Sermons

Once upon a time – or before time, actually … before there were clocks or calendars or Christmas trees – God was all there was. No one really knows anything about that time because no one was there to know it, but somewhere in the middle of that time before time, God decided to make a world. Maybe God was bored or maybe God was lonely or maybe God just liked to make things and thought it was time to try something big. Whatever the reason, God made a world and filled it with the most astonishing things: with humpback whales that sing and white-striped skunks that stink and birds with more colors on them than a box of Crayola crayons. The list is way too long to go into here, but suffice it to say that at the end when God stood back and looked at it all, God was pleased.

Only something was missing. God could not think what it was at first, but slowly it dawned on God. Everything God had made was gorgeous and interesting and it all fit together really well, only there was nothing in the world that looked like God, exactly. It was as if God had painted this huge masterpiece and then forgotten to sign it, so God got busy making the signature piece, something made in God’s own image so that anyone who looked at it would know who the artist was.

God had one single thing in mind at first but quickly realized that one thing all by itself was not the kind of statement God wanted to make. God knew what it was like to be alone and also knew what it was like to have company. And company was definitely better. So God decided to make two things instead of one, which were alike but different, and both would be reflections of God – a man and a woman who could keep God and each other company. Flesh was what God made them out of – flesh and blood – a wonderful medium, extremely flexible and warm to the touch. Since God, strictly speaking, was not made out of anything at all, but was pure mind, pure spirit, God was very taken with flesh and blood.

Watching the two creatures stretch and yawn, laugh and run, God found to great surprise that God was more than a little envious of them. God had made them, it was true, and God knew how fragile they were, but their very breakability made them more touching, somehow. It wasn’t long before God was falling in love with them. God liked being with them better than any of the other creatures and especially liked walking with them in the garden in the cool of the evening.

It almost broke God’s heart when they did the one thing God had asked them not to do and then hid from God, while God searched the garden until way past dark, calling their names over and over again.

Things were different after that, God still loved the human creatures best of all, but the attraction was no longer mutual. The human beings had other things on their minds. They were busy learning how to make things, grow things, buy things, sell things, and the more they learned to do for themselves, the less they depended on God.

Night after night God threw pebbles at their windows, inviting them to go for a walk, but they said they were sorry, they were busy. It was not long before most human beings forgot all about God. They called themselves “self-made” men and women, as if that were a plus and not a minus. They honestly believed they had created themselves, and they liked the result so much that they divided themselves into groups of people who looked, thought, and talked alike.

You would not believe the trouble this got them into: everything from armed warfare to cities split right down the middle, with one kind of people living on that side of the line and another kind on the other. It was just too much! God would have put a stop to it all right there, except for one thing. When God had made human beings, God had made them free. Freedom was built into them just like their hearts and brains were, and God let them be free, even though it pained God to see what they were doing to each other.

God did everything possible to get their attention. God shouted to them from the sidelines, using every means God could think of, including floods, famines, manna, and messengers. God even tried more personal approaches. God got inside people’s dreams, and if that did not work he woke them up by whispering in the middle of the night. No matter what God tried, however, God came up against the barriers of flesh and blood. They were made of it and God was not, which made translation difficult. God would say, “Please stop before you destroy yourselves!” but all they could hear was thunder. God would say, “I love you as much now as the day I made you,” but all they could hear was a loon calling across the water.

There was one exception to this sad state of affairs: babies. While their parents were all but deaf to God’s messages, babies didn’t have any trouble hearing God at all. They were all the time laughing at God’s jokes or crying with God, which went right over their parents’ heads. ‘Colic,’ the grown-ups would say, or ‘Isn’t she cute? She’s laughing at the dust in the sunlight.’ Only she wasn’t, of course. She was laughing because God had just told her it was cleaning day in heaven, and that what she saw were fallen stars the angels were shaking from their feather dusters.

Not only did babies hear and understand God, they had other advantages. Babies did not go to war. Babies never made hate speeches or littered or refused to play with each other because they belonged to different political parties. Babies were crazy about God and they hung on God’s every word. Perhaps best of all, they depended on other people for everything necessary to their lives so a phrase like “self-made babies” would have made them laugh until their little bellies hurt. While no one asked babies’ opinions about anything that mattered (which was too bad because it would have been a smart thing to do), almost everyone seemed to love them, and that gave God an idea. If God was a baby, they would all love God! Why not become one of these delightful creatures?

God tried the idea out on the cabinet of archangels. At first they were all very quiet. They looked down at their feet and they exchanged sidelong glances with each other, but none of them looked back at God, and for a long time none of them responded. Finally, the senior archangel stepped forward to speak for all of them. She told God how much they would worry. Why, God would be at the mercy of God’s creatures, the archangel said, and they were extremely unpredictable and unreliable and they could be down-right mean. People could do anything they wanted, and if God seriously meant to become one of them there would be no escape if things turned sour. “Couldn’t you at least create yourself as a magical baby with special powers?” the archangel asked. It would not take much – just the power to become invisible, maybe, or the power to hurl bolts of lightning if the need arose. “The baby idea is a stroke of genius” the archangel said, “it really is, but it lacks adequate safety features.”

God listened to the archangel (because God always listens), and then thanked the archangels for their concern but said no, God would just be a regular baby. How else could God gain the trust of God’s creatures? How else could they be persuaded that God knew their lives inside out, unless God lived one just like theirs? There was a risk – Okay, there was a high risk - but that was part of what God wanted the creatures to know: that God was willing to risk everything to get close to them, in hopes that they might know that God loved them and that they would love God again.

It was a daring plan, and once the angels saw that God was dead set on it, they broke into applause. Despite the danger to God, they could see it was a brilliant plan and they clapped and praised God with the kind of applause that goes on and on when you have seen something you know you will never see again. While they were still clapping, God turned around and left the cabinet chamber, shedding God’s robes.

Then a strange thing happened. Where the robes had fallen, the floor melted and opened up to reveal a scrubby brown pasture speckled with sheep and – right in the middle of them – a bunch of shepherds. sitting around a campfire. It was hard to say who was more startled, the shepherds or the angels, but as the shepherds looked up at them, the angels pushed their senior archangel to the edge of the hole. Looking down at the human beings who were all trying to hide behind each other (poor things, no wings), the angel said in as gentle a voice as she could muster, “Do not be afraid; for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” And away up the hill from the direction of town, came the sound of a newborn baby’s cry.

By Barbara Brown Taylor

http://www.dwtx.org/departments/communications/dwtx-blog/a-christmas-reflection-by-barbara-brown-taylor

Brown Taylor, Barbara (1997) “God’s Daring Plan” in Bread of Angels, pgs. 31-35