Sermons by Bishop Paul V. Marshall
Imagine in the Spirit -- And Fear Not
Christmas Eve Sermon Cathedral Church of the Nativity,
Bethlehem, PA
The Rt. Rev. Paul V. Marshall, Bishop of BethlehemThere is something slightly odd about all this, at least if you are literal-minded. We are still several hours away from Christmas morning, yet we greet Christ, "born this happy morning." Besides that, what morning are we talking about? After all, the odds are three hundred sixty-four to one against Jesus' having been born on December 25, yet we tell our children that this is Jesus' birthday. What's going on?
The technical reasons are simple: Christians chose December 25 because it was already a holiday, and they could celebrate away without incurring visits from the police. However, what tonight is about is not chronology, pinpointing dates and times; what we do want to do when we celebrate Christmas is to put to its best and most holy use the creator's gift of imagination.
Imagination is the ability to see and hear what is not there in the physical sense, or sometimes it is the ability to conceive things differently than they are. In that sense we come here to use our imaginations. To use imagination in the Spirit is to say in the long dark nights of winter that a light shines. To use the imagination to say in the winter of mortality that approaches our lives as we age, that death will not triumph. To use the imagination means to come here in the midst of the demands life places upon us and for an hour or so to hear a very simple story about glory, peace, and promise.
Because it is a winter festival, it is fine to have an experience of family closeness as we worship together. It is fine to be reminded of our desires for peace among all nations as we speak of the prince of peace. It is also fine to hear in Luke's story its very pointed social comment about poverty, but I also must comment on that one because it makes a bridge for us. You see, Jesus did not ever, even once, "identify with" the poor. No, he was poor, all the time, and there's quite a difference, the difference between interest and commitment.
And for tonight, the difference is this. Christians do not look at the manger and think of God's "identifying with" the human condition: God enters the world and shares our lot, commitment to living a human life. Immanuel has indeed come, and his name means "God with us" -- believing that is the challenge of Christmas.
I say challenge of Christmas belief because the horrors of human evil are as real now as they were that night long ago and far away. The mystery of disease, pain, and suffering also remains the greatest unsolved philosophical problem. I do not want to dwell on details on this night of all nights, but I do want to say that the situation in which Christ's coming took place would seem very familiar to us, if we were there - perhaps only the costumes would be different.
In a world populated then as now with liars, cheaters, bullies, and bureaucrats- in a world where then as now the death rate is one each and there is plenty of suffering- in that world something stupendous happened, and it is this. In the fullness of time, God appears not as the vengeful warrior for whom ancient sages had looked, but becomes as vulnerable as one can be: and appears as a baby. As a baby, gently subverting the strong, the loudmouthed, the manipulators, the arrogant, by appearing in simplicity and being totally dependent on those around him.
If they are properly waterproofed, it is always something of a privilege to be invited to "hold the baby" when they are new. Holding and trying to communicate with a baby, perhaps hoping it will hang on to a finger, are times when we, too, enter a different, less guarded, state. The point of having infancy stories about the one who was to bravely die and mightily rise, is to remind us that we are invited to a relationship with the divine that is never built on force, but is built on vulnerability, intimacy, and complete trust.
Lest you think I have reduced the Christian religion to a club for innocuous ne'er-do-well's whose integrity is fulfilled only when they fail or someone uses them for a doormat, let me say more. I believe that Christians must set the example as they do all that they can to build and maintain strong marriages and healthy families - so intimacy, trust and vulnerability take lots of work. I believe that Christians must engage what is amiss in our culture, and do so non-violently - vulnerability requires courage. I believe that the starving and under-educated children of the world need our constant care - liking babies requires sacrifice.
But the secret is, of course, that we press on because we know the rest of the story. As we watch the story we begin tonight, it will be the consistent living of unsentimental, faithful, and consistent love in the face of evil that is offered at Calvary and vindicated in Joseph's lovely garden. It is that sort of committed love that governments and individuals sometimes fear because it cannot be controlled and because it answers to a higher standard than expediency. It is the message on which tough guys, "real men" and "high-T" women heap scorn, because acknowledging it would expose the fear and anger that so often produces their aggression.
This message of the child as God with us, is a message that reorders the values in one's life, redefines success, and makes you look a little weird to your friends. They cannot understand that time, energy, or money you devote to things that won't help you up the ladder.
But we know that in vulnerability there can be community. In trust can be found the power of God. In simple honesty with ourselves about ourselves there can grace flourish. In swallowing pride and accepting forgiveness from God or one another, a new creation can take place. When, in our Spirit-led imaginations, this child reaches up for us to hold it, we realize what Adam and Eve forgot for just one fatal moment: what God wants from us before all else is love. The rest will follow.
The movement to vulnerable and intimate love that I have been struggling to describe is painted beautifully in one of the Communion hymns tonight, "In the Bleak Mid-Winter." Christina Rossetti unapologetically takes our northern hemisphere winter as the framework for the story and does something wonderful to see because it makes good poetry as well as good theology.
The first stanza takes all its images from things hard, cold, and cruel. Each stanza becomes warmer and softer in its images and the way the words fit the metre. In the final stanza, she asks the question, what can I give him, and what she concludes is "yet what I can I give him: give my heart." When we sing it, see if the progression of images of hard and soft, near and far, past and present, don't move you in the direction I've described. The question she ends with is really the main thing that I hope each of us will do tonight: will take the risk of giving our heart a little more completely, the risk of following the master whose birth we celebrate a bit more faithfully, the risk of mending broken relationships.
When I think about some of the things such a resolution for 1998 would call me to do, I am very much aware of the price. Perhaps it is for that reason that the first thing the angel says in our story is, "Fear not."
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