Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
Christmas Eve - 2008 - 8:30 p.m.
In an "All in the Family" episode from many years ago, Edith and Archie Bunker are attending Edith's high school reunion. It's amazing she ever got Archie to attend, but he did. Edith encounters an old classmate by the name of Buck, who, unlike his earlier days, has become excessively obese. She and Buck have a delightful conversation about the old times and the things they did together. But, remarkably, Edith never seems to notice how heavy Buck has become. Later, when she and Archie are talking, she says, "Archie, ain't Buck a beautiful person?" Archie, as he so often does, looks at her with a disgusted expression - or perhaps just a perplexed expression - and says, "You're a pip, Edith. You know that? You and I look at the same guy and you see a beautiful person. I see a blimp!" Edith gets a puzzled expression on her face and then, as she so often does, says something unknowingly profound, "Yeah, Archie, ain't it too bad."
It was a minister's, at least this minister's, greatest Christmas Eve fear - a major typographical error in the evening's order of worship. You read and re-read that thing, but somehow the errors still slip through. And there it was, the congregation was invited to sing that beloved Christmas carol, "Aware in a Manger." And yet, much like Edith's comment, that typo might have been unknowingly profound.
"Aware in a manger." Were they... are we? I wonder, what were Joseph and Mary aware of on that night...what were the shepherds aware of? As we approach Bethlehem on this night, what are we aware of? Like Archie and Edith looking at the same man, what do we see - what do we hope to see?
You know the Christmas story. You may never come close to a Bible, this may be the only time all year that you are in a church sanctuary, but you know the story. You can stop any random person on the street, and he or she will probably know the story. Shepherds and angels and wise men and a manger and a baby and a star. We know the story. Now we can argue about the details: Virgin birth? Angels singing? A star? A stable and a manger? Did it really happen like that? Did it really even happen in Bethlehem? Yes, we can argue about the details, but we know the story.
And beyond the details, what do we see - what are we aware of? It seems to me that this is the important question this night. If you were to have conducted a basic man or woman on the street interview the day after Jesus' birth, my guess is that an overwhelming number of people in Bethlehem, or whatever town Jesus was born in, would have had no awareness of an extraordinary birth in their midst. The Bethlehem Times and News would probably not have mentioned it. Just another baby born to a desperately poor peasant couple. So what. Not exactly big news.
Except that here we are once again, telling the story. What does that say about our awareness? It's an old story of a young man in India who left his home and traveled in search of a spiritual master, whom he at last found sitting in prayer beside a river. The young man begged the master to teach him. The master rose slowly, then suddenly grabbed the younger man and dragged him into the river and under the water. Seconds passed, then a minute, then another minute. The young man struggled and kicked, but still the teacher held him down until at last he drew him, coughing and gasping, out of the water.
"While you were under the water, what was it you most wanted?" the teacher asked.
"Air ," the young man said, still panting.
"And how badly did you want it?"
"All...it was all I wanted in the world. With my whole being I longed for air."
"Good," said the teacher. "When you long for God in the same way that you have just longed for air, come back to me and you will become my disciple."
As fun as it would be, I don't think we'll be holding anyone under the water this evening. And yet, I wonder if we keep returning to this service, to this old story we know so well - literally true or not - because it touches an awareness deep inside, an awareness of something - a longing, a yearning, a desire, a need for something deeper, something meaningful, something more substantial in life than the daily routine. I wonder if we come here longing for air, for new or renewed breath. Then someone starts talking about a stable and birth and a star, and for one luminous moment, we are aware, the boundaries between this world and another become porous, and we see as if for the first time, the possibility for such truth and beauty that it is almost impossible to believe they have our names on them... but they do.
We hear so much, often from true believers, about the ongoing crass commercialization of Christmas, all the gratuitous trappings and tinsel, and the loss of Jesus as the reason for the season. For how many years now have we heard and read angry editorials about "Happy Holidays' versus "Merry Christmas"? But I don't get much involved in those discussions anymore. Because I am more and more convinced that there is a holy spark that smolders beneath even the most secular and over-the-top of our ceremonies. I am more and more convinced, everywhere I look, that we are haunted by an awareness of the Holy, of our need for the Holy, and that coming here and telling this old story, as familiar as it is, puts us in touch with that awareness once again.
In the words of one of my favorite preachers and writers, Barbara Brown Taylor, "There are all kinds of things wrong with the way we celebrate Christmas. We eat too much, we spend too much, we sentimentalize too much, we worry too much. But those excesses cannot douse the holy instincts that underlie them. We really are hungry. We really do want to give and to receive. We really do want to live peaceably, sleep soundly and rise renewed. And as the season moves toward its climax, God is in the midst of it, after all, still hunting new flesh in which to be born."
And so tonight, as we tell the story again, may we be aware in a manger - aware of this place and time, this story, as a thin place, where, if but for a moment, a door does open between this world and the next, and we behold a light, a love, a hope surpassing all understanding.