Trading Places in Bethlehem
Monday Ministerial Musings
By Rev. Mark William Ennis
2025 Blog #46
December 1, 2025
Trading Places in Bethlehem
One of my customs during December is to watch Holiday movies from my DVD collection. One of the first ones that I watch is “Trading Places” with Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis. It is a story of two major stock traders who conduct a scientific experiment. They get a blue blood man who works in their company, fired. At the same time, they pick up a street hustler and put him into a house and a position in their company. Of course, the lives of each replicate the lives of the other before they were switched.
This was not the first time that such a story was told. A similar theme was told in the book “The Prince and the Pauper” by Mark Twain. This story has a British prince changing identities with a peasant boy who can pass as his twin. Of course, Twain gives us a great deal of social commentary in his book as these two boys get into many adventures as they each try to navigate worlds that they never learned to navigate.
These movies ask important questions about what causes success or failure in our lives and those of our families and neighbors. How much of our success or failure is contributed by our genetics? How much is set up by our environment? How much is circumstance? How much is plain luck? I guess that this debate could go on forever.
If you could trade places with someone, who would it be with? Would it be an historical figure, or someone you know. I bet it would be with someone in a comfortable setting. I doubt that many of us would trade places with someone of poorer circumstances. I really doubt that most of us would choose downward mobility. It is upward mobility that we seek.
God must think differently than we do. God did not seek upward mobility when God became a human. Jesus could have been born in a palace. He could have been born in any country in the world, but that would not have been in accord with the divine Christmas plan.
Mary was compliant with the plan that she was given by the angel Gabriel, although she was skeptical enough to go and speak to her older cousin for advice. Mary also was risking her reputation and her life when she showed a baby bump but had not been intimate with Joseph.
Joseph had to be anxious. I’m sure that many people told him not to trust Mary. By human wisdom she could not be trusted. I’m sure that the whole village was telling him not to trust Mary and to walk away from her.
These are the circumstances that God became human into. There was a parental scandal, trust issues, a village gossiping, rumors and gossip. If you could place yourself in someone else’s life, who that be a life that you would take on? Wouldn’t you rather take on the life of a person rich and powerful?
If we do things God’s way we would choose to take the life of someone less powerful, less secure, and with less privilege than we have. That would be the “Trading Places” that God participates in. As his disciples, should we not imitate him?
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