MaryBeth LaMont

My adult life, in many ways, has been about words. Lots of words. Words in sermons, words in reading, words in writings. I wonder how many words I have written over the years. I wonder how many different words I have used over time. Recently I was thinking of some words that have never been spoken by me nor appeared in any form of writing. Allow me to share some of these unused words:

Privation, yoke, vessel, eddy, Schadenfreude (I have used German words in past), oblate, platypus ( I did once see one in Australia), arrowhead, oblate, geriatric ( I may soon be needing to use this one), gratifyingly, nymph, sucrose, chapeau, (the only other French word I know is restaurant), catalo, and, to end here, zymurgy. This, of course is not an exhaustive list, just a small sampling of words I have not used from the array of vocabulary consisting of 171,000 + words in the English language.

Words communicate. Yes, a rose by any other name may still smell as sweet, but we would otherwise have no idea what the author/speaker was talking about without a word for it. I mean, in playing charades, how might one distinguish a rose, from, say, another fragrant flower with thorns?

Also, words, either because of who speaks them, and/or how they speak them, can be authoritative. Words can produce trust or mistrust. They can explain or confuse. What would our day-to-day life be without words? They are of great importance. This is why sign language has been developed…to show through gestures what words say. This is why those both deaf and blind also have a way of communicating words through brail or finger spelling.

One of the ways Genesis says God created is by word, “And then God said….”. John’s gospel, read at Christmas Eve and, in some years, in a Sunday after Christmas, says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word. We, like John, understand this Word, the Word, to be Jesus. And we understand this Jesus to be the ultimate communication of God to us. This Word, John tells us, became flesh and lived among us. A strict translation would say God pitched God’s tent among us.

There are many words about God. Reading through even just some of those words uttered or written by Christians, does not reveal the same God among us. Sometimes in our own congregations we hear different takes on this Word, differing understandings of God.

What is a Christian to do? The simple, yet profound thing to do is return to the Word of God: Jesus. What words being written and said match up with what God said to us in Jesus? What words make us recoil upon hearing them? What words can we never imagine being spoken by the mouth of Jesus?

I don’t know if God has a list of words never used. If so, God’s list would be extremely lengthy as God speaks God’s Word in all languages. I do know what word God has used and continues to use: The Word that still dwells among us. The Word that is still flesh and pitches its tent in our campground. It is a Word that was at the beginning, is in our present, and a Word that will have the last word about us. We can put that in our oblate, gratifying eddy. It will create a lot of Schadenfreude under our chapeaus.

Most of you who know me well, are not aware I was once a Girl Scout. Yes, I am serious, a proud, card-carrying member of the Girl Scouts of America. This was long before any scouting organization even thought about integrating genders in their scouting organization.

I had been asked to serve on the Board of Directors for the Zia Council of Southern New Mexico of the Girl Scouts of America. They officially made me a member of GSA right down to cookie selling privileges. As a young pastor, my time on this board taught me a great deal.

Mostly what I learned was about sexism. The Boy Scouts in my town had a nice newish facility for meetings and events. They also did not have to sell cookies to pay for it. The Girl Scouts had what can kindly be described as a large shed with a few hanging light bulbs from the ceiling. I had never been to a Southern NM Boy Scout camp, but had heard many fine stories from those who had. As a Boy Scout alum, I do remember camping in winter at Camp Rotawanis in Pennsylvania…a wonderful, fully equipped, camp. The Southern NM Girl Scout camp was a bit more austere…..many of the “cabins” were actually lean-tos with an open “wall”.

It was easy to see who controlled a lot of purse strings to direct the way charitable donations would go. Why did girls not receive the same value as boys? Too many Dad’s had walked only in their son’s shoes. Really, there was nothing scary about trying on those of their daughter…even the high heels could be learned, just take careful steps. It is not as big a risk as we might think.

Had I not had this experience, I am not sure I would have the awareness I have concerning many of the observances I make now that are remaining vestiges of those days. I was glad to be able, if only very superficially, “one of them.” Certainly the experience made me one with them. Yet today while the gap between genders may be smaller it remains still a gap.

Imagine! At Christmas we receive a God who does more than walk in our shoes. This God walks in our very bodies. For those unable to walk, this God wheels, lays, or sits in our very bodies. The point is, not only does this God, come to us in the baby Jesus, know what it is like to be us; this God was us. God did not pretend to be us, but went the gamut of human life even to death. What a risk!

With God the lean-tos and buildings of hanging light bulbs and leaking roofs were kept for God’s self. I don’t know if God would sell cookies, but I do know God provides the ingredients and is with those who sell them.

Those of us who will worship this baby come to earth that first Christmas can take heart in the God who came to be among and to be one with and of us. We are understood! We are known! We are loved by this God birthed in a feed trough! We can take heart and we can use that heart to try on another’s shoes…to be one with and of them. We need not agree with or be like those whose stilettos or penny loafers we don. (After all, God who walked in ours continues to call us sinners) Understanding is what we may gain, and respect for another as a fellow human can result. Difficult, yes. What has not understanding cost us?

(As an aside: Just to be clear, I have great respect for the Boy Scouts, having been one. Also because of so many who have been or are students here, my respect has grown. On a recent Wednesday night during dinner I looked around and there were only 7 male students present: all 7 were Eagle Scouts. I mentioned this and almost in unison, they just shrugged.)