LA NATIVIDAD

Merchants are happy, apparently, because Black Friday was good, and Cyber Monday was good, and there’s an extra “shopping week” between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  At the church this week, I received another ad for “a different kind of Christmas drama for children!”  Looking inside, it seemed that, while they had tried to make a stab at diversity (a couple of kids of color); there was absolutely no representation of anyone who seemed to be poor.  And yes, I know that many people are poor without “showing it”, whatever that means.

But it struck me that everyone looked pretty happy and even delighted, which is the usual emotional note that Christmas pageants portray, including the one we’re going to do.  I like happy. I like delighted.  But if we listen to the Christmas story as it happened, and as it was retold, I think there’s a wide range of emotions felt and expressed by those who were involved, including fear, sadness, worry, anger, terror, hopelessness, and finally, joy.

La Natividad is a co-production of our church and In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater.  It had been on hiatus for a couple of winters, and now is back.  I’m biased, but I think it is the best telling of the Christmas story.  But you can check it out for yourselves at www.hobt.org.  You don’t “go” to see La Natividad; you “come” and see. And you come and walk.  With Mary and Joseph—Maria y José—, as they seek Posada or shelter.

La Natividad is a bilingual telling of the Christmas story from the point of view of an immigrant Mexican family, set in the Phillips neighborhood, the most diverse, youngest and second poorest neighborhood in Minneapolis.  A majority of the people who live here are immigrants or children of immigrants.  Some fleeing as refugees, some seeking a better life for their families, some are the original inhabitants of this land who have been uprooted from the land and language.  Many, if not most of the people struggle. And yet, there is so much faith, so much generosity and so much hope to be found here.

In La Natividad, Maria is shopping for tortillas, a normal everyday task, when she is interrupted by an angel.  A big angel!  An angel who doesn’t speak in words that human onlookers can hear, but one who speaks to the body, the heart, the womb.  Maria is going to have a child.  The child.  The child of hope, of peace, of longing.

There is but little time to absorb this news, as Elizabeth, her elderly cousin greets her with her own news of impending, bizarre childbirth; then her promised, her beloved José asks Maria how in the world she can be pregnant—by God, no less; and then the announcement comes that everyone must go to be counted.  (Note that Caesar likes everyone to be counted, whereas God likes everyone to be named.) 

And then we’re off—the cast and the audience—to meet the shepherds, the star, the angel choir, and Herod.  Herod is central to the Christmas story, but is usually left out of performances in churches.   Why?  I don’t think just because he is evil, though evil he is.  But a good “evil character” makes for good drama, doesn’t it?  Think of Jafar, Cruella DeVille or any other Disney foil.  They are usually really, really good bad guys.

I think Herod is troublesome for us because the violence he unleashes seems so random and we feel so powerless to confront it.  It challenges our sense of justice and of the safety of the universe. When Herod learns he has been tricked by the Three Kings, he sends his soldier to kill every boy under two in Bethlehem.   Babies who may or may not have met Jesus, but whose only crime is being born nearby and close to when Jesus is.    It raises all sorts of questions for those of us who believe in a loving, powerful God.  Questions like:

Why does God save Jesus and not the other children?

Why does God not warn the innocents of the coming slaughter?

For many of us, those questions lead into further, harder questions:  Does God really care about us?  Is God really able?

(If you think I’m stepping into new territory, please read the Psalms of Lament)

I wish I could say that this story has never been repeated, but when you look at the children murdered in Syria, those sold into slavery around the world, those dying for lack of health care or food or clean water, we know that it isn’t.

Whatever our faith, our hope is, I don’t think we can live fully human lives until we love the world in which all this happens, the world as it is, and love it enough to give ourselves to it, so that healing and liberation can happen.

Back to La Natividad: This year is particularly poignant, for the woman from our church who has played Maria for five years said goodbye to her husband at the airport this August, when he “voluntarily self-deported” (if that’s not Herod language, what is?).  Her son, who was the first baby Jesus, is now six and an American citizen.  Some of the performances will feature a “Maria” who was brought here as a child, and was one of the “dreamers” applying to work and study here.  Many of the “neighbors” who walk in the performance, and open the way for Maria and José to find shelter have similar stories. And walk they will, together…

I remember the first year that we did La Natividad, and an audience member wrote to complain that we “had put immigration into the Christmas story”.  If you haven’t read the story lately, I invite you to take a look at it, in Matthew 2 and Luke 1 and 2.  Who are the main characters?

Joseph and Mary: poor Galileans, who need to leave their home because of superpower politics.  Mary is an unwed mother.  They are rejected in Joseph’s own town.  They aren’t allowed, or can’t afford to stay at the inn.  Jesus is born in a shelter—for animals. They are visited by shepherds, who were considered dirty, dishonest and impure.  The Three Kings are foreigners, from the East (where the Empire’s hold is tenuous).  The holy child is hunted by an insane king, and has to flee, as a refugee to a foreign country, and live there for years, in a different culture, with different language, different laws, different food, and can’t travel to see family back home.

A tad bit relevant to our situation today, don’t you think?

I could go on and on.

But mostly, I want you to come to La Natividad.  Come and see, come and walk.  One wonderful thing about working with our church and the theater on this is that it brings some many people together. It was truly joyful last night at our first rehearsal in the sanctuary.  Another wonderful thing is that the story is told in its truth, which includes the struggle for justice, for peace, for life—and it is told in a way that is beautiful.

Here’s my poem, titled “La Natividad”

 

LA NATIVIDAD

Maria, you shop for tortillas, the tongue’s comfort,

a bed to lay the evening meal upon.  One eye out
for La Migra, one ear cocked for a shout, a boot,
a hard knock on the door.  You hear the bells
of tricky angels troubling, you listen to the voice        
of God that tells you your womb
is a quarry of bright diamonds, a pond
bearing wounded fish into the world. How
to explain that to a man who spends his days
talking to wood?  Finally, you walk. Together
and alone.  You take your feet and the child
feasting on your darkness and you carry
into the night, trusting that the dust you walk on,
the water you caress with your eyes
is the same dust, the same dew God
used to make the world, to make the man
and woman one and apart and free.
You cross a bridge, you don’t look back,
you march into the holy, abandoned rock
where beasts assemble and you wait. 
One by one the heavenly beings return,
with four paws and two, with wings
and fins and feathers, gathered to
watch the little one burst from you
and keep the silence love requires.
Look, Maria!  Listen! The voice of God
upon your lips.  Even your screams
turn the stars into dancing.

Be Justice.  Be Beauty.

 

Patrick