The Bethlehem Star (Shines Only Over the Christian Privileged?)

I saw it again last evening as I drove home. Just North of St. Libory on Route 4, on the South side of the road, a Bethlehem Star shines brightly in the night, each night, announcing the place where Jesus lay (in the hearts of those who welcome Him). How appropriate. It is the Kramper Dairy Farm - and the Star stands high and bright . . . upon the top of their blue Harvestore silo overlooking the large stable of lowing Holsteins below. This singular sacred sight quiets me at the end of a long day.

God is with us, Emmanuel.

God is with us in San Bernardino . . . and in the Siteman Cancer Center . . . in the imprisonments of our body and soul . . . in the shame of being abused by one you love . . . in the wonder of birthing new life . . . in the exultation of doing work you enjoy . . . in the struggle of doing a job you hate . . . in the in-between times of having no work at all . . . in the ongoing construction of our daily lives . . . in the politics and politicians with which we struggle . . . in the animosity of competing religions . . . in the community of sisters and brothers of God . . . in the beauty of a family gathered together around an evening supper table . . . in the loneliness of a singular existence shared with no one else in particular . . . in the messiness of our cow lot existence . . . and in the warmth and safety of His stable birthplace. God is with us, Emmanuel.

Just look at the star shining there along the road . . . which, oddly enough, I am most likely to see and savor when I approach from the East. Hmmmmm, that seems somehow Biblical . . .

I had just been listening to the ongoing reports from the San Bernardino shootings when, turning on the curve of Route 4, and continuing westward towards the Star, the reporter said something which, for the first time, really caught my attention. She said, "The shooters were Muslim." I don't know the reporters name, but I know she wasn't the first one to have said it, nor was it the first time I had heard this particular bit of news, yet hearing it said in just the manner she said it, I wondered, "So, when was it that we began to identify aggressors, terrorists and killers by their religion?"

I thought about it for a while and I think, in my my memory anyway, we probably have to go back to the events in the United States of September 11, 2001. Reporter after reporter, news copy after news copy, politician after politician, average citizen after average citizen was likely to have been found in those days saying something like, 'The terrorists who flew the planes were Muslim' and, ever since, the language has stuck. I wonder why?

Does the Bethlehem Star over the Kramper Dairy Farm, the Light announcing the imminent arrival of Emmanuel, shine only for or over Christians? Is God keeping track of what people are members of what faith tradition as we abuse, terrorize, make war, starve and marginalize others?

Why did the papers not say of the gang member in Chicago who shot the little boy that he was Christian? (I don't know that he was or wasn't.) Why do the newscasts not say of the man who killed so many in the Planned Parenthood Clinic in Colorado Springs that he was Christian? What of the police officer in Chicago? Or Ferguson? Or the shooter in Charleston (who was in a church, after all!)? Why do we not require to know the faith of every perpetrator of every crime? Could it be that Christians are just as inclined to violence as Muslims or Jews? Are we to assume that every crime, if it was not exclusively reported that the aggressor was Muslim, was committed by a Christian? Or Jew? Or Buddhist? Or (your religion du jour)?

As aligned with the current hot topic of 'white privilege', could it be that what is emerging here in this age is 'Christian privilege'? (We won't say anything about your faith background . . . unless you aren't one of 'us', the 'in crowd'.)

I suspect the Star of Bethlehem shining in the ever darkening skies of the nearing Winter of our existence shines there for all and in all. In Emmanuel, God With Us, God isn't calling us to be Christian, God calls us to be faithful, mindful that all people are God's people. Were God to keep 'score' of our religious tradition in relation to our sinfulness, how deeply mired and mucky would the Christian tradition really be? Hmmmmm. 'Christian privilege' . . . the new, yet ancient, way to make the other among us 'the enemy', each according to their faith. Hmmmmm.

There it is shining along the South side of Route 4, just North of St. Libory, the Bethlehem Star. It glimmers and glistens with the soft light of Hope and Love made flesh, Emmanuel, God With Us. God, be with us all in Peace. Please! Oh, and God? Thank you for the using the Kramper's silo to post your Star that we might all see. Help us to see with our hearts what You already know in your Soul and, there, be willing to lay down our assumed privilege that others might find You, too. Amen.