Christmas is the celebration of a birth. But a Christmas Jesus is a clean baby wrapped up in cloths, not a sticky one emerging from Mary’s body. Why is that? Is it our discomfort with our bodies, and in particular, women’s bodies (trans or cis)? The strangeness of the incarnation, this mixing of divine and human, that we don’t want to recognize? I’m not entirely sure. But I know that this Christmas, I want to see birth. I want to see a woman’s body intermingled with the divine. I want to see a record of the pain that comes before the joy.

Editor’s Note: This piece is sourced from the author’s sermon, Honor Your Mother and Father at Forefront Brooklyn on June 30, 2019.

Jesus was calling his disciples to turn from everything they’ve ever known about who belongs and who doesn’t, and that meant calling people who were enemies of the Israelites, brother, sister and sibling. It would mean showing deep and enduring love to them, and ministering to them – even if it meant breaking the religious law of working on the Sabbath. It would mean restoring shalom with them and moving towards the wholeness of humanity.