When you were a kid did you ever pronounce it “opposite day?” We would make that call if we were losing a race, so that we would be winning, but it was entertaining to try to talk in opposites and confuse people who didn’t know what was going on. Today is an opposite day kind of reading, with the lowly being lifted up and the proud and strong being brought low. God doesn’t advise what God won’t try God’s self, so here God is coming into the world in the form of Jesus, having been present at the creation of the universe, the word going out upon the waters to bring forth the sun and moon and stars and water and land and animals and people, and now a fetus in Mary’s womb causing another fetus to leap in recognition!
This great reversal of God’s from
the heavenly throne to a tiny growing possibility on earth reshapes what it
means to be brought low. We might think
of a king being dethroned or someone being brought down of their high horse as
shameful, but here this kind of demotion of God to human form is exciting and
beautiful and redemptive. It means
relationship. It means hope. It means
discomfort, compassion, and that change is possible.
God came to earth in Jesus because of
broken relationship with humankind and miscommunication between humans and our
creator. God tried many other ways to
make change, but we just wouldn’t hear it, so God came to show us the way and
to suffer with us to show us we aren’t alone.
The idea of discomfort has been on
my mind because of these Advent readings over the past few weeks. Jesus left the comforts of the heavenly realm
to come and be uncomfortable in our midst.
Being born is uncomfortable, and so many things about being a baby and a
human. He didn’t take on the comforts
that he could have, that he was tempted to in the wilderness, of power, of wealth,
of possessions. Instead he wandered
through towns and villages, across lakes and rivers, ignoring boundaries,
spending time with and among, building relationships with those who are
uncomfortable. Jesus came in solidarity
with those who are uncomfortable, listened to them, learned from them, exposed
the religious and military powers that added to their discomfort, to their
oppression. And he even went further
than discomfort to suffer himself, to show that this world has to change from
heaping suffering on people and on God’s good creation.
Discomfort, pain, and suffering each
tell us something—that something needs to change. So when we are comfortable, we forget
something has to change. We think our
work is done. We become a silo unto
ourselves, forgetting that even though we might be comfortable, others have
been left behind and we even have heaped suffering and discomfort on people who
have suffered enough already. When we
are comfortable we might forget that we have work to do, peacemaking,
truth-telling, and building relationships.
There is discomfort for these two
women on this day. They know the
discomfort of living in Palestine occupied by Rome. They know the discomfort of being women, one
young and discounted, the other getting up in years and discounted, without
much agency in their own lives. They
know the discomfort of pregnancy. But
their discomforts are causing them to dream that the world could be different
and they could be part of that difference.
So they sing this song of overthrowing empires. They sing a song of power and of reversal and
of discomfort.
Sometimes we come to this season to
be comforted. Tidings of comfort and
joy, we sing. But we are invited to move
toward discomfort, to see where this world is hurting people, to dream and act
on ways to disrupt this world and make change that will last. We are invited to move toward discomfort
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