I used this same Grimm Brothers story in an entry on my Substack, and as I was writing that entry...and as I discussed the story with my spiritual director, I realized that this anti-fairy tale had a theological as well as a moral message for us.
See what you think. And Merry Christmas!
Text: Luke 2:1-20
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As a child…I enjoyed being read to at
bedtime.
And it was often my dad who would read me to sleep.
One of my favorite stories was by the
Grimm Brothers.
It was called The Fisherman and His
Wife.
It’s an anti-fairy tale… the story of two
people living in abject poverty by the sea.
One day…the fisherman goes out to the water…and
he catches this tremendous flounder.
The fish pleads with the fisherman to
please let him go…he’s not just a fish but a prince.
The fisherman was pretty amazed to have
found a talking fish…so of course he releases him…and the fish dives deep into
the sea.
The fisherman goes back to his wife and
tells her all about this amazing talking fish.
But his wife was wondering why her
husband hadn’t thought to ask for something from this fish.
The fisherman shrugs and says he
wouldn’t know what to ask for.
The wife looks around.
“We’re living in a pig sty. You could
have asked for a nice cottage. Go back to the sea and ask for a cottage.”
The fisherman reluctantly goes back and
he notices that the sea has become a strange murky green color.
He calls out to the fish:
“O man of the sea! Hearken to me! My
wife Ilsabill will have her own will and hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!”
The fish comes swimming to the surface,
“What does she want?”
The fisherman tells him she wants a nice
cottage.
The fish tells him this request has been
granted and to go home.
The fisherman goes home and finds his
wife in a beautiful cottage with a couple of rooms…a nice kitchen…a garden with
chickens and other animals.
This is a big step up from the pig sty.
His wife is delighted…..for a week.
But then she wants more.
She wants a stone castle.
She tells her husband to go back to the
sea and ask the fish for a castle.
Again…he goes…even though he’s not
really feeling great about all of this.
The sea is looking darker…and choppier.
He gives the same bidding for the fish to hear his wife’s plea for a castle.
The fish again tells him to go home and
he’ll find his wife waiting for him.
And sure enough…there’s now a stone
castle and she has a throne with diamonds and gold.
But she’s still not satisfied.
Next she wants to be the Empress.
The fisherman is sent back to the angry
sea…and the fish grants her the wish of being the Empress.
Certainly…that should satisfy her needs.
But no.
She wants to be the Pope.
The fisherman protests that she can’t
possibly be made Pope…but she demands that he go to fish and tells him she
wants to be made Pope.
The fisherman drudges back to the now
very stormy sea…makes the request… and the fish makes her the first female pope
in the history of Roman Catholicism.
She’s still not satisfied.
It only takes her a few hours to be
bored with being Pope. It’s not grand enough.
She wants to be God….to rule over the
Sun and the Moon.
The fisherman is really not wanting to
go back and ask for this…but his wife thunders that he must go ask the fish to
make her God.
So he goes back…to a sea with dark
waters and lightening flashing everywhere as the waves are crashing onto the
shore.
The fisherman makes his standard plea
for the fish to come to the surface and hear his wife’s latest request.
“What does she want,” asks the fish.
The fisherman trembling tells the fish
that she wants to be God.
So the fish grants this wish too.
And when the fisherman goes home…he
finds that the couple has been returned to their lowly estate of living in a
pig sty.
The Grimm Brothers story is one about
the dangers of greed…and how it can consume and warp a person.
But I think if we consider the ending…it
also makes an interesting point about God.
When the wife wants to be God…she
assumes this is going to grant her powers beyond all powers…to give her more
wealth and prestige than even stature of royalty and the papacy.
But to be like God in this story is to
be poor.
Seems the Grimm Brothers not only
understood the way greed distorts the human soul…they also knew something about
the nature of God.
Because we know from our stories in the
Gospels…when God enters the world through the birth of Jesus…it happens not in
a grand palace to the super rich and famous.
God arrives in the form of a baby…a
vulnerable child born to a carpenter and his very young fiancé.
And when the angels come to sing and
trumpet the good news of Glory to God and Peace on Earth… they didn’t bring
these glad tidings to the Herods of the region…or any of the other tetrarchs or
even to the Roman Emperor…Caesar Augustus.
They found the shepherds…those who were among
the lower working class…tasked with spending their nights watching over the sacrificial
sheep belonging to the Temple…to hear this incredible news.
I think this is one of the important
messages to us here in the 21st century as we revisit this story and
welcome this season of Christmas.
God loves and seeks out those who are on
the margins of society…and God takes those who the rest of the world ignores
and puts them into the center.
Because for God…borders are meaningless
and people are not to be put into figurative boxes.
Each of us has a life that is important
and meaningful to God…no matter who we are…or what labels we own.
And let’s face it: God isn’t about being
tidy either.
Think about it.
Childbirth is risky and bloody…even in
our modern world with sterilized equipment and trained medical staff.
And what we’re told is that Jesus was
born amidst the hay and the animals because there wasn’t enough room for this
poor couple to be lodged with other humans.
I read an article recently that
described the terrain of Bethlehem.
That unlike our nativity scenes that
make it look as if the Holy Family was in a farmhouse barn… Bethlehem is a lot
of very rocky terrain and mountains and caves.
The “inn” would have been in the front
opening of the cave…while the animals were kept in the back at night.
So in these cramped stony quarters…with
the stench of animals in the air… and hay bales for a birthing bed…this is how
Jesus…the God with Us…came into the world.
It is into a messy…dangerous…noisy and
chaotic world that God meets humanity on our level.
And the ask is simply that we receive
and allow God into the fray with us.
Allow God to meet us in whatever
circumstances we’re in…whatever joys or sorrows we’re holding…whatever fears hang
over our heads…and whatever hopes we have in our hearts…on this night we’re
asked to take a pause to realize that God cares enough about all of it…that God
trusted a vulnerable couple…and a ragtag bunch of shepherds to be the ones to
tell the story.
God is still counting on us today to be
the ones who are willing to share this wonder…to see that the true power to transform
this world is not given to the the well-heeled and famous.
And true power isn’t about domination
and diminishing others.
God gives agency and power to the
average person…to you and me…to be the
ones who can meet the needs of this world…because God has met us and loved us
on our level through the life and ministry of Jesus.
On this Holy Night….we look to this new
life that we celebrate each Christmas…as the one who came to show us that Love…Mercy…and
Compassion is the way to live our lives.
To follow that path is the way to
peace…and joy…which we can share with others as our gift to the world.
In the name of our One Holy and
Undivided Trinity.
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