by Rev. Dr. Mary Susan Gast, Conference Minister, December, 2001
Monthly Reflections from The Pacific ~ News and Events of the NCNC United Church of Christ

SOMETIMES THE STORY IS ENOUGH

Words of encouragement and support for those ministering "in the fields."

Four years ago I shared a recollection about Christmas. The account went like this:

It was mid-December in 1973. The academic quarter was almost over. My theology class was coming to an end. Over the past 12 weeks we had explored every nuance of abstraction ever conceived in the name of God.

He read through the whole story of Jesus' birth and Mary's wonder, of the angels filling the heavens and the shepherds being amazed. Then he stopped reading and said, "Sometimes all you need to do is tell the story. Sometimes that story is enough."

For a class in theology, it was enough to hear the story. Enough to awaken the theologian within each of us. Enough for us to remember that the Word of God that came to us through Jesus Christ was a word not only of truth, but of poetry.

Poetry that blurred the distinctions between spirit and flesh, swirled together heaven and earth, arced the gap between humanity and divinity with starlight that still illuminates our nights and warms our days.

Just before Thanksgiving this year, at a meeting in Phoenix, Bernice Powell Jackson was describing a photograph she'd seen in The New York Times. It was a picture of an Afghani woman who had lost a leg as a result of war's cruel vagaries. "It could have been a table leg that she'd fitted onto her thigh to allow her to walk. The picture was a little grainy, so you couldn't quite tell. Anyway, she was walking, a refugee. And she was carrying her newborn baby. "I found myself looking and looking at that baby," Bernice said, "wondering, 'Is this how Jesus will be born this Christmas?'"

The birth of Jesus was a once in an eternity event. The hope and the poetry, though, linger and reappear each time a parent looks deep into the eyes of an infant and beholds the dream of God.

Disrupting the predictable and placid orbitings of the planets,
There came a star.
Radiant. Yet not distant.
Great joy for all the people!

For those huddled at the edge of prosperity,
For those dwelling on the margins of acceptance,
Here is good news.

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, You are with us,
In our undistinguished circumstances.
Wrapped in bands of cloth,
Bare of ornamentation,
Your Love for us is born among us.

Outlandish message,
Outlandish messenger,
You sneak into our lives unannounced,
Born of mystery, yet human, frail, limited, bound.
Your power pulses in the peaceful regular breathing of a newborn,
Like any infant, disruptive:
Disruptive of sleep; disruptive of plans;
Needy and noisy,
A tiny and tender gift of undeserved and undeserving love.
You have come to share our common lot.
Radiant. Not distant.
Great joy for all the people!

                                                               ~ Mary Susan

For previous editions of "Pacific Currents", click here.

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