CHURCH ON CHRISTMAS?

Christmas Day, Sunday, December 25, 1988
11:00 a.m. Worship Service
John M. Buchanan
Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
‘Isaiah 61:1-4
John 1:1-14

In one home I know, a very significant thing happened in the middle
of the week. In a two day period the oldest child returned from college;
the younger two had school plays and parties requiring special cookies,
rehearsals and transportation; the man and woman, both of whom work outside
the home, entertained colleagues and employees at back to back parties. On
the morning after, the family dog, a wonderful Labrador, was acting’ very
peculiarly. They thought she had eaten something unhealthy, but upon
discussion and inquiry among the five of them, made the horrifying
discovery that the dog hadn't been fed for two days!

Christmas can do that, I fear - distract us with merry-making. so.
thoroughly that we forget and ignore the necessities. It can and often
does simply sieze the agenda,..overwhelm_ us with celebrating...

So ~ here we are again - on Christmas Day. If it is possible’to ——
over-dose on church, some in our company may be close. ,

“Are you really going to have church on Christmas Day?" I was asked
by someone who didn't know that Fourth Presbyterian Church always has
church on Christmas Day, even when it doesn't land on Sunday. For seasonal
attendees, or those unfamiliar with local custom, it does seem a bit like
an ecclesiastical double whammy. After all, if you wanted to and had the
stamina, you could have been here for Candlelight Vespers at 5:30 last
evening and back at 11:00 for the Festival of Banners and Light. One week
ago you could easily have spent all day here for worship, Church School
pageant, Messiah-Sing-Along and evening worship. So here we are again...
You will certainly be understood and, I would submit, forgiven by God if
at this moment you are feeling a little like a baseball fan at a game that
has gone into extra innings and it's now the bottom of the 15th, and the
game should have ended an hour and a half earlier... i.e. the activity is
still wonderful — pitching, hitting, running and catching but, after all,
enough is enough!

Church on Christmas? It is asked most frequently and with the most
feeling by those whose whole being has been pointing toward this morning:
who couldn't go to sleep last night because of the wonderful excitement and
for whom going to church is very much an interruption. They are also the
ones who, having conceded the time investment, are likely to ask a follow-
up question — "You're not going to preach, are you?"

The news, as is often the case, is both good and bad. The bad news
is that, yes, I'm going to preach. The good news is -— not for long.

My text and inspiration came from a secular rather than scriptural
source... my closest advisor on theological and homiletical matters, whose
best advice was this:

“Just tell the story, dear. It's all we want to hear. And then, if
there's any time left over, ask everyone to stand up and tell what they got
for Christmas, pew at a time, til] noon."

As a matter of fact, there is a real dilemma for the preacher on this
morning: During Advent we reflect on the meaning of God's coming into the
life of the world: we plumb the depths of the best theology we know, and
we get to Christmas and find that we have little left to say. It is not
only because we have already said so much, although that is clearly part of
it, but also because the time for thinking and talking about it is over.
The time for singing and celebrating is here.

In my file, for just this occasion, is an essay by Reinhold Niebuhr,
A Christmas Service in Retrospect. Niebuhr was a very: distinguished
scholar, one of the most influential Christian thinkers of this century - a
teacher, writer, social critic and, always a preacher. He wrote this essay
in 1933 and. the Christian Century reprinted it fifty years later. | Niebuhr
wrote: ; : ;

NE. went to church | in the Cathedral on Christmas Day. it is one of
the few days of ‘the year on which I am able to attend church without
preaching myself. On that day, although a non-conformist myself, I prefer
-a liturgical church with as little sermon as possible. It is not that I
don't like to hear anyone but myself preach. I merely dislike most
Christmas and Easter sermons. Only poets can do justice toa the Christmas
and Easter stories, and there are not many poets in the pulpit. It is
better, therefore, to be satisfied with the symbolic presentation of the
poetry in hymns, anthems and liturgy."

So what this preacher does, and I expect I am not alone, is scurry to
the file and the bookshelf and read the poetry and the short stories and
the essays. It's wonderful; so wonderful in fact that, not being much of a
poet, I'm going to induige myself and share a small sampler with you...

The first is from Charles Dickens - always a good choice at
Christmas. This is from a Christmas Chapter in The Pickwick Papers. Mr.
Pickwick and friends are about to board a carriage and journey to the
country for a family Christmas reunion and wedding. It is very festive.
Dickens wrote —

“And numerous indeed are the hearts to which
Christmas brings a brief season of happiness
and enjoyment. How many families, whose
members have been dispersed and scattered
far and wide, in the restless struggle of
life, are then reunited, and meet once again
in that happy state of companionship and

mutual good-will, which is a source of such
pure and unalloyed delight. How many old
recollections and how many dormant
sympathies does Christmas time awaken!"

One of our best story tellers, with more than a bit of a poetry, is
Garrison Keillor, a modern-day Charles Dickens. One of his best essays —-
actually a monologue from his old radio program, "A Prairie Home
Companion" — is about families reunited at Christmas — Dicken's favorite
topic. Keillor called it Christmas Dinner, and it is a delight.

"It has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon. Christmas. The exiles
were home. It was pretty quiet, though you could hear the gritting of
teeth, and there was a moment of poisoned silence at the Clarence Bunsen
home that rang like a fire bell. Before the blessing, as they sat around
the table and admired the work in front of them, a still-life Christmas
Dinner by Arlene, before they ate the art, their daughter, Donna, in town
from San Diego, said, 'What a wonderful Christmas!t' and her husband, Rick;
said, 'Well, if the Democrats had their way, it'd be the last one.'!
Silence. ,

“Arlene said, that if Rick had his way, the turkeys would be having
us. Clarence bowed his head. ‘Dear Lord, the giver of all good ‘things, we
thank Thee.' He prayed a long prayer, as a ceasefire. Arlene smiled ‘at:

- Rick: ‘Have some mashed potatoes.’ 'Thank: “you, - Mom.' - She. winced.” He is
her son-in-law and she doesn't know why, -He® “is not-raising her © ae :
grandchildren right, he comes to Minnesota: ‘and talks too much about: the - ;
‘advantages of Southern California,:he wears silly: ‘clothes; he- makes’ fun. of -
Norwegians, he makes fun of women including his own wife, and he says
‘agenda’ in place of 'plan' or ‘idea' — 'Did you have a different agenda?!
he says. 'Let's get our agenda straight.' 'I sense a hidden agenda here.'

"He piled his plate with Christmas agenda and chomped a big bite of
it. He said, 'Mom, this is the best dinner I ever ate. I really mean
that.' She smiled her brightest smile, the smile she has used all her life
on people she'd like to slap silly. She'd like to give him a piece of her
mind, but she can't, because he has hostages, her grandchildren. So she
kills him with kindness. She stuffs him like a turkey. Fresh caramel
rolls for breakfast, a pound of bacon and smoked sausage and scrambled
eggs, and two hours later pot roast for lunch and big slabs of banana cream
pie. He has gained four pounds since Tuesday. Her goal is twelve. All
day he sits dazed by food. 'Fudge bars, Rick? I made them just for you.
Here, I'll put the plate right beside you, where you can reach them.’ ‘Oh
Mom...’ She's found the crack in his armor, and it's his mouth. His
Achilles mouth. Her agenda is stuffing him so he becomes weak and pliable
and goes into a calorie coma, and she takes the little boy and the girl for
walks and tells them about our great presidents, our great Democratic
presidents. ‘And did you know they were all Norwegian? Yes, they were, a
iittle bit, on their mother's side, and that little bit was enough to make
them great.'" [Leaving Home]

And now my sermon, which has just two brief points.

The first is that when Jesus was born in Bethiehem God planned to
address our hearts as well as our minds. God could have done it
differently. 1 have to assume if the purpose was to increase our
understanding of ourselves and the world, God could have accomplished that
goal by inspiring a philosophy and annointing a great teacher. But by
entering history in this way ~ a tender, very human story about a man and
young woman and a new baby born in a stable, God clearly wished to touch
something in us besides our brains.

We know that intuitively, I believe. Reinhold Niebuhr, the greatest

Christian intellect of his day, wanted poetry, not a well reasoned argument

on Christmas. And while I was thinking this one through I recalled that in
' Iy home years ago, and many others I knew, watching Midnight Mass on TV
from St.. Patrick's Cathedral was a regular part of Christmas Eve. My
family wouldn't think of going to a Roman Catholic Church - in the flesh.
Nevertheless they knew that the mystery of the Incarnation is more
adequately celebrated with elaborate ritual, wonderful music and soaring
architecture, than ina tight, well reasoned twenty-minute Presbyterian
sermon.

So my first point is to suggest that in this birth God is addressing
our hearts as well as our minds, and that in so dcing God is actually
inviting us to trust our hearts a little more; to listen to our emotions as
well as our intellects; to go with our feelings as well as our ideas,

‘and to laugh. more, weep more,.and love a lot more.. To take risks for. .
Yove::..to-be,a little less calculated and reasonable and a little-more
spontaneous... To be vulnerable for love... And to be more whole and more ~
human.) See

. My. second point is that Christmas is about the sacredness of the
ordinary. It is about simple things - bearing the presence of the holy
God: aman and a woman, a journey, a crowded inn, a birth, a stable,
shepherds, the everyday realities of life containing the heart and soul of
God. And so ail of life locks different because of Christmas. There is no
place, no circumstance however modest which is not now the place and
circumstance made sacred by God's presence. There is no public issue
which may be.dismissed by saying it is a political matter and of no concern
to religion. This story is about the holy in the everyday: the sacred
within the structure of our common life. Christmas means that God's love
is present not just around our Christmas trees and family table, but in
places. where people are poor, oppressed, lonely, sad, afraid and shut out -
and in joyful, happy exhilaration. This birth means that there are no
people who do not, in some way, represent the divine image of God becoming
flesh. ;

It is so very simple. It is an invitation to remember that simple
things often bear the full weight of God's presence, that the ordinary is
where God chooses to reveal love.

E. B. White once wrote a Christmas article about an ear trumpet
hunters use to hear “the distant music of the hounds." "The miracle of
Christmas," he said, “is that, like the distant and very musical voice of
the hound, it penetrates finally and becomes heard in the heart..."

And that is my sermon. You didn't come to hear a long treatise on

dogma, which Niebuhr said is merely reasonably petrified poetry, nor a
pithy analysis of the current world situation.

it.

You came, my advisors assure me, to hear the music and the poetry.
"Just tell the story. That's what we want to hear."

"The word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
And she bore a son and they called his name
Jesus.
And she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and
laid him in a manger.
And suddenly — a multitude of the heavenly
host, praising God and singing,
'Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace among ali people
with whom God is pleased.™

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome

Amen.