The nativity story is full of ordinary people; shepherds, innkeepers for example, not to mention Mary, her cousin Elizabeth and Joseph the carpenter. I think it is important to look to the margins when we consider great events, even more so when we consider the coming of this king-like-no-other, who was rather adept a inverting power structures.

I am reminded of this quote;

If one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! – and listens to their testimony.”

James Baldwin, from No Name on the Street

Baldwin would know. He grew up in pre WW2 Harlem, and later added his incredible creative voice to the liberation struggle of black Americans during the protest movement of the 1960’s. He also said this;

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.”

We live in a world in which inequality is widening, but then this is an old problem, perhaps as old as humanity. Perhaps the goal was never full equalty anyway – after all, it has been said that communism is a Christian heresy – a slight distortion of the kingdom of God as teased out in odd parables by Jesus.

What seems to emerge from the gospels more clearly is that we do not start with economics, but rather with compassion. The big truth, as revealed in the gospels, turns out to be concerned with ordinary people turning away from anything that gets in the way of love.

A few years ago I participated in an advent project in which I contrbuted a lot of poetry, some of which has featured in this (and previous) years advent series on this blog. Here is another, featuring an ordinary hero from our nativity story…

Big man



He was as wide as the city gate

(Although half of him was heart)



Arms like beer barrels

Fists so big that even fighting men 

Thought twice despite the libation



In the post-clatter calm that follows closing time

He lifts a broken man from the gutter

Props him on a wall while he 

Wipes reek from wrinkled mouth

Lifts him like lost luggage, then

Carries him home



He was a big man.