Abject Incarnation

Christmas eve, the sun burning down, heat rising in waves from tin roofs, and I stand sticky in the dress I had no doubt been forced to wear. We had started that morning with bags of flour and rice spread across the floor of our small neighbourhood church in Arequipa, evaporated milk stacked in rows, making Christmas hampers. There was then a pick-up truck ride involving lots of dust, very exciting for a kid, and we eventually came to a crowded community some would have described as a shanty town. My memories of the sun and dust are vivid but other details are fuzzy. We stopped at a home to deliver a hamper, were greeted warmly, but the family didn't take it. Instead, they came with us and we drove up the mountain, apparently they knew a family who needed that flour and rice more than they did. I can't have been more than six or seven years old, but my memories of Christmas were of decorating the cactus 'Christmas tree' in our yard, baby Jesus, giving to those who didn't have as much as we did, sun, and definitely dust. Later, after moving to Scotland I remember much more in the way of exciting gifts and chocolate, athough my parents swear we did get presents in Peru as well.

I was putting out nativity scenes for my mom today, something I love doing. I've been collecting them as long as I can remember. I was never too sure about my parents' olive wood scene from Israel though, the pale baby Jesus lies serenely in his manger with arms outstretched in a position no baby ever takes. Mary kneels, her face blank of emotion, and the sheperd boy at the back with the lamb on his shoulder is forever falling over due to a broken foot. I prefer the rough clay set where one of the wise men carries a bunch of bananas as a gift and a donkey with buck teeth looks on, or the jungle Jesus who lacks a diaper and clearly has two descended testicles, or the wooden scene from Thailand with elephants and chickens welcoming God. More powerful to me than the crucifixion or resurection is the incarnation. A squirming, wet, mucous and blood-covered screaming smelly newborn surrounded by a goat or two and a clueless father. Did Joseph cut the cord? Did the placenta come out intact? Did Mary have a third degree tear? What were Jesus' Apgars? God came down the birth canal of an unmarried teenager? Who thought this stuff up anyway? There is a certain scandal to it all, very abject, very humble and not an image that the Christmas season gives us today.

I am forever grateful for the gift my parents have given me. They introduced me to the God of the poor, born surrounded by abject poverty and scandal. Where faith means hope and justice for the poor and marginalized here on earth.