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wapsisquare_feed at 11:49pm on 2026-01-01
wapsisquare_feed at 11:49pm on 2026-01-01
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posted by revlyncox_feed at 05:53pm on 2025-12-22
revlyncox_feed at 05:53pm on 2025-12-22I invite you to join me in a moment of contemplation. If it helps you to focus, you can close your eyes or soften your gaze. Notice something about this moment. Without changing anything, you might bring attention to your breathing, or focus on some part of your body that doesn’t hurt right now, or listen to the sounds that reach us in this room. We treasure being present.
Now that we are here together in this very moment, let us hold gratitude in our minds and hearts for the dark and for the light. Seeds sprout in the darkness. Dreams often come to us in the darkness. Darkness can bring a sense of peace and reflection.
Having acknowledged the gifts of the darkness, we turn toward the growing light. As we move through the Winter Solstice, we await earlier sunrises and later sunsets. We await the warmth that will coax the seeds that have sprouted in darkness above the soil. We anticipate the clarity that comes in the morning, the learning and growing that we have yet to do.
May the serenity of darkness and the hope of light bring us closer to compassion, peace, and justice—in the world and in our own lives. Every time of day, every season of the year, every chapter of our lives brings its challenges and its gifts. We give thanks for the love we have known, the love that will grow in the future, and the love at our center now and always.
So be it.
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posted by revlyncox_feed at 05:51pm on 2025-12-22
revlyncox_feed at 05:51pm on 2025-12-22Trembling, Danger, and Courage in the Nativity Stories
Sermon delivered to the Unitarian Universalists of Collington December 18, 2025
By Rev. Lyn Cox
In stories about the birth of Jesus, the people who choose to side with the infant show courage in response to terrifying Divine visitors, the unreasonable demands of a dictator, and the wrath of a jealous politician. In retelling these stories and singing the songs of Advent and Christmas, we remember that the power and resilience of the people are rooted in love. Let’s gather up glad tidings to guide us through the season.
A reading from the book of Luke, Chapter 2, verses 8-10:
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Then an angel of God stood before them, and the Divine glory shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see–I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”
The shepherds were petrified. They were stunned into silence. And if one angel was enough to scare them stiff, imagine their reaction to a multitude of the heavenly host. I suspect that, in the first century near east, it was actually pretty difficult to frighten a shepherd. It was their job to be exposed to the elements and to defend the sheep. They lived in occupied territory under an oppressive regime. They had to have been brave to begin with.
Nevertheless, it took them a moment to overcome their fear. It was only after the angels left that the shepherds were able to speak and move and make choices. They said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that the Eternal has made known to us.”
Not every prophet accepts Divine instruction right away. The shepherds could have gone back to their routine and pretended that the whole thing never happened. I would like to think that the ability of the shepherds in this story to find their courage is partly about love and compassion. “To YOU a savior is born,” said the angel. A baby is here and needs us to be brave.
In this community, there is room to hold a range of opinions about the stories related to the birth of Jesus. I believe there are those among us who hold the stories as sacred and literal; those who hear the stories as related to historical events but not strictly eyewitness accounts; and those who find the stories inspiring or at least interesting, regardless of the narrative’s relationship to historic events. We can approach sacred texts from a variety of perspectives, while remaining united in yearning for a world of justice and peace.
The need for courage is another thing that unites us. These are difficult times in our world, and for many of us in our personal lives. We are sore afraid. We worry for our family, our friends, and ourselves when factors like gender, race, and immigration status put so many people at risk. We worry for people all over the world, refugees and migrants and those living under the conditions of war and famine. We worry for our planet. We worry for loved ones whose health and access to care is uncertain.
And therefore we seek inspiration and solidarity and companionship so that we can face the future. We seek reminders about our values and the powers already among us so that we can care for each other and our neighbors to the best of our ability. We seek models for practicing resilience and resistance in frightening times. Nativity stories can offer us those models and reminders, and telling those stories together can strengthen the community of practice. In particular, we are drawn together to remember the power of love.
One of the things love can do for us is to cut through the overwhelm of generalized fear. We remember our specific relationships, the people and places that call us to our best selves. Perhaps we are called to love someone we don’t yet know, yet with whose inherent worth speaks to our inherent worth. Love brings us back to compassion, back to generosity, back to our place in the interdependent family of things. Love draws us forward to the next, right action and accompanies us through the path of transformation.
The shepherds heard, “To YOU a child is born.” Not only is a child born to their parents, but we are all responsible for the community and the world that children are born into. We are interdependent. The shepherds heard that the child was poor like them, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Love recognizes the common humanity of the stranger. The shepherds heard that this child would grow up to become an anointed leader, that there would be hope for a people who were occupied by an empire. The story teaches that hope arrives in this world enfleshed in vulnerability. Human beings and the hope that we provide to one another require love and care.
This love inspired the shepherds with courage. They traveled out of their way to visit the child. They shared their story, first with Mary and Joseph, and then generally proclaimed it until all who heard the story were amazed. Remember, this is a situation with multiple levels of despotic rulers. Speaking up loudly about the possibility of hope, the possibility of another way of life beyond empire, is not necessarily a safe thing to do. As far as the story tells us, the shepherds returned to their lives without further incident, changed internally as they awaited the larger changes they hoped for in the world.
Elsewhere in the book of Luke, Mary shows courage as she prepares to welcome the child. Mary responds to the angel Gabriel’s visit by actively accepting the role of Jesus’ mother (Luke 1:38), then making the journey alone to her cousin Elizabeth. So, if you have heard the modern Christmas song asking Mary if she knew, she most certainly did. In conversation with Elizabeth, Mary shares a powerful prayer that is a foundational text for liberation theology. This text is based on Hannah’s prayer from first Samuel. Among other things, Mary says:
[God] has shown strength with [God’s] arm;
[God] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
[God] has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
And lifted up the lowly;
[God] has filled the hungry with good things,
And sent the rich away empty. (Luke 1:51-53)
Again, these are not safe things to say when you live in an occupied country where the emperor can demand that every person must make a journey to be officially registered. The line that Christmas Eve readers stumble over every year, “When Quirinius was governor of Syria” (Luke 2:2) gives us a clue that this was a military dictatorship; historians (according to the New Oxford Annotated Bible) tell us that Quirinius was a special commissioner of the emperor sent to put down a rebellion, not a civil administrator. This is not a situation where one assumes the freedom of speech.
Mary does not care what the emperor’s soldiers think she should say. Mary not only declares that it is good and in God’s interests to elevate the poor and cast down the mighty, she speaks as if these things are already in motion, even if they are not yet evident to the observer. Mary’s love for her son, for her community, and for the Source of Blessing as she understands it to be lead her to accept the call to a larger mission, to go on a journey, and to raise her voice in prophetic witness.
There are additional examples of courage in Matthew’s version of the Nativity story. Where Luke mentioned Caesar Augustus, Matthew has more to say about King Herod. Herod was a complicated figure historically, and not all of that complexity is evident in the Christian scriptures, but it is true that Herod was generally regarded as ruthless, violent, and more loyal to Rome than he was dedicated to the wellbeing of the people of his own country. He was also responsible for a lot of construction projects, some that remain tourist attractions to this day; he had a particular fondness for gleaming white marble and gold. It is important to remember that Herod was a client-king, he was part of a multi-layered structure of empire, occupation, and tyranny.
In Matthew, when the Magi arrive in Jerusalem and ask about the child, Herod is frightened, and he channels his fear into plans for violence. Herod consults with his staff and figures out that the child would probably be in Bethlehem. He meets secretly with the Magi and tells them to go find the child, then bring him word, “So that I may also go and pay him homage.” (Matthew 2:8) Of course, Herod is not planning to pay the child homage, he wants to eliminate any competition for his throne. The Magi find Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. They present their royal gifts. “And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” (Matthew 2:12)
Meanwhile, Joseph gets a warning in a dream to take his family and flee to Egypt to escape from Herod and his jealous wrath. Within the story, the fate that Joseph’s family escapes is the slaughter of every child under two years old in and around Bethlehem. The king in this story is so mad for power, so unable to see the humanity in his fellow citizens, so heartless toward children, that he chose a wave of death at the merest hint of a threat against his wealth and authority. Herod’s way of responding to his own fear is destructive.
Courage, for Mary and Joseph and the Magi, is the courage to survive. It takes courage to resist a dictator who says that your life and the lives of the people you love should be forfeited to consolidate his power. It takes courage to realize that you were very nearly complicit in the whims of a destructive tyrant, to admit that you were wrong to trust him, and to go home by another road. It takes courage to flee with your family across a border, even when certain death is right behind you. Love for this child, love for this family, and perhaps love for the spark of human worth and dignity that defies oppression gave courage to the Magi and to Joseph and Mary as they made haste on their journeys.
The Nativity stories are filled with people from different levels of society exhibiting courage in the face of terrifying events: celestial beings beyond comprehension, unfamiliar journeys, the machinations of an empire, and state-sponsored violence. The courage of people in the stories, bravery that is inspired by love, is among the reasons why these stories are of enduring value to us. They continue to teach us, and we continue to need encouragement to put love at the center when the world is terrifying.
In this season, what is love calling us to do? How will we show courage? Perhaps, like the shepherds, we will open our minds and hearts to a new perspective, or we will try something unfamiliar. Perhaps, like Mary, we will use our prophetic voices on behalf of uplifting the people and filling the hungry with good things. The Magi suggest that we can have the courage to change our course. Joseph shows us that we can have the courage to survive, and to help beloveds who are under the threat of state violence to survive. Whatever we choose, let us side with the rebirth of hope, the promise of transformation, and the power of love.
So be it. Blessed be. Amen. Merry Christmas.
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December 21st, 2025
