A Fourth Church Sermon by Alice M. Trowbridge

December 31, 2006 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

The Work of Christmas Begins

Alice M. Trowbridge
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 148
Luke 2:41–52
Colossians 3:12–17

“And whatever you do, in word or deed,
do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus,
giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Colossians 3:17 (NRSV)

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the king and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among people,
To make music in the heart.

Howard Thurman
The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations

Helen Hays had never cooked a Christmas meal. And so she gathered her son and her husband into a room, and she told them this was the first Christmas meal she would prepare and she didn’t want any comment from them. She said that she was going to make the meal, and they were going to sit down and receive it, and if it wasn’t any good, Helen Hays told them, then they would, without comment, put on their hats and coats and scarves and they would get up from the table, walk downtown to the hotel, and eat there. So her husband and her young son, without comment, nodded, and they left the room as she began to prepare the meal. Well, the time came to eat. And the young son and the husband walked into the room and waited. In came Helen Hays, carrying her food, and as she looked up, she noticed that her husband and her young son were quietly at their seats, wearing their coats, hats, and scarves. Her son and her husband, they were expecting the worst. Indeed, many people in our world expect the worst.

In the wake of Christmas, and on this eve of the new year, every headline of every newspaper or website offers a year in review of the events that counted, the people who made news, the stories we’ll remember from 2006: the Iraq war and our searching for an exit strategy; the Gulf Coast and the rebuilding efforts there; the scandals in Washington; the sites of war over Lebanon and Israel; the number of funerals for fallen soldiers from Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United States; Hamas, the pope, and the Muslim world; Nancy Pelosi and Katie Couric making history. And especially this weekend we remember President Ford and his life and legacy, and we pray for Betty Ford and their entire family and give thanks for President Ford’s ability to see beyond the moment. All the headlines we have known from this year will likely be there tomorrow, and so it is not hard to imagine how we might also begin to expect the worst.

Darfur is home to the world’s largest human aid operation, with 14,000 aid workers. And yet of the 180 refugee camps there, only about 85 are reachable by these workers. And the government has begun to shut down and throw out any aid groups that report to the outside world what is really going on. Well, so far this is what has really been going on. 400,000 people killed. 3 million people driven from their homes. And 10,000 people right now, dying every month. Many, if not all of these people, have come to expect the worst.

In America, the Urban Institute estimates that there are about 3.5 million people that experience homelessness during an average year. That’s 1 percent of all of us Americans. Thirty-eight percent are kids. That means that nearly 1.5 million kids will sleep on the street at some point this year. Many, if not all of them, have come to expect the worst.

Near LaPaz, Lina, a husband, walks a mile each way everyday for water. He lost his little girl last year after she drank some unclean water. And yet from his home, you can see and hear the rushing of clean water at the enormous international water company. But to get access to that water, Lina would need to pay an amount equal to his annual wage. Lina and the nearly 900 million people in our world who do not have access to clean water have come to expect the worst.

In Uganda, children are so afraid of being kidnapped by members of the LRA—the Lord’s Resistance Army—and forced to fight that they walk miles from their various villages, every night, to a middle village, where they all gather and sleep in the same room, hundreds of kids, trying to avoid capture. There are 300,000 kids engaged in warfare worldwide, 100,000 of whom reside in Africa. Many, if not all, of these kids have come to expect the worst.

Here at Fourth Church, we do all that we can to reach each of these who are suffering. Through our mission and advocacy programs, you all give your time and money to alleviating the suffering of the world. As we speak, there is a team of Fourth Church volunteers in New Orleans this morning, helping the clean-up and rebuilding efforts in the big “not so easy.” And there are two of our youth who have been selected to travel to Jordan and who are there right now, being peacemakers in that place. And there are ten care teams up and running robustly this morning, teams made up of members of the congregation who care for someone in need by helping with household chores, groceries, giving rides, and surrounding the care recipient with true Christian community. This is being church and being there for one another.

As we gather today, we are in an in-between time. Christmas has already happened, Epiphany awaits us, and it is hard to leave our place, kneeling beside the manger. The world’s calendar turns to a new year as of midnight tonight, and this is traditionally a time to make an assessment of the year past and the goals for the year to come. It is an in-between time.

Our gospel lesson for today also represents an in-between time. This is the only text in the New Testament that refers to Jesus’ childhood. In our text, he is twelve-years-old. If you know any twelve-year-old, you know that that is an in-between time. You’re no longer a little child, but you’re a long way from being an adult. You are in a state of becoming. You are in-between, growing into all that God intends for you to be. In our text, we hear that Jesus is in the temple in Jerusalem, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And it says that during this time Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor.

I love this text because it suggests that Jesus experienced what we know so well—the mystery of uncovering the purpose for our lives. Jesus listened and asked questions and grew in divine and human favor. That seems to suggest to me that perhaps Jesus, who was fully human and fully divine, had to grow into understanding his purpose in life and he did that by listening and asking questions that truly matter.

Fred Bratman, a secular journalist and writer, asked one such question of his friend Henri Nouwen, which resulted in a book. He asked for an uncomplicated explanation of the purpose and aim of the spiritual life, and Nouwen answered like this: “All I want to say to you is, ‘You are the Beloved.’” He went on to say that “from the moment we claim the truth of being the Beloved, we are faced with the call to become who we are. Becoming the Beloved is the great spiritual journey we have to make.“

I think this is what Christmas is all about—receiving the gift of love in Christ that makes us know that we are the beloved, and from that place, we go about bringing that love to others. I think that is the point of a life of faith: not who lives most exemplarily in and unto themselves, but who lives most fully and effectively and selflessly for the sake of others. So to be about the work of Christmas is to bring this love we have received into our homes, our cities, our worlds, and especially to all those who have come to expect the worst. And in this pursuit, we unleash the full potential of the gift of Christmas—the potential for good, for joy, for peace, for healing, for reconciliation, for transformation, especially to those who have come to expect the worst.

In an article in this week’s Economist, the question is asked, “Are we happy, and how do we measure our happiness?” The news is that the world economy has grown and market capitalism, the engine that runs most of the world economy, seems to be doing its job well. In America, meanwhile, midterm elections featured discussions on some of the ills of prosperity—that of inequality and being overworked. “Wellness” has become a huge industry. And the claim is that

capitalism [has an] ability to turn luxuries into necessities—bring to the masses what was once only for the elite. But the flip-side of this is that people come to take for granted things they once coveted from afar. People are stuck on treadmills: as they work day and night to achieve a better standard of living they become inured to its pleasures. So while capitalism may make you rich; don’t expect it to make you happy.

St. Paul invites us to consider an alternative approach to pursuing happiness. In his letter to the Colossians, we are given a list of attributes to strive for this year, and as it is a seasonal activity to make resolutions, we have a selection of worthy pursuits for our consideration: compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, forgiveness, and, above all else, clothing ourselves with love, Paul says, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Perhaps our happiness is best measured not by what we have for ourselves, but, in God’s economic terms, how much we love one another and take care of one another. Living fully engaged in sharing God’s love is, in the final analysis, what makes us truly happy.

In the footsteps of Christmas, when love comes into the world in the vulnerability of a child, when light pierces the darkness, and hope is born for all the generations to come in the person of Jesus Christ, when you think about it, as Howard Thurman wrote, the work of Christmas has only just begun.

Howard Thurman’s words are on the cover of our bulletin this morning because they get to the heart of our scripture message for this day: “When all the angels are stilled . . . , when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner; to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people, to make music in the heart.”

That birth that we celebrated here in this place just one week ago is something we are invited to celebrate every day of our lives. When we contemplate that birth, William Placher cautions that the danger is to sentimentalize the cuteness of the newborn child in a manger, rather than focus on the awesome mystery of the incarnation. When we look to the incarnation of God and the profound mystery of the birth of love into the world, then we can begin to change from expecting the worst to working toward something good.

In fact Paul tells us in the reading for today that we are chosen by God for this new life of love. In his wonderful translation of this text, Eugene Peterson calls it “dressing in the wardrobe God picked for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline.” “And regardless of what else you put on,” he writes, “wear love. It’s your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.”

We are believers in the child of Bethlehem, and because of that, we have work to do. As Peter Gomes has said,

We are not seduced by the culture of the world; we do not fear the powers or principalities of the world. For we know where we stand, we know who we are, and we know to whom we belong. It is this truth that gives us warmth in the cold; it is this truth that gives us light in the darkness; it is this truth that feeds us when we are hungry and gives us drink when we are thirsty. It is this truth that allows us, poor in the face of the world, to be rich in the face of God. This is the reality check of the gospel, this nativity—this is the heart of the manger—this incarnation of love, and this is the message that allows us to pray with courage and imagination and joy for the coming of the kingdom of God.

This knowledge invites us not to expect the worst but to live into love and bring the light of Christmas to the suffering people and places and situations of the world. This knowledge invites us not to expect the worst but to explore all truth and to be restless in the face of complacency and tireless in our pursuit of justice and peace. This knowledge invites us to go into the world in peace, to love and serve the Lord, who came on Christmas morning, to love all humankind.

So here we are, called again to begin where we left off and yet to make a new beginning—to be a beginning, to create something new, to change from expecting the worst to working toward something good. It is an old choice and a new chance for us and for the world. And what a joy for us that our gospel is one of second chances, new opportunities to claim the love of God, new opportunities to express that love in the world, new opportunities to discover who we are and what we can become in Christ. So Gomes says, “Our routine beckons, the familiar haunts require our attention and our return, and before long the memory of this holy time will disappear and be packed away with the tinsel and the crèches and all the paraphernalia of this season; and by God’s grace, God’s most remarkable and surprising love will have made its way into our hearts.”

So from our kneeling place beside the manger, we slowly rise to our feet, and the miracle of this birth and the glow of this gift of love stay with us, lie within us, even as we slowly step back toward that cowshed door and out into the cold January air and to the world from which we came. We begin again in this new year with courage and joy and love to share the news of this holy birth and to set about doing the work of Christmas in all the far away and forgotten places of our lives and of the world where people expect the worst. Let each of us be bearers of the nativity light and builders of something good—even the kingdom of God. May it be so. Amen.