I was talking to a friend one day who was encouraging me to relax more. One of her suggestions was to go do a jigsaw puzzle. My reaction may have startled her a bit… I hate puzzles. Absolutely cannot stand jigsaw puzzles, and I can tell you why, too. When I was in the first grade, I finished a test or assignment before the rest of my class, so I was allowed to go to the play area and do something quiet. In hindsight, I should’ve made clay dinosaurs, which I loved doing, but I was feeling adventurous that day so I decided to take a jigsaw puzzle off the shelf. Not a great move on my part. Spacial relationships apparently are not my strong suit, and I failed miserably at this task. The bad part was that I had to complete the puzzle in order to put it away and I was out of time… and my teacher came over and yelled at me for taking down an activity I couldn’t complete and clean up properly. In my memory of the event, she also said all of this loud enough for everyone to hear and I remember feeling embarrassed… worse, I felt betrayed, and shamed… prior to that day, my teacher was perfect in my eyes and I couldn’t believe what was happening. It was horrible. And I kid you not, it is one of those memories I have carried with me my whole life… I can see the classroom, I can see her face, I can see the table…I can see the puzzle, which was of a duck. To this day, I hate jigsaw puzzles… I have managed to participate in doing a few over the years under duress… never would I choose to do one… the thought instantly turns me into a scared and shamed 6 year old kid…
We all have those moments in our lives that have shaped us in negative ways…hopefully, somewhere along the way we have learned that the negative messages we have internalized aren’t true. I am sure that we have heard those messages at the hands of people, like my teacher, whom we have trusted… perhaps we have even heard those messages in church… many of us have come from churches where the message was based on what we were doing wrong… that we had to make up to God somehow for all the wrong we have committed … and the second message was that the world we live in is bad…
Certainly there is evil in the world, and that is nothing new… many, many people are the victims of another’s evil intentions. Three days after Christmas the church commemorates the feast of the Holy Innocents… a day to remember the innocent children killed by Herod as he desperately searched for and attempted to destroy the child whom he feared would unseat him from his throne… and fear will do that; it will turn us into hate filled people who lash out at those we fear…
BUT… you and I are Christmas people… and one of the messages that I take away from Christmas is that humanity and the world we live in is good… and not just good, but very good. God did not create us and all that is around us out of fear… God’s love, unlike the love of people whom we love and trust, is perfect love… love that always loves, love that always encourages, love that always heals, love that lifts us beyond what even we can see or imagine… Christmas is a time to realize just how wonderful and good we are to God… When God’s eyes gaze upon us, what God sees is possibility… God sees the good in us when we cannot see it ourselves… and it is into that world of goodness that God chose to be born… even in the midst of Herod’s rabid and death-dealing fear, there were others who were good, others who acted in love and in trust… others who would seek to protect the holy child who himself was and continues to be the very embodiment of God’s love…
There is something amazing that happens when we hear and know that God loves us and that we are good… St. Theresa of Avila, one of my favorite mystics, was always getting herself into trouble with the church… in a time when priests and others involved in church hierarchy were trying to teach people that they could not have direct access to God because they were unworthy, Theresa saw and taught things that were much different. She taught people that they could pray to God directly, that they didn’t need an intermediary; that God loved them as they were, and desired their prayers… it caused quite a stir… if you begin believing that you are loved by God and that God desires your company, and that God thinks your prayers are just as good and perhaps better than the local priests… it has implications that reach political and social proportions… no longer can someone keep you oppressed by using fear of God… no longer can they keep you oppressed by bartering for your soul…you no longer believe the lies that they have used to keep you oppressed… you are no longer less than; rather you are equal to…
It’s a powerful message that has worked throughout history for entire groups of people to be able to realize their worth in God’s eyes… each of us is a precious and priceless joy to God… and our world, imperfect though it may be, is also precious and good…
And so begins the work of Christmas… There are plenty of Herod like folks out there who would attempt to rule our hearts with fear… but we are called to not be afraid… we are called to love… we are called to love ourselves and each other… we are called to see each other and the world in which we live as good… as holy… as loved… and that is, I think, why God was born to us in the life of Jesus… to show us just how good we are… so good, that God wanted to be with us as one of us…
We are Christmas people who believe that Christmas matters… it matters profoundly… it changes everything… all of the messages of our lives that we have internalized telling us that we are less than, that we don’t measure up, are lies. They are lies told to control, lies told to make us dependent, lies told so that others canl feel good about who they are at our expense…
Our job now is to live into the Truth. Everything is different… everything is beautiful… everyone is precious to God… let us go from this place believing it is so.