Gathered round the manger is not a traditional family of mother, father, and child related by blood, but a chosen family including kings and shepherds and animals, from across a spectrum of diversity, seeking to be together to serve a particular vision.  When we ask tonight in song, “Do You Want to Hold the Baby?” the question is, do you want to join this family?       

The Christmas story is a family story, isn’t it?

Mother.  Father.  Child.

The story of a family.  The Holy Family.

Joseph.  Mary.  Jesus.

            But the family in the Christmas story is both more than that and also less.

            For most of the story, the Christmas story is the story of just two people.

            The story begins as the story of a couple.  Just married.  Or perhaps not even married.  It’s difficult to say from the Gospel account exactly when Mary and Joseph get married, if they ever do.  Mary becomes pregnant.  But this is a family of just two adults.  A couple negotiating a difficult trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem.  A family of two who help each other.  Who care for each other.  The two of them figure out a place to stay in the crowded city.  Joseph helps Mary, great with child, get comfortable in the stable.  They support each other.  They do the best they can.

            And only then the baby arrives.  The family of two becomes a family of three.  And for just an hour or two perhaps, this family is a nuclear family of two parents and a child.  But then immediately following the birth, the family of three suddenly becomes an extended family.

            The manger scene soon fills with others called to be part of this family.  Luke tells us that shepherds arrive, having been told about the birth from a host of angels filling the sky.  And then a little later, three more men, whom Matthew calls Magi, but are also variously known as Wise Men or Kings arrive to join the community massed around this baby.

            And not just people and angels are here, because we’re told the birth takes place in a stable, and there are animals in the stable.  The donkey that Mary is said to have ridden down to Bethlehem from Nazareth.  And a cow.  And sheep.  And maybe a pair of doves up in the rafters.  And every other animal that your imagination can add to the scene.

            And all of these extended characters:  angels, shepherds, wise men, kings, Magi, donkey, cow, and sheep and doves, are not included merely to be background to the family scene of three, but they create a kind of family themselves, all together.  Like Mary and Joseph, they huddle around the baby in wonder and awe, and reverence, and contributing what they can.  

They have come to see.  They are there to pay honor and reverence.  They bring gifts, or provide comfort, or they go off again to spread the word of the birth and thus begin the mission of salvation which this child has been born to bring.

            This is a broad family not connected by biology, but brought together by something else.

            Remember, that according to the Gospel accounts, even Joseph isn’t actually related to Jesus.

            So the family gathered around the manger is a mother and a child, and a man who is not the child’s biological father (and may or may not be married to the mother) and a crowd of shepherds who aren’t related to the man or woman or child but choose to join this family and are welcomed into the scene.  And Magi, with no actual relationship to these people, but who show up anyway with gifts to support this new baby.  All packed into a stable full of animals, who seem perfectly content to share what is actually their home, and their manger and straw and so on.

            And then, to complete the scene, hovering above the stable are angels, representing the divine realm, and a star symbolizing that even the natural world has conspired to be present in this moment.

            I’ve seen pictures of homemade nativity scenes packed with every action figure from a child’s toy box.  There’s Star Trek figures, and Barbie, and Darth Vader, and a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  All crowded around a Jesus figure that may or may not actually be borrowed from a Lego playset.

            Why not?

            The Nativity is, in one manner of seeing, the smallest possible family:  just mother and child.  This nativity is, in another manner of seeing, the largest possible family:  the family of all creation.

            Some families are created by marriages and births.  The connections are clear, through biology, or through legal documents binding folks together.

            Other families are created by choice.  Strangers finding each other.  Drawn together by a need for belonging.  The connections are through friendship, mentorship, mutual support.  The members voluntarily assume responsibility for each other.  A family created by choosing to be together, and choosing to include each other.

            Some families can trace the genetics through their family tree:  children, parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts and cousins.

            Other families come together bound by common purpose.  They share a worldview.  They share a common understanding of themselves.  Perhaps they think of themselves as similar kinds of outsiders, tackling the world together.  Or perhaps they share a common hope for the world and come together to do the work.  They are a family of friends, comrades, fellow travelers, brothers and sisters of the spirit rather than blood.  Mothers and fathers who claim the role and embrace it, even for children who are not, in fact, their children.

            When the shepherds show up at the stable, they aren’t there because they know Joseph, or because Mary is a relative.  They are there because they choose to be.  The Magi choose to be there and they travel a long, deliberate journey to get there.  The Shepherds could have told the angels, “Eh.  What’s it to me?”  The Magi could have ignored the star.  The animals were going to be there anyway, it’s their stable, but they don’t seem put out or annoyed; they welcome the strangers, they step forward to see and to help.

            The open-ended invitation of the Nativity scene, extends then, also, to us.  You can be here if you want to be here. You can come if you want to.  If you show up, you’ll be welcome.  If you choose to step inside, you’ll find the door is open.

            Would you like to hold the baby?  You can.  Would you like to ally yourself to the divine values this child represents?   Would you like to join this family?  You’re welcome here.  Would you like to be part of this movement that seeks peace for the suffering, justice for the oppressed, and holds out a vision of a kingdom where love reigns supreme?

            The scene, from the Christian tradition, isn’t intended to be a closed set, only for the initiated, or only for those who believe that this is, literally, a virgin mother and the son of God.  You don’t have to pass a blood test to be part of this family.  You don’t have to be born into this family.

            You can choose to be part of the family, if you like.

The center of this family, like the core of the community in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, is a mutual and voluntary agreement of how we wish to be in the world.  A Covenant.  A set of values.  A few principles anyone can follow.

            The baby is love.  The mother is compassion.  The father is the spirit of generosity.  The cow is peace.  Both shepherds and kings are welcome here.  Angels and animals included.  The stable is small, but somehow, there is room for all.