| |||||||||||||||
 |
     | ||||||||||||||
At a church where I previously served, our house staff, what we here call sextons, included 3 or 4 Polish émigrés. The Polish church tradition has offered us some of the loveliest Christmas music there is, and all throughout the month of December, these rugged men would wander the halls and grounds of the church singing lovely carols in their native tongue as they shoveled more Chicago snow or dealt with a fussy boiler. “Infant holy, infant lowly, for his bed a cattle stall.” That simple phrase – holy and lowly – summarizes much of what is going on tonight. Call it tension, contradiction, paradox. Call it mystery – my favorite term. A divine king, before whom angels and archangels will worship, born to rule the world with truth and grace. A humble child humbly born, who will live a simple life and suffer an ignominious death. Theologians have debated it since the beginning, and churches have split apart over it. Frederick Buechner says that whatever else we may think of the notion of God, tonight we look at a child, a real, live human child, face to face, a reality that re-locates all of our thinking. Christ the babe, that lovely Polish carol affirms, is lord of all. What that means and how that unfolds in our lives and the life of the world is what this holy moment, and every holy moment to follow, is all about. “The snow lay on the ground” – so states a traditional English-Irish carol. Probably not. It is raining in Bethlehem today. I looked it up. Snow in the Middle East is rare, very rare, and it’s hard for us to imagine a group of carolers singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” strolling through the streets of Bethlehem. In Rochester – that’s another story, even though we have a wet Christmas this year. The image I have, though, from this past Sunday, is 60 or so cars leaving this church with boxes of food, taking them to families in need. One gets the notion that a car driving down a Rochester side-street after a foot of snowfall is kind of like a pinball in a pinball machine, bumping back and forth, hitting a Prius on one curb and then an F-110 on the other. Still, that food, and what it represents. It represents the fact that however we understand this infant holy and lowly, we carry his news beyond the walls of the church, beyond the walls of our own lives, to the places where he goes, to the places where need lives. We receive gifts at Christmas, that is true. But true Christmas is about giving – our stuff, our money, our commitment, our time, our visions for peace and justice, our visions for hospitality, our best, our heart. And true Christmas giving is a 365 day affair. “I’ll be home for Christmas.” On the 24 hour a day all Christmas all-the-time radio stations, this song has probably been played 4 million times in the last month. Bing Crosby recorded it in 1943, and singers from Sinatra to Elvis to the Beach Boys to Johnny Cash to Placido Domingo to Fats Domino to Jackie Gleason to Twisted Sister have recorded it. If you don’t know who Twisted Sister is, consider that my Christmas gift to you. The song itself does not do much for me, but the notion is worth considering. On Christmas Eve, our family would pile into a large station wagon and head to Akron, Ohio, where our grandparents awaited. We would attend the family church. On this particular Christmas Eve, things were different – my grandfather had died the spring before, and now it was just us going to the church, a place with such strong family connections, but now a huge piece of that connection absent. “This doesn't feel right," my sister and I commented to one another. And it didn’t. Until we sat down. Until we heard the words. Until we sang the songs. Everything was transformed. Our grief did not disappear. The troubles of the world marched on. But this story – the story that is our home – transformed us and transformed everything. This story is our home. It welcomes us in to provide shelter. It sends us out to make a difference in the world. The one who is born as a little baby, who will rule the world with truth and grace, who, as a man will welcome the outcast, heal the sick, take on the religious and political authorities – his story is our home. He is our home. It means that however we live, whatever our station in life, whether we are surrounded by many or all alone, whether we have hopes to meet this night or fears, – sick or well, rich or poor, follower or doubter, young or old – we have a home in this story, we have a home in this child, we have a home in this good news. And wherever we are, we are home for Christmas. For unto us a child is born – unto us a son is given. Christ, the savior, is born. O come let us adore him, and then let’s tell it on the mountain. Merry Christmas. Amen.
|
|
||||||||||||||
