TREASURES OF THE HEART John M. Buchanan
December 26, 1982 Broad Street Presbyterian Church
Luke 2:15-19 Columbus, Ohio

The little girl in my arms was two years old. The annual Christmas pageant
in the small Indiana church had lasted too long. It was crowded and hot and she
had begun to squirm. So I had walked to the back of the little sanctuary, as
inconspicuously as possible at about the time the angel, whom she had just
recognized as the evening paper boy, was about to announce mysterious and won-
derful news to our babysitter who, on that occasion, was the blessed virgin.

We whisked up the aisle just as the little girl was about to announce to all
present who these strangely attired characters really were. We stood against
the back wall and could view the proceedings quite clearly. She watched with
mounting interest: the manger, the cardboard sheep, the electric star suddenly
shining, and the shepherds, whom she also recognized. The light of heaven shone
upon them and the glory of the Lord was most certainly present, and when one of
them said: "Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing which the Lord has done,"
she could contain her enthusiasm no longer. In a voice as clear as a bell,
projected over the heads of the congregation, she responded to the shepherd's
invitation, “All right!" she said, "let's go." It was, literally, a show stopper.
And the memory is a modest treasure in our household.

We keep going to Bethlehem for theological and ecclesiastical reasons, to
be sure. The word became flesh indeed, flesh of our flesh! God so loved the
world that he gave an only Son!...And we go to Bethlehem, in yearly pilgrimage,
to reflect on it and wonder at it. But we go, as the small girl understood,
personally, each of us, in the memories of the past--in the way the celebration
of the birth of God's son is somehow mixed up with those high and holy moments
which, for each of us, are treasures of the heart.

wary's heart was full. At the oddest times she would remember something
about it. Always on his birthdate, but increasingly at curiously random moments,
she found herself remembering something or another that happened that strange
night. She had been just a girl, and although no stranger to birth, she was not
prepared for the experience when it began. She recalled what happened later
that night with such feeling the thought had occured to her that anyone she
tried to tell would think she had imagined it all, hallucinating, perhaps. She
could remember the pain and the animals and the flickering light of a lantern
and Joseph: and as she rehearsed the details she seemed to recall a greater
light, a bright hue which made the colors, the faces, the feelings less precise.
dad they actually been there, those shepherds? Had they actually said what she
remembered them saying, or had she imagined that too?

Joseph had been gone for years now. But even when he was alive they hadn't
discussed it much although each knew the other knew and had seen and heard. How
good it would be to talk to him. Had there been Magi too? Had royalty from
across the desert actually visited her and her child?

She had pondered those things across many years. When they had made their
pilgrimage to Jerusalem and he had stayed behind in the temple, she was reminded
of what the shepherds said twelve years before. She was reminded of it all
again when he had laid down the tools of his trade and, as if answering the
voice of God, had followed his cousin John into the wilderness. And she had

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had pondered long and hard through those next three hectic years. And when,
at the end, on a hill outside Jerusalem, she had held his broken body close to
her breast, her heart broken, she had remembered that night long, long ago.

The pondering of Mary: the treasures of her heart suggests the pondering
each of us does at this time of year. It suggests to me, not nostalgia - for
nostalgia's sake - because the season seems always about to wallow in sentimen-
tality. It suggests celebrating our treasures simply because they are valuable.
They help us to understand the value of our own lives and to know, in a parti-
cular way, who we are and who we can be.

How unfortunate that the value of our treasures is not always apparent at
the moment. How sad that the value of relationships is not always dear to us
until later, sometimes too much later.

I received a remarkable letter a while ago from a friend who was reflecting
on this idea. He has given me permission to share his letter:

"I realize as I grow older..., how many people have helped me during the
course of my life--and, at the same time, how little I know, really,

about each of them. Recently, for instance, I spent about three hours
walking the beach with my sister, listening to her talk about our family...
Those hours were meaningful to me--but they meant, among other things,

that there are really large voids in my understanding of my own family,

to say nothing of others outside my family.

"I wonder what can be done about this. It occurs to me that it would
be an interesting family assignment, when the children are young for
each child to write a description of Persons who seem important to him.
These would not be evaluated or even discussed as a family, unless the
writer so chese--but in later years it might prove invaluable to the
individual if for no other reason that the assignment required thought
on a topic seldom considered. Along the same lines, I could think of
no Christmas gift which would be more meaningful to me personally than
a letter from each of my children just remembering, in very casual
fashion, an event--any event--which seemed to be meaningful to the
individual and perhaps indicative of the family life which we enjoyed
together. I wish now that I had tried each year to write only a brief
descriptive paragraph of my mother and father, people whom I thought

I knew so well and who I now know I understood so little. I am sure
that had I done so, a review of my previous thoughts would have led to
a greater tolerance, a more meaningful affection, and quite probably,
a better understanding of myself and the manner with which I approached
my own problems as a parent."

May I make a modest suggestion about some unfinished business most of us keep
on our agendas? A suggestion about keeping the feast of Christ's birth?
Do what the letter writer suggested. Spread your treasures out: look at them:
share their value with those who are responsible for them. Write it out, if you
need to: tell them you love them, you delight in their special gifts, you are
richer for their friendship.

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Mary pondered the meaning of her child's birth,and, over the years, was
sustained, I have to believe, by those precious memories. She also pondered
the treasure of her baby's potential. Her strange visitors called her child
a king, and my guess is that she never forgot that for a minute. Howard Thur-
man has written that every new child is humanity's answer to the darkness of
bigotry, hatred, war, sickness, and death. Every new baby shows us for the
incurable optimists we are. So your treasures and mine, memories of the past -
essentially, are complimented by dreams and visions of what could be in our
lives and in the world.

There is something infinitely precious about this birth which let's loose
for all of us the possible - the potential of life as God wants it lived. The
superficial greeting card message about every day becoming Christmas, has great
and poignant truth behind it. May I make the modest but serious suggestion that
Christ is honored more in the attention we give to that potential, than in sen-
timental birthday celebrations? May I suggest, modestly, that the most precious
treasure of the heart which he has given you is the impetus to be more loving,
more forgiving, more accepting, more courageous, and more dissatisfied with war
and hunger and poverty? May I suggest that the greatest miracle of all is that
the birth of Jesus has made us permanently dissatisfied with the unnecessary
suffering in the world - in our own city. There is something about the birth
of this child which makes any child's hunger intolerable. That, I would submit,
is a very precious intolerance.

So, the birth makes us dissatisfied with broken relationships in our own
lives. It is not just seasonal sentimentality which fills the air. It is
the divine impetus toward healing, reconciliation.

Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart...Her treasures.
Ours too. AMEN.

Great God of love, we give thanks for memories of Christmases past: for the
ones with whom we have shared the feast. We thank you, O God, for dear and
loving people with whom we share our lives. We thank you, as well, for the
love and justice and peace and hope to which the birth of your son has, once
again called us. Amen.