In Vermont, it is fairly common to travel the state and never see a billboard.   Other parts of the country, however, are not so enlightened.  As I have traveled around parts of the United States, I can recollect scads of signs decorating (or better said, obscuring) the countryside and cityscape alike.  I remember traveling to South Dakota, and even in this remote part of the country, signs proliferated, including a running series of advertisements for the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.  (What is the “Corn Palace”, you might ask.  Well named, for starters, as the local farmers donate around 275,000 ears of varying types of corn to create mosaic designs on the side of the downtown civic center.  They have been doing this every year with a new “look” each year.) 

     The Corn Palace advertises every few miles with these whimsical signs, declaring inviting you to be a-maize-d at the sight.  It is a grand sight, all that corn adorning the side of the building.  The Corn Palace attracts tourists (and birds!) year round.  Nonetheless, you wonder why you’re out here in the middle of nowhere.  The Corn Palace is an amusing oddity, sort of like back home in Kansas where they claim Cawker City possesses the world’s largest ball of twine.  It smells of rot and mildew, but it is the tourist attraction that some people plan their vacations around. 

     If you believe that’s just the Midwest (and surely odd things and people come only from the Midwest), travel down to Cheshire, Massachusetts, as I plan to do sometime this spring or summer. I recently learned of a memorial to a noteworthy Baptist.  In the midst of town, you will find a monument dedicated to the early Baptist John Leland.  The monument’s plaque hails Leland as “[an] eloquent preacher, beloved pastor, [and] influential patriot”.  The monument recalls Leland’s strong support of Thomas Jefferson’s presidential campaign, and Leland’s subsequent travels to present Jefferson a gift from the local community.  

    The monument records Leland traveled to Washington, DC, and “presented to [President Jefferson] on January 1, 1802, in the presence of foreign diplomats, Supreme Court judges, and the Congress” a 1200 pound block of cheese.  The monument remembers Leland’s legacy by placing his image on the front of a monument shaped like the large cheese press used to make “the Big Cheshire Cheese”.  In true Baptist fashion, leave it to a Baptist to turn anything into an excuse for a potluck!

     In these little out of the way places, you find the most remarkable oddities and revelations.  People pass through, snap a few photos with the big ball of twine, or perhaps feel strangely hungry after reading of an now obscure Baptist’s adventures with cheese, but then they get back in the car and off they go, in search of the next leg of the journey.  Small towns like Cawker City grow quiet again as the tourists leave, settling back into the sleepy way of life.

      The same could be said of Bethlehem.  As Christian readers of this text, we often approach Micah’s prophecies around Bethlehem, hearing the familiar strains of “O Little Town of Bethlehem” faintly in the background.  In Micah’s day, and even in the day of the New Testament, persons would have been quite perplexed.  What’s the big deal about Bethlehem?  It doesn’t look like much, just sort of there on the map, even today not necessarily a place of great importance, outside of the tourist trade.

      Bethlehem was of little strategic or political importance, just a humble village off the beaten path.  Of little consequence, this little town will bring about one who shall be known as “great to the ends of the earth”.  Christian readers hear the gospel nativity story coming alive in this text.  For the people of Micah’s day, they heard a strong word of hope, placing God’s favor on the lowly and vulnerable. 

      Micah’s prophecy weaves through parts of the Hebrew Scriptures’ narratives of David’s family tree.  Bethlehem was a place where David’s forebears lived, persons seemingly insignificant as David himself would have appeared when he was first brought before the prophet Samuel.  Jesus’ detractors were known to ask what good could come out of Nazareth?  The same could be said for David, the little shepherd boy, thought to be the least likely candidate when Jesse was told to bring his sons before the prophet.  The pipsqueak kid would become the symbol for Israel’s monarchy and his name synonymous with Israel’s good fortune.

     Bethlehem becomes in-speak for Israel’s hope.  When Micah served as a prophet, Jerusalem was under constant threat.  Few persons believed any good could be left for the Israelite people. The neo-Assyrian empire had taken most of the northern kingdom lands, and of late has turned its attention to the remaining southern kingdom.  In Bethlehem, one shall come forth as one as if the David of old and be even more powerful.  Out of the lesser of kinship clans, out of the least likely place of influence shall rise up the true strength of God made known.

     Also in more signage inclined states, you will find small towns in the Midwest put up signs willy-nilly to honor locals, celebrating the proverbial “local boy/girl made good” types.  For example, back home in Kansas, you will spot a guitar-shaped sign noting Leavenworth, Kansas as the birthplace of rocker Melissa Etheridge or on a town’s outskirts a sign decorated with an airplane notes aviator Amelia Earhart was born right here in Atchison, KS.  In my hometown of Sedan, a sign and even a small museum hail the town as the birthplace of circus clown Emmett Kelly.  Indeed, each year, we gather along Main Street and sing, “For unto us, a clown is born.”

    Favored sons and daughters become part of the lore of a community.  They provide a witness to a community of how people you used to know when they were “this tall” or remember when they served as a waitress at the local diner can go on to be the next Nobel Prize winning physicist, next year’s Oscar winner, and tomorrow’s generation of leadership.  Little towns can be the birthplace of many good folks who heal the world. 

    Bethlehem reminds us that Jesus grew up in the midst of humanity.  He entered into this world as we did, though he was born in lowly circumstance and part of the world in its delights and difficulties. In his humble birth, Jesus knows what it means to be human.  He did not exempt himself from this life, and in his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus offers a different sort of powerful hope for the world.  As Micah railed against power’s temptations, so did the one born in Bethlehem.  As Micah hailed the peaceable world he believed God intended, Jesus likewise taught an ethic embracing enemies as friends, modeling forgiveness of one another, and an inclusive vision of marginalized and mighty being equal in the Reign he preached.

      Bethlehem becomes the Christian response to the world’s woes.  Out of an obscure place, Jesus beckons his followers to go to the forgotten places, the places where persons are considered of little consequence.  Bethlehem becomes a sign and symbol of a beloved ruler like the positive element to the Davidic story.  Jesus is the one who rules with “truth and grace” as the old carol extols.  Jesus is the good shepherd, tending the many, never leaving even the most wayward sheep behind.  Out of Bethlehem would indeed come one who brought hope to a broken world.

     As I noted earlier, the Micah reading inescapably has a soundtrack.  We cannot read this passage without humming a certain tune.  The hymn “O Little Town of Bethlehem” recalls this text and the Christian interpretation of the passage.  The hymn comes to us thanks to a 19^th century leading Episcopal priest of his day, the Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks. 

      Brooks wrote this hymn for a children’s choir, thanks to a pilgrimage experience he had earlier in life visiting Bethlehem on Christmas Eve.  When you read the carol’s words, Brooks’ reverence for this memory shines through his poetry.  Brooks captured a certain tenderness of a small town, out away from the more urbanized areas of Jerusalem, made more notable due to a favored Son whose life reshaped the world. 

      I recalled another memory of Phillips Brooks.  Years after he wrote the carol, Brooks became the rector of Trinity Church in downtown Boston.   Outside the church today stands a statue of Brooks, commemorating his ministry and career.  Brooks’ statue might not catch the eye of the modern day Bostonian, passing by the church on the way to work or at play on the green space around the church.  In fact, the day we visited Trinity Church, Brooks was covered with pigeons. 

      As we looked around Trinity Church’s green space, many people were out enjoying the summer day.  (Only a minister would go inside and look at a church on a nice summer day.)  People were out sunning themselves on blankets. Office workers enjoyed eating their lunches on park benches. Children gleefully ignored the prim “no swimming” sign over the public fountain and waded in.  The Rev. Dr. Brooks surveyed the scene from his pedestal over by the church.

      We were in search primarily for the Boston Public Library.  (Only a librarian like Kerry would go inside and look at a library on a nice summer day.)  We spotted the library across the green space.  As we made our way there, I noticed the further we walked along the path away from the street, the more the crowd became primarily the homeless.  They were hunkered down on park benches, leaning on trees and making small talk, and some sleeping the daytime away, perhaps enjoying the relative safety of a very public area.  As we walked past one person sleeping on the ground, I did a double take.  The blanket he slept on had a familiar, though well faded image of Church World Service.

      A few weeks before, First Baptist completed its annual donation to Church World Service’s blanket fund, providing money for these durable blankets to be sent around the world.  And here, rather close to home than the “far off mission field” we often associate with CWS projects, was evidence of the support of First Baptist and other Christians providing help to a person in need.

      Thinking back, I wonder what Brooks would have made of this scene unfolding outside his old parish church.  I imagine he would have been delighted to see this quiet witness to the faith of Jesus, the one born in Bethlehem. 

O Holy Child of Bethlehem/

Descend on us, we pray/

Cast out our sin and enter in/

Be born in us today.