Sunday before last, Pastor Karen told a story and I repeat it here with permission. 

A young woman had seen a baptism at our church and asked if Pastor Karen would perform a baptism for her child despite not being a member. Pastor Karen said “Of course.”

The woman then asked if the baptism could happen off site at a private event because she had relatives who were afraid to come to our church for fear of being abducted by masked men working for our government.

That story has embedded itself in my mind like a fat tick burrowed in my ear. The contemporary parallels to the Christmas story are clear – the baby, the worried mother, her foreignness as a non-member of our church, the entire context of fear of arbitrary oppression. 

Mary’s role in the story is to provide the earthy mud-bound humanity. She is the amniotic fluid leaching into the earth, the smell of warm blood, the mucus and shit. We moderns recoil, but the grotesque beauty of our animal biology is essential grounding for the full humanity of the babe. 

But equally essential to the humanity of Mary is her fear and vulnerability. A young woman in a patriarchal culture in a homeland occupied by a hostile empire and its toadies. I can never know the vulnerability and anxiety a young pregnant woman feels or how that feeling intensifies other threats – in a culture where your agency and autonomy is taken from you.

Seems to me, we western Christians dismiss Mary shortly after the babe’s birth. Letting her essential humanity go soft-focus so we can quickly step away from the earthiness of the story and dwell in the ethereal – at least until we need earthiness again for the death and resurrection. 

The mom seeking a baptism where she and her family could feel safe in 2025 Dane county Wisconsin is a contemporary “Mary.” Her fears for her family are an indictment. 

And this is where I went to a very black place with my embedded tick. My social media and news sources are awash with dehumanizing abuse of immigrants and citizens who don’t fit the racist empire’s vision of what a citizen should look like – and I am searingly angry at the dehumanization, terrorism, and deliberate cruelty. 

This month, Mary in Minneapolis recoiled at being called “garbage” by the criminal king. 

In April, Mary went for a routine immigration check in but was detained anyway before being deported three months later and separated from her children.

By May, ‘Mary’ began experiencing severe abdominal pain, cramping, and bleeding. She reported her symptoms to facility staff, who transported her to an emergency room, where medical personnel performed an invasive uterine test without her consent, injected her with an unknown medication, and later informed her that she had miscarried.

In Chicago, Mary (American citizen) was on her way to work when her car was sideswiped by an unmarked SUV. Two men jumped from the SUV and kidnapped her to a detention facility where she was stripped of her dignity, kept overnight in filthy conditions, and suffered nerve damage from prolonged restraint from zip-tied wrists. She was never charged. 

She said, ‘I just had two kidney surgeries this summer, one being laparoscopic, which includes 5 deep incisions across my lower abdomen — I knew they were about to f**k me up and rip me out of the car, and my body is still recovering.’ The men never identified themselves, what agency they worked for, offered any explanation, or wore any visible badges. She said: ‘All I remember are the big guns and the sunglasses and hats they wore over their masks. I’m from Franklin Park, where someone had just been killed by ICE agents. All I could think was ‘they’re about to kill me.’

In Idaho, Mary (American citizen) was menaced and kidnapped by masked men who wore no badges and didn’t identify themselves. Fearing for the safety of herself and her children, she protested. One of the masked men pointed his gun at her and said. “I’m gonna f**king blow your head off.

While ‘Mary’ lay in the dirt, she thought of her children who were alone in her truck and told the agents, “I have to get to my kids.” One of the men laughed and responded, ‘[w]e’re taking better care of them than you are.’ Then, several agents hoisted her off the ground: she said, ‘I am five-foot-two and 120 pounds, so they easily carried me like a ragdoll.’ While she was being carried out of the stall, she pleaded with nearby agents: “[y]ou don’t understand,” she said. “My [six-year-old] son is high-functioning Autistic, and he will run.” The agents placed her in the center of the horse corral, where she sat amongst hundreds of people who had also been detained. ‘Mary’ recalled, ‘[t]hey had people kneeling on goat thorns that hurt when they stick you.’ She saw a man in zip-ties struggling to sit and called out to an agent, ‘[h]e’s elderly, and his knees are messed up,’ though the agent did not respond. she remembered, “[i]t felt like they were parading us like cattle. All the officials were laughing and standing there with their guns.

Also in Chicago, Mary’s car was sideswiped. Three agents got out, one agent fired five shots, striking her arm, leg, and torso. Her case was dismissed with prejudice.

Maybe this year, we take Christ out of Christmas and make do with the Coca Cola™, Santa, Rudolf, and the Grinch. Maybe we pack up the nativity figurines and stop the hollow sentimentality. Seems like much of American Christendom has sided with Herod, compartmentalizing the clear biblical mandates to welcoming others, regardless of their background or nationality opting instead for tortured abstractions that paper over the racism and cruelty — enabling them to look the other way, or worse, cheer the dehumanization of immigrants. Maybe this year, a little benign neglect, even if intentional, is a lesser sin than standing with the hypocrisy.

Thankfully, and with a cautious hope for Christianity, I learned on Monday of a group of Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastors and a group of US Catholic Bishops producing videos to protest the abuse and lament the cruelty. (videos: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1364429268698880, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsMQ8V4pNCI). A baby step. Hopeful nonetheless.

Contemporary Marys’ stories are legion but I am over my word count. We honor her humanity by listening, so I will end this with a testimony she gave recently.

This can’t go on. It needs to change. As much as it hurts to have flashbacks all day, my story needs to be said because I refuse to let ICE rewrite my story. I refuse to let fear silence me and I refuse to let my son grow up in a country where masked federal agents can assault women in broad daylight without oversight or consequence. I survived this because I was meant to fight it—not only for myself, but for every immigrant family, every woman, and every mother who has been targeted, silenced, or dismissed.” She told the Subcommittee that this was not just an “incident.” “It was a violation of my rights, my dignity, and my humanity. And I will not rest until there is accountability, transparency, and change — values that Americans across the political spectrum share.