at a beggar" but not critically examine the system that produced beggars. Moreover I was living a relatively comfortable life, so why take sides? Then 2016 happened.

A man was nominated by his party and ultimately elected as President who was an anathema to my growing awareness of systemic injustice. He based his campaign on oppressing the marginalized even more than they were oppressed already. I was stunned. How could the political process allow a man like this to become President? Then it occurred to me: I wasn't participating in the process! I had allowed my relatively comfortable life to lull me into apathy. I barely knew what congressional district I lived in, much less my state house and senate districts.

In early 2017 we knew we needed to do something, but were unsure what was to be done. We walked in our first MLK Day march, our first political rally ever, in the bitter January cold. We met some nice, like-minded people in the church we gathered in to warm up, but were unsure what good our action did. We didn't see any press. Besides ourselves, who knew what statement we were making?

Meanwhile we learned about a new organization that was forming in response to the new political reality: Indivisible. We read their brochure. A chapter formed in a nearby town and we joined it. We were encouraged to see that, contrary to what we believed, this very red district had other like-minded people. We learned how politics leads to policy, how to take meaningful action, and how action changes political realities.

In 2017, the GOP controlled congress was trying to kill the Affordable Care Act. Our congressman, who we later learned had cashed in on foreclosures in private life, opposed the ACA, despite the wishes of his constituents. We started calling and writing letters, the first time we ever tried to communicate with our representative. Indivisible and other organizations made themselves heard at his office. Ultimately he decided to retire. In time, a number of candidates threw their hat in the ring to run for the newly vacated seat. We attended our Congressional district's candidate forum. We threw our support behind a promising candidate who helped save the industry I worked in. I signed up to run as a Democratic Precinct Delegate. In the primary election, I won my first elected office! Shortly after that, I attended my first state-wide political convention. We hosted canvassing drives out of our home and knocked on doors. Our congressional candidate won! Not all the candidates down-ballot won, but we moved the needle. We began to see the effect of involvement.

My faith journey took me into politics because I came to understand the primacy of Jesus teaching:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

 Matthew 25:35-40

In this passage, Jesus taught that any good I would do for another human being, I have done for Him. I also learned that any good I could accomplish on an individual basis was limited. To do any real good for many people, a change in policy and governance was required. I must advocate for people who will advocate for others. A failure to do so leaves people at the mercy of evil men: 

“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” 

Plato

So I have become a card-carrying member of the Democratic party. I admit that I am a contingent Democrat. I am not a natural-born politician or loyalist. Nevertheless, as long as Democrats remain an advocate for working people, the sick, the poor, the aged, people of color, LGBTQ, and refugees, I will remain a member. Some who know me from conservative church circles will see this as a denial of my faith. I see it as a living out of my faith. I used to be blind, color-blind that is, and now I see....the "red letters" of Jesus' words.

The Kingdom of God is People

Those of us who are old enough will remember Charleston Heston's role in the dystopian sci-fi classic "Soylent Green". The movie was titled after a fictional nutritional substance that humanity depended on for survival. In the movie he plays an detective who investigates a murder. He follows the evidence to its end. When he realizes the truth, he belts out that iconic line, "Soylent Green is people!"

In many ways this movie was a product of its time. The era produced an entire genre of post-apocalyptic movies. Certainly they were all a  commentary on our fears and self-destructive tendencies. Perhaps even on consumerism's endpoint where we consume ourselves. Those would all be a topic for another blog. For now I want to focus on "people".

Throughout His ministry, Jesus tried to convey truths about the Kingdom of God to people. Think of all the metaphors Jesus used to describe "Kingdom of God". A treasure  hidden in a field. A pearl of great price. A mustard seed.

When he sent his disciples out, he instructed them to say "The Kingdom of God is Near". He never told them how to describe or define this kingdom. They were simply to announce it's nearness.

So what is the Kingdom of God? What was it that Jesus alluded to, told parables about, announced the presence of, but never directly defined? It was hidden in plain sight, right in front of everyone. The Kingdom of God is people! People following Jesus. It's that simple.

The Kingdom of God is people following Jesus. They adhere to his teachings. They follow his example. If Jesus said "love your neighbor", then they love their neighbors. If Jesus said be kind and hospitable to marginalized people ("the least of these"), then his followers are kind and hospitable. If Jesus said forgive enemies, then they forgive their enemies. If Jesus said "love one another as I have loved you", then his people, kingdom people, love one another.

The Kingdom of God is built with rejected and marginalized people,  the people no one else wants. Jesus' followers love them,  re-humanize them, and build a family out of them. That is how the Kingdom grows.

The only evidence of this Kingdom is the lives of its people. Their disposition and actions towards others. When people are re-humanized by Jesus,  have their dignity restored, when people feel like people in the presence of Jesus' followers, the Kingdom is near. Because The Kingdom of God is people!

Why am I Here? Perhaps as a Warning

I am the son of a refugee. My father fled Poland in 1939 just days after it was invaded by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Horse-drawn artillery and wooden biplanes had no chance against the mechanized forces of two world powers. He decided to flee to Romania. As fighter planes approached to strafe those fleeing, he dove into a ditch for cover. He felt the repeated thump of machine gun bullets impacting the ground. After the planes left and he felt it was safe to get up,  he arose to discover every other person in the ditch was dead. He just happened to be in the place that was between rounds.

I can't help but be a student of history, since my life is the product of it. It seems so ironic that I owe my existence to the rise of demagogue. Eighty-three years ago in Europe a man rose to power on the promise of restored national glory, renewed economic prosperity, and the defeat of foreign and domestic foes. He knew how to channel the public angst into wild-eyed devotion. Crowds were spell-bound before him. There was only one catch....enemies had to be named and destroyed. The rest is history, so to speak.

So pardon me when I sense a darkening cloud casting its shadow over our country. A demagogue has arisen who knows how to work a crowd. He has said he will "Make America Great Again".  He has blown by all boundaries of civility, all the lines that his opponents and predecessors would not dare cross. The truth of what he says does not matter. His character does not matter. That he has stiffed countless people that have worked for him does not matter. That he says outrageous things about minorities, women, and even veterans is excused as forthrightness. He has named our enemies which somehow all happen to be people of color. He has talked about mass-roundups, internment, and deportations. He has talked about the exclusion and public marking of religious groups. He has talked about legitimizing racial profiling and searches. He has talked about muzzling the press because "they say bad things" about him.

Some of us are going to vote for him because we believe in him. Some of us are going to vote for him because we despise "her". Some of us will vote for him because we are afraid. Some of us are going to vote for him because he has thrown us a bone about some issue dear to our hearts. Some of us are going to stay home because our candidate lost the primaries. Some of us will stand on principle and vote third party. We will say to ourselves, "so what if he gets elected, we will only have to put up with him for four or eight years. What have we got to lose?" Everything!

Let's not delude ourselves about constitutional limits and protections or that we are a nation of laws. Constitutions, amendments, and protections of the law operate under the assumption of  a collective good will. That if things don't go my (our) way, we will live to fight another day through the legal process and perhaps through a change of national conscience. In our past, universal suffrage and the Civil Rights struggle were able to advance in this way. In our past however, there have also been reversals:  the Japaneses internment, Communist witch-hunts, and the Kent State massacre, to name a few. It doesn't take much to throw constitutional protections out the window when it suits a collective national will. Just a little fear will do it.

So why then am I here? I very nearly was not. Perhaps I'm here as a warning. History does repeat itself.

Who for Our Sakes Became Accessible

"For your sakes, he became poor..." - St. Paul

This Advent, I thought about how much God gave up to enter our world in the person of Jesus Christ. I also thought about why He did it. He did it to become accessible....to all people. To do that, he had to become one of us, and not just the "one percent", but the "ninety-nine percent". He had to choose the lowest common denominator. To that end, he had to enter the world poor. To be poor is to have neither resources nor status. God gave up both. Christ was born in a barn, with animals. He was born as a refugee.  In many respects he was born in circumstances similar to what a great many displaced people experience in the modern world.

To be poor is to be denied access. Access to food, housing, medical care, a safe environment, dignity, and social standing. There were many barriers to access in Jesus' day. Being a Gentile, Being diseased ("unclean"). Being a foreigner. Being a woman. These barriers were used by the elite to keep out the undesirables. However, it seemed that everyone who was barred from approaching God by the religious elite was welcomed by Jesus. In fact, breaching social and religious barriers was a hallmark of Jesus' ministry. 

From what we know, Jesus grew up as the son of a tradesman. For most of his life, he worked in the family business. His first recorded public appearance was submitting to John's baptism. This was certainly an act of humility, as the religious leaders of the time would not submit to John's baptism. This public act of humility was the first of many. Subsequent acts of humility would have the dual effect of distancing Jesus from the religious elite and drawing him closer to the poor and outcast. Jesus did not exclude the elite. But the elite excluded themselves: either they admitted no need of the prophet from Galilee or would not risk their social status to associate with him.

The birth of Christ was announced with the message of unrestricted access: "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all people". Despite the message of open access, subsequent church history has more than enough examples of walls being built. Today, the same people-groups are excluded along with some new categories: race, gender-identity, the elderly, and the undocumented. However, the greatest barriers come from our comfortable but isolated first-world lives, our technology, and ultimately modernity itself. Differences of belief and social status still separate us as human beings and from God.

So if these barriers trouble us, what are we to do? This Christmas, might I suggest something different, non-traditional, and non-religious. Reach out to those who are otherwise forgotten. Buy a cup of coffee for the bell-ringer outside your grocery store. The person inside the gas station booth. Public safety personnel working the holidays. The homeless person holding up a sign at the intersection. Nursing home residents and workers. Acts of kindness chip away at the barriers, the walls separating people from each other. If you will permit yourself an open mind, ponder the meaning of Jesus' words: "If you have done it for the least of these, you have done it to me". Beginning with simple acts of kindness, you might find Jesus in the place you least expected to find him.

Merry Christmas