Pictured above: The author’s son engaging with a friendly beast.
Nativity scenes have always fascinated me. Even as a child, my mother had to protect the small baby Jesus in her nativity set from my chubby little hands. I was known to take Jesus from his manger and carry him about the house. I could sense that the baby was the star of the show. The angel above, his parents and visitors, and the animals all turned with adoration and awe towards the promised God Incarnate. My fascination continued into adulthood. I made it a practice to collect nativities from each country I visited and gift them to my mother. She has nativity sets from places like Tanzania, Argentina, and France. Every set has a unique cultural style of its own, yet all have almost the exact same pieces. If one of these famous pieces were missing, the Nativity narrative would not be the one we know today. Without Mary, where would be our Blessed Virgin? Without the star, who would guide the way? And without the animals, who would open their home to a baby king?
Nativities tell us a story. When we take them down from the attic and lift them from their boxes, we’re giving them a chance to breathe again. As we assemble their pieces in a familiar display, they begin to move. The figures show us life’s first meeting place. The heavens (the star and the angel) and the earth (humans and animals) convene and the kingdom of God is no longer distant. Even as a child, I knew the loving gaze of the ox and donkey was a living part of Christ’s birth story. The animals remind us of God’s creation, a “divine miracle…laid bare in each atom, each galaxy, each tree, bird, fish, dog, flower, star, rock, and human” (Rev. Matthew Fox).
The nativity animals are the teachers of our faith story. Nativities usually have sheep, which are noted throughout scripture (Christ the Lamb, Jesus our Shepard-to name a few). The camel symbolizes temperance and is a sign of royalty and dignity. John the Baptist was said to have dressed in a camel’s- hair garment (Matt. 3:4). The ox is a universally benevolent symbol of strength, patience, submissiveness, and steady toil. The donkey has largely been associated with humility and peace. Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the humble donkey, not a horse. While a horse is used in war, you can’t go to battle riding a donkey.
Not everyone is so smitten by the friendly beasts. Surprisingly, Pope Benedict XVI attributes the presence of the animals to symbol or myth. Because there aren’t scriptural references to the animals in the Gospels, Benedict claims they weren’t present. He also admits no one would do away with the animals; even the Vatican’s nativity will continue to display them. So what if the animals are just a myth? Does that discount their significance? For many, the term “myth” is a sort of make-believe play. To others, “myth” reminds them of deliberate deceit. But for some, including myself, myth is not merely a story, but a force at work across time. The story of the hospitable and awestruck animals still informs us today.
Animals were not “added” to the Nativity in the 21st century! The very first live nativity in 1223, put on by Saint Francis of Assisi, featured the ox and donkey pair. Nativity icons, dating back to the 4th century, always included the ox and donkey surrounding the newborn Christ. Some of the earliest nativity images do not even include Mary and Joseph. Isaiah 1:3,“The ox knows his master, and the donkey his owner’s manger,” probably served as inspiration for the reliable appearance of the two. Traditional Middle Eastern Christianity says Jesus’ birth took place in the “stable room” of a home built into a cave. The tradition describes Mary as alone during the birth, but as she lay Jesus in the manger with fresh hay, we know the animals must have been close by. The animal “myth” has saturated the nativity narrative for thousands of years!
This Advent, I choose to include all of creation. From the smallest crab to the greatest sky, the entire universe participates in the birth of its creator. Joseph Campbell, perhaps the greatest teacher of myth in our time, says the first function of myth is to instill wonder, an opening of mystery. As we eagerly await the birth of our creator during this expectant season, may we also share in the wonder and mystery the hospitable beasts surely felt as they gazed upon the sleeping baby Christ. May we see the “I am” in each of God’s creatures, celebrating how commonplace and omnipresent divinity can be!
References
Bailey, Kenneth E. Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. pp. 33-34.
Campbell, Joseph. The Power of Myth. p. 38
Ferguson, George. Signs & Symbols in Christian Art. p.13
Fox, Matthew. The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance. p. 154
Sarcofago di Stilicone, 4th century, Milan.
Werness, Hope B. The Continuum Encyclopedia of Animal Symbolism in Art. p. 21, 308.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/20/pope-nativity-animals.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/22/world/europe/vatican-pope-jesus-book/
Meredith Griffin writes from her home in Galveston Island, Texas. She enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband and two young children. She holds a Bachelors degree in English Literature and a Masters in Counseling from the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest.
Christmas isn’t here yet and I love to listen to music that reminds me of that. Here are some of my favourites:
I chose this version because I love the lyrics and graphics.
I love the contemplative beat of this rendition of Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
A beautiful contemplative Latin chant
No list would be completed without at least one song from Handel’s Messiah.
I beautiful song that reminds us to slow down and take time for silence
No list would be complete without at least one song from Taize.
Another beautiful contemplative song
This is from one of my favourite choirs
I chose this version because it seemed that The world in silence waits the day needed to be sung without music.
And now for a couple of more upbeat songs that might be good for youth services: The first from Mumford and sons, the second from Pentatonix. Yes I know that makes 11 songs so you get a free bonus.
This changes the pace a little and you may like to leave it until just before Christmas to really get you in the mood.
The baby stirs,
Gently brushing the warming hay
From a face still crinkled by the passage of birth.
His tiny hands, clutching at invisible stars,
Already destined to be fastened in anger to wood.
.
This God-child,
His parents gazing in wordless wonder at their miracle,
Oblivious to the contract being signed on his life,
By an earthly king, frantically tightening his grip,
On a crown given by occupying forces.
.
His family unwelcome in the town,
Reluctantly given space in an external storage shed.
The birth of a saviour witnessed by cattle and vermin,
Who pause, blinking, at the invasion of their chambers,
Yet offer a welcome missing elsewhere.
.
The heavenly Father smiles,
His eternal excitement bubbling over into stars and comets,
That mark the skies with spectral light,
Footprints of the Creators delighted dance,
And offering a sign to those who watch in hope.
.
Visitors come – not family or friends,
But night workmen, dusty from fields littered with sheep.
Who tell of glory sung, and invitation given,
These shepherds, scorned by holy folk and ignore by others,
Are those with the honour of seeing his first hours fleshed out.
.
Welcomed by the exhausted parents,
Not clothed in earthly status themselves,
Who understand something of the story developing –
That the promised delivery of creation, long foretold,
Is somehow wrapped up in their tiny bundle of warm flash.
.
So many years later,
We still push through the crowds to secure our place,
Desperate for a sight of this rare and precious beauty.
But in our haste, in our eagerness to present our praise,
We risk blocking the path for others.
.
So, who will you invite to the manger?
The noble and the outcast have equal status here,
As the arms of the Creator stretch in welcome,
A proud father, delighted to share his joy,
And embrace all who can see the gift of the child.
Andy Campbell
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Andy is a Chaplain at Oasis Academy Enfield, North London, a father of 3 beautiful girls, and a traveller on the Way. He blogs at Post Ordinandy
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This afternoon’s post is the second in the series Advent in Art by Mark Pierson. You may like to access these directly at Advent in Art or follow Thalia Kehoe Rowden who is reflecting each week on Mark’s cards. This week’s reflection Advent in Art with He Qi: The Visitation is well worth reading. The art work is by Chinese artist He Qi. Used with permission.
Mary’s Act of Hospitality
Let’s start with Tanner’s depiction of the Annunciation, where Mary looks, frankly, less than thrilled.
Annunciation Henry Ossawa Tanner
Luke tells the story, sourced presumably from Mary herself, years later, of Gabriel the angel bursting in on her with this announcement:
‘Mary, you have nothing to fear. God has a surprise for you: You will become pregnant and give birth to a son and call him Jesus.
He will be great,
be called ‘Son of the Highest.’
The Lord God will give him
the throne of his father David;
He will rule Jacob’s house forever—
no end, ever, to his kingdom.’
Mary knew her Scriptures. Check out the song she sings a few weeks later when she greets her cousin Elizabeth – she’s got some theological chops. I reckon she had a pretty good idea of what she was agreeing to. It’s an exciting opportunity, being part of God’s plan for redemption of the world. But perhaps Mary’s expression in Tanner’s painting reflects other knowledge she had.
Pregnancy is a dangerous business.
According to UNICEF, ‘women in the world’s least developed countries are 300 times more likely to die in childbirth or from pregnancy-related complications than women in developed countries’.
So if you, like me, live in a place with good healthcare for pregnant women and babies, you’ll need to imagine yourself a resident of rural Burma, or South Sudan, to understand what Mary was taking on – a pregnancy that was 300 times more dangerous than, for example, my current one.
According to the United Nations Development Programme:
‘South Sudan has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world – 2,054 per 100,000 live births. This is an astronomical figure representing a 1 in 7 chance of a woman dying during her lifetime from pregnancy related causes. Currently, there is only one qualified midwife per 30,000 people.’
First century Palestine was probably not so different from modern South Sudan in this respect. There would probably have been more midwives, but about the same level of modern medical resources like antibiotics, testing for dangerous blood pressure or gestational diabetes, and ultrasound scans.
In moments of logical thinking, Mary may have felt confident that her baby would survive – given his parentage and place in history – but no such assurance was given for her part in the story. Mary must have known of a great many women in her community who had died in childbirth or soon after.
Mary was probably also a teenager, which makes pregnancy even harder on the body and riskier. And even if she and her baby survived the next nine months, she was probably well aware of the discomforts – reflux, insomnia, swollen legs, sciatica, vomiting, back pain and more – and the dangers of bearing a child.
I think she knew what a dangerous task she was taking on – leaving aside for now any inkling of the grief that would later accompany her mothering – and she said yes with her eyes wide open. Hence the serious expression.
It was a generous act of hospitality to agree to carry and nourish Jesus in her body.
Here are Elaine Storkey’s beautiful words about this kind of hospitality:
‘Pregnancy is itself a symbol of deep hospitality. It is the giving of one’s body to the life of another. It is a sharing of all that we have, our cell structure, our bloodstream, our food, our oxygen. It is saying ‘welcome’ with every breath and every heartbeat. And for many mothers that welcome is given irrespective of the demands made on one’s own comfort, health, or ease of life. For the demands of this hospitality are greater than almost any of our own. And the growing foetus is made to know that here is love, here are warm lodgings, here is a place of safety. In hiding and in quiet the miraculous growth can take place.’
Welcoming the Unborn Child and the Vulnerable Parent
Wherever you live, unless it’s Scandinavia, you are probably surrounded by vulnerable women like Mary. Either you live somewhere with inadequate healthcare for pregnant women and babies, or you live in a first-world, socially-fractured community where the poor are getting poorer and children born into poor homes are much more likely than others to grow up in violence, neglect and dysfunction. Or both. Am I right about your situation?
An unborn child being carried by a mother in crisis or poverty or dysfunction is our neighbour in the same way as the man beaten by robbers in Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan. What are our obligations of care and compassion for such children?
Just as Mary lent her own body to welcome the embryonic Jesus, we are called to sacrifice a measure of our own comfort and wealth to welcome vulnerable children and support their parents.
What can we do?
A clear consensus is emerging in the research. Early intervention in dysfunctional or under-resourced families brings the best results for building resilience in kids.
If we want to bring the kingdom to our local communities, and break the cycles of violence, neglect and poverty that exist in so many of them, perhaps the most strategic thing we can do is offer practical, meaningful support to pregnant women in crisis and vulnerable parents of young children.
This Advent, might the Holy Spirit be drawing you into a new step of radical hospitality? Could it be that God has people in mind for you to support?
Head to this post for a collection of ideas, some easy, some hard, that together could create an hospitable community where children grow up in supported and supportive families and the kingdom becomes more visible. Which ones are within your capacity this Advent or in the coming year?
Mary’s Son brought good news. We need no longer be disconnected and desperate. We who know her Son can bring light and love to all parents who struggle, if we decide to do so and are fuelled by God’s Holy Spirit.
This Advent, what hospitality is the Holy Spirit drawing you to offer?
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Thalia Kehoe Rowden was a Baptist minister before the birth of her first child, in December 2011. Now anticipating the birth of a second December baby, she most definitely doesn’t want to be travelling on foot to Bethlehem or anywhere further than the kitchen, so feels a great deal of sympathy for Mary. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand, and writes at Sacraparental.
Advent prayer
I posted this prayer on Facebook this morning and have been thinking about the wonder of breath ever since. Breath is miraculous. It is life. Some feel it is the very essence of God. Yet it is not this I have been thinking about. Eric Garner’s cry “I can’t breathe” rings in my mind. So many people whose breath has been cut short by fear and terror. Images of polluted cities whose air is slowly killing their inhabitants. Asthma sufferers. Refugees fleeing their breathing strangled by hate and violence.
This is the season we not only wait for the one who gives us breath, we wait for the healing and wholeness that comes when all are able to breathe freely and deeply.
My Advent manger wreath is finished, at least I thought it was until I started asking myself. Whom have I left out? Suddenly I realized how white my circle was. Yes, there were refugees in Africa and cleft palate sufferers in Mexico, but all of the friends and colleagues I had placed around the circle where white. I gasped in horror, ashamed of my oversight. Is this really my circle of friends I wondered? Am I really this detached from people of other cultures?
The deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown have impacted all of lives and hopefully made many of us consider the great divides that separate us from people of other colours and ethnicities. I wonder if in the roar of the protests what real changes we are willing to make to our lives. Are we really prepared for the huge steps we need to take to change so that people of other backgrounds and ethnicities feel not only accepted but welcomed as equals?
As I thought about that this week, I remembered a meeting I participated in with Native American leader Richard Twiss not long before he died. We don’t want you to invite us to your table he said, we want you to be willing to sit down and create a new table together he said. Leroy Barber expresses something similar in his book Red Brown Yellow Black White Who’s More Precious In God’s Sight? when he says that even when coloured people are invited to participate in white churches or white organizations, the culture into which they are invited is still very Anglo and they are not given the freedom to bring about change.
I know what he means. I have worked with a number of organizations that are ethnically diverse but their expectations in terms of schedule, dress, work techniques and worship styles are all very Anglo.
What would it take to create a new table to sit around at which everyone feels welcomed and their cultures are given equal value and expression. Mulling over these thoughts reminded me of something I read in The Spirituality of Imperfection:
All community begins in listening… to be present in a hearing way, to listen to others in such a way that we are willing to surrender our own world view. (94)
To truly listen, being willing to surrender our own world view so that together we can shape a new world view, is not easy but I think it is essential if we are to become the people and the community God intends us to be.
So here are some questions I am grappling with that I would ask you to consider too as we gather round the manger together:
1. How white is your leadership team?
A church or organization will never become truly multicultural until their worship and leadership teams and their Boards are ethnically diverse. And that doesn’t mean just having a few non white faces on the team, it really does mean inviting a new leadership style and a new organizational perspective that reflects the views and the cultures of all who are on the team and in the congregation.
2. How white is your culture?
This is an even more challenging question. Our church cultures are often both white and middle class. We give more value to those who have money, education and success. We judge people by how clean they look, how old their clothes are and even by what cars they drive. Subtly we exclude those who do not fit into our cultural viewpoint. The way we live reflects what is in our hearts and sometimes it is obvious that our hearts are very white.
3. How white is your theology?
It is twenty years now since I began reading African, Asian and South American theologians. I still remember how dismissive many of my colleagues were of theologies like liberation theology which grew out a culture of oppression and of Indian theologies that grew out of cultures of poverty or of South African Black theology which grew out of a culture of apartheid. Reading authors like Gustavo Gutiérrez and Cornel West has changed my life and my worldview. Listening to my friends at NAIITS and indigenous peoples in Australia and North America has even more deeply impacted me.
Each time I work in a cross cultural situation I try to listen to those from other ethnicities who view both the bible and faith from very different perspectives than what I grew up with. Often I find myself back at the drawing board wondering how I need to reshape my faith so that I am not excluding those whom God embraces. Jesus’ parables often focus on God’s inclusion of those whom the Jewish culture tended to exclude – Samaritans, women, lepers, sinners, were all included in his embrace. I am sure that as he told these stories the worldview and the culture of the he spoke to was slowly changed too.
Again I must harken back to Leroy Barber:
Jesus prayed in the garden before his death that we would be one people. We have a lot of work to do to become one heart and one mind. Locked into most churches is a designation or race or culture that separates, that shapes our view of each other and of God, leaving us isolated and divided. We are not the Church. We are at best, thousands of small pieces that contain strands of the Church. The Church does not have walls and designations; it is people from every walk of life pursuing the Kingdom of God here on earth. The Church is one expression of God here on earth. (203).
We live in such a divided world. What will it take for us to sit down with people of all races and cultures and create a table together? Lets take some time to not just think about it this Advent season but to do something about it too.
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