Today's Gospel is again Lukan, very marginal to Mark. But here goes....!

Last week I suggested the Advent Gospels summarise something like: (1) Social Disruption - earthly & apocalyptic; (2) Personal / Directional Disruption - Baptism for a change of heart; (3) Messianic Disruption: He's arrived! & (4) Disruption of Slavery to God (the choice Mary makes). Bonhoeffer called it 'The Cost of Discipleship'. Logically, Christmas ought to follow as Disruption, too. And it does! Mind you, many of our hearers will prefer Santa Claus, a jolly, thoroughly non-disruptive figure, more Ho Ho Ho than Holy Holy Holy!. (Though he's evolved from the arguably socially disruptive Bishop Nicholas!)

Even if we don't now accept the census happened the way LK tells it, it's at least symbolic disruption for world, & nation, & a familial one for Mary & Joseph. On top of all the disruption their unbelievable story must have brought to their families & clan. (Knowing what we know now about life in the womb, for the to-be-born Jesus, too?)

I guess no male can really understand the kinds of disruption the birth process brings to the mother - any mother. Mary discovers in even deeper ways the consequence to herself of  obedience to God during the bringing to birth process.

The message of the angels to the shepherds speaks of  Glory & Peace. "Glory to God... Peace to those who enjoy God's favour." To give glory to God is to disrupt cycles of self-glorification, & a pre-requisite for receiving God's favour & the attendant peace that brings. Christmas the way we celebrate it may be a time of at least temporary goodwill to others, but what's at stake here is God's Goodwill! To take this message seriously is to challenge people like George W Bush in the USA, John Howard here in Australia, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, & all the rest, to get the order right in God's eyes! Real peace only comes as a gift of God, not from flag-waving jingoism, nor from playing political games, processes that stem from corrupted approaches to life & democracy. Pregnant with war, not peace.

I used to think of the shepherds scoring a kind of holiday to visit the holy family, but there are lots of disruptive elements for them too - the angelic appearance, its attendant fear, having to go into the village, leaving their sheep, the sight they see, the story they tell. Inevitably, some will respond with "Shepherds are more untrustworthy even than we thought, & bigger liars than ever!"

For Mary, who 'keeps all these things, pondering them in her heart', life can never be the same.   I'm not arguing Christmas oughtn't to be a time of celebration. I like my Christmas Pudding as much as anyone! But how can Christmas as a Celebration of Disruption get through our celebration of cosiness? Ponder all these things in our hearts? What cycles of ours does God want to break into, break us out of, so that we bring to birth whatever it is God needs in our case?