"Christmas is a child of Palestinian Jewish parents desperately fleeing politically ordered genocide.
Christmas is a dark-skinned refugee, born amid the smell of damp straw and animal dung, because no human-worthy welcome could be found.
Christmas is a poor, itinerant, street preaching rabbi, living off the generosity of those around him.
Christmas is a compassionate caregiver, feeding and clothing and healing whoever crossed his path.
Christmas is a liberal activist fighting for the poor, condemning violence, shunning material wealth, and calling the world to live sacrificially for the common good.
It is the weary father of four taking refuge from ICE in a suburban church building.
It is the exhausted family sprinting through barren borderlands under the cover of darkness.
It is the transgender teenager trying to feel at home within their own body, while being terrorized by lawmakers and preachers from without.
It is the homeless veteran starving to death on the corners of its opulent megachurches.
It is the grievously ill toddler whose parents have exhausted their resources trying to keep him breathing.
It is the young black man terrified during a traffic stop, because he has seen this viral body cam video a hundred times before.
We who seek to emulate Jesus and guard humanity need to speak this truth...
We need to fight for the sick child, the migrant family, the transgender teenager, the homeless veteran, the young black man; because when we do, we are perpetuating the heart of the Middle Eastern child, born under duress in the place where livestock dined — the one who turned the world upside down in the name of a compassion that knew no borders and a love that had no walls."