The birth of Jesus: How Fr. Shibu and Kairunnissa are outing the inn (in)

St. Luke 2:6-7

The birth of Jesus is important not for cakes, decorations and celebrations but to be assured that humans are created in the image of God and will therefore live life loving and helping all that God has created. This is God saying that God has created human beings to reflect God’s self on earth. The birth of Jesus is indeed a happy event because it reminds and inspires us to do good even when everyone and everything around us does not. It is not to follow the world but to follow the voice and will of God.

The birth in unusual circumstances shows that the people of God cannot be limited to buildings and walls but should extend everywhere and anywhere because that is the real birth of Christ. The interpretation of no place being there in the inn is a reflection that God lives with the most ordinary of ordinary. Most of the things we have built on earth are an aberration of God's creation. It takes us away from the real birth of Christ. The church by moving into comfortable environs to celebrate the birth of Christ suggests our moving in to comfortable inns while the baby is denied a place inside the inn! The image of God is absent in such acts of celebration of the birth of Jesus. We do not have an affluent baby Jesus because a baby cannot be affluent by herself/himself.

The church has become too affluent for Jesus but all is not lost for the church and the people of the church. One can get rid of the affluence and try and make the birth of Jesus meaningful for everyone. Fr. Shibu K.Y., a Jacobite Christian priest donated one kidney to a Muslim woman Kairunnissa yesterday. By doing that he has challenged the affluent church to shed its affluence. Many were disturbed and uncomfortable with his decision and even suggested it was wrong to give away what God has given us to live a comfortable life. The argument that we need two kidneys because that is what God has given does not go along though with the fact that God was meant to be in heaven but chooses earth, was meant to be in the inn but ended up outside it and did not have to be crucified but was anyway. God gave up so that humans and the world would have and that is the birth of Jesus.

Fr. Shibu K.Y.

Fr. Shibu and Kairunnissa are offering us the opportunity to understand the birth narrative. We have gone far away from the born Jesus. This is an opportunity to come back to the narrative of what the birth of Jesus means. It is God loving and giving us. God need not but God does because that is what God is. The love of God encompasses everything we know. Fr. Shibu by giving and Kairunnissa by suffering and now receiving show us that Christ is born in them. We are getting an invitation to pray with them during Christmas. Of course we are not used to what they have done and so their spiritual invitation will also be difficult to accept and do. Never the less they have woken us up from institutional and individual slumber and we must thank them for that. From my facebook contacts I have also learned that Prof. Sakhi John is doing the same for Shaju Paul and they are following several others who have preceded them. Such individuals are challenging the church and the people in church to live Christmas or the birth of Jesus. The liturgy of their merciful church is not known to us and we haven’t heard the songs they are using. But there is a language of love that they are using and this is something all of us can follow if we take the effort to do so.

Prof. Sakhi John

St. Luke 2: 6-7 tells us that Mary and baby Jesus do not get space in the inn (‘in’). It is also that space in the inn is mostly not available to everyone as the inn has become institutional. It represents all churches which are not welcoming and loving. But Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus do not give up. They make the ‘out’ their home and that then becomes the place which the shepherds and the elders come to and see Jesus. Fr. Shibu and Kairunnissa and Prof. Sakhi and Shaju Paul among many others have not got a place in the inn (‘in’). But they did not give up and made the ‘out’ their inn. We can now join like the shepherds and see the birth that has happened. May the star lead us and the angels rejoice.

Joseph: A shadow of blessing

The birth narrative involves the angel visiting and talking to Mary and Joseph among others. Even though Joseph is let in on the secret of how Mary has conceived, he does two things in secret. Our culture and many other cultures see black, dark and even shadows as something bad and despicable. Joseph who in most part is a silent partner in the narrative has something to offer us in the form of secrets and shadows.

It is interesting to note that we do or we are forced to do bad things in the dark or in secret. Perhaps the usage “his/her/my darkest hour” places “dark” in bad light. Joseph wanted to secretly send away Mary when he learned that she was carrying a baby. He was going to do something bad and yet he was trying to be a nice person by doing that. This is when an intervention by the angel sets things right. But Joseph again secretly supports Mary without others knowing how she has conceived. It is challenging to see that we do bad and worse things in secret and once it is dark the real us comes out. Joseph does something different in being more considerate towards Mary both in secret and in the dark. He must have swallowed a large male ego to do so and in doing that he challenges the very notion of darkness and sin. He shows us that we can after all do good things in the dark and in secret. This is a good lesson when we think of and meditate upon the birth narrative.

Even though Joseph plays second fiddle to Mary he does not wait in secret to seek his revenge but rather does so to behave well with her. The birth narrative this way definitely has Mary in the forefront as a young girl who bears Jesus but it also shows through Joseph the supporting role which should be played by men in a society which is clearly anti-women. This supporting role may not always be played out in the public but in more private spaces. Families have problems which are seen in private and may never come to light. The man in the family who is good outside in the light will be someone else in secret.

The birth narrative offers men especially an opportunity to travel to our deepest darkness inside and choose to do good instead of surrendering to the notion that men can and should only do evil things in private. Joseph is silent but is trying to do something in his silence as well. He is present when the shepherds and elders come to meet baby Jesus but it is not a pronounced presence like Mary. It is almost like a shadow. The shadow is also seen as something which can be done away with because it also has darkness as a part of it. But Joseph invites us to witness a shadow of blessing which he turns out to be. He does not limit himself to the darkest and most evil of thoughts but rather becomes a shadow of blessing to the child and Mary.

The birth narrative should make us think different about how darkness and shadows have been seen as something bad and avoidable just like the birth of a child out of wed lock. Mary is inspired by the Holy Spirit but she could have been dragged into the darkness of male egoism and a patriarchal society and yet Joseph decides to do otherwise. Can we also during the birth of Christ become a shadow of blessing to someone? There are many in society who are outcasts because of their choice or the community they belong to. Wouldn’t it be nice to use the shadow and secret initiatives to offer justice to people who have suffered under shadows and secret decisions?

Joseph defies the thought process of his time and he denies tradition. He feels that Mary needs his presence and he should offer whatever he can even though he may not be able to comprehend what he is doing. Our shadow is something we do not control largely. It is also something we do not notice always. And yet imagine it becoming a blessing to others? Our shadow can be our inner most thoughts and desires. It is there and yet we forget it is there. Joseph realizes his shadow and the strength of his shadow without actually planning his response to the predicament he found himself under. 

We must realize that we are not in the manger or the rock opening where the baby is wrapped in bands of cloth. Yet our shadow could be there either when we face it or when we have our backs to it. This shadow of blessing is a realization that the birth of Christ is indeed not just an event but also a controversy. It is a controversy of a woman who has conceived of the Holy Spirit. We can deny it and secretly dismiss Mary or we can go into the most innermost darkness of our thoughts and become a shadow of blessing.  

St.Joseph: Powering us to a higher spiritual realm

St. Matthew 1:18-25
18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah[a] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;[b] and he named him Jesus.

The passage talks about the seldom revealed and exalted Joseph, husband of Mother Mary and father to Jesus. Joseph in comparison with local culture and customs is the man who takes a step back so that the woman he is betrothed to can take a step forward. Today, in all probability he would be referred to as the weak husband who does not speak and remains powerless in front of his wife. Yet Joseph’s powerlessness becomes Mother Mary’s and our power. That he chose not to express his power and his position makes him someone who took the route of equitable spirituality, meaning spirituality for all with special emphasis on exaltation of the vulnerable.

Mary was vulnerable in the position that she was in. She had nothing to let go off. But Joseph could let go of many things and it is this letting go which we can indeed learn from. Joseph lets go of his ego, his manliness, his position of future husband and plan maker. He leaves everything so that God’s will be done on earth. Only those with power and some leverage can let go and become powerless. In terms of countries of the world, it is pointless to expect a country like Nepal to let go of what they have in comparison to the USA. It is only when someone with power lets go that it becomes sacrifice. Joseph here sacrifices and it is a sacrifice which will in our society be looked upon as weakness and the act of a spineless man.

Mary had nothing much to let go off. Joseph on the other hand had something to let go. He was respected, he had status in the eyes of the general public, he had a reasonable amount of money and he had age on his side as signs of a man who had much more than the woman he was betrothed to. His reaction on knowing about the pregnancy of Mary was decent and even unexpected. He was already being a gentleman. But God wanted more. It was not just to be a gentleman but to let go of everything which defined who he was. That was what God wanted of him.

Spirituality is easy to define when everything is from our perspective. It is our God, our church, our family, our blessing and everything is in the singular with the emphasis on I, me and myself. Spirituality becomes more complex when it has to be shared and the challenge is for those of us who are in positions of power to devolve ourselves of the power we have and share it with others.

1. Powerful to power-us- situations where one has to be powerless are criticized especially when people with no power have to further give up what they have. In family, church and societal contexts there should become a guiding principle where we can share power. Individual spirituality then becomes equitable spirituality where everyone is treated the same way and everyone has access to the grace of God. Joseph is powerful in comparison with Mary and yet when the angel tells him about Jesus, the baby who is to be born and is to save people from their sins, he turns this equation around. Immanuel, meaning God is with us leads Joseph to change his situation of power which was individual and unidirectional into power-us and not powerless. When husbands treat their wife’s with respect and give opportunities to them, society sees it as loss of power for the husband. But rather than being loss of power it is sharing of power.

2. Godless to God is with us- we are always expectant of great things in our life. This expectation also goes to the extent of hoping that God be with us, and Immanuel becomes a great hope of God being with us. But our life becomes a sign of us forgetting the immense role of God in our lives. We move away from God and move onto our own thoughts which exclude others from the grace of God. Our acts end up being Godless acts of selfishness and greed which take away the essence of spirituality from us. The understanding that God is with us should also bring us to the understanding that we have become power-us, meaning that we have to work with God and do acts of Godliness in our lives. This brings upon great responsibility in our lives and will allow us to look at things from the perspective of God and God’s willingness to power-us. Amen.