Yesterday's sermon about Joseph had a bit of pondering about Christmas pageants. I began by thinking about the traditional Christmas pageant, where the starring role is Mary, while the rambunctious boys get cast as farm animals. Yesterday's sermon was about Joseph, the part of the story that we rarely see in Christmas pageants: Joseph who has one future mapped out, only to find out that his betrothed is pregnant with someone else's baby.
No, not pageant material--as I wrote in the sermon: "it would make me deeply uncomfortable to see elementary school kids acting out today’s Gospel. But as an adult, I find this part of the Nativity story may have more to say to us in our non-Christmas lives than the rest of the incarnation story."
Here's what I posted on Facebook: "If you are feeling a bit like Joseph, feeling like you had solid plans that have dissolved into a huge mess, perhaps my sermon that I preached this morning at Faith Lutheran Church (in Bristol, TN) would have meaning for you."
You can find the recording of my sermon here on my YouTube channel. You can read along here and count the times I go off-script.
As I was preaching, I was thinking of a poem that I wrote, about being part of the angel choir and not realizing how much more powerful an angel would be than Mary. I wrote it a long time ago, and my theology around Mary has changed. I now see her as much more powerful. But still, I wanted to revisit the poem, and I'm happy that my blog makes it much easier than digging through computer files, trying to remember the name of the poem.
It was first published in The South Carolina Review, and then I included it in my first chapbook, Whistling Past the Graveyard. It does make me wonder if people even have Christmas pageants anymore. My church has not in the time that I've been there, although they once did. We just don't have enough children to do a pageant.
If we had a pageant, I'd try to make it different than the ones I was part of as a child. I'm not sure how I would do that, so I'm glad I haven't been forced to come up with a plan. But I wouldn't want today's children to have the experience I had and try to capture in this poem:
Medieval Christmas Pageants
The Sunday School pageant director embraced
the medieval ideals. Mary would have dark
hair and a pure soul. Joseph, a mousy
man who knew how to fade into the background.
Every angel must be haloed with golden
hair, and I, the greatest girl, the head
angel, standing shoulders above the others.
It could have been worse. Ugly and unruly
children had to slide into the heads and tails
of other creatures, subdued by the weight
of their costumes, while I got to lead
the processional. But I, unworldly foolish,
longed to be Mary. I cursed
my blond hair, my Slavic looks which damned
me to the realm of the angels.
I didn’t see Mary’s role for what it was: bit
player, vessel for the holy, keeper of the cosmic.
I didn’t understand the power of my position.
I could have led an angel uprising, although the history
of angel uprisings suggests that though whole new
worlds emerge, so do new tortures with the triumph.
I could have imparted messages of God’s plan,
spoiled all the surprises. I could just appear,
scaring mere mortals into submission.
Instead, I smoldered, smarting
at the indignities of mother-made wings
and long robes to ruin my long legged run.
I internalized the message of the culture
which didn’t offer starring roles for girls,
no head angel power for us.
Instead, the slender, the meek, the submissive
girl got the prize, the spotlight focused
on her kneeling knees, her bowed head.
I tried not to sing too loudly, to shrink
my Teutonic bones into the Mary model.
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