One of Us

One of Us

What if god was one of us
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Tryin' to make his way home

Joan Osborne, One of Us

One of the most compelling parts of the Christmas Story is the very everyday, humble focus of it. The story is about shepherds in the fields tending their flocks.

The shepherds of that time were the immigrant farm workers of today. They were migrants without social stature performing an essential service no one else wanted to do. And Mary and Joseph were common-folk - the working poor of today - that were forced to deliver their firstborn child in a barn.

And, the audacity of the whole story was that god came down from heaven and humbled himself to become a baby - the human most helpless, most tender and also the most messy. Babies are adorable - which is a good thing - since they are demanding little packets of screaming, eating and pooping.

And the story says that god became this.

So, here at this Christmas time, when the Christian world should be focused on the wonder of such a tale, the FOX-News Church of the Anointed, so worried about the War On Christmas, has forgotten the Meaning of Christmas.

The reason we should stop and ponder the central message of the story is that it tells us that god became human. It tells us that god became poor. God became a nobody.

And beyond the sheer audacity and uniqueness of the story lies the simple power and grandeur of it.

God did not come in a spaceship with armies of stormtroopers. God did not announce himself before the Roman Senate and the Leaders of the Free World. God came to the nobodies. God came to nowhere special.

It might be good for those that are so determined to call America a Christian Nation to stop and consider this story.

Because, for the Sarah Palin/Donald Trump wing of the GOP - who demonize not only the poor, but also the different, the immigrant, the other - it might be good to remember that one of the basic tenets of the Gospel of Goodness is that god came down.

And when he came down, he reminded us that even the demon-possessed of the day, the prostitutes and tax collectors were all worthy of his attention. (For those of you who need more information, these stories are all referenced in the bible books of Matthew, Mark and Luke…)

Obviously, the god-man saw in each of them the divine spark that lived there - that most unique characteristic of those opposable thumb, upright walking, language speaking paradoxes called humans.

That divine spark - what some call the human soul or the holy spirit - should remind us we are all made of similar stuff. We all began as messy babies, we grew into messy teenagers, and then left home, went to college, got jobs - and started the whole drama again by making more messy babies.

The story should make us pause. Be humble. Be just a little more tolerant. And remember. God once became one of us. You might never know when and where he might come again. As a shepherd. Or a pregnant young woman. Or as a middle eastern immigrant.

dg 

12/11/15



Sent from my iPad

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