Christmas 2016

About ten years ago, Bishop Steven Charleston reflected that Christmas is a time when we don't want anything to change. We've all heard the Christmas story over and over again. We know all about the shepherds and the angels and the babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger. We want to sing all our favorite carols. We don't care how Victorian or sentimental they are. We want there to be snow, and poor shepherds, and three wise men.

I've seen my children grow up, and now I share my home with my granddaughter. She has just reached the age where Christmas is fun. She loves all the decorations and the tree and the presents. She doesn't like cookies, but she loves to help bake them. She sings familiar holiday songs, sometimes with her own words. There was a time when our children were like that too. Then they grew up, and got jobs, and fell in love and created their own families. Now, the only thing they really want to do is get together and talk and catch up with each other. The rest of the holiday is a kind of chore to be gotten through.

So I wonder if we really want all the craziness of the holiday? I think we would give most of it a pass if we could. The people we love all have different expectations and we try to meet them. I think that our gathering this evening is a kind of antidote. We don't have to wrap anything, or make anything. We don't have to figure out how to get along with some distant relative. We can simply return to this house and hear again the good news - with no strings (or wrappings) attached. We might even be able to let some of our stress slip away as we hear again the true story about God's gift to us.

The only danger in our sentimental attachment to the familiar story is that we might only remember the truth we knew as a child. The simple message of God's miracle and God's love may seem naive to our adult perspective. We also come with our fears for the world. We hear of war and danger. We live in a divided world where people can't seem to hear each other, much less live with, or have respect for each other. Peace on earth seems like a quaint idea in a world of violence and disrespect.

In our sentimental memory of the birth of Jesus, we have forgotten the revolutionary message. The humble birth of Jesus challenges all the pride and folly that human beings have created. The birth of Jesus challenges all our notions of value and wealth power. His name means, "God saves," and his other name, Immanuel means, "God is with us." This is not merely a hope it is true. The gospel is written in such a way that the birth of Jesus is firmly fixed in a time and place with in a society that people have created for their own ends. The Emperor Augustus called for a worldwide census to exercise control over a world that did not recognize God.

Jesus was born into a place we would find very familiar. He was born at an inconvenient time for his parents. They found accommodations where they could. The barn they used suggests their poverty and powerlessness. The angels bring news to the shepherds because they were the only ones awake at the time. There is also something disruptive and subversive about this story. God does not call on the Emperor Augustus. He doesn't appear to King Herod. God doesn't call out the priests or the religious leaders. God uses Mary and Joseph, and announces good news to shepherds (not the most intelligent or highly respected people.)

This is a reminder that God doesn't participate in all our worries. God takes no sides in our endless wars. God desires no division between races or classes. God doesn't choose the rich over the poor or the powerful over the weak. Every intractable problem we have created is all our own. God chooses a different way. God meets the weak and the poor. God empowers those our society would reject. God chooses those that the world casts aside. God turns the world upside down. This is good news for the poor, and perhaps a problem for anyone invested in the status quo.

God does not meet us within the world we create. God isn't bound by our expectations. God dwells with the poor and the humble. God seeks those who are broken and grieving. This is a truth beyond our sentimentality. God does not meet us in our power and within our control. God meets us most closely when we have nothing to give and can only receive. God meets us most closely when our hand are empty. God meets us when we have run out of ideas and we are at the end of our line. God can begin to work in us when we get out of the way.

This is the place where God is. God is in a barn full of animals. God is on a hillside in the middle of the night with simple shepherds. God is with an unwed mother as she bears her first child. God is with her fiancé who has come along not knowing how things will work out. God is with a people who are oppressed by the pride and fear of a more powerful people. God is with those who maintain the oppression because they don't know what else is possible.

God is with anyone who feels alone and lost. God is with the widow and with the estranged family member. God is with those who are lost in addiction and shame. God is with the unemployed and the people living one paycheck away from eviction. God is with the stranger and the refugee. God is with anyone who practices another religion, or increasingly, no religion. The Spirit of God is always moving in all these dark places seeking to proclaim the good news of God's love. Where are we? Are we with God?

We gather in sentimental remembrance of Christmas's past all the way back to the first Christmas. I hope the truth is a great comfort and an inspiration for us to love. We will sing with joy all the old tunes we love. We will take heart that God does not forget us, even if we live in time where it seems to good to be true. The great truth is that God has already arrived in all those places that we find to dangerous to visit. All our shame and fear are nothing to God. God would have us discard these useless burdens and take on the good news.

The amazing truth is not the sentimental story of two millennia. The amazing thing is that it is still true. "I am bringing you good news of great joy to all the people. To you is born this day a savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord!" It is true right here. It is true right now.