You would think that on Christmas Day it shouldn't be hard to talk about Jesus. But it makes me nervous just to type his name. I know that's sad, but I get nervous because I'm a liberal Democrat and so I think that I will immediately have to start explaining my interest in Jesus.
The problem for folks like me is that there is now this thing about what it means to say that you are a Christian. The far right and the fundamentalist Christians have so hijacked the perception of this great faith and its set of injunctions that I always feel like I have to say, "I'm a Christian, but ..."
What follows that "but" is this: "And I am not crazy; and I am not a fundamentalist; and I am not without a factual understanding of the Bible."
I've read the Bible more than once. In graduate school I dissected it. I know who wrote it — and who didn't. As a source of metaphor and as cultural reference it is priceless. But Jesus never told us to read the Bible; he never saw a Christian Bible. Please.
But I always feel this need to qualify my Christianity and to let you know that I am not right of anything and not conservative at all. But I am in agreement with the basic tenets of Christianity, and in a very imperfect and conflicted way I'm a Christian.
Granted, I tried hard not to be. I was raised United Methodist in a nice churchgoing, social justice-seeking kind of family. I had 12 years of Sunday school. As a writer, I am grateful for that education.
But later I resisted, and I rejected, and I got away from church as far and as fast as possible. I shuddered at the uncoolness of it all. I wanted to be part of anything that was more exotic than Christianity. I tried other faiths, no faith and all manner of New Age practices in lieu of faith, but I kept coming back to what I learned as a kid.
One day I had this very humbling thought: If I could accept the challenge and commitment of Zen Buddhism, or the requirements of the Maharishi, then why not Jesus?
I know that the process of faith development requires that we reject something, but maybe I was throwing out the baby with the holy water.
Or maybe it was about accessories?
Methodism didn't offer any beads or mantras or rituals. I know that a navy suit and Easter corsage can't touch the groovy robes that Buddhist nuns wear. And we get no sandalwood beads. But maybe a nice strand of imitation pearls and a navy dress are the exotic attire of a middle-class Christian.
So be it. The rest of the package is quite radical.
So on Christmas Day, I'm making an appeal to Christians who still believe the good stuff of Christianity. Jesus, our guru, said great things like, love one another; help the poor and invite the tax collector — (pretty much whomever most people think of as scum) — to your house for dinner.
He advocated that we renounce having a lot of stuff; be kind to people who aren't very nice and to share what you have. He also suggested that we embrace impermanence and believe in something bigger than us.
That's not New Age?
Yes, there is trouble with the organizational part. That goes without saying. Churches are institutions. Someone once compared the church to Noah's ark saying, "If it weren't for the storm without, you could never stand the smell within."
Christians, Christmas Day is time to come out of the closet and take your place. It is time for liberal Christians and feminist Christians and left-leaning Christians and Democratic Christians and gay Christians to take Christianity back from the fundamentalists and the haters and the ignorant.
Today you will hear the story of that first Christmas told again. It's about a nice Jewish couple and their baby who grew up to be a good Jewish man who was a radical teacher committed to shaking things up in his community.
His example was love plus courage. Now it's our turn.
Diane Cameron is a Capital Region writer. Her email address is dianeocameron@gmail.com.