Sermon for Christmas Eve
Bishop James Mathes
Sermon for Christmas Eve
St. Pauls, San Diego
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Isaiah 9: 2-4, 6-7
Titus 2: 11-14
Luke 2: 1-14
Come Holy Spirit: Touch our minds and think with them, touch our lips and speak with them and touch our hearts and set them on fire with love for you. AMEN.
I.
As you probably have heard, for reasons that we cannot fathom, St. Paul's Cathedral and this community of faith were the victim of an arsonist last Sunday. The damage was limited to one room in the basement below this altar area. Because it was during the main service on Sunday morning, it does not take too much effort to imagine a more tragic outcome. In the end, everyone was safe and you might not even know anything had happened excepted for the broken, sooty windows on the back side of the church and a slight, lingering smell of smoke.
What also lingers, however, is a feeling of vulnerability. So easily a place that we call sanctuary can become a place of violence. So easily a place of care can become a place of potential harm. This is not a new thing for Christian communities. Throughout our history, those who live under the Lordship of Jesus have been targets. It was true even at the beginning.
II.
The emperor was doing what emperors do, flexing his muscles and demanding more. The pregnancy was dubious and folks were probably gossiping back home. And home seemed far away and the nights were dark. Bandits were about and the towns a crush of people similarly following the commands of the foreign occupation. As the contractions got closer together, the couple did not look at each other, lest they see the fear in each other's eyes. No place to stay...no room...just a stable. And in the midst of danger with measured fear, a new warm and small breath comes forth. Jesus is born in Bethlehem.
And as unlikely a place for the "Father's begotten" to come forth and as unlikely a holy family as Mary and Joseph would seem, the heavens cannot be contained. Shepherds, who by the way were minding their own business, are given a glimpse of angelic worship: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" Shepherds: dirty, smelly, shepherds. Not to the mighty Emperor Augustus or to Herod his puppet or even to the mayor of Bethlehem or the Temple in Jerusalem does this multitude of heavenly hosts come: they come to shepherds, greater Bethlehem's migrant workers.
In a blink of an eye, with a first heart's beat, and a first breath's cry, everything changes and heaven and earth sing. Everything changed that first Christmas-utter and complete love coming into a world of fear and danger. That transformation continues in this time and this place.
As strange as it may sound, our fire on Sunday last was a sacramental moment. It was a moment when the grace of God was made manifest. While I would not ever want it to happen again, it was a time when we showed forth who God calls us to be. For you see, we cannot escape really our fears or the dangers from which they spring forth. We live in a world filled with bandits on dangerous roads, unfeeling innkeepers and landlords who would keep out the alien. There are rulers like Herod, who do not care for the littlest of their subjects. And we live in a world where sanctuary is tenuous.
III.
But Jesus came into the world in the midst of poverty because that was the place of greatest darkness and injustice. It was and is the place for light to shine: "The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light... [For] He will establish justice and with righteousness from this time onward forevermore." Jesus came to form us into a people who bring this light, this peace, this love.
It is for this reason that when we gather we gather in Eucharist. For this night of birth is inextricably tied to a day of death. As Nathan Mitchell once wrote, "Christmas does not ask us to pretend we were back in Bethlehem, kneeling before a crib; it asks us to recognize that the wood of the crib became the wood of the cross." The baby in the crib does not give the angel's words of comfort their power. That power comes from an understanding that the Christmas message is dependent on the rising of the Easter sun. If we listen closely we will not miss this connection even in the story we hear tonight: Mary "wrapped him in cloth strips, placed him in a manger, because there was no place" just as on another night others "wrapped him in linen cloth, placed him in a rock-hewn tomb, where no one had yet been laid."1
And so it is right that we are, even on this night of new birth, connected at the Eucharistic table to a night of absolute giving. We are tied at the moment of Jesus' birth to Jesus' death. The promise of this night is that heaven and earth impinge on each other.2 Appearances to the contrary, God is present even when circumstances would suggest otherwise, which brings me back to our recent fire.
IV.
When the fire was discovered two iconic moments occurred. Guided by our Dean's words to leave "gently," the community safely assisted each other in leaving home and went outside. And there on the highways and byways of our city, specifically on Fifth between Nutmeg and Olive, Holy Communion was distributed. Appearances to the contrary God was present. And more to the point, in the face of what was an awful and violent act, love was distributed:
The body of Christ; the bread of heaven. The blood of Christ; the cup of salvation. That is what Christmas, which will eternally be Eucharist and resurrection, is all about, love being distributed. It is distributed in the birth of an unlikely king. It is distributed in the healing touch of Jesus. It is distributed in words of parables that challenge and guide us. And perfect love is distributed on the hard wood of the cross.
And so we distribute the love of Christ this night. That is who we are. And this love we distribute is by its nature a love that crosses the boundaries of familiarity and safety. We distribute love when we go to the bed of an ugly death, when we sit with those who are mentally ill. We distribute love when contend with the principalities and powers about a fair wage, health care, human rights for prisoners, when we raise questions of concerns for our military in harms way and for the welfare of non-combatants. And we distribute love when we cross political borders to care for children in a small foster home as a particular ministry of this cathedral. And we distribute love when we gather at that border in a Posada, a reenactment of the inhospitality of Bethlehem and remember those who who died crossing a boarder, often simply to reunite families or to put bread on the table. We distribute love.
V.
Tonight you will go home from this place to homes with trees and presents. In a real sense, those presents are also icons of the distribution of love we are called to make. Through fires and the calling of Jesus, let us never forget that this distribution of love must not stop within our own walls, it must include more than our familiar family and friends. We are the angelic hosts of this age, in this place at this time. Let us rejoice in this birth, let us sing, Glory to God in the Highest, let us distribute love.
1 Luke Timothy Johnson, citation lost
2 I am indebted to the Rev. Canon Randall Warren for this insight.