Recently, a billboard was erected at the start to the Lincoln tunnel––
which runs under the Hudson River, connecting New York to New Jersey.
The billboard, erected by an atheist group reads:
“You know it’s a myth––this season, celebrate reason”.
At the other end of the tunnel another billboard was erected––
this time by a Catholic group––
which reads:
“You know it’s real. This season celebrate Jesus”.
Actually, they’re both right––
and they’re both wrong!
Yes, Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus––
which we heard read this morning––
does belong to the category of myth.
Not “myth” as it’s popularly understood––
as a pejorative term––
but “myth” as it’s used within the anthropology of religion.
Myths are stories that deal with the interactions of human beings and gods.
Myths are stories that attempt to explain practices, beliefs and phenomena…
they shape our identity, our values and our worldview…
they seek to convey important ideas and concepts…
they aim to teach and to enlighten…
by means of stories that are somewhat fantastical…
imaginative and imaginary.
In a sense, just because the story is myth, it doesn’t mean it lacks reason.
Just because the story is myth, it doesn’t mean it isn’t real––
even if it isn’t scientific or historical.
The problem with both billboards is that they fail to understand what myth is and how it works.
And, in so doing, they actually fail to listen to the story as story.
And, by failing to listen to the story as story––
and I mean really listen––
they fail to discern its meaning…
they fail to discern the truth that the myth is pointing towards.
But, to be honest, that’s something that most of us also do.
Whether it’s because we’re so busy trying to "put Christ back into Christmas”––
in the face of seemingly secular onslaughts;
or we’re in a flap about trying to defend the historicity of a story that was never intended to be taken as such;
or we’re trying to ignore the story because it reads like a primitive fairytale––
and is more than a little embarrassing in the twenty-first century;
so often we, too, fail to hear the story as story.
And we certainly don’t hear it as it would’ve been heard by Luke’s original hearers in the first century.
So, let’s unpack it a bit.
Let’s try to hear how it would’ve been heard by first century ears.
Well, it’s the story, first of all, of a girl––
probably about the age of thirteen––
who’s pregnant and unmarried…
who comes from a very poor family and from a very small country town.
Being pregnant and unmarried…
within a strongly patriarchal society––
where women were the possessions of their fathers…
until they became the possessions of their husbands––
she was a particularly scandalous figure;
and, living within an honour-shame culture that would’ve practiced honour killings…
she was also a very vulnerable and marginal figure.
Within the social world of the first century, she would’ve been seen as the embodiment of shame––
every father’s worst nightmare…
thoroughly despicable.
However, this pregnant, unwed tween…
is betrothed––
that is, she’s been promised in an arranged marriage––
to a much older man who’s clearly just as poor.
Because, back then, those who plied a trade were basically failed peasants…
losers…
the first-century’s equivalent of “poor white trash”.
And, being a world that lacked any form of social security system…
our anti-hero couple would’ve been shabbily dressed…
malnourished…
uneducated and barely literate.
Having been forced, for political reasons, to travel while she was heavily pregnant…
they stayed with distant relatives.
But, because they’re the poor, hick cousins––
compounded by the shame and stigma associated with her “condition”––
they’re relegated to the downstairs part of the house where the animals sleep at night…
because the house’s guestroom would’ve been given to more “prominent” relatives.
(There’s nothing in the Greek of the original story about an inn.)
The baby is born among the goat droppings and chicken poo…
wrapped up in strips of dirty rags and placed in the animals’ feed trough.
All this––
seemingly––
taking place without any intervention or attention from the rest of the house.
The first to greet this new family are a bunch of shepherds.
Now… get rid of all your romantic notions at this point!
These are not wealthy, modern-day pastoralists…
but, if you like, more poor white trash––
failed peasants who lacked the skills to ply a trade…
or those struggling to hold onto their small inherited properties…
and forced to take on extra work.
Being a shepherd meant leaving their wives and kids at home…
unprotected…
and fending for themselves…
while they spent their nights out in the fields.
Because of that, within the broader society of the time, they were considered to be without honour––
unclean and uncouth…
irredeemable sinners…
little better than cut-throats and thieves.
So, it’s a story that’s filled with a cast of marginal…
embarrassing and shameful…
dodgy and disreputable characters.
You almost couldn’t have assembled a better group of low-life scum.
And the sense of that is made even stronger by what’s missing.
Nowhere in the story do we encounter “normal” people.
Nowhere do we meet the ordinary and everyday…
law-abiding…
pillars of the community.
Nowhere do we meet any good, religious folk.
They’re entirely absent.
Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus is a scandalous story––
and that’s no accident.
That’s what it’s intended to be.
It’s deliberately designed to offend.
It’s meant to stomp on our sensibilities…
to be an affront to our deeply held values and beliefs…
to overturn our expectations…
and to desecrate our most cherished traditions.
If Luke were writing it today…
it’d be the story of a pair of Afghan asylum seekers on Christmas Island…
or a lesbian couple;
and the birth would’ve been celebrated by a bunch of bikies…
or drug-addicted street-kids;
while all the good church-going folk––
too busy avoiding their kind––
miss it altogether.
But Luke wants to say that that’s how God comes to us…
that’s how God comes among us.
Not even in the ordinary and the everyday…
but, in fact, in the most unlikely of places…
and in the most unlikely of people…
in ways that offend our sensibilities, values, expectations and beliefs.
And yet, the shocking and scandalous manner in which God comes to us––
in which God comes among us––
is meant to be a sign and symbol of peace and goodwill…
of God’s gracious acceptance.
And, in the scandalous way that the story’s been written…
that peace and acceptance and grace…
is clearly intended for all––
without exception.
In the end, the story of Christmas––
stripped of all the myth…
reinterpreted and recontextualised––
is that God’s love and peace and acceptance is utterly indiscriminate…
and totally inclusive.
Unfortunately, because the Church has so often failed to hear the true story…
that’s not the message people get.
Maybe… it’s we Christians who leave the real Christ out of Christmas.