CHRISTMAS CHAOS John M. Buchanan
Luke 2:15~-2] Broad Street Presbyterian Church
December 30, 1984 Columbus, Ohio

One of the bocks that I have found most stimulating in 1984 is Henri Nouwen's
Gracias! A Latin American Journal. I have shared insights from the book before,
quoted from it, and privately have continued ta be provoked, stimulated and agitated
by it. Actually, it is a modest looking diary, written in small, manageable, segments,
Nouwen is a Dutch priest, teaching at Yale, who visited and worked in Latin America
for awhile, Gracias! is hig journal from that pericd of time.

The stimulation and provocation come in this innocent-leoking little volume
from Nouwen's ability to place the theological claims of the Gospel squarely in
the midst of life without equivecation, apology or without softening the claims,
He simply sets them down in the middle of contemporary Hfe. Now it is one thing
to de theology in one’s head, reading or listening to a lecture. It is another thing
altogether to try to do it with one's life, It's one thing to meditate on the meaning
of Jesus’ assertion that he had come to “set at Hberty those who are oppressed."
It's another matter altogether to lock around for some oppressed people and set
about actually to free them,

Nouwen insists that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant in the midst of
life’s ambiguities...even life's chaos, The entry for January 6, 1982 tells about a
visit to the capitol of Peru at the end of the Christmas season:

"Today Don, Claude, and I did some sightseeing in downtown Lima. One of
the churches we saw was the Jesuit Church of San Pedra. A talkative Jesuit brother
told us about the busy life of the parish..While we were standing there talking
people kept entering and leaving the church, 3t was clear that at this time of year
the main attraction was not the confessional but the Nativity scenes, built in one
of the side chapels. It was quite a sight. Not only was there the manger with the
child and his parents, but around it were landscapes with hills, rivers, waterfalls,
and bridges. There were little village scenes with women washing their clothes
in the river. There were large herds of sheep and Namas. There were houses in
which the lights were going on and off. There were medieval casties and humble
straw dwelling places. It was not surprising that many parents took their children
there to see the Christmas event laid out in miniature in front of them. But this
was not all. In front of a house in which the Angel Gabriel announced to Mary
that she was going to become the Mother of God was an American police car, with
a policewoman keeping an eye on Mary's house, 'We put the car there five years
ago,’ the Jesuit brother explained. 'It gives a Hitle touch of modern life...’ It seemed,
however, that the police car and the policewoman had not been enough to give
the Christmas scene a contemporary flavor. This year a jet plane had been added
to fly in circles above the Christmas landscape. By some ingenious mechanism
the plane was able to come low and then pull up again, sometimes coming quite
close to the shepherds and the Magi, but never close enough to create an accident.
‘Some people feel that that plane is a littie much,' the brother said, ‘but others
like it a lot. It is part of our time.” (Gracias!, Henri Nouwen, pp. 101-2)

Qu

it reminded me of an incident that occurred at our own breakfast table one
time and was one of the more eloquent articulations of the meaning of the incarna-
tion. A four-year old and I were assembling a cardboard nativity scene, You know,
the ones “cut along the dotted line; fold between A and Bs insert C in D; and then
attach ABCD to EFGH." We had a kitchen table strewn with half assembled cows.
and sheep, a shed that wouldn't stand up, the holy family toppling all over one
another, and a manger that resembled a miniature sliding board. Exasperated,
finally, the four-year old asked, "Daddy, where's God in this mess?”

For those who have heard that one before, I apologize, but it does present
the issue of the incarnation rather pointedly, I think, and that is the issue for those
with the stamina to return to church on the Sunday after Christmas. Where is
Ged in this mess? Where is God in all the noise and confusion and chaos of the
season? Where is God in the mess the world is in?

There is something about the Christmas story, when it is classically told,
that is too easily distorted. it is so very easy to romanticize the shepherds and
to conclude that they were strong, quiet, but profoundly religious pecple. They
were not. They were the equivalent of parking let attendants. It is easy, likewise,
to romanticize the scene of the birth..cattle lowing and sweet smelling hay. I
slept one time in a room above several cows, and I can tell you that the odor was
strong enough that I had difficulty sleeping and it wasn't sweet. The tendency
throughout is to divorce this story from the realities of life, and in the process
to make it into something it isn't - a soft, nebulous, spiritual, mystical experience.

The point of this sermon is very simple: It is that the birth of Jesus Christ
happened in the midst of ordinary life, that it was not so serene and quiet as it
was earthy, and noisy, and chaotic even. Those shepherds were a motley bunch.
When they came te call on the holy family I can't imagine that the encounter was
polite and restrained. In fact, ] imagine them boisterous - and instead of "Httle
Lord Jesus, no crying he makes” - I imagine a lusty howl, which is, in a sense, even
more beautiful music, and dogs barking, and cattle and sheep objecting, and Mary
annoyed, And ott on the hillside, a multitude of heavenly hosts joined the announcing
angel to praise God and I can't believe that Luke wanted us to imagine that it was
pianissime, And the Magi and the entourage. It doesn't say there were only three
of them anywhere - that's a song writer's myth. There could have been a dozen,
thirty - each with several attendants and many camels. I'll bet it wasn't at all
quiet when they arrived,

Something important about Christianity gets lost when we allow the Christmas
story to become too serene, Something about the Gospel's relevance to live is
lost when religion is too other-worldly, too quiet, too private.

Frederick Buechner, as usual, said it wonderfully: “There should be interrup-
tions in sermons: the sound of a baby crying, a toilet being flushed, something
to remind us of what this flesh is the word became...When the host is being raised
before the altar to the tinkling of bells it is very meek and right if not his bounden
duty for the custodian to walk through with the vacuum cleaner." {A Room Called
Remember, p, 82}

-3-

There is a lot of noise, frantic activity, chaos generated by an American
Christmas on top of the enormous amount of noise, frantic activity and chaos genera-
ted by our way of life. At this point we long for a little quiet, a little privacy,
a bit of reflective time and space in which to ponder the true meaning of the birth
and I wish that for you today. I would suggest, however, that at least part of the
true meaning is that the birth of Jesus happened in the midst of life at its most
human, and that the creative love of God keeps being born in the midst of life at
its most human which means at its most chaotic,

The Gospel is the source of hope and strength precisely because it begins
and ends with the noisy chaotic reality of humanity. The barn wasn't serene: it
was real; the crawds of people who pressed in on him, pushing their children at
him, reaching out to touch him, were not orderly. And the passion...the entry to
the city, the cleansing of the temple, the arrest, the crowds at the palace, the
crucifixion - it was noisy, chaotic and very human business, That means that even
in chaos we can count on this Lord, this power, this love, It means that when it
begins again Wednesday morning with pressure from all sides, telephones ringing,
demands and expectations of others weighing us down, the cleck ticking and time
running out ~ in life at its most hectic and chaotic, there is a God who loves us,
and who is with us, and who wis our health and well-being and happiness, That
is good news, this day, and every day of the year.

And now unto the God who is able to keep you fram falling, be all glory and
majesty, now and forever, Amen,

“The l. shidus me 7/s Lahr

December 24, 1984

We come here to listen to a story we have already neand he

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come to hear about_people we know from years of listening, \ sees
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because the story touches something way deep inside us, We come to

hear a story that_says, in metaphor and music and drama, the best we
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know how to say about ourselves. 4 We Tisten and a world which, by and

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large, is skeptical and sometimes cynical and always discriminating

about what it will risk hearing, \stops to listen toos almost as if

it can't help but hearjarg

if
rhere a musts ae Ot voices, clamoring to be heard.

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There is a voice out of a distant past, reminding each, of Us
that ancestors we never knew heard this story exactly as we hear it,

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and celebrated it with customs someone before them created, and adedkig

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diame a Tittle of themselves, handed it on Semaegupeereeeee so that

what we do has been done for generation upon generation.

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And if that is te-mededy the melody line, harmony is added

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with a voice out of a relatively recent personal history, reminding

—_—-

us of the times and places when the story was first toid to us, and

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the ways it began, early in our lives , to take particular shape in

our consciousness.. The shading here is individua \y and the tradittons

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which form are the ones we are still 1 and rehearsing and shap

ing with our own preferences and handing on to others.

Mixed in are voices from a culture which always wants to

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appropriate the story as its own and at its best does so with exquisite

beauty: \ standing in. cold intersections so that children will have

coats and roves working late into the night so that hungry people
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eer _

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5,000 miles away won't cies oiving donating, volunteering, extending

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the fragile gift of common humanity. \and at its worst, somehow

turning the sublime and simple beauty of it into vulgarity.

Our book itself does not speak in monotone nor with simple voice.

————|

Angels, \Zechariah and evizapeth, |youn Mary & Josepts shepherds and

heavenly fistin ined aud Andicener: \ierod and his council each
——————— ae

4
tell§ a part; jeach sees it differentlys|each helps us to_ hear its

suurprising shades and nuances.

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We come to lisfén to a story we have heard before because there

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A ///is something abgat the story that contains the best news we have ever
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~ heard. | And Over all the voices clamoring to be heard there is one

more: \ higher than the rest. \ ceaeer, cold as a December night..

———

like a choir boy, someone noted...singing @w oblige of such beauty

————a

that i4-somehow manages to bring all the other voices together into

profound harmony.
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—,

ia ‘In the begining was the Word and the Word was with God and the

Word was cod. | In the Word was life and the life was the light of i,

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IN people. frre right shines in the darkness and the darkness has not

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e is something about the story that is incomplete until we

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hear this voice. | For ultimately the story is about darkness and
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light, life and igue. 4 Ultimate

We know how the story concludes, but the confrontation of darkness and

and Tight, death and life in the worldsythe arena in which we must do our

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living, is not at all resolved. |v know that the baby was born
. — Srornons

in the dark, and that darkness has always been a meaningful image

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of the shadowy side of our history, our world, ourselves.

We sit up on the edge of our seats every year to listen to this
nial _—

story because each of us has known the meaning of darkness

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_ «the relentless geaece of injsttice in the wortd

~the threat of war
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~the obstinate refusal of human beings to be human

We Tisten carefully because in our own lives we have stood in

darkness and wondered about the meaning of it a1t}and the possibilities |

and if there | is any reason for hope.

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We havesesewn the reality of darkness:f when dreams fade and love

vanes fen routine and sameness crowd out “et Joy | when Wereder ends

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tee laughter. \We know the darkness of separation and grief and lone-

liness.

ololigake oe mw yy
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The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

We come because every time we hear we dare More to believe that

there is a light shining; that there is no darkness.in which that light

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cannot shine.
——en

It is not bright \n is ob] ique» angled, like the Jate afternoon

light in December. \It is not fragile, it is yolnereble. The love

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of God which is what this Tight means, never coerces. The love of

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God, which is like a ligt ht, offers itself and will dispel]! whatever darkness

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into whakever-dankness we, its recipients, choose to bivehewy 4 -

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We listen carefully because this voice, this high, clear word is

—— a ve ome] sae

life, and hope, and love, and laughter.

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In the darkness the light shines. In the darkness of night,

—

Jesus Christ was born.