God Cries Out: Midwifing Justice in a Stable

In the dark and dirt of a stable, Mary gave birth. Nativity scenes don’t often reflect the grit of that scene—any woman who has given birth knows that birth is not a picture-perfect experience. Our writer today points out that the Bible says that God too is described with a very feminine metaphor in Isaiah: God gives birth. As we wait with Mary for the birth of the Christ child, Rebecca challenges us to wait actively, like a woman in labour, with God and with all those who are struggling against injustice.

I read a fantastic book last summer by Christiana Rice and Michael Frost called To Alter Your World. One of the primary metaphors they explore comes from Isaiah 42:14, where God says:

For a long time I have kept silent,

I have been quiet and held myself back.

But now, like a woman in childbirth,

I cry out, gasp, and pant.

The book spends a lot of time unpacking this image and I found it both deeply moving and helpful. If God is the one who gasps and pants for justice (Isaiah 42:6,7), we can trust that God is deeply engaged in this world—our efforts are limited, but the Creator of the universe has “skin in the game”.  

And it also might change the way we think about our own participation in the work of justice. The book’s authors wonder: what would it look like to come alongside that gasping and panting like a good midwife, and support what God is working to birth?

What would it look like to come alongside that gasping and panting like a good midwife, and support what God is working to birth?

I recognize that there are a whole range of birthing people and partners, and that it is possible for every one of us to participate in the work of presence no matter what our past experiences with birthing have been or whether we have physically birthed at all. The call of this image is to be present to support someone who is labouring to bring forth something new, and all of us can probably think of times that we have done that.

Midwifing something new means that we need to go to the places today where that labouring is happening—where people are gasping and panting for a new world as God gasps and pants along with them.

One way that people with privilege might learn how to be present in those places is to adopt the same strategies that a midwife uses to be present to a labouring woman. As Christiana Rice explains in the book, the midwife’s work is completely self-effacing in service of the woman before her; she becomes deeply attuned to the woman in labour: “moaning as she moans, swaying as she sways, offering her own body as a stabilizing presence to lean on, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold” (181).

The midwife’s work is completely self-effacing in service of the woman before her. 

What would it mean for us to attune ourselves to God that way? To attune ourselves that deeply to communities who cry out, gasp, and pant for justice? To be present with this deep form of listening and giving that does not prioritize our own voices or our own agendas, but simply joins hands around the back of the neck of the people who are labouring, swaying as they sway, moaning as they moan, and listening to the Spirit whispering what is needed to bring that new story into the world?

I wonder if one reason that many white, middle-class churches like mine are not very good at including justice in the story of our worship is we don’t really hear the voices of those who are crying out for it. We haven’t developed that deep attunement of the midwife to listen well, to understand at the deepest levels what is going on in places where people are gasping and panting for justice. Perhaps because we haven’t developed that habit of attunement, we don’t see the need to focus on justice. But I suppose that is one definition of privilege—the ability to ignore a problem simply because it does not directly affect you.

Maybe, as we labour together in the darkness of this stable, we will be witness to the birth of something, of Someone, new.

The work of justice is not work for a day or a special theme week; it is work for a lifetime. And we need to remember, as God is gasping and panting alongside us for that world made new, that above all, midwives must be patient. Nothing new or beautiful or holy is ever birthed quickly. So let us consider what it means to talk less, to listen more, to partner with God in the work of justice and be present to it like good midwives are. And maybe, as we labour together in the darkness of this stable, we will be witness to the birth of something, of Someone, new. 

[Image: Flickr user DeeAshley, under Creative Commons license]