Christmas: Go Home and Be Loved
Let us begin
by giving God thanks – the simplest prayer of all is “thank you” -- that we
have gathered again this year to celebrate the birth of Christ. In churches around the world this night – from
the smallest village in West Africa, to the ancient Christian communities in South
India, to our own companion parish in Cuba – we too gather to sing, to pray,
and to reclaim this feast day and remember its fuller meaning in our lives. The Christmas equation is clear and eternal: Jesus,
Emmanuel = God with us.
There is an
expression tossed around that goes like this: “Go big or go home.” Politicians are keen to use it after being
recently elected with a desire to do great things. Coaches have been known to
refer to when they make a gusty call: fourth down and two yards to go. It can encourage someone to be extravagant, to
do whatever you are doing to its fullest. (urbandictionary.com) How about for
preachers? On Christmas Eve? Go big or
go home? Those are my choices? I’m
not so sure the expression works.
First, it
would be fair to say that the staff here at Christ Church spend a good deal of
time trying to understand and respond to the changing world around us –
especially how it impacts how we do church.
Sunday mornings are no longer our exclusive domain, as any parent of
school age children in the Exeter area knows that far too well. We are using new technology and platforms to
communicate our programs and mission – sending out email blasts and posting
pictures and events on social media. Just
this past Fall we used an online survey to gather information about how we
might deepen our faith and grow spirituality – comparing our results with
churches around the country. Pretty
interesting stuff.
Yet, if our
impulse is to innovate to keep up with changing times lest we fall behind, much
of that comes to a hard stop when it comes to Christmas. For me, this night, this season, is not about
trying something new and different, better or faster -- it is less about
innovation and more about preservation. Tradition
looms large. We change very little in the
service each year. The carols and hymns
we sing are the ones we almost always sing.
It is not so much about “go big or go home,” but finding a way to allow
the story to be told and speak its own truth.
What I hope
we do tonight is to give ourselves a collective time out and pause to listen
again. In the words of the great
theologian Taylor Swift: “You need to calm down, you're being too loud, you
need to just stop.” We can, for a
moment, resist rushing into the future long enough to hear again this ancient
story about a holy family and their journey to Bethlehem. We can try to place ourselves in that story
and rediscover how a baby born in a simple stable shows us something about the
God in whom we believe or want to know more deeply.
We need to
calm down, get quiet and stop.
I treasure a
poem by John Shea entitled Sharon’s Christmas Prayer. There is a copy of the poem in the bulletin
should you want a copy.
She
was five,
Sure
of the facts,
And
recited them
With
slow solemnity
Convinced
ever word
was
revelation.
She
said
they were
so poor
they had
only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
to eat
and they
went a long way from home
without
getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey,
the man walked, and the baby
was inside
the lady.
They had
to stay in a stable
with an ox
and an ass (hee-hee)
but the
Three Rich Men found them
because a
star lited the roof
Shepherds
came and you could
Pet the
sheep but not feed them.
Then the
baby was borned.
And do you
know who he was?
Her
quarter eyes inflated
To
silver dollars.
The baby
was God.
And she
jumped in the air
whirled
round, dove into the sofa
and buried
her head under the cushion
which is
the only proper response
to the
Good News of the Incarnation.
(John Shea, fromThe Hour of the Unexpected)
Why I am
drawn to this poem so?
For one, who
does not love hearing stories of truth seen through the real and imagined lives
of children? Children can often see things, at times, more
clearly. They can speak with an
unguarded honesty – that yes sometimes it can get awkward.
What is the
truth that the child sees? She sees that
Joseph, Mary and the unborn Jesus were a long way from home but never lost.
We are used
to hearing and using the metaphor that “life is journey.” I say it often. “He’s on a journey, it’s OK. She will figure it out in time.” It would be little more than a tired cliché
if it were not so true. Yet there are moments, sometimes years, when
being on a journey can feel as if we are wandering around and not making the
progress we want. It can feel as if we have not yet arrived to wherever it is
we had wanted to go. It can feel that we have lost our way.
Remember that
the story of the faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims begins with another
holy family, Abraham and Sarah, who set out on a journey far away from their home
country and because God told them to go.
It continued with Moses, guiding his people 40 years through the
wilderness before they would reach the Promised Land. In the last days of his life on earth, Jesus
left his home in Galilee and set his face towards Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul walked and sailed far and
wide to tell everyone who would listen how God is a God of the living – how he
went from being a persecutor of Christians to the most tireless ambassador of
the new emerging faith. Each one of use
here tonight is on a journey. Sometimes
lonely, sometimes joyful, often ordinary and still remarkable.
With God’s
help, and some cooperation on our part, we can find a place in our lives where
even if we ever wander far away – like the prodigal son who squandered away all
he had been given by his father – that God allows us time and space we rediscover
who we are and whose we are. It is never
too soon or too late. We are given moments to see what is truly important in
our lives.
The child in
the poem said they – the lady, the man and the baby – were poor. Only PB&J sandwiches to eat on the
journey. They were poor, which probably
meant in her eyes they had very little.
It is risky
business to over-idealize those the Bible refers to as poor. What
we can learn is a different response from the “go big or go home” culture that
dominates. We can learn what is
enough—and what is simply too much, wasteful and excessive.
“Give us this
day our daily bread” we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. Give us what we need for today and an open
heart to share with others. May we desire and work for a most just world.
The baby Jesus
we see at Christmas grows up, and in the few brief years of his public ministry
spends much of his time teaching, healing and reaching out to those on the
margins and edges. What the Gospel
reveals is that the journey to know and experience the fullness of God is most
likely found working our way from the outside-in, from the last to the first,
and from the bottom up. A stable in Bethlehem, an animal feeding trough
for a bed, was good enough for God.
The Apostle
Paul wrote in Philippians: “Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is
honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever
is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of
praise, think about these things.” Philippians 4:8
If not “Go
big or go home”? I need something to offer, this is Christmas Eve after all!
I’ll keep the
“go” part. How about… “Go deeper.” Go
beyond scratching the surface of the mystery that we celebrate this night. Set aside more time for silence and simple
prayer.
“Go farther”
out to the edges of our inner circles and see who might need a helping hand,
some encouragement, or someone to listen.
“Go back” and
revisit those parts or moments of your lives that have never fully healed and see
how God plants seeds of forgiveness.
“Go to places
that might mean we will have to face our greatest fears – remembering what the
risen Christ promised those who would follow him: “I am with you always, to the
end of the age.”
“Go into the
darkness” of our world and bring the light of Christ.
As I close,
unlike the child in the poem I cited tonight, we may not jump up in the air,
whirl around, dive into the sofa and bury our heads under the cushion.
Our response
to the Good News of the Incarnation can be simply this: to go home tonight and fall asleep knowing and
remembering that God is love. And that
you are loved, held, forgiven, and watched over by the One who caused a baby to
born to show us the face of the God of hope.
And that is
enough.
Christmas Eve, 2019
The Rev. Mark Pendleton
Christ Church, Exeter
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