Powerless

Luke 2:1-20

It all starts with a new tax plan, or, in the more modern translations, with a census that possibly had something to do with tax planning. In either case, a government idea that causes disruption and inconvenience.

It’s an exercise in power, and in powerlessness, as Joseph and Mary pack up for a two or three day journey and an indefinite stay in a distant, crowded town.

Luke starts the story of Jesus’ birth with Jesus’ family, infesting them with angels and divine messages. Luke makes sure we know this coming child is special. Long before we get to Bethlehem, we’re excited about the miracle about to be delivered, about the good news springing to life in this little holy family.

But then  Luke interrupts the joyful build up to birth, and abruptly re-sets the scene: In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all should be registered.

An imperial decree comes down; secular history and politics, the government of Quirinius and the might of Augustus sweep over this family’s story. The wonder and momentousness of birth become almost incidental, a secondary aspect of the story of how Joseph and Mary are swept to Bethlehem by the overwhelming force of government decree. The child is born in passing, and tucked into a feed box because everything is too crowded and busy for his bed to matter.

Even when divine glory bursts back into the story – when the skies outside of town fill with angels and heavenly host, glory and peace – the only people who know about it are shepherds. 

In the days of Augustus or Quirinius shepherds are basically afterthought people. Outside the town, not in the loop, necessary to village life, yes, but not entirely trusted or accepted as part of “us.” People no one who matters is really going to listen to, no matter how enthusiastically they tell the amazing story of the angels and the Son of God sleeping in a manger.

I think Luke tells the story this way to make sure we can’t miss the INsignificance of this most significant, miraculous birth.

Because it matters to us – it mattered then and it matters now – it matters to us that God came into the world not in power and might, not ready to kick butt and take names, but as a purely powerless infant, blown around by the forces of worldly power, crowded in a corner, greeted by angels invisible to most, and particularly noticed only by those that no one else would notice.

It matters that God came to us in vulnerability instead of power, because that changes everything we know about God, and that is how God comes among us still.

I don’t know about you, but I have felt helpless a lot these last few months:
watching friends and family struggle with debilitating illnesses that can’t be cured, knowing that no words of mine can truly comfort in the face of sudden and unexpected death, the intermittent alarms that we’re a few rash words and another test or two away from nuclear devastation, waves of uncertainty and anxiety rushing in and out of our own government, hurricanes, earthquakes, wildfires… more hurricanes and more fires.

My heart aches, and I hate – hate, hate, hate – feeling powerless. I pray:   constantly, fervently - and sometimes, I admit, hopelessly - for salvation: for healing and help, for the overturning of broken systems, and for miracles of God’s strength and power.

And we don’t get that. 

Instead, today, two thousand years ago, we get a baby. A baby tossed around the world by the whims of government, a baby who is the essence of helplessness and insignificance, in spite of the angels lighting up the sky.

We get a baby: God made vulnerable, helpless flesh, because God has tried for years, decades, millennia, to transform the hearts and lives of God’s people, of the world, with all the power and command at God’s disposal, and having tried everything else, God takes the drastic step of becoming utterly, openly, vulnerable to us. Helpless and dependent and – suddenly – so very very very close to us. As close as skin to skin.

When God turns away from might and persuasion, from trying to bring us all into righteousness and safety and peace with almighty power, it could look like giving up. It could look like nothing works. But instead, choosing vulnerability is the most radical, deeply-invested act of love. Because we can’t love without vulnerability.

Love means opening ourselves to someone else’s power to hurt me; the vulnerability of bleeding when a loved one is cut. We can’t love without depending on the other for some part of our happiness, health, and well being; we can’t be loved unless someone else is willing to depend on us in that same way.

And babies, helpless infants, with the vulnerability of their tiny bodies, trigger an answering vulnerability in us. Infants trigger that openness that creates the space for love like nothing else on earth.

And tonight – two thousand years ago and tonight – God chooses that vulnerability with us. 

I don’t want it to make sense that helplessness can save us, or heal us, 

or change the world.

I pray for power when I want to change things, not powerlessness – don’t you?

But when God – all powerful, almighty God –  chooses vulnerability among us, it’s just possible that that helplessness can change the world; that that infant vulnerability can turn our own vulnerability into strength.

When I am frustrated by my inability to help and heal in the face of tragedy or debilitating illness, knowing the vulnerability God chose helps me stay in the helplessness, stay in the discomfort as long as it takes to be there so a friend or loved one is not alone.

And the helpless baby Jesus keeps my friends close to me when there is nothing they can do to help, and makes life-giving strength out of simple presence.

When I am anxious and afraid, feeling unable to protect myself and those I love from a world with nukes and fires and hurricanes, and jerks who drive cars onto sidewalks or shoot up concerts and churches, God the helpless infant comes among us with radical trust.  Trust in us, messed up as we may seem.

God comes with a baby’s trust: trust I can’t help but respond to with my own trust: trust in God, and in you, that we will get through this together, even if we get hurt.

Then I feel able to act, again. To do the little things I can do, whether or not they will be enough, and through those little actions, change the world just that much for the better.

When I feel cut off from hope by news and politics, the baby surrounded by shepherds – by outsiders – reminds me that we don’t see miracles when we’re in the center of things, confident in our own power and place. No, we have to know, to feel, our own powerlessness to see and receive impossible gifts we could never achieve for ourselves. 

And when we do perceive miracles, hope sparks again: hope that gives life, and fuels love.

This Christmas, tonight, two thousand years ago, God answers our prayers not with power, but with vulnerability, because that is the the greatest act of love.

And love is how we are saved, one heart at a time, one Christmas at a time, until God’s vulnerable love for us fills the world with trust, and hope, and miracles.