Love Thy Neighbor is a collaborative series by Shared Justice, an initiative of the Center for Public Justice, and Neighborly Faith, an organization helping evangelical Christians to be good neighbors to people of other faiths. Recognizing that we live in a religiously diverse and pluralistic society, this monthly series will explore how Christians can embody and advocate for hospitality in principle, practice, and policy. Kevin Singer and Chris Stackaruck are the Co-Directors of Neighborly Faith and are serving as Associate Editors for the series.
BY KEVIN SINGER AND AMAR PETERMAN
This December, Daniel Darling reflects on the story of Christ’s birth in his new book The Characters of Christmas: The Unlikely People Caught Up in the Story of Jesus (Moody Publishers). Darling is Vice President for Communications for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
In the interview below, Neighborly Faith Co-Director Kevin Singer interviews Daniel about his new book, what it means for God to bring about a ‘Kingdom of Outsiders,’ and how Christ’s incarnation frees us to pursue justice. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
KS: You say that the Christmas story reveals a “kingdom of outsiders.” How so?
DD: If you look at the people that are swept up in the story, that are part of the Christmas drama, they are not people that we would include if we were scripting it. The first announcements come to shepherds who were really lowly people. Wise men are the ones who express the most worship and belief; they're not Jewish people. They're from the outside. But it tells us something about the Kingdom of God that he comes along the most vulnerable, the people whom the world rejects. This is a Gospel not just for the Jewish people. This is one of the messages that Matthew is sending with the depiction of the wise men, but also for the whole world. I think there's a powerful message there.
Even thinking about Mary and Joseph, this is a peasant couple in a backwater town. Judea was a backwater part of the Roman empire that they kind-of put up with. And Nazareth was the backwater part of Judea. People in Jerusalem did not look kindly on such an insignificant town. It's one of those that you would drive past if you're on the highway, right? It's a town where you're an hour away, even from Dollar General, you know what I'm saying? Yet, these are the people that God chooses to put into the story.
In the last few chapters, you talk about the surprising people in the family of Christ. Where are you going with these chapters?
It's interesting when we read the book of Matthew, typically we kind of skip over the names, if we're being honest; but there's a lot of significance in those names. Matthew is making the case that Jesus is the rightful King that sits on David's throne, that he's the One, and he makes that legal case. But then when you actually look at some of the names in Jesus' family tree and you see people that, if you were a Jewish person reading this genealogy, you'd do a double take.
“Christianity is not about all the good people. It’s about all the redeemed people.”
There are four women that are profiled. Women were not mentioned in typical genealogies because usually men as the head of households were mentioned. So, even that [is] groundbreaking that Christianity actually elevates women in a profound way. Think about Ruth: We know the story of Ruth, but we forget Ruth was from Moab. That's Israel’s sworn enemy. So not only was she a Gentile, but she was from Moab. And yet she has grafted into the family of God and she becomes an ancestor of David, King David, and of Jesus. Tamar had a child with her father-in-law in a very sordid situation. Yet she's in the family. And then you have Rahab who's the harlot, who helps the spies in Jericho. And then Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. And yet it says something about the kind of kingdom that Jesus is building, that it's a kingdom for sinners. It's a family for people who have messed up their lives.
Christianity is not about all the good people. It's about all the redeemed people. I mean, Jesus would later say that he came not for people who are well spiritually, but people who know that they're sick. I think there's a profound statement even in the type of people that are in Jesus's family tree.
What is your exhortation to Christians through this book?
I have two thoughts. I think one is that we sometimes over-sentimentalize Christmas. In many ways, Christmas is for people who are in despair. God came to people who were downtrodden and cynical. He came into a world that was as broken and corrupt and violent as the world today. For some, Christmas is the “most wonderful time of year” as Andy Williams says. For others, Christmas is more like Merle Haggard trying to make it through December. It's hard and difficult, and Jesus visits us in our despair. He has come to renew and remake the world.
My second thing is that for Christians, I think we often take one of two wrong responses. On one hand we can get caught up in the commercialism and the sentimentality and miss the meaning of Christmas. We get so busy that we don't stop and be silent and listen and meditate. On the other hand, we could also get cranky about the commercialism and be kind of Christmas cranks. And I don't think God wants us to do that.
I think if we truly believe that this child is the Son of God, the rightful One to sit on the throne of David, that God in Jesus is saving us, body and soul, that he's renewing and restoring the world, [then] we should, of all people, be full of joy and it should change us. It should make us generous and open handed. Christmas is a very subversive holiday, even to those who aren't believers. It's the sign, the inbreaking of God into the world to make the world how it should be.
It sounds like you're saying there is perhaps a justice element to this…
There absolutely is a justice element. You cannot read Mary's prayer and Zachariah's prayer (and even Simeon, when he's blessing without seeing) and not see justice here. I mean, God has come to make the world new.
I think it's significant that Jesus came as a human being, not just as an embodied spirit. He came as a human being in order to be the second Adam [and] the final sacrifice for sins. But also, it tells us that God really cares about human bodies. And God had come not to just save our souls, as we Evangelicals really believe, and it's right. [He has] come to save our bodies, to save us; and one day he'll make all things new in the final resurrection.
I think [this understanding] is a rebuke to two different justice approaches. It’s a rebuke to a Pietistic Christianity that kind of closes our ears to the injustice of the world and says we’re only going to focus on the spiritual aspects of it. I don’t think Jesus allows you to do that. Look at Mary’s prayer; if his kingdom has truly dawned, then he’s asking us to join him on his mission to renew and restore the world. If we’re to love our neighbor as ourselves, we can’t ignore the structures that hurt our neighbors’ flourishing.
It's also a rebuke to people who care about justice and have a kind of exhausted “change the world” mentality. The idea that this is all on us; that we're the ones we've been waiting for. Because that is just a hamster wheel of frustration if we think we can change this world. But when you understand that it is Christ who is coming to the world and that the kingdom is already but not yet, that he's here in part and we're part of his mission, ultimately it's Christ who's going to usher in the full kingdom of God, and he ultimately will make all things new. That frees us to be on mission, that frees us to do justice in a way that is not this sort of messianic, you know, I've got to take it all on myself thing that really just exhausts people and it's very ineffective. We're just free to be the people God has called us to be and to show the world the light and signpost to the kingdom.
We are incredibly thankful for Daniel Darling and his refreshing engagement with the story of Christ’s birth. We hope that Darling’s interview and new book lead Christians to rest in a God who has come to us in our depravity, redeemed us, and set us free to go out and serve him with gladness and singleness of heart.
Kevin Singer is Co-Director of Neighborly Faith and a PhD student in higher education at North Carolina State University, where he serves as a Research Associate for the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS). Twitter: @kevinsinger0
Amar Peterman is Associate Director of Media for Neighborly Faith. He is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and is currently pursuing a Masters of Divinity at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also Research Assistant to author and lawyer Asma Uddin. Twitter: @amarpeterman
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