Christmas Day 12/25/23

The Still Point

A Time of Meditation and Reflection

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ

... At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance...

T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

            Peace on each one who comes in need; 

            Peace on each one who comes in joy. 

            Peace on each one who offers prayers; 

            Peace on each one who offers song. 

            Peace of the Maker, Peace of the Son, 

            Peace of the Spirit, the Triune One.

Opening Prayer

O God, you make us glad by the yearly festival of the birth of your only Son Jesus Christ: Grant that we, who joyfully receive him as our Redeemer, may with sure confidence behold him when he comes to be our Judge; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

The Gospel                                                 John 1:1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.

Poem: “Star of the Nativity”                                          by Joseph Brodsky

In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than
to cold, to horizontality more than to a mountain,
a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;
it blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart.

To Him, all things seemed enormous: His mother’s breast, the steam
out of the ox’s nostrils, Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior—the team
of Magi, their presents heaped by the door, ajar.
He was but a dot, and a dot was the star.

Keenly, without blinking, through pallid, stray
clouds, upon the child in the manger, from far away—
from the depth of the universe, from its opposite end—the star
was looking into the cave. And that was the Father’s stare.                                                                 

Meditation

"...he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God."  We read the first chapter of John's Gospel every year on Christmas Day, and this year, this excerpt has become a point of reflection for me. I'm always interested in journeying through the sometimes confounding, sometimes infuriating, sometimes terrifying, beautiful ancient language of Scripture. My walking stick for this journey is often the question "what does this mean?" What does it mean to be born of God and not of blood or of the will of the flesh or the will of man? 

It reminds me of the "Sacred Identities" work we are currently doing as a parish, to journey into the language that makes meaning and identity for LGBTQIA+ people. In the LGBTQIA+ community we often speak of our "chosen family". "Blood" relationships can be fraught with rejection, deadnaming, estrangement, and other painful and traumatic experiences, and those experiences make a chosen family of trusted friends, confidantes, and parental mentors all the more essential for a Queer person's thriving.

Richard Rohr writes about the "two halves of life" in his book "Falling Upward": the first "half" is the time when we try on identities, when we're trying to figure out who we are according to the world around us; the second "half is the time when those identities we thought we had all figured out are obliterated, and the "true self" emerges, the self whom we are according to God, our intrinsic essence. 

As a person grows in spiritual stature, the constructed identity we fashion to navigate our world is shed and falls away. The assignments we were given, of gender, family role, career path, personality, become obsolete. As we become ever more aware of our closeness to God, we begin experiencing our selves the way God experiences us. We are "given power" to be the children of God that we truly are, our birthright and just inheritance. In this new identity, the pieces of our former selves lose meaning. We're not some person's child or blood relation, we're not the deadname we were given at birth, we're not the jock or nerd we were called in high school. We have a new name, a name which is an echo of that first Word of the beginning of the whole story: Beloved.

Questions for Reflection

 "Who are you?" How do you usually answer this question? Make a mental or written list of the ways you describe or introduce yourself. "I'm a Christian, I'm a lawyer. I'm a mom. I'm a runner. I'm unemployed." We each contain multitudes. Which of these selves was born of blood (I was born into this family)? Born of your will (I went to school and became a nurse)? Born of the will of man (my parents gave me this name but I prefer to be called differently)? Take all these selves and set them aside, then answer the question again: "Who are you?"

If, in the "second half" of life, we are able to experience life as our true self in God, what's the point of the "first half" of life? Why go through it in the first place? Think about the selves you have been. What gifts did those former selves give to you? What did they teach you? Do you still see yourself in your 8-year-old self, your 13-year-old-self, in the moments that broke your heart and the moments that formed a new sense of self?

What does it mean to you to be "Beloved", to be a child of God? How does that Word change, or not change, how you see yourself, how you see others, how you go about your day-to-day life? What difference does it make to know that each person you encounter on a daily basis is just like you, also named "Beloved"?

Prayers

We bring before God someone whom we have met or remembered today 

We bring to God someone who is hurting tonight and needs our prayer

We bring to God a troubled situation in our world 

We bring to God, silently, someone whom we find hard to forgive or trust

We bring ourselves to God that we might grow in generosity of spirit, clarity of mind, and warmth of affection

We offer our thanks to God for the blessings in our lives

We name before God those who have died.

Gracious God, you hear all our prayers: those we speak aloud, those we hold in our hearts, and those prayers for which we have no words. Hear the prayers of your people, and grant them as may be best for us, for the sake of your holy name. Amen.        

Accept our thanks for all you have done, O God. Our hands were empty, and you filled them.

May Christ’s holy, healing, enabling Spirit be with us every step of the way, and be our guide as our road changes and turns, and the blessing of God our Creator, Redeemer and Giver of life be among us now and remain with us forever. Amen.

 Reflections this Month offered by Katie Schmidt