Contents of this page:

• December 21 - Joseph
• December 22 - Simeon
• December 23 - Anna
• December 24 - John
• December 25 - Jesus

These devotions appear in the November-December issue of the Presbyerians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns More Light Update. (http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/~riley/PLGC.html) Copyright 1998 by Chris R. Glaser. All rights reserved. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution.

"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. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." Matthew 1:20

Spoken by another angel, written in another gospel. Luke left it to Matthew to explain Joseph's cooperation in the whole affair, a dream in which an angel spoke the words above. Joseph had yet another dream that warned the family to flee the impending massacre of the innocents to Egypt, and another dream informed him that Herod was dead and the family could return to Israel. Still another dream told him to move into Galilee, specifically Nazereth.

Like his namesake ancestor, this Joseph was also a dreamer. His dreams saved Mary from kidsgrace, the baby Jesus from death, the whole family from remaining refugees, and fulfilled the prophecy that "He will be called a Nazorean" (2:23).

But, other than that, the Bible doesn't tell us much about him, other than that father and son were carpenters, and that Joseph and Mary went on to have other children, apparently all by themselves.

Yet maybe it was from his foster dad that Jesus got the idea for his story about the wise listener to his words who knew to construct a house upon a rock, or the parable of discipleship about the builder of a tower who figures out the cost before proceeding with the foundation.

Or, maybe and more importantly, beneath such solid construction stories, Jesus received from Joseph a foundaiton in dreams. Maybe Joseph's dreams led to Jesus' dreams of saving outcasts from disgrace, delivering us all from death, calling us home to God, and fulfilling prophecies of our destiny as children of God.

When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him...(Matthew 1:24). As we awake, may we, too, follow our God-given dreams.

"This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed - and a sword will pierce your own soul too." Luke 2:34-35

Simeon is usually remembered for his "Nunc Dimittis," proclaimed loudly and poetically in the temple while holding the baby Jesus. But this somewhat more cryptic remark Simeon very personally addresses to Mary. Mary will suffer with her son, Jesus, for the sins of the world.

Mothers reading this know that such suffering is often more difficult to bear than being the direct recipient of pain. Observers see it in the anguish of a mother on television whose child has become a victim of gun violence at the hands of a perpetrator, a spineless Congress for sale, and the evil empire of the National Rifle Association. Observers may also see it in the tears of a mother in their church whose child has become the victim of spiritual violence at the hands of a self-righteous pastor, an ignorant and cowardly General Assembly, and the evil empire of The Presbyterian Layman and the Presbyterian Lay Committee.

The child will "be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed." Children often serve as a kind of Rorschach test for adults. If you ever want to find out an adult's true nature, just secretly watch them in a room alone with a child.

Jesus admonished the disciples for resisting children who wanted to come sit on Uncle Jesus' lap. And he confirmed what Simeon foretold about the revelation of the opposition's inner thoughts: "So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not become known" (Matthew 10:26)

Our own opposition's agenda will be made known: their desire to take over our denomation, make it over into their reactionary image, and promote the evil spirit of antichrist that opposes all that Jesus stood for when he said of the children of God, young and old, "Let the little children come to me..." (Luke 18:16) and "Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me..." (Luke 9:48). Our opposition are the modern day scribes and Pharisees who "cross sea and land to make a single converts, and ...make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as [them]selves" (Matthew 23:15).

The baby Jesus reminds us to end the murder of the innocents at the hands of those who thirst for power and control, whether in the courts of the land or in the courts of the church.

"My eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples" (Luke 2:30-31).

At that moment [Anna] came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. Luke 2:38

Luke was the first to use inclusive language. He included stories about women, Samaritans, and Gentiles, whose faith Jesus praised, and to whom he offered healing and revealed spiritual truth. Not surprisingly, Luke balances the story of Simeon with the story of Anna, 84 years old, who "never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day" (2:37). We don't have a quote from her, but at least we have the story.

Anna is the sort of woman "of great age" (2:36) that Mark and I see in our church on Sunday,that you probably see in your church too. The women that welcome Mark and me do not care about our sexuality - they care about us and about our relationship. They say and demonstrate how pleased they are that we are there. Their smiles are the most genuine I have ever seen. Their concern over recent church votes against us shows in their faces when the congregation discusses them.

Though not in our congregation, I suppose there are elderly women who oppose gay people having rights and privileges. But I am convinced that if our denomination were made up of women of great age, gays and lesbians would have been ordained long ago.

Perhaps God could not reveal Godself in female form at the time of Jesus, but now I see God in the shining faces of faithful, old women. And I praise God and write about them to all who are looking for the redemption of the church.

We praise you, God, for those in our congregations who balance the unpleasantness of those in the church who reject us.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the child leaped in her womb. Luke 1:41

Now this is a precocious child: already filled with the Holy Spirit, already aware of Jesus' uniqueness. "Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have come to believe," Jesus would say (John 20:29). Though presented as kin by Luke, other gospels testify that they meet each other for the first time at the river Jordan, where John is a voice crying in the wilderness. Even in Luke it's not clear they already know each other.

Nothing about John's lifestyle would get him called "a glutton and a drunkard" as Jesus would be accused. His renunciation of a comfortable life gave him the authority to call others to repentance. We all know people like this who work with the homeless, the hungry, prisoners, death row inmates, the sick, the disfranchised, minorities, victims and causes of war, the poor, the abused, people with mental disabilities, those with physical disabilities, the dying. They are truly voices crying in the wilderness, and they are disturbing to be around. Their austerity, their asceticism, call us to re-examine our own excesses, to repent or at least redirect whatever resources we have, whether of time, or money, or compassion.

Even Jesus was called to be baptized by John. John served as Jesus' guidepost to the wilderness and to the promised kingdom or commonwealth beyond. If even a Messiah like Jesus needed spiritual direction, how much more do we!

Prepare the way of the Lord....Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise. Luke 3:4, 11

And [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. Luke 2:7

With so rich an inheritance in terms of genealogy as well as spiritual ancestry and community, Jesus' beginning was less auspicious than most of our own births. Is this the way God chooses to enter the world, and our own lives as well? Through the back door, unnoticed, ignored, and so vulnerable?

As if to correct this oversight, the angels got together and sang a cantata in the heavens - but to whom? Sheperds??!! Were they so unsavvy media-wise? Better to announce the birth to celebrities, or to Rome, or at least in the urban center of Jerusalem, not off on some lonely hilltop to a bunch of hillbillies.

And whose idea was the star? Attracting foreign scholars whose religion is suspect to worship the King of the Jews? How will that help his credibility among his own people?

Whosever imagined that God could come into the word as an infant? Wait till the Pharisaical Lay Committee gets a hold of this re-imagining! They'll decry illiterate shepherds speaking out of personal experience rather than Torah, and ridicule the scholars who testify to Jesus' spiritual worth.

The Temple of the General Assembly will quake in its foundations, for having just avoided trouble by scapegoating gays and lesbians, now it will have to figure out a way to deal with this newest nativity of the Spirit.

How heretical to conceive of God as a baby reaching out for our love! How scandalous to think of God embodied in human flesh! How impure to believe God would reach out to touch the unclean! How absurd to understand God offering God's self for our salvation! How unorthodox to affirm that God's Word could become flesh!

"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."...Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue at Capernaum. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, "This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?" But Jesus, aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, "Does this offend you?"...Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. (John 6:51, 59-61, 66)

God's Word became flesh so that Jesus may serve as bread for us, so that God's Word in Jesus may be transformed to flesh within us as the Body of Christ. As that Body, we reach out for love and in love, we touch the unclean and embrace the outcast, we offer ourselves for the transformation of the world in unorthodox ways. God's Word will not return to God empty, but will accomplish what God intended: Truth. Justice. Mercy. Grace. Love. Joy. Peace.

Let it be with me according to your Word, O God!