A Christmas Sermon

Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. It is extraordinary, when you think of it, to come out in the middle of the night to remember, celebrate this event and to dedicate ourselves to the religious ideal it proclaims: God is with us, particularly the 99% as we say today. “God is on the side of the poor,” the theologians point out with this Christmas Gospel. The loneliness, the sense of dispossession, of being caught in a way of life that deep down we feel is not sustainable: these are all contributory themes in the Gospel story we’ve just heard.

Perhaps the Gospel story is familiar to you; I am surprised when I meet people for whom it isn’t familiar—but there are more and more of them. I think that that is a precious opportunity. The challenge isn’t overcoming the overly familiar, but to help people hear it for the first time. Put yourself into the story. Did you by any chance read the New York Times Travel section last Sunday? In Barcelona the Christmas Nativity scenes always include the caganer, a figure relieving himself in the corner. The article says it is a reminder of our essential humanity or perhaps the absurdity of life even at the holiest moments. I’d never say it if I hadn’t read it in the New York Times. The point is that he is there. And by extension so are we—any one of us. Being part of God’s plans for humanity has nothing to do with appropriate behavior, or better, all that is human has a place with God. The embrace of Luke’s Gospel story of the Birth of Jesus gathers us all together around that manger. It is not about dressing up or conforming to somebody’s expectations, but to come as you are and encounter the beauty and love of God.

Who else is around that manger? Luke includes the shepherds. 2000 years ago these men were considered uncouth. They didn’t earn much money. They were always with the sheep—so they couldn’t go to church or temple. Rough men: but they are the first to hear the message of the angels.

Mary and Joseph had encountered this counter-intuitive holiness months before when the angel appeared with its life-changing message of God’s favor. What was the angel’s counsel to Mary, to Joseph, to anybody who reads the story? “Don’t be afraid,” the angel said: timely words of encouragement for them and for us. Fear debilitates, shuts you down, keeps you home when you are needed to show up and help out, play your part in God’s story, to speak the truth to power.

The powerful are also characters in this Gospel story— those rulers Luke mentions in the beginning—Emperor Augustus, Quirinius (and Herod, of course, though he doesn’t get a mention in tonight’s passage). These rulers represent the 1% who gives their names to the times, who control the movement of people and goods. They are important to this story mostly because of Jesus—another Name that is being announced, a name to challenge the power of the rulers, a name that would come to characterize all that is good, all that is opposed to the forces that diminish people, making them go get counted in a census so that they could be more fully taxed to pay for their own oppression; Jesus opposes all that shuts people down, tells them they are not “appropriate,” not ready to govern, that they have no good ideas.

The Jesus movement and the Occupy Wall Street Movement have some intriguing point of connection, and I like to play around with the rhetoric: I attended an event in New York City last weekend, so it is all fresh in my imagination. But Christmas is not a time to get riled up about partisan politics—or is it? The message the angels proclaimed was “Peace.” When we look that up we find “Shalom” lurking in the roots of the word, sentiments informing the proclamation that urges a holistic view of life—let there be an end to war—shalom. Let there be health and strength for all the people—shalom. Let the minds of the people be opened, let them turn their hearts to each other and God—shalom. May the words of Scripture, the holy Wisdom abide with them—shalom. All this and more is in the angels’ saying: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.

So it is, on the one hand, when the story we live in, the story we tell ourselves and the story we hear from Scripture and God all come together, we find this to be a huge affirmation. What a joy for any one of us to think: “I am doing God’s will.” On the other hand some wonder: how can this be? Perhaps their self-understanding, or the story they tell themselves, collides with the story God is telling them. “Who, me?” said Mary. When things collide it means we are being called to listen to God’s story, and I believe, turn our lives over to the care of God, trust the message we hear. Is fear your problem? Or do you think you are not important enough to change things? For 2000 years now God has been hammering away at this self-esteem issue. Christianity, or at least the Christian story, teaches that we all have a part to play, we all are capable of the greatest things imaginable—telling right from wrong, for instance. We are also all capable of living lives of beauty and productiveness. God is asking us to collaborate with him. Over and over God has taken initiatives towards us—sending prophets and teachers holding up a vision of what life with God could be like. But alas, as Jesus says later in his life, we stone the prophets, killing those who are sent. Finally God sent his Son to reach out arms and hands of love to all humanity. God is asking each and every one of us to work with him for the salvation of the world—meaning the forgiveness of sins, putting people in a right relationship with God and also healing the planet, restoring the beauty and integrity of creation. Don’t forget the animals were also there at that birth. “The cattle are lowing…” we sang earlier tonight. We are not to abandon the earth and its troubles, but to engage with the cosmos as God has, and continues to do so—head on, without fear, with love and compassion. God will work with whatever we have to offer. Nothing is unacceptable, no one is unimportant to the plan. Every little thing will be taken, broken open and multiplied for the joy and satisfaction of thousands more. So offer your gift, raise your voice and sing out about peace! Sing about justice! Join the happy throngs that have sprung up all over the globe and the faithful friends of Christ who have born his name in ages past.

This Christmas of 2011 is full of gifts we never imagined a year ago. Think of Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and all the other places of the so-called Arab Spring. We’ve seen the end of war in Iraq. People you never thought would get the message about sobriety or the need to change their lives—they’ve got it! It’s not all neat and tidy—none of it. Change—social and personal change—is messy and people have been hurt. But people are re-shaping the way they live. Our society is showing signs of an emerging consciousness. I believe God is re-shaping the way we live. We have a huge opportunity to live large these days, collaborating with God, the God who is with us, sharing all that we are and all that we have.

Repeat after me:

Don’t be afraid.

Seek peace.

God is with us now and to the end of the ages.