Third Sunday of Advent

Sunday School Class
Topic: Virgin birth

We weren’t really getting into whether or not we believed in the physical biological birth (although Patricia did ask for our thoughts). And we really weren’t worrying ourselves over those Christians who unequivocally and literally believe that the Holy Spirit came down and left Mary in the family way. The discussion really came down to the real issue: what happens to literal minded folks who can’t believe in the virgin birth and therefore every other thing that happens after Jesus' birth has no meaning for them?

Joe Monti made a good point, that in our literal society it’s really tough for people to answer that question, unless, of course, they can appreciate poetry. Unless they can appreciate shades of storytelling, layers of meaning, and I would add, an innate sense that life is actually quite full of mysteries that cannot be explained away scientifically. As Patricia said, in reality, never mind the strange miracle birth of Jesus—-any birth, every birth is a kind of a miracle.

I mentioned in class that my mother’s childhood friend, a brilliant woman, former journalist and about as well-read as you can be—is an atheist. She has become so much so that she and her grown children now go out of their way to observe the day of Christmas by non-observance. “Geez,” I said. I love this woman but it seems a little extreme.

My mother then told me her friend’s daughter, who recently opened a yoga studio in San Francisco, has given the whole top floor in her building to be used by alcoholics in recovery to do their exercise. “Tell Katie Mae,” I told my mother, “that’s a very Christian thing to do.”

And I meant it. And not in a sarcastic way.

After that, Bill Hancock added that there are no atheists in fox holes. When the bullets start flying past your ears, God becomes terribly immediate. In a fox hole, we need God. As in, “God save me, help me to see another day.”

Penny, who has a lovely British accent, chimed in. When she was a single mother and life was really difficult, God was evident everywhere, she said, all the time, immediate, easy to find.

A friend of mine, who’s been pinching pennies as a result of job losses in her family, the economic uncertainty that many of us face, told me the other night when she was pulling into the drive through line at Burger King, a man approached her, asking for money so that he and his wife did not have to sleep on the street. At first she told him, “I’m about as broke as you are,” but even as she spoke the words, her hand was fishing in the bottom of her purse for the twenty dollar bill she’d planned to use during the week for pocket money. “I told him, stay warm,” she said simply. But then she dreaded facing her husband who wouldn’t approve. He told my friend that the man in the parking lot was probably running a scam, that there were people begging in the parking lot at Burger King who lived in nicer houses than they did.

Not being the smartest scam detector, I shrugged. “How are you supposed to know? What did you tell your husband?”“I told him the truth,” she said. “I just didn’t have the nerve to spend money in a drive-thru and then tell that man that it was okay for him and his wife to sleep on the street in 36 degree weather!” The man thanked her and blessed her. For him, for her, I think the evidence of God was probably overwhelming.

But as far as not observing the Christmas season—not to prepare for the coming—it is not a lot of things. It is not to have a place to go where people are rushing past you with angel wings and clothes racks full of costumes for wise men and shepherds. It is not to have your very own place to sit when it’s foggy and cold and wet outside, where candles are burning in the windows and the choir is singing its heart out during a Sunday afternoon Festival of Lessons and Music for Advent. It is to not feel the comfort of a familiar hand on your arm asking after your mother’s health. It is to not be part of a whole community of people praying together: “May God bless us with gifts of grace, compassion, and generosity; may Christ awaken us to the wonders of this life and the joys of the life to come; and may the Holy Spirit come to us all during this blessed season of Advent. Amen.”