“Christmas is God telling one of the most abused bodies on the planet, a teenage girl of color. Christmas is God telling her: Your body is lovable. Your body is beautiful. Your body is powerful. Your body, YOU are capable if you choose of bearing divinity itself into the world.”

Sermon by Mike Kinman at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Christmas Eve, 11:00 p.m., Monday, December 24, 2018.

Have you ever ached to be touched?

Have you ever ached to be touched?

You don’t have to answer out loud. Just to yourself. I imagine you have already felt your answer. It’s the kind of question our body answers before our mind has a chance to ponder.

Have you ever ached to be touched?

It’s a question whose answer might seem especially poignant, especially painful in this season of joy that for so many of us can also be a season of loneliness.

Have you ever ached to be touched?

It is one of the most personal of questions. Because it is about two things that together cut right to the heart. Two things that together have the greatest power both to heal and to wound.

Touch … and our bodies.

For some of us, too many of us, touch has brought the ache.
Unwanted touch.
Touch that has wounded.
Touch that sought to dominate.
Touch that watered the seeds of unworthiness sown deep within us.

And yet, deep down, even if our fear of touch, our distrust of touch is so overpowering that we cannot reach the place of longing inside, we all need touch …. and if we do not get it our bodies cry out.

If we do not get it, our bodies literally begin to die.

That’s because there are chemicals that our brain releases when we are touched that are critical to our development, health and survival. And yet, that brain chemistry itself is part of something even deeper. A deep need each of us has for connection, to know that we are lovable. Even more specifically, a deep need to know that our bodies are lovable, that our bodies are acceptable.

That our bodies
My body.
Your body.
Is lovable.
And desirable.
And good.

Because that can be so hard for us to believe. It can be so hard for us to trust. So much of the time we are literally not comfortable in our own skin.

We look at our bodies.
We feel our bodies.
We experience the longings of our bodies.

And we compare.
And we judge.
And the voices of a comparing, judging world are amplified in the echo chambers of mind and heart.

I don’t know about you, but I have been doing this my whole life.

And maybe you can, but I have never been able to separate how I feel about my body from how I feel about myself. And that makes sense, because this is me. Of course, I am more than my body, I know that … and … I am also my body. My body is not this other that I can be separated from. And whatever happened before my body was born and whatever happens after my body is dust, for now, I am my body and my body is me.

And so
Quietly
To myself
I look at my body.
And I touch my body.
And I am grateful for my body.
And I am anxious about my body.
And I experience the longings of my body.
And I judge my body.

It has been the lifelong struggle.
In the awkwardness of my youth.
In the supposed prime and peak of young adulthood.
And now, as I get older and my body is no longer doing some of the things it used to be able to do. As it is getting slower and lumpier. And I know those days, and that body I used to be isn’t coming back.

It has been the lifelong struggle.
I look at my body.
And I compare.
And I judge.
And the voices of a comparing, judging world are amplified in the echo chambers of my mind and my heart.

And I don’t think I’m the only one, right?

And if those echo chamber voices are oppressive to me, I know that’s nothing compared with the voices of oppression and judgment we level on women’s bodies,
on trans bodies.
on nonbinary bodies.
black and brown bodies.
bodies in wheelchairs and with walkers.
on bodies that don’t have access to showers or proper medical and dental care or even a good night’s sleep every once in a while.

And the church? The church has been no help at all. In fact, the church has been a huge part of the problem, perhaps the biggest part of the struggle.

Because the church has spent most of its time telling us that our bodies are sinful and bad.

Particularly for women, nonbinary and gay, lesbian, transgender and queer people, the church has spent most of its time telling us that the feelings and longings coming from our bodies are wrong. That our bodies and our sexuality are not to be rejoiced in and celebrated but should be concealed and suppressed in shame.

The church has presented the God whose uncontainable love we celebrate this night instead as a voice of condemnation and judgment of our very body and being. And the harm we as the church have done is incalculable.

We look at our bodies.
And we compare.
And we judge.

We look at our bodies and we ache.
We ache for the touch.

We ache for the touch that will tell us what I have so much trouble trusting, so much trouble believing.

That my body.
That I
Am lovable.
And desirable.
And good.

And then … then we have this night. This night that Christ is born.

This night where God gazes on a world of bodies comparing and judging themselves and each other.

This holiest of nights where God gazes on a world of bodies aching to be touched, aching to believe, aching to trust that our bodies are not shameful, that our bodies are not sinful…

A world of bodies aching to be touched, aching to believe, aching to trust, aching to know deep within us that our bodies
That we
Are lovable
And desirable.
And good.

Tonight is the night. The holy night where God gazes on each of us and all of us and says:
“A body!
How wonderful!
And lovable!
And desirable!
And good!
A body!

“I am going to get me one of those!”

Christmas is God telling one of the most abused bodies on the planet, a teenage girl of color. Christmas is God telling her: Your body is lovable. Your body is beautiful. Your body is powerful. Your body, YOU are capable if you choose of bearing divinity itself into the world.

Christmas is God telling the colonizers and enslavers of this world: Bodies are not your factories and plantations and prisons. Bodies are temples and theatres and halls for amazing and sumptuous feasts and wild and wonderful dances.

Christmas is God telling humanity that bodies are not to be incarcerated and assaulted and kept in camps on the border and sleeping on cardboard under bridges. Bodies are to be embraced and caressed and celebrated and adored and welcomed and loved.

Christmas is God coming to us at night, to our bodies aching for touch.

Christmas is God coming to us at night with the safest touch, the most loving touch.

Christmas is God coming to us at night and saying you
Your body
is wonderful.
And lovable.
And desirable.
And good.

Because that is the truth of Christmas.
That God loves bodies.
God loves bodies as they grow and flourish.
God loves bodies as they wither and break down.
as they cry out in pain.
as they dance for joy.
as they transition and change.
God loves bodies as they long for one another in so many different ways.

God loves bodies because our bodies are part of who we are. God is born this night from a body and in a body because bodies are wonderful and beautiful and powerful and good.

And God’s love for your body is mightier than any judgment.

God’s love for your body is greater than any seeds of unworthiness that have been planted deep inside you.

The truth of Christmas is that God loves bodies.
The truth of Christmas is that God sees you.
That God sees your body.
And delights in your body.
And rejoices in your body.
That your body is a poem, a symphony, an aria, a dance.

The truth of Christmas is that God loves bodies.
Your body.
My body.
Our bodies.
And God longs for you, for me, for us to do the same.
Have you ever ached to be touched?
To be embraced?
To be known?
To be loved?

This night we celebrate that God has felt our ache and that God aches to touch us.
Touches us with the safest touch.
The most loving touch.

A touch that says I see you.
I know you.
I love you.
I am one of you.

A touch that says your body is beautiful,
your body is powerful,
your body is lovable.
Your body is good.

Have you ever ached to be touched?
Know this night
… and every night
… that God aches
… to touch you.
Amen.