Children's Christmas Posada
This year’s pageant was loosely in the form of Las Posadas, a traditional Mexican and Mexican American Christmas tradition that reenacts Mary & Joseph’s search for an inn. In our Pilgrim Posada, all of the out-of-towners, including the shepherds and Magi, were rejected twice before finding La Posada de Paz (Inn of Peace). Those who listened to the rewritten lyrics couldn’t miss the references to the harsh measures taken these days at our southern border. But the lyrics also hope to encourage us to turn away from our personal sins of prejudice. In the last scene, the innkeepers who had rejected the travelers make their way to the stable asking for forgiveness. In the spirit of the abundant embrace of Christ, they are forgiven and welcomed.
So this year, as we ride the wave of joy with the children and hear these well-worn stories one more time, let’s be a people that says “Yes!” Let’s be a people that opens the doors of our souls and our communities wide enough not only to let the Beloved One in, but also to let the Beloved Everyone Else in, too.
Annie Galvez
I don’t have any room for the likes of you!
A newborn savior? Wow are you all grasping in the dark!
“We seek the Prince of Peace.”
“You’ve come to the wrong place. There’s nobody here by that name.”
“We’re sorry we rejected you. Will you forgive us? Can we join you?”
More from Annie Galvez:
In putting together the Christmas pageant, I spent a lot of time this year thinking about the motley crew in the stable. First, it was incredibly unclean to give birth in a stable, both physically and metaphysically. Everything and everyone would have been contaminated. And those shepherds came straight from field to stable without stopping to engage in all the rituals, prayers, sacrifices and bathing needed to wash the dirt, seen and unseen, that gets on you when you care for animals. And those magi - who knows who they were, where they came from, what food they ate or language they spoke? Who knows what gods they worshipped? Gasp! Foreigners!
Into this motley crew of rejects … HE COMES. He comes!
This has filled me with a deep sense of my own belovedness. He comes! To me, to you, to the motley crew of us all.
Far as I can tell, this baby will spend the next thirty something years coming into the midst of the seedier side of society. He will seek out the diseased, the excluded, the “dead to me,” the powerless, the poor, the meek, the lowly, and those lost in darkness. And he will walk into the middle of them always, always with opened arms.
This baby is called the Savior, the Wonder Counselor, the Prince of Peace. Yet this baby, the Anointed One, could just as easily be called the Rejected One, and not just by those folks a couple thousand years ago.
See, if I am to let this little child lead me, I will need to confront the parts of my heart that I keep closed off to others, those parts plagued with habits and opinions and judgments. And I will need to work to open the social systems around me that have also closed the doors - those systems that tell people that they don’t belong in the voting booth or in the boardroom; that they don’t deserve equal rights or justice; that they’re not worthy to set foot in our country or (Heaven help us) in church.
“Jesus never rejected anyone and neither do we.” I know that sign sits out there in front of our church year-round and so maybe it doesn’t seem Christmasy, but it is. Because look again at those “rejects” in the stable: Behold! The ones who said “Yes!” were the first to see the miracle.