Another year has passed, and coming soon will be another
abundance of Christmas sermons. I like
Christmas sermons, because it is difficult to mess them up. For many years, I have heard sermons that remind
us that Jesus and the Holy Family were homeless and were refugees, and they are
right to preach on this. The message and
concern is to ensure that we care for the least among us, for in doing so we
care for Christ Himself. The message is
good one, but I don’t think the most needed this year. Other sermons bemoan commercialism. They remind us to keep “Christ” in Christmas,
and remind us that the real gift of Christmas, the only gift that matters, is
the gift of Jesus from God. They are
right; the message is good, but I do not think this message is the most needed
for the people of our nation this year.
This year has been a difficult one for our nation. The divisions that have been growing for
years now, have been made manifest in a most unholy vile display of animosity,
and incivility to each other. Much of
the discontent is compounded by financial and political uncertainty. For the first time in our nation’s history we
are experiencing a period of pessimism. We are now a nation with little to no
hope for the future. And the disease
among us is one of a general malaise of the soul. In the Christian tradition, this reality is
very provocative. Proclaiming a message
of hope, love and life, Christians ought to be outside of this cultural context
of hopelessness, animosity, and fear. So
what message can be offered to other Christians that can bring hope?
I believe there is no quick answer, no word or quick message
that will bring a cure. The cure to heal
our common Christian life will involve a long endurance, a long repentance (a
slow turning) , and commitment to revaluing community, revaluing each other,
revaluing relationships over fame, over ego, over convenience. The solution and cure seems impossible; and
it is impossible without hope. How on
earth could our current situation of division, isolation, fear, and violence
shift directions?
Well the good news is in our faith tradition. In the Christmas story we see a subtle,
unnoticeable injection of hope and salvation by God unbeknownst the rest of the
world. The actual birth of Jesus of
Nazareth was of no consequence to the people of Jerusalem, Nazareth,
Alexandria, Athens, no not even the capital of the empire, Rome. On this night, the peoples in those cities
and around the world continued on with their lives as usual. The poor were still abused and hungry;
political powers still strategized how to maintain power; religious people
still prayed; oppressors and oppressed still maintained their relationships. In the birth of Jesus, God was acting under
our radar. While this birth of hope was
taking place, there was also the loss of hope of people all around the world,
but the injection of hope came nonetheless.
Hope came once again from where we least expect it; it came from where
we don’t want to look; it came from places we just can’t be bothered to look. From Joseph to Moses to Samuel to King David
to Amos; once again from an unexpected place and time comes the unfolding of
our salvation history and our hope. God
acts apart from us; apart from our feelings and expectations. And may I suggest this is where we find hope. At the time of Jesus’s birth, the people of
Israel still had 30 years to wait until the ministry of Jesus began. Thirty more years before the Good News of the
Kingdom of God would be taught, and the poor, the sick, the outcast would be
given hope. In God’s good time, and from
God’s chosen places God was and is acting.
And who of faith can say God was not acting? In this under-the-radar
act of God we see the profound story of an inconsequential, disposable baby born
in scandal becoming the object of faith for the Greatest Empire in the Western
world. Through this birth the oppressor
of Israel would come to worship the God of Israel without a sword being lifted. Something unexpected certainly happened. And I believe in that truth lies our hope for
change. While we ourselves need to
change: we need to be more kind, we need to be more loving, we need to value
others more…we can also have confidence that God is working, almost always
under the radar, and in that there is hope.
Former Archbishop Rowan Williams is quoted as saying, “The Christian
Life is a listening life,” and that we are a people expecting to hear God speak
to His people. This Christmas let us take
time to listen and to look in places we don’t expect God. Let us hope, and expect God to act…let us
dare to hope, that just like then God is, in places beyond our comprehension,
still injecting hope and salvation into our world.
