When I think of Christmas I think of tools. Not the tools I’ve received as Christmas presents the last few years but using tools.  When I look back on the Christmases past, I see myself digging through my tool box to find the right tiny screw driver or miniature wrench needed to assemble Christmas toys for the boys.  The picture that comes most vividly to mind is the Christmas of 1987, me sitting on the floor in the family room attempting to construct the rigging on a Playmobile pirate ship.  All my Boy Scout knot tying skills were no preparation for the threads that supported those ridiculously positioned sails.  One of the most meaningful insights I carry with me from my first Christmases with children, is that no matter how simple the toy may appear, it doesn’t hurt to at least glance at the assembly instructions. 

When I think of Christmas I think of cooking.  The history of Christmas for the last few decades is chronicled in my memory by the menu, the new recipes that worked and the ones that might not have been such a good idea.  I remember the Christmas of the 1987 for the goose.  I bought it a Czimers, a specialty meat market and it wasn’t cheap.  Goose is traditional, right?  Scrooge bought a goose for the Cratchits and they had no problem cooking it.  The goose looked huge.  I stuffed it with exotic fruit and prepared for it to be delicious.  But a goose is a fatty bird and I also remember the grease, lots of grease, lots and lots of grease!  So for 1987, my story includes a tasty goose, small portions and a very messy clean up. 

We were both witnesses to the same Christmas and yet to hear our stories about that Christmas, it is not clear from our story line that we were even in the same house.  There is an interesting lecture about story lines by the Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie was recorded on U-tube this past summer at the TED Global conference at Oxford.  In her lecture, Chimamanda warns of the danger of a single story line.  This talented and articulate young author tells of coming to the United States as a college student and meeting her American roommate for the first time.  Her roommate told Chimamanda that she was amazed that an African spoke English so well. Chimamanda informed her roommate that English as the national language of Nigeria.  Then her roommate informed her that she was looking forward to hearing some of Chimamanda’s tribal music.  The roommate was quite disappointed when the favorite music Chimamanda played turned out to be by Mariah Carey.  Chimamanda explains that the problem most Americans have is that the Africa they know is from the stories we have read and the movies and media coverage we have heard which is all too often of a single story line that portrays Africans as “an incomprehensible people fighting senseless wars, dying of poverty and AIDS, unable to speak for themselves while waiting to be saved by a kindly white foreigner.” 

A single story line.  Each Christmas we gather once more to hear familiar words from the Gospel of Luke.  A single story line that has been embraced by artists and animators, musicians and the media.  We see the soft, golden tones of an idyllic night.  We hear the gentle lowing of the cattle, the cooing birds and the gurgling of a newborn infant.  We feel the cool breeze wrap around the little town of Bethlehem and the warmth of a quiet stable.  We see a loving mother and father settling in to care for this baby, the joy of their lives.  And we inhale the stable’s rich aromas of fresh bayberry and cinnamon.  We see a beautiful silent night with all the world at peace.

That part of the story line is true.  The world into which the baby Jesus was born was at peace.  It was called the Pax Romana, the Roman peace.  Peace because the mighty armies of Rome had conquered most of the known world and there simply were no longer any enemy armies to be found.  There was one super power in the world responsible for keeping peace and the troops were stationed around the world to keep that peace, to rebuild conquered nations and impose on the rest of the world the best culture the world had ever known, Roman.  But the military might needed to keep the peace did not come cheap.  There was only one real solution in the days before deficit spending and that was taxes.  And if you want to be sure that the taxes are collected properly and proportionately there had to be a census.  Rome needed to know the numbers.  Caesar Augustus was counting on the results and every local authority knew that the better their number the better the bonuses.  The single story line that Luke gives us is that there were powerful political forces in the world.  Caesar Augustus ordered that all the world should be registered.  The orders were passed to Quirinius, governor of Syria, who relayed them on to the diabolical King Herod, ruler of Judea.  And Herod sends out the “special” military guard assigned to the back water provinces of Palestine with orders to “get the people moving.  Send them back to their home villages and don’t miss a single one of these Jews.”  Power plays its role, corruption has a part, oppression and tyranny and intimidation are the very real backdrop.  In this story line Mary and Joseph are but pawns in a political machine. 

Against the back drop of this story line of global politics is another far more personal story.  Mary’s story line.  Christmas is never easy.  Especially traveling for Christmas.  The journey could be uneventful but there are so many variables.  It’s easy to run into difficulties.  Flights get canceled, roads become snow bound.  The first Christmas was not much different.  Mary and Joseph didn’t have to worry about canceled flights or snow but they did face the challenge of a 90 mile trek through some not so hospitable countryside.  Maybe a donkey, probably just walking.  Now compared to the average suburban teenager, Mary was certainly more used to a hard physical life but walking 90 miles while 8 plus months pregnant, would definitely not be pleasant no matter how young and fit you are.  If the census was as described, there would have been lots of people moving—all over the territory.  Some would have been kind, some would rob you blind if you turned your back on them, because of course people are people.  Mary had to be one tough cookie but the story she would have told of the trip would have been a story of being tired to the bone, anxious about the upcoming delivery, scared of the melee around her, tentative about her new husband.  The calm beatific visage of the Renaissance paintings of Mary would have been far from true.  Mary was at best a refugee, caught in a world she could not control with few to no resources.  The refugees from Iraq and Bhutan get off the plane at O Hare airport and are greeted by a half dozen smiling faces, warm handshakes and hope but only after they have been where Mary is—confused, alone, weary and at the mercy of a seemingly very cruel world.  Somehow, someway, she and Joseph survive and somehow someway somebody takes pity on them.  And miracle of miracles a healthy child is born.  No wonder Mary ponders these things in her heart. 

And then there were the shepherds.  This is not a highly skilled profession.  No one goes to college majoring in sheep herding.  Any Sunday school kid can be a shepherd.  All you need is bath robe and a shepherd’s staff.  The reality of course is that being a shepherd is cold, dull, boring, tedious work, especially at night.  Counting sheep at night is not something you do if you want to stay awake yet someone has to keep an eye out for wild animals, thieves and stupid lambs who just decide to wander off.  Shepherds don’t bother anyone else and don’t want to be bothered.  They just wanted to live their lives, make their living, spin stories with their friends around the fire.  And then one night God decided to enter the world.  Someone had to be told.  If you were an angel, who would you pick?  Who would even believe they had been picked?  Once you have embraced a single storyline it’s hard to change your view.  The Roman soldiers knew they were superior to the Palestinian mobs.  The political powers knew that peace on earth came through the power of arms.  So God turned to the tired shepherds, the most ordinary of folk, trusting that they would be open to the dreams of night time visions and the promise of a common miracle.  A baby being born.

So many story lines.  The political powers believing they are controlling the course of history, a refugee family just looking for shelter and safety for a new born son, a group of disaffected shepherds who suddenly are encountered by something truly remarkable.  So many story lines, yet behind them all is a far greater story.  God’s story.  God looking at a broken and hurting world.  God caring so much for that world that God enters that world.  Not with the might of judgment, coercive threats and destruction but with the story of love.  A love so great that it gives completely of itself beckoning all of us to become part of that love story.  Part of God’s story.  And we all know how that story begins,  “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior…”

Amen