An Ordinary Baby

Preached at Prescott Memorial Baptist Church
Christmas Day/ 2011
Psalm 98
John 1: 1-14


It was 1992. And I was a seminary student at Memphis Theological Seminary. I was spending my time studying, reading, writing papers while I served as pastor at a rural United Methodist Church. I remember it was a Tuesday night and I was at the church after a full day of classes. I was getting ready for final exams. A group of us were in the church where the mothers and children were rehearsing the Christmas pageant. There were sheep, cows, goats, angels, shepherds, wise men on the platform. Grandmothers were huddled, talking about costumes and how best to make a child look like a sheep and not like a squirrel. The pianist was trying to get everyone’s attention so we could start practicing our songs. That’s when I noticed that Karen was crying.

The mother of four children: three rowdy boys (ages 15, 14 and 9) and a dainty and darling 4 year old girl. Karen had her hands full. She was new to the church. Karen had only recently moved into the small town. She and her husband, Rick, wanted to live in the country where the boys had room to run and play. And they had found a house, a great deal, that met their needs. Karen worked part-time as a teacher’s assistant. Rick worked for the Tupperware Plant.

Karen was crying. So after the rehearsal I stopped her by the front doors to the church and asked about that. She told me that she had heard from her sister earlier that day. Her sister was running from the law and she was living in an old beat up car. There was a three month old baby girl in that beat up car with Karen’s sister. Karen’s niece. Her sister was apparently in and out of trouble with drug addition, drug sales and theft. Karen said her sister wanted to stop running. She was ready to turn herself in. But she didn’t want the state to take her baby girl. She was in touch with Karen asking her to agree to take the baby. This was terribly frustrating to Karen. She pointed at her four year old daughter and told me, “That’s my daughter now because I adopted her from my sister. But I can’t keep raising and paying for the babies my sister has.” Karen was the first one to tell me about the closing of the Tupperware plant. Rick would be losing his job in a matter of weeks. Many people in our church would soon be looking for new jobs when the plant moved to India.

I put my arm around Karen’s shoulder and said a brief prayer with her before she got in the van and drove home. I could feel Karen’s despair and her anger at her sister. I could also feel her love for a sister who just had not been able to get her life in order. Being a pastor presents so many opportunities to feel helpless. And this was one of those situations. I wondered what I could do, what the church could do beyond loving Karen and her family, beyond praying for them. I wondered what it was like to be three months old and living in a car. Karen said her sister’s car had no back window but was wide open to the wind and rain. I couldn’t imagine it; it was too awful.

On Friday morning I had no classes at the seminary so I was not rushing to get in my car and drive to Memphis. I drank my coffee and stared out the front window of the parsonage. I cleared my mind and listened for a while. I was shocked and a little afraid of what I heard in the silence. God seemed to be suggesting that I could open my heart and home to provide a safe place for that baby. Why not? The more I thought about it the more I realized I had to make the suggestion. After that I would leave the response up to Karen and her sister. I called Karen. “Is your sister still looking for a place to leave her baby?”

It was December 9th. And at 9:00 that night there was a knock on the kitchen door. My daughter, Jennifer, and I went to open it and we received into our arms a little baby girl. “What’s her name?” I asked Karen who was getting a cardboard box of the baby’s things out of her van.

“Her name is Katie Grace and if she could talk she would tell you how thankful she is to be with you guys right now.”

Karen left and Jennifer and I looked in the box. There were plastic bottles and a can of Similac. One diaper. No change of clothes. A dirty blanket. And a plastic butterfly. Tobacco from broken cigarettes clung to everything. I put the bottles and some nipples in a pot of hot water and began to boil them. Jennifer held the baby at the table and sang to her. After we fed Katie Grace all of us went to WalMart on the highway and bought diapers. So many styles and brands!! I had not had a baby around for nearly seventeen years. Back when Jennifer was in diapers the choices were not overwhelming. We chose a box of diapers and we got more Similac. And we bought an outfit that looked like it might fit her. The outfit she had on was too small and the snaps were torn.

I had a huge wicker basket that I had used to hold toys for children at the local shelter. It seemed the right size for Katie Grace. I put two pillows in the basket and put a sheet over them. Then I laid her down to sleep. She slept from eleven o’clock until five. I got up and fed her again. Jennifer came into the living room and we turned the light on. That baby, Katie Grace, looked like an entirely different baby than the one we had met at 9:00 the night before. That baby had looked pinched and drawn, fearful. One night’s rest had made this baby look alert, curious, her face full and soft. “Wow Mom! Look how different she is.” It was amazing.

That day, a Saturday, we had a house filled with adoring visitors. Church families came to see the parsonage baby. By noon we had two car seats, a crib, a play pen, and beautiful booties of many colors, frilly dresses from a swanky shop in town, night gowns, bibs, boxes and boxes of diapers. Somebody even brought a picture of two angels praying and we hung that on the wall over Katie Grace’s crib. People brought food and fed all of us just so they could be with us and admire the baby for a while. It was an all day party.

That evening Jennifer and I started decorating the house for Christmas. Curtis Vaughn had brought our tree and stood it up in the front window. We put the lights on it and hung ornaments. We put a wreath on the front door. Katie Grace watched it all while we sang Christmas carols to her.

She wore a red velvet dress to church on Sunday. She was the church’s baby. When I went to the seminary for class Katie Grace stayed with church ladies who stared at her and made a fuss over her all day long. She went to the Tuesday night rehearsals for the Christmas pageant and Vivian Long made a special costume for Katie Grace. Karen thanked us all over and over again.

The Tupperware plant closed on Christmas Eve. Six church families were affected by it. There wasn’t another plant of that size anywhere near so people would soon be considering relocation or job training for new careers. It was a stressful time and might have been a sad time. But we had a Christmas pageant to attend, cakes to eat and gifts to share.

The cows came in from the sides of the sanctuary and the sheep followed. They stood in the bundles of hay by the manger. They sang while the holy family slowly took their places. Justine, a twelve year old girl with bright eyes and a blue shawl over her head, put her child down in the manger. Katie Grace kicked and reached for the air above her head while the children sang. Her pink booties were visible above the edge of the wooden manger. It couldn’t have been any better. This ordinary baby who had been living in a beat up car was now resting in the manger while the shepherds and the wise men gathered around her.

The Word was made flesh and came to live among us—full of grace and glory. Bringing us together. Bringing out the best in all of us. Reminding us, even in the toughest times, that we are not alone or forgotten. The Word was made flesh and came to live among us bringing hope and joy. An ordinary baby created the extraordinary. By the presence of love among us our eyes have been opened to see the holiness of our ordinary lives.