Sermon: Reconstructing Christmas
What does reimagining Christmas mean to you? What are your Christmas memories like?
I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church. As devoted Christians, my parents never missed observing Christmas and, therefore, attended Christmas Eve mass, which lasted until late at night. As teenagers, my younger brother and I stayed at home. So, my Christmas memory from childhood is being left at home until my parents came back at midnight. There was no turkey, There was not any Christmas present in the next morning, either. I never thought I would have them… Christmas is not a traditional Korean culture.
In 2013, I was working in student ministry at Chemainus United Church. I led Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols and Candlelight communion services and so on, but my true Christmas cultural encounter was when our older son Peace complained to me that he and his brother were not getting any Christmas gifts because our home did not have any Christmas tree, and so, Santa could not find the way. So, that year, we bought our first Christmas tree at Walmart and our kids got gifts with hand-written letters from Santa.
Every year, I sincerely enjoyed singing Christmas carols with the congregations I served, especially the mystery and hope of the lit Advent candles in a circle, singing Silent Night, Holy Night, but…
I really never had any serious intent to think about what Christmas means to me: how I would like to uphold it, how I find my self and story in it; for my personal truth; for my healing.
What is Christmas?
What is this time for?
What would this time mean to others who are from different cultures?
For those who don’t celebrate Christmas?
For the faithful who celebrate or honour different traditions?
At this point, I would like to suggest three lenses to view Christmas, and the season, to reconstruct them.
* Family
* Mary
* The birth of God.
First, family. The Question of the Day, “What does reimagining Christmas mean to you?” was planted in me like a seed, when I encountered a poem, “Who is Christmas?” by Joya Polk, in this small book, Reconstructing Christmas.
“Christmas used to be my favourite time of the year,
And now, like the rest of my life, it’s turned into a shallow pit of depression.
(…)
The holidays are for MY healing.
Tradition says,
Spend time with your family.
Tradition says,
You better go home and spend time with your family.
I say,
My family is not healthy for me right now.
I say,
My family is not healthy for me right now.
I say,
My family is not healthy for me right now.
(…)”
After my encounter with this poem, “The holidays are for MY healing” circled in my mind for a long time.
Second lens: Mary.
With this poem, by Allison K. Garcia.
“After I came out to myself, I had to deconstruct and reconstruct every piece of my life
Who am I?
Who is God?
What is love?
What is family?
One moment to the next, I am
Constantly re-evaluating
Recalculating
Reconfiguring
(…)
What ornaments do we keep?
The one with the bride and groom from a former marriage?
The ones with a white baby Jesus?
What message does that send my brown son?”
(…)
Reconstructing Christmas can mean an invitation to re-story the season, the time of the year, the Nativity story, and Christmas, for one’s own healing…
We could ask ourselves:
What are the “external narratives” that tell us to what to feel, what to do, what to think, and how to celebrate Christmas and the season in certain ways?
We often tell ourselves that “This day. This one day” has to be perfect, like happy nuclear or intergenerational families, gift exchanging, an atmosphere of abundance, sparkling wit, splendid love. Yet, this notion of perfection is deeply intertwined with white supremacy, capitalism, consumerism, heteronormativity, and other dubious status quo. It also reflects the modern Western cultural sense of time pressure, “This day, this one day”. The notion of making a single super-special day comes with high pressure which can lead us to disconnect from ourselves, from the rhythm of Nature, even from family, in this Advent season… Nature is ready to rest. It’s the beautifully darkest season. This is a time for pausing and quietly waiting for renewal. Why are we so driven by the sense of urgency and the pressure of a single day — when the birth of Christ never calls for running around, rushing, unrested. Every day counts. Not one single day. There’s a reason why the old folk song is about the twelve days of Christmas, not just one.
So, we can continue to ask ourselves:
What are the external narratives or frameworks that calls us to feel, do, be, think certain ways about certain things, like the current narrow framework about how to celebrate the holidays? Could you list these narratives?
Versus: Self-creation. The birth of Christ is, ultimately, an invitation to experience the birth of God in us and all creation.
In this Advent season, I want you to think about an internal commitment (vs external messages) to personally heal, hope, and reimagine the birth of God in you. In very personal and collective terms, you could let go of the rituals that exhaust and harm, and think of a new ritual for you.
The new rituals that may be not the same every year…
The rituals that are not shameful.
The rituals that are not traumatizing.
The rituals in which you are celebratory, and free.
I was in a congregation in which Pregnant Mary’s image was highlighted every year throughout the Advent and Christmas seasons. Pregnant, young, vulnerable, and mute. We look, but we never have to listen. As if her pregnancy is all we can see! We talk ABOUT Mary so often, but rarely hear what Marys today have to tell us.
I wonder..
If Christmas is not just my job — as a minister,
If Christmas is not just making sure kids get their presents — as a parent,
If Christmas is not just nostalgia dressed as wonder and mystery…
What would I feel, what would I think, what would I do, how would I relate and find myself not only in connection to the Nativity story but to the rhythm and calling of nature. When I asked myself these questions for the first time, my mind immediately went blank! I had no ritual for myself; it was an open canvas to fill with creativity. I continue asking, what would I like to fill the Advent canvas with? What would I like to explore? What ritual would I reform and rebirth myself in?
If I celebrate the birth of Jesus and his childhood, I would celebrate the birth of Mary and her, his, or their childhood in which the purest form of God’s genius shines like a star. If we can celebrate the birth of Jesus and his childhood and the birth of Mary and her childhood, we can also celebrate the inner child that is alive deep inside of all of us.
IF we can celebrate the creation of the out-of-norm, queer family of Mary, there would no longer be Christians marginalized, due to their differences.
Matilde, my friend, would emphasize that queerness is all about community… friends, chosen families, collective care, because cisgender heteronormative individualism doesn’t work. If we focus on only one story, one God, one birth, one moment, even only Mary, even only Jesus, the wild divinity of God is narrowed down and we celebrate the greatness only partially or in a distorted fashion.
I would like to imagine a God.
The ancient God - who people praised and said was almighty…This old, adult God, trapped in the image and conception of an all powerful, conquering God, started to come out of the shell and prison of his image, and started to learn how he often relentlessly was angry and resentful in certain moments. He started to grieve about losing himself. When he was alone, he screamed inside for liberation.
One day, this God saw a rainbow he hung somewhere in the sky, a long, long time ago, and in that unpredicted, twilight moment, God decided to come out of himself and start the journey of God’s own healing. God walked down to the earth, and found a river and the fine, powder-soft sand of the riverside. Naturally, God wanted to touch the soft sand himself, and his finger started to draw a random shape just following his finger’s movement, and then, looked up and saw a Child playing in the sand too, just like him! Being exhilarated with the purest form of joy, God identified God’s own inner child, in the child and in himself, anticipating the genius of creative play.
God, then, learned what would be God’s own internal commitment for healing. The internal commitment to celebrate the inner child, ready to explore a human world, struggling and persevering, on the earth. Thus, God was birthed into the world as a baby - the same form as all human beings and all other creatures in nature: a baby, the purest form of divine creativity, trusting the sign and the path of the rainbow God hung a long, long time ago for peace on earth, the ritual of peace God created for all who need it.
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