Sermon

Something more Christmassy

Scripture Text:

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!"

Sermon:

Last year, a friend of mine was at Kohl’s and overheard a woman say, “My husband likes those nativity cards, but I prefer something a little more Christmassy.”  I love that word, “Christmassy”!  But what could be more “Christmassy” than a nativity scene, I don’t know.  Reindeer?  Snowmen?  Sparkly, glittery ornaments?

 

Every year, I see those car magnets with the message, “Keep the Christ in Christmas” or “Jesus is the Reason for the Season.”  And my heart feels that message – I love Jesus Christ and the power of his radical, transformational love.

But I wonder if the Holy Spirit finds ways to infiltrate even the most secular holiday activities.  Because the Holy Spirit has ways of turning up in places where no one expects her…    Our seminary gift store sold a plaque with the words “Bidden or not bidden, God is present.”[1]

Bidden or not bidden, perhaps, Christ comes to us at Christmas.  Bidden or not bidden, the kingdom of God that Jesus couldn’t stop talking about, pops up in the midst of us.

 

There was an article a few years ago, about some jail inmates in Kentucky, who took a day off from their highway litter patrol to hang Christmas lights in local towns.

One prisoner said to the reporter that, “it reminded him that ‘the way things are’ is not the way they must always be.”

 

There are a lot of things we do in the Christmas season that aren’t explicitly Christian or church-focused, but still reveal Christ to us.  Actually, those are the kinds of things Jesus told parables about.  Those are the ways Jesus did ministry, outside organized houses of worship, outside the boundaries of religious festivals and rituals, in language that religious people didn’t tend to use.

 

He said: The kingdom of God is like a woman who worked some yeast into some dough.

The kingdom of God is like sharing a meal with someone you’ve never met before.

The kingdom of God is like a bunch of inmates who decorate the town square for their community.

The kingdom of God is like waking up and finding gifts prepared for you.

The kingdom of God is like a big party, like a talking snowman, and like a reindeer with a garish red nose who gets a second chance.

The kingdom of God is two lost parents who put their baby to sleep in the straw, and who are visited by poor people, working people, lonely people, and strangers of other religions from foreign countries, who come because in that barn and in the presence of that baby, they know “God is with us.”

 

There are all kinds of things wrong with the way we celebrate Christmas.

We spend too much, we romanticize too much, we worry too much, we eat too much.

But God breaks through anyway, and comes among us.

 

The Christmas story is full of contrasts:

The stinkiness of the stable and the glory of angels.

There’s squalor and there’s splendor.

There’s the violence of the Roman army, who King Herod orders to kill all baby boys, and there’s peace proclaimed to God’s people on earth.

There is the exclusion of Mary and Joseph from the inn, and the utter and complete inclusivity of God’s justice and love.

There are dirty, dopey shepherds at the manger from just over the next hill, and then sophisticated, glittering Magi with fancy gifts, who’ve traveled hundreds of miles.

There is the way Mary and Joseph are pushed off to the sidelines in the stable,

and the way the birth of Jesus makes that stable the very center of the world.

 

God’s love breaks in on us exactly when everything else is going on,

exactly when everything else is in chaos and commotion,

exactly when it is the last time and place we’d expect God’s love to be:

in cheap strand of twinkle lights

in the emergency room, in the homeless shelter, in our grief for someone we’ve lost,

in our times of greatest need, in the places where people’s hearts are breaking,

 

God’s love breaks through where people are struggling for justice;

in the choice between war and peace,

in the choice to be generous or to be greedy;

in a moment of love when everything seems loveless,

in a flash of hope when everything seems hopeless,

in a quiet joy that can break through the deepest sorrow.

It is exactly into these contrasts that God’s love comes,

it is exactly these contrasts that God’s love holds together,

…just as it did in a stable in Bethlehem;

 

Bidden or not bidden, Christ comes at Christmas.

God breaks through, my brothers and sisters,

God breaks through all the pain, all the sorrow, all the conflict.

God breaks through, despite our best efforts to keep God out!

 

So, go for the nativity scene or for something “more Christmassy”;

it doesn’t matter, because God breaks through it all to come among us.

Amen.

Uploaded on December 31, 2011 in by RevHeidi

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