Locs, Heels, and the Bible

I love Advent. It is not because I love waiting, because I don't. Advent is the season of waiting, great expectation, and preparing room for the One who comes wrapped up in human skin, bearing our humanity, and returning in final victory. I love Advent because it slows down the paceToo often though, our focus narrows to a manger and a mother, leaving the broader story of Jesus’ lineage behind a veil of silence. Yet the opening lines of the Gospel of Matthew resist that silence. In the genealogy of Jesus, there is an interruption of rhythm, a break in the usual pattern of “father of… father of…” Five women are named—five women whose presence in the text is not accidental but theological, not supplemental but central. In this sacred season, as we light candles and read prophecies, the Church must also remember the women whose lives, wombs, and choices shaped the bloodline of Christ. And we—especially those committed to the status and role of women—must not miss the invitation in the...

Each year, Christmas shows up wrapped up in tinsel and lots of sentiment, and for a brief moment the world pretends that it has learned how to love. We sing of peace while tiptoeing carefully around the bodies that peace is yet to hug. We speak of joy then we turn around and ration it. We light candles while entire neighborhoods live under the threat of structural darkness. Christmas tells the story of a child born into precarity, yet we have learned how to sentimentalize the manger and sanitize the risk involved. As much as we glide around the issue, the fact still remains that the Holy Family fled and hid to escape the structural darkness that never truly went away. So, Christmas, when told honestly, is about incarnation under pressure. God shows up where empire counts people as expendable and calls it order. God shows up without permission, paperwork, or without an invitation from power. That alone should trouble our carols. And then comes Boxing Day. Boxing Day is not as visible ...