The Risk of Birth

Reverend Janet Parsons

Gloucester UU Church

Christmas Eve, 2023

 

In 1973, the poet Madeleine L’Engle wrote these words:

 

“This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate

And a comet slashing the sky to warn

That time runs out & the sun burns late.

 

That was no time for a child to be born,

In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;

Honour & truth were trampled by scorn-

Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

 

When is the time for love to be born?

The inn is full on the planet earth,

And by a comet the sky is torn-

Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.”

 

In the time of King Herod, it was risky to give birth. Judea in the first century was not safe. The land was occupied and the people were oppressed by the Roman Empire. Because of the burden of taxation to support Rome, people lost their land and grew progressively more poverty-stricken.

 

And Herod was a jealous ruler. We tend to not tell the whole Christmas story; we stop before its conclusion, its last act: we end with the new family huddled in a manger, surrounded by wise astronomers, shepherds, and animals. But the Christmas story goes on to relate how, following the visit from the Magi, Joseph and Mary and the baby Jesus had to flee to Egypt to escape King Herod, who was searching for them. Herod heard the reports of a new king having been born, and, threatened, set out to capture the baby.

 

“It was no time for a child to be born…Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.”

 

In recent months it’s been impossible to think about the Christmas story without thinking of the war unfolding in Gaza, the historic hatred between two peoples spilling out once again, the atrocities committed, the inhumanity of the treatment of innocent people caught in the wrong place. People on the move, with no place to go for shelter. No room at the inn.

 

We think of the city of Bethlehem, located in the occupied West Bank, once again a location of oppression, unrest, and poverty. O, little town of Bethlehem, closed this year to Christmas tourists; too unsafe.

 

As we celebrate the birth of a baby tonight, our thoughts go to all the babies and children being displaced, being separated from parents, without access to enough food and water, nowhere to sleep, not even a manger.

 

“This is no time for a child to be born,

With the earth betrayed by war & hate…”

 

And yet the children come: children, as the poet Khalil Gibran wrote, who “are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.”  (in The Prophet, On Children). Children: Love taking the risk of being born; new life emerging.

 

We can ask ourselves why we remember this ancient story year after year. How does it inform us? The beloved words in our readings and in our old songs are so lovely: we sing and speak of love, of peace, of joy, of hope. And never do we experience those feelings more than when a new life, a child, arrives in our midst. But so often that new love, that new hope, arrives in the midst of destruction and war. And we revisit this story every year to try to make sense of that, to learn to hold the hope and the fear, the love as well as the brutality that humans can inflict on one another. What we see is that over 2000 years, the themes are the same. We yearn for peace. We thrill to the feelings of hope symbolized by the arrival of an innocent child. And yet, here we still are, still absorbing, still needing the story from so long ago. We especially need this story this year, confronted as we are by children ripped from their homes, and suffering.

 

We are not the first to try to make sense of this. Others before us have struggled to reconcile the message of love, hope, and peace with the reality of war and inhumanity.

 

In recent weeks I found myself drawn to the lyrics of the third verse of It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, our Unitarian carol. It’s unfamiliar; so often we only really know the first verses of our carols. Reverend Edmund Hamilton Sears wrote this in 1849 in response to the Mexican War, and revolution in Europe.  Here is the third verse: 

“But with the woes of war and strife, the world has suffered long,

beneath the angel strain have rolled two thousand years of wrong.

And we, who fight the wars hear not the love song which they bring.

O hush the noise of battle strife, and hear the angels sing.”

 

We tell the ancient story, year after year, to remind ourselves to listen for angel song, to look for love, to look for reasons to hope for the future. And tonight, on this holy night, let us resolve once again to take the risk of birth, regardless of the strife surrounding us. Let us risk new life for ourselves – risk giving birth to something new: a birth of new hope, of new understanding.

 

And above all else, let us risk becoming shelter; becoming a stable, being peace. For the hope of the world rests with each of us, committing to take the risk of giving birth to love. Not just tonight, but every day.

 

And then, by taking that risk, creating shelter, modeling peace, we will be able again to hear the song of the angels.

 

Blessed Be.

Amen.