Preacher: Rev. Anne Jensen
We have finally arrived at the loveliest night of the year. We all love stories, and there has never been a more beautiful nor a more hopeful story than the one told by St. Luke in the passage we have just heard. How many times have you heard this story? I find myself anticipating the words, just as I anticipate a favorite piece of music. And when I hear it I am thrilled to the center of my being. Does it work this way for you?
This year perhaps more than any other time, we long to put our trust in God whose titles include “wonderful counselor, mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace.” The invitation for this night is simple: come and worship.
This has been a difficult year for many. Anxiety pervades our society, our whole world. Yet God knows our hearts, our desires and our fears. This night, above all others God, shows us how much of God’s heart we take up. God deigns to become human and dwell among us. Emmanuel, God with us.
LEAVE WORRY AND ANXIETY AT THE DOOR….(repeat) It’s time to change gears. It’s time to stop engineering the best Christmas we can muster. Instead, gather around with those you love and cherish; welcome the stranger and praise God whose glory is beyond comprehension. This is a night of hope, a new beginning. God is doing a new thing, and we will sing a new song.
There’s no way around it: things are not the same as they were a couple of years ago or even last year; we are in a time of change, the landscape is shifting, and things will never be quite the same again. But that’s not all bad; life in our culture has been out of whack for a while. Several years ago a poll showed that 33 per cent of the population felt that greed and avarice were the main moral problem in our country, followed by 31 per cent who said poverty was the main moral issue of the day. I think it’s safe to say both those issues are bigger today than they were four years ago. What if on this night we take to heart the message of Jesus: love God and love your neighbor?
We are part of the larger culture, and that culture includes elements of altruism and generosity. I think hard times will call us back to our roots when we needed each other just to survive.
Just this last week a friend was telling me about a family who lives up in the woods behind Big Sur. The dad lost his job and they have nothing. People in the village were doing a toy run for the two little girls in the family. The mom called the woman who was organizing the drive and put the older daughter on the phone. The girl said, “my little sister would like this….and I would like that.” They ended the conversation and then,… a few minutes later after the mom was out of the room, the older daughter called back and said, “This is what we really need. My dad needs a blue tooth so he can answer the phone call if someone calls him about a job while he’s driving in his pickup truck, …and my mom needs some new clothes. My sister and I don’t really need anything.”
Love is at work.
This past month people in our community have recognized the needs of families by providing Thanksgiving dinner for the community, giving toys and food to families, and donating hours and hours of time to make it all work. We have been collecting scarves, hats, mittens and socks for the shelters. We have donated desks for a school in El Salvador that we have been helping. Now that their school is built, they need desks!
We, in the church, are telling a different story from those that hit the headlines: which speak of greed, war and terror. We are telling a story about a God who loves us all into being.
Jesus was born a poor child in a stable, in an occupied country where there were great divides between the powerful and the powerless. Today we celebrate his birth as a vulnerable infant, but we worship him because he let go of his power to become one of us so that we would know God’s love. He healed the sick and the blind. He called the officials to accountability. He offered hope. There will come a time when there is justice, when the poor shall be lifted up and the haughty are brought low.
Where do we find hope? Jesus came for all people, even our enemies. I have hope that we will find common ground with people we have disagreed with because we will have honest dialog.
I have hope that researchers will find cures and treatments for illnesses that incapacitate and kill.
I have hope for building a society that will help the weakest grow stronger and for a society where the strong will use their strength for the good of others.
I carry these hopes because through Jesus God has come into the world and shaped hearts and minds. I am hopeful because I hear Christians say because of my faith, “I want to make lives for immigrant and poor American families better.” Or “I want to restore our environments so that life can flourish.”
Yet, our Christian story is not about gifts – although it may well include gifts, as tokens of our love.
Our story is about the redemption of the world.
Our story is about singing praises to our heavenly God, who created us out of dust.
Our story is about this God who became human, one of us.
Our story is about a God who frees all those who trust from Satan’s power and might.
And our story is not over, not complete, not fulfilled. Our Christmas story began with the Annunciation.
Then, one day, the story bursts forth into joy. That’s Christmas: out of quiet, humble, simple beginnings comes an event that will rock the world.
Like so many stories, we really will not grasp the meaning of it until it is completely over. We focus on the beautiful image of a tiny babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. We revel in that evocative image so much that we miss the point: “born on earth to save us, him the father gave us.”
And so the Church gives us a community in which to reflect on what this day means:
- to see the underlying love that each gift given represents.
- to realize how much we are loved by God.
- to comprehend that we have done nothing to earn that love.
- to believe that God loves us unconditionally.
- to revel in this good news of great joy.
- to feast on the joy of our redemption.
- to spread the word, as tidings of comfort and joy.
- to sing, with one accord, our praises to our heavenly Lord.
- to let the flames of love lead us to the joys of heaven.
- to comprehend how much we, individually and collectively, are capable of giving and receiving the one gift that endures: love.
I close with a quotation from the great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart:
Meister Eckhart on Christmas
What good is it to me
if this eternal birth of the divine Son
takes place unceasingly
but does not take place within myself?
And,
what good is it to me
if Mary is full of grace
but if I am not also full of grace?
What good is it to me
for the Creator to give birth to his/her Son
if I do not also give birth to him
in my time
and my culture?
This then
is the fullness of time:
When the Son of God
is begotten in us.*
What is the test that you have indeed undergone this holy birth?
Listen carefully.
If this birth has truly taken place within you,
then no creature can any longer hinder you.
Rather, every single creature points you toward God
and toward this birth.
You receive a rich potential for sensitivity,
a magnificent vulnerability.
In whatever you see or hear, no matter what it is,
you can absorb therein nothing but this birth.
In fact,
everything becomes for you
nothing but God.
For in the midst of all things,
you keep your eye only on God.
To grasp God in all things,
that is the sign
of your new birth.**
From: Meditations with Meister Eckhart
by Matthew Fox, *p. 81, **p. 83.
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