A traditional reading of today’s Scriptures usually emphasizes continuity between Isaiah 7:10-16 and Jesus’ fulfillment of Isaiah in Matthew 1:18-25.  A closer reading, however, points more to discontinuity than continuity.  In our conversation, we saw how exploring this discontinuity remains good news for those who seek Jesus, the liberator of the oppressed.  While at times shocking, we feel the possibilities for hope are increased by such readings.

	What has been your prayers during this season of Advent?  Do the prayers move beyond personal concerns to broader concerns for our world?

In this last Sunday of Advent we go to the main verse from the prophet Isaiah which the writer of Matthew 18:23 uses as a proof text for the Virgin Birth Narrative.  The text is found in Isaiah 7:14, which the New Revised Standard Version renders, “a young woman is with child”.  The writer of Matthew is using the Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14, which mentions, hē parthenos, the virgin, a mistranslation of the Hebrew betula, a woman of marriageable age.  Intriguingly, in Isaiah 7-- in 735 BCE-- the woman is already pregnant.  Immanuel, the child she is to bear, serves as a sign to the king of Judah that foreign invaders from the north will not defeat or colonize Jerusalem. 

This view is complicated by Psalm 80, which speaks to the people in exile. Having been fed with the “bread of tears” (verse 5), now they ironically turn to God, who put them into exile in the first place, to save them.  We wonder about the psychology – perhaps a sadomasochistic leaning – of one turning to the cause of anguish/bondage for relief.

In the New Testament, Emmanuel is not presented as a sign that the outside invaders, the Romans, will be driven out.  Rather, Jesus is to save his people from their sins (Matthew1:21b).  Sin in this passage is depicted as sex outside of marriage (verse 18), which in that society was punishable with public disgrace (verse 19).  For adultery, the punishment was stoning (Deuteronomy 22:24-26).  On the other hand, virtue is seen in abstaining from sex (Matthew 1:25) even between married people, Joseph and Mary.  The hope for liberation from outside invaders (Isaiah 7) is transformed into a story of non-engagement in sexual acts (Matthew 1).  The hope that outside invaders will not be successful in their attempts to subjugate people gets lost by the time the Isaiah 7 story makes its way into the book of Matthew.  In essence the emphasis has shifted from the sign of liberation to a paternity concern.

By the same token, Joseph’s actions of sexual abstinence, which first seems to be a good thing, must not have been so affirming to Mary.  This depiction of sexuality in the negative plagues all, whether same gender-loving or other.   Such readings tend to feed a sense of shame around issues of sexuality.

In Romans 1:1-7, we also recognize the distorted shift of emphasis from liberation to sexual sin. Paul claims to be a slave to Christ (verse 1) and equates holiness, not with fighting for liberation from Roman oppression, but in moving from flesh (verse 3) to the spirit (verse 4).  Perhaps today, such a belief contributes to thinking that it is legitimate to shift HIV funding away from the distribution of condoms to an abstinence only policy.

We see the impact of these narrative transformations in the actions of Anglican Bishops from Nigeria and Kenya.  These bishops are consecrating U.S. Episcopal priests to be bishops in African churches as a counterforce to the consecration of the gay priest, Bishop Gene Robinson.  These new bishops are then to return to the U.S. to recruit others into the Anglican Churches of Kenya and Nigeria.  Nurtured in a church culture that stresses sexuality as the key sign of “sin,” the actions of these Bishops runs counter to the vision  of Immanuel as a symbol of hope, a sign of national and group liberation.  We also see the switch from concern with rescuing the nation from forces of destruction to concentrating on issues of sexuality in ways which the Evangelical Right not only demonizes LGBT people involved in monogamous, committed relationships, but calls their hateful actions “Defense of Marriage.” 

	When have you seen instances when those who advocate justice have been silenced or diminished because of the way the public, media or the church has “sexualized” them?

In spite of the disturbing shifts away from liberation in these texts, we also discovered there is at least one liberating gift for LGBT people in Matthew 1:20b and its portrayal of Mary becoming pregnant by the Holy Spirit.  We hear the passage speak of a female same-gender loving partnership, since in Hebrew the word ruah, Spirit, is a feminine form.  The Greek version of Spirit, pneuma, is neuter in form, which furthers the claim of both Hebrew and Greek traditions that males were not involved at all in Jesus’ conception.  This radical reading shakes up any traditional take on love-making between God and Mary.  God is about something altogether new in creating Emmanuel, God with us.

The Virgin Birth Narrative might also be understood as obliterating the shame of those who have children and create families outside the traditional model.  In this story, God enters the world as the child Jesus, born of a woman who is not married to the father.  In this way God could be saying, “If you want to label such people negatively, you’ll have to use that label on Jesus.”  One problem with this rendering, however, is that readers often get stuck with the sexualized images and miss or avoid the transgressive good news of such a reading.

	What do you find comforting and challenging in reading the Virgin Birth story in a way that identifies the Spirit as feminine or lifts up an alternative to heterosexual marriage as the only moral context for bearing God’s children?

The Good News comes through our renaming and reclaiming Jesus’ birth as a sign of liberation.  In naming this transformation from liberation to negating sexuality, and then pointing out its hetero-patriarchal underpinnings, we resist this reframing and push for empowerment – which brings hope. 

During this Advent, let us reclaim the hope of God with us, Immanuel, who wants us to be free.  This hope compels us to rid ourselves of internalized oppression and advocate the God of liberation.