Yes Virginia…

“Yes Virginia…”
a sermon based on Luke 2:1-20
given at Palm Bay, FL on Sunday, December 23, 212
by Rev. Scott Elliott

Merry Christmas!

I’m pretty sure a number of pastors have focused a sermon or two on Santa  before, but I don’t think that I ever have.

I am, as most of you know, a serious and somewhat scholarly theologian who also happens to like fun and light-hearted things. Which is, I guess, why my sermons and classes usually start with a joke or two . . .or three . . .or more . . . It is also why we may be the only church in America that owns a rubber chicken.   

I decided today to address this Santa fellow head-on in a sermon and as usual I feel I must begin with a joke or two . . . or three . . . or more about Santa. There are only bad jokes about Santa . . .so we are in luck.

No one talks much about Santa’s wealth. The assumption is that although he runs a multi-billion dollar operation he takes nothing from it. Proof of this is he’s known as Saint Nickel-less.

Do you know why Santa enters homes through the chimney, because it soots him so well.

Actually Santa used to be anxious about going down chimneys, he was  Claus-trophobic, which is how he got the last name Claus.

And I’ll bet you didn’t know Santa got over that chimney related illness with a flue shot.

One more chimney related joke. Santa has upon occasion suffered burns from fireplaces, which is how he got to also be known as Krisp Kringle.

Oh wait a sec, there’s even a kinda University of Oregon Santa joke: What did Santa get when he crossed a Yule Log with a duck?  A fire quaker.
1

Okay. Okay. I see some of you getting restless for some more serious stuff, perhaps even wondering what Santa has to do with God or Christianity.

Well, Santa for the most part actually arose out of Christian traditions in Europe. Saint Nicholas is real. He was born in Fourth Century Greece. A devote Christian, he rose to bishop in the church. And before becoming the magnificent continuing legend he is today he was well known for his generosity, giving gifts to the poor, especially children.

One story has him throwing gifts of gold into the house of a poor family.  He is the patron Saint of children. 2

The Dutch call Saint Nicholas, “Sinterklaas” and in Holland he’s also long been known to give toys to children.

And not long after America was founded Sinterklaas showed up on this continent and pretty soon we started calling him “Santa Claus” (which, you know, sounds a lot like “Sinterklaas” with a Boston accent. “Lets paak the caah so we kin ga see Senta Klauss.”)

Thankfully Santa still exists in our culture. Perhaps the best known written proof of his existence is an 1897 editorial in “The Sun” written by Francis Church answering this letter by eight year old Virginia O’Hanlon:  

“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so. Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?“ 3

Here are the last four paragraphs of Mr. Church’s brilliant and insightful reply:

       Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.        Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys onChristmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

       You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding. 

    No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. . . Francis Church, 1897. I have long loved that letter.

My favorite two sentences – besides the confirmation of Santa’s obvious existence– are  “The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see . . . Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable
in the world.”

I have never heard anyone seriously argue that Santa is God. But I have heard people seriously (and derisively) argue that believing in God is like believing in Santa Claus.

Most theologians and Christians tend to bristle at that assertion, but I got to thinking, What if we embrace it?

What if we ignore, or better yet forgive, the con-de-scension and agree along the lines of Frances Church’s letter to Virginia?

Think about it. The existence of both Santa and God depend on a willingness to accept that “The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men [nor women] can see.” Those accepting either one end up at some point agreeing with Frances Church’s assertion that “Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.”

I’m not saying that Santa is God. I am saying belief in one or the other has roots in real experiences of love from real unseen wonders.

And forget reality for a moment, have you ever stepped back and thought about how regardless of the right or wrongness of cultural notions about God and Santa much of those general notions share a lot on common?

I’m not talking about specific details or in-depth theological precepts, but the generally accepted notion of the stories about Santa and God are on many levels are very similar.

Whether we agree or not with the cultural notions, God and Santa (rightly or wrongly) are often pictured as an old white bearded guy who keeps company with mystical helpers, knows all that we do, accepts pleas for what we’d like and then on occasion comes out of the sky to give us things– best of all gifts we’ve asked for.  Both give gifts to us gratis . . . free . . . without charge. And both love everyone, and their love has no strings attached.  Right? No kid is really turned away from Santa. No human is really turned away from God.

I just suggested one difference in the general notions of God and Santa.  Santa tends to deal with children and their actions and requests, while God tends to deal with all humans and their actions and requests.

What I just laid out are – I think– fair characterizations of the general notions of God and Santa. I’m not arguing we each personally perceive them as the culture generally does, but that if we listen we can hear how they are similar in some general respects.

There are differences in the details and the breadth and depth of application, meaning and function, as well as a different set of adherents of the faith for each story, but, generally speaking there is this kind of amazing-when-you-think-about-it overlap.

Stories, legends, myths and beliefs about Santa and God have two points match up which are very important, and I am going to say this quite intentionally: those two points are very real. God and Santa are about Love and Love in action in the world.  Love and love in action in the world. Santa in his Christmas stories is only Love in action one night every year, Christmas Eve. Nonetheless Santa is an incarnation of familial Love that lasts forever.    

God on the other hand in Christmas stories begins the incarnation of perpetual Love on the first Christmas Eve and through Christ is love in action night and day all year long. Christ from the first Christmas Day forward for Christians is the incarnation of God’s unconditional Love that lasts forever.

Santa re-enacts God’s love one day of the year in our families. He is a great symbol of Christmas love. There is no doubt about it, Santa clearly provides–  pun intended– some “presence” of love in our culture this time of year.

And since God is love that makes Santa an agent for God. Santa is not God, but a part of love and so a part of God.

Santa is a vehicle for love-in-action in the world. Seen or not seen both Santa and love are really in action at Christmas.  

It’s a wonder to our children and to us how palpable love is in the Santa story as it unfolds in homes across the world.

It’s so real – And we may not actually “see” it unfold, but there is no doubt whatsoever that we sense it. We experience it! It IS real.

Which is the power that makes Francis Church’s words to Virginia so meaningful. We experience – especially this time of year– that   “The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men [nor women] can see . . . Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.” Santa is just such a wonder . . . and a real one at that.

And if Santa– who’s experienced one day a year acting as a vehicle incarnating love– is real, then all the more so is the Christ whom we as Christians claim to really experience as God incarnate all year long.

We believe in God because we really do experience Love incarnate in the world, and because as Christians we know love as God and God as love. We really, really do.

Christmas originated as the church mass that celebrated Christ– Christ-mas. It’s the day in the dark of winter that we honor the Light that love – God incarnate, Christ– is in our lives.

And here’s the thing, love is real whether it comes to us in a vehicle we call God or Christ or Santa or caring or Love.

In fact, we can, if we choose, deny any one of those things exist because we can’t see them. We can say (as some do) that there is no God or Christ or Santa or caring in the world. We can even say there is no love in our life. But saying these things doesn’t make it so.

Love is an intangible that cannot be seen, it comes in many forms and from many sources but we know it is there. It is one of the most real things in the world, it is a wonder.

As Frances Church wrote over a hundred years ago “The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men [nor women] can see . . . Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.”
That’s Love he wrote about, isn’t it? That’s what Christmas is all about.

And as my friend George Spooner reminded me earlier this Advent,  for Christians a critical part of the Christmas event is that we have  “FAITH.”

Faith for Christians is belief and trust and reverence for God revealed to us through what modern theologians refer to as “the Christ event,” an event that plays out in the life and death and continuing resurrection of Jesus who’s beginning we trace back to the very first Christmas, the Day when God became incarnate in a baby in a manger surrounded not by material wealth, but by love.

Love! that very real thing in the world that neither children nor men nor women can see. It’s truly a wonder unseen and yet manifest in abundance in our lives.

Love is a real free gift.  Christmas celebrates love. It’s a reminder of how real love can be. And as the Bible points out: God is love. God is as real as Christmas, as real as Love.  You can believe, you can trust, you can revere– you can have faith in– love, in Christ, God incarnate in your life. It’s real . . .

Art Linkletter had a TV show some of us are old enough to remember. It was called,Kid’s Say The Darndest Things. Mr. Linkletter wrote that “One of the most appealing remarks I’ve heard come out of a child was spoken by a four- year-old who was expressing the dearest wish of her heart: ‘I’d like to be king of the United States and have two special maids: The Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.’” 4.

Easter and Christmas have a specialness about them for children, love and gifts with no strings attached – unseen and unseeable wonders.

The good news is that Easter and Christmas have a specialness about them for all the rest of us too, love and gifts from God with no strings attached, unseen and unseeable wonders.

If I were king of the United States I’d want two special helpers too, both related to Easter and Christmas: God and Jesus the Christ. And even though none of us will ever be “king of the United States,” those two are by our side all the day long, indeed they permeate our very existence.  

That’s the good news of Christmas.

And faith? Well, faith gives us the ability to hear that news and believe it and better join in the wonder of the universe seen and unseen.

Faith in God – IN LOVE– leads us to peace, hope, joy and love, the very Spirit of Christmas.

Yes, Virginia there is a Santa.

And yes there is God.  

AMEN.

ENDNOTES:

1. A form of most of these puns can be found at the website called “Milpitas Mom’s Favorite Jokes” found at this link: gomilpitas.com/humor/164.
htm

2. Delaney, John, Pocket Dictionary of Saints, (1983), 369; see also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus        

3. I found the on-line text of this famous  “Yes Virginia There is a Santa Claus” correspondence at this link: http://www.newseum.org/yesvirginia/
Linkletter, Art, Kids say the Darndest Things, (1959), p 139        

COPYRIGHT   Scott Elliott © 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Light of Christ in the Dark

The Light of Christ in the Dark

a sermon based on Matthew 1:18-25

given at Palm Bay, FL on Sunday, December 9, 2012

by Rev. Scott Elliott

I spent twelve days of my sabbatical at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The whole thing was financed by a very generous grant from the Lilly foundation. I went to the Shakespeare Festival in part because I have long had a love for theatre and, as most of you know, I direct Shakespeare plays right here in this space as a summer youth ministry.

If you were here last week you also know that I have a love for Christmas. Even during the twenty years I was away from the church, I loved Christmas.

In the little Oregon town we raised our kids in, the town I spent the first six weeks of sabbatical in, they had no Christmas community events whatsoever when we arrived. I decided that something needed to be done. Since I am not a dancer, I knew the Nutcracker was out, which pretty much left a stage version of A Christmas Carol as the obvious choice.

It was obvious because I was (and apparently still am) the world’s most talented undiscovered actor, and so I set out to find a way to do A Christmas Carol. I only knew one person who could play Scrooge . . .me! . . . ALL I needed was a theatre and a director and other actors and costumes and props and lights and money and such. So it took me awhile.

Once I got a plan together, I unsuccessfully proposed it to a local theatre. The rejection came at just about the time I found my way back to religion and discovered the United Church of Christ. I sheepishly presented my idea to the pastor. He loved the idea of a family and youth theatre. He used his connections to get backing of the church, a little funding and a theatre to let us use their stage.

I used my connections and considerable charm to put together a staff and cast (Actually that was easy since, I mean, who wouldn’t want to work with the world’s most talented undiscovered actor?)

So I played Scrooge . . . to packed houses I’m happy to say. The popularity may have been due to the fact that there were, as I said, no other Christmas events to speak of . . . but I am sure it won’t surprise you that I like to think it was the Broadway-like quality of the acting that drew them in.

The shows were really quite fun and an honor to be a part of, but playing Scrooge was hard, because in order to convincingly act so mean and so greedy and so uncaring you have to sort of go there and sit in that darkness of the character. You have to believe at some level that the ghost of the future (of Christmases Yet to Come) is death and what he shows you is the ugly reality the ripples your present life are destined to leave behind if you don’t change.

The way in which I was brought up acting, that’s the sort of probing that makes for good acting – it really does – but it also drags you down to places intuition tells us to avoid.

In my life I have – like many of you – been in the darkness of despair, not on stage, but in reality and it’s those dark places that good actors muster up the courage to revisit to try and gain a feel for a character like Scrooge.

As a whole I would not describe myself as a dark or depressed sort of fellow, but you know what? I have been in the darkness. I know what it is to be sad, very sad.

I do not remember specific instances of darkness making me act mean or greedy or uncaring, but even if they did not, I can imagine how they could.

And although I am not a mean, greedy or uncaring man I have (I am ashamed to say) had moments of each in my life.

And at those times I also had a choice to head deeper into the dark or head for the surface toward the light. I assume all of us here have been in one sort of darkness or another and had to choose – maybe some of us are facing the choice now – to head out of the darkness to Light.

That’s what A Christmas Carol can be understood to be is about too, choices of light and darkness . . .

Scrooge, in his youth, became greedy and the love of his life left him because he chose wrong. And instead of re-choosing in each moment that followed to seek the light he repeatedly chose darkness and so deeper and deeper into the abyss of the dark side of life he fell.

A Christmas Carol shows us all of this. And I believe the author, Charles Dickens’ intent included a symbolic portrayal of the unfolding of the remarkable promise of what Christianity is supposed to be about. The promise that no matter what has happened in the past the present ALWAYS offers a choice to transform not only yourself and your future, but also the lives of those around you. There is so much hope in that promise.

So Scrooge, facing the ghosts of the Christmases past, present and yet to come literally awakens to a new life. Out of the darkness he was in and he was headed for, he chooses to switch course. He finally finds a way to choose Light.

And in the story it matters greatly. A whole family is saved from poverty and a little waif of a boy, Tiny Tim, lives because of it. But so too does Scrooge. He is saved from the lesser self he would have been without choosing to make the message of Christmas his own message. He lives for that message – embodies it – by the end of the story.

That message is, in a word: LOVE! – Jesus’ message, “Love all!” That message, which is heralded by the angels as bringing peace on earth good will to all, because ALL is exactly whom God favors. And all is exactly whom we need to favor in order to love as God loves.

And here’s the thing, in A Christmas Carol God, who is love, is with Scrooge all the time. His nephew, Fred, loves him. His nephew cares for him even when Scrooge chides and mistreats and in essence disowns him. That nephew represents the hands and feet and voice of God.

So does Scrooge’s old caring boss Fezziwig and the loving Cratchet family Scrooge saves.

All of these love-actors in A Christmas Carol can be heard to be Christ incarnate in that story. The Light of their persistent presence is the living catalyst that helps transforms Scrooge, along with memories and spirits beckoning him to get out of the dark and into the Light to move to his better self, to a better world . . .

Describing Scrooge’s miserly ways Dickens wrote “Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.” These words can be heard as a metaphor for how hard it is for us to get out of the darkness we fall into or are pushed into in our lives.

There is a price to be paid to turn on the Light. The price is hard work to change what’s brought us down or made us depressed or chased the light away or shoved us into the darkness.

Often it’s not our fault we are in darkness. It’s not. But fair or not the price of getting the Light on in our lives falls on us. We have to make choices, sometimes incrementally, to get out of the dark.

Maybe it’s getting to professional help.

Maybe it’s getting to an AA meeting.

Maybe it’s getting to another sort of support group.

Maybe it’s going to church.

Maybe it’s taking a step toward forgiveness of yourself or another.

Maybe it’s treating your divorcing spouse or ex with kindness.

Maybe it’s noticing a blessing or blessings in your life.

Maybe it’s sharing blessings more . . . like Scrooge chooses.

Maybe it’s just telling someone you are in the dark and need help.

Maybe it’s just praying to God for help and Light in the dark.

I know that from the darkness, even a small step can feel pricey, too hard to do. Darkness is cheaper. But we gotta, gotta take steps toward the light to get rid of the darkness.

The Christmas story we heard read about Joseph, is one many of us have heard dozens of times, but how many times have we every focused on the darkness Joseph finds himself in? He has a fiancée, Mary. We know from hearing the stories that she is a great young woman.

It’s easy to imagine Mary is this great Light in Joseph’s life. Joseph is lucky in that regard. But he has to think he’s unlucky when the darkness of seeming infidelity dims that light. He finds out that she’s pregnant and according to Matthew and Luke’s telling he’s not the father.

So Joseph faces a choice. He can get angry and revengeful as men are often wont to do in cases or perceived infidelity. He can follow the law and have her turned in as an adulteress to face awful punishment, perhaps even death if some of the harsher Biblical mandates are complied with.

But in the darkness of what he thought was the loss of Mary, Joseph moves toward the Light. He ignores the Biblical mandates that would have harmed Mary, like Deuteronomy 22 (20-12) that provides if a bride or betrothed is not a virgin she shall be brought to “the entrance of her father’s house and the men of her town shall stone her to death.” Or Numbers 5 (20-31) which mandates a man with suspicions of infidelity bring the woman to a priest who must make her drink an abortion causing poison. Ugly dark stuff to be sure.

Joseph doesn’t seek refuge in the darker commands of the Bible. Instead he seeks the Light of love – what Jesus teaches in his life that follows Christmas are the paramount commands of Scripture to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE! In darkness Joseph turned from darkness and sought Light.

Joseph had every right under the law to be mean and uncaring even greedy – making sure no one but he could ever have Mary by having her name besmirched or even having her stoned to death. But he’ll have none of that even in the dreary place of losing the person who was his beloved betrothed.

We are told that “Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” In his darkness he wanted what was best for her. He gave her Light in what he rightly thought was his and her own darkness.

Joseph desired Mary’s well being even though she appeared to have been unfaithful and to have hurt him. It’s a small step in some regards in that all he did was decide not to have her harmed or humiliated. But it’s hard to not choose dark when darkness is what you think someone else caused, and as Dickens notes, dark is cheap, cheaper than Light.

We can hear Joseph’s decision as seeking light in darkness, and that is hard to do.

And although Dickens claimed Scrooge liked darkness, no one, not even the fictional Ebenezer Scrooge (as it turns out) really likes it. The price of turning to light just seemed too great.

The reading today notes that Christ is Emmanuel, which means “God is with us.” That Light we call Christ is with us always, even – EVEN! EVEN! – in the dark nooks and crannies and canyons of our lives. No matter where we are on life’s journey God is with us.

Speaking to God, the Psalmist wrote these amazingly comforting words about such dark places, words most of us have heard many times and found comfort in:

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” (Psa 23:4 KJV)

And those words saying God is in the valley of even the shadow of death are true. No matter where we are on life’s journey. No matter what we have done or not done or what has been done to us or not done to us, God is there cradling us. That means that there is always Light in the darkness. That’s the hope of Christmas . . . the Light cradled in the manger.

Have you ever considered how many of images of Light there are in the Christmas story and traditions? 1.

We celebrate Jesus’ birth in the deepest part of winter when dark is literally upon us more than any other time of year – God gives the Light of Christ in darkness.

Christ arrives in a dark and dank stable – God gives the Light of Christ in darkness.

A star of great light portends Christ’s birth, lights the Magi’s way to IT and adorns the sky above IT – God gives the Light of Christ in darkness.

In the dark fields at night the Light of the heavenly host shone upon, and heralds, Jesus’ birth to shepherds, dark characters in Jesus’ day – God gives the Light of Christ in darkness.

Joseph is in dark times and at night has a dream in some ways it’s just like Scrooge in dark times who also at night has a dream. The dreams these two have bring the Light of God to illuminate the Way out of the darkness. – God gives the Light of Christ in darkness.

If we listen we can hear that there is Light when Joseph chooses in the darkness to turn and provide a caring loving response to the one he thinks has hurt him. Indeed we are told that “as soon as he resolved to do this an angel of the Lord appeared to him.”

Light in the form of an angel arrives in what must have been one of the darkest times in Joseph’s life. Light comes because he tried to do his best and it mattered.

He took a tiny step in the grand scheme of things toward love and it changed everything. He finds out Mary is not unfaithful and his marriage is restored and he has the honor of helping her and God bring in and raise and protect the greatest Light ever recorded on earth.

Christmas is about Light, Jesus’ arrival for sure, but also our need to turn from darkness to light, whether we are Scrooge facing years of a dark conduct or a victim of darkness falling on us like Joseph initially appeared to be.

In our own lives we may need to turn from an even worse darkness like real depression; addiction; illness; abuse; loneliness; fear; betrayal; financial difficulties; divorce; death. Whatever it is – honest, really, truly all the while Emmanuel holds us, God is with us! God in the story of Joseph, Mary and even Scrooge, is with them the whole time. And more importantly Emmanuel is with us alive-now-real-human-beings IN THE PRESENT no matter where or what trouble shadows us.

Those of us in darkness need to hear and know we are loved just as we are and that the Light is there for us, holding us, available to conceive when we turn and begin to take steps out of the dark and into Light.

Those of us NOT presently in the dark need to pray pray and act to be the Light for those in darkness. The Christmas story is about bringing Light to darkness and we need to reenact that story, not just at Christmas time, but every day of the year – every moment that we can.

We need to be angels that bring in the Light. We need to be the Marys and Shepherds and Magi and Josephs who in darkness see the Light and do something about it.

God gives the Light of Christ in darkness. Reaching out for that Light and giving that Light is what Christmas is about.

AMEN.

ENDNOTES:

1. I got a lot of these ideas about Light in the Christmas story from Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan’s book The First Christmas (2007) chapter 7, pages 171-197.

COPYRIGHT Scott Elliott © 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Let’s Sing It Out Like Mary

Let’s Sing It Out Like Mary

a sermon based on Luke 1:39-56

given at Palm Bay, FL on December 2, 2012

by Rev. Scott Elliott

It was Christmas Eve and a couple had just returned from an enjoyable midnight service. They arrived home, went to sleep, but were soon awaken by loud knocking on their front door.

The husband grumpily threw on a robe, went down the stairs and unlocked the door. Standing before him was a disheveled inebriated man who slurrily asked, “Th’cuse me thur. Will you helpth me with a puuth?”

“Help you with a push!” the husband said. “You drunken idiot! Get away from my house before I call the police! You should not be driving!” And he slammed the door in the man’s face and went back to bed.

When the husband told his wife what took place she surprised him with a reprimand:”How could you be so mean and uncharitable?” she said. “Surely this evening’s sermon must still be ringing in your ears. How the innkeeper turned Joseph and Mary away on Christmas Eve. When you’re presented with the same sort of situation you show yourself to be no better than that uncaring man. Shame on you!”

The husband full of remorse ran down the stairs and opened the front door, but the man was no longer there. He ran out in the cold to the sidewalk to find the guy, but there was no sign of him. He peered into the dark toward the park across the street and on the off-chance the man might still be around he shouted. “Hey mister, needing a push, where are you?

The unmistakable drunken voice replied immediately, “I’m here in the park still waiting for a puuth on the thwing.”

What I like about that story is not only that it is amusing, but, that a sermon during Advent gets remembered, nicely summarized and then immediately applied.

And if you think about it, the husband in the story is a lot like most of us, someone who sort of clunkily gets the message to do the right thing and is finally motivated by the wisdom of love being taught by others.

The wonderful thing about Christianity, and for that matter the Jewish tradition that Jesus and his original followers came out of, is that clunky people, real people, are not just loved by the universal Spirit that soaks all of creation, but that they also are empowered to be that Spirit – God’s – agents in the world.

Clunky as we are we do God’s work, even if it just means a begrudging sense of love sends us in the middle of the night to try to help someone who’s partied a bit too hard on Christmas Eve.

Love comes in many forms, but it always makes the ordinary extraordinary. . . Love comes in many forms, but it always makes the ordinary extraordinary.

Some of you are experiencing your first Advent at this love-filled ordinary, but extraordinary wonderful church. So let me warn you, I have inside information that the pastor loves Christmas time.

He usually starts listening to Christmas songs in the fall claiming that it’s to help prepare and plan for Advent.

This year, I can tell you for a fact the pastor threw all caution to the wind. He lit a fire in the fireplace on a cool August night at a beach house in Oregon, pulled a sofa up to the fire, put his arm around his wife and listened to Christmas music.

This church’s pastor is so enamored with Christmas he is all for it’s true Spirit being celebrated all year long.

It’s true. I love Christmas. I see it as a living hologram crystal ball of the potential for humankind. It’s not in clear focus, to paraphrase Paul we look through a glass dimly. The oily film of things like greed and commercialism obstruct the view, but by God you can see it, you can feel it, you can sense it, and you can even breathe it.

Love fills the air this time of year and all the love to family, friends, co-workers, neighbors and strangers is awesome and it has the raw and glorious promise of our potential. And it looks and feels and smells good.

Our senses like soaking in love, so much so most of us have fond thoughts about Christmas triggered the rest of the year when we just catch a whiff of peppermint, see a plump white bearded man, touch a sticky pine tree or purposefully put on a Christmas CD in August in front of a fire with a loved one.

Christmas is more than the culture being saturated with love, it’s the proof and the promise that we can be a better people, we can care, we can give, we can love one another more. Christmas is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that love matters – love makes a difference and we really can make it much more a part of our lives.

Love is transformative. The Christmas narratives are about all about this power and promise of love stuff.

Every year I preach about Mary (Jesus’ mother) during Advent. Protestants have a habit of pretty much only thinking of Mary as the miraculously pregnant lady who rode the donkey into Bethlehem on Christmas Eve and then kneeled before him in the manger with a proud and fond look of a new mother.

Nowadays we also sometimes argue about whether Mary really conceived a child without a human male partner. A lot – I mean a lot – of people love the part of the stories in Matthew and Luke about Mary being a virgin – and many, many Christians are very comfortable accepting that as literally true. I am very good with that being an important part of the Christmas story.

I personally love it as a metaphoric truth that, like Mary, our conception of Christ is between us and God, but I am not a minister who insists believing Mary was a literally a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus is essential to the faith.

When it comes right down to it, I do not know how opinions about Mary’s virginity are critical to what following Jesus is ultimately about. What matters is that we believe in love and in loving – that’s essential! For Christians what ought to matter above all else is that the Way Jesus created (and Christ still creates) helps us do those two things (to believe in love and to believe in loving); to in essence spread love around.

And that is exactly what I see happening at Christmas in our culture. There is this great month of increased – and out-loud, and in action – believing in love and in loving and doing both and celebrating both a whole bunch more than we do the rest of the year. It’s remarkable and it’s beautiful and I unashamedly adore it.

And a part of my love for it is that clunky ordinary people like you and me are doing it. We are making a difference. We are helping bring about the breaking forth of the reign of God into the world in a very real and tangible way.

Peace on earth good will to all is what we as frail, broken, imperfect beings want and believe in, and make strides toward achieving with just a little more love in our lives as we follow Jesus’ Way and we celebrate it.

One of my concerns about the Christmas Bible stories is that they are often heard to only be about super-natural events.

There’s an otherworldly angel who visits Joseph and Mary and the Shepherds.

There’s a miraculous virgin conception.

There’s a miracle star and magical magi who divine its meaning.

All of these parts of the story of Jesus’ birth are wondrous and wonderful but they have grown over time to give this sense that Christmas is about the birth of a superman who grows up to do impossible things. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it makes it very hard for us to, as the Bible instructs us, walk as Jesus walked (1 Jn 2:6), that is what we are to do, to as he did.

How can we do what Jesus did if he did it as a uniquely super-powered being? The answer is we can’t. And the thing is before, during and after Jesus’ life on earth in a human body people have been able to do the things he did that matter; taking care of those in need, opposing oppression, loving. We can do that stuff too because Jesus was, like us, human.

Jesus was fully human. The Gospels are about God sending a human to bring peace on earth good will to all – and teaching and showing us how to do it. Why is that story important? Because it’s possible for a fully human beings like us to do it.

That’s the part of the Christmas story we sometimes forget. That a human being can bring so much love into the world it can change the world.

Now about now some of you may be shaking your heads. And that’s okay in this church no one has to agree with the pastor, but hear me out. There’s a very short birth narrative about Jesus in the Bible that we do not usually hear about at Christmas, it’s not in the carols or pageants, but it is the oldest recorded story about Jesus’ birth and it was written by Paul.

Paul actually lived when Jesus lived and he knew the disciples who knew Jesus, Paul may even have met Mary. But it’s doubtful any of those original followers of Jesus ever told Paul that Jesus was born to a virgin, because Paul mentions all kinds of things about Christianity, but not that. In fact he can be heard to claim the opposite, that he understood Jesus had a biological father, and so we can if we choose believe that too. That’s a Biblical birth narrative – a Christmas story – most of us have never heard during Advent before.

Here’s what Paul writes about Jesus’ at the very beginning of his letter to the Romans: “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh…”(Romans 1:3 KJV).

“Made of seed” is literally a reference by Paul to the “seed” he thought Jesus’ human father had to have contributed. “Of David” is a reference to Joseph being the descendant of King David, a human great, great, great etc. grand father of Jesus.

Interestingly, both Matthew and Luke trace Jesus’ linage through Joseph back to King David. Jesus cannot be of the house of David, or “made of seed of David” unless he had a human father.

It’s fair to believe that Paul got it wrong or Romans is not meant to be read literally. But it is also fair to read the Bible as supporting the idea that Jesus’ conception and birth was human in every aspect. You don’t have to but, you can accept that as part of the Jesus story. It’s there in the text and you can believe it as literally or metaphorically true.

All of this brings me back to Mary – believe it or not. Mary has been venerated in other branches of Christianity so much so some of her story has a super-natural gloss to it as well. Protestants seem to have gone the other direction and pretty much down play Mary and see her as the donkey riding pregnant lady and doting mom of Jesus in the manger in tableaus and pageants.

The Bible actually portrays Mary as so much more than a supernatural mother or a piece of Christmas set dressing.

She’s a mom who worries about her twelve year old human son when he wanders off.

She’s a mom who worries about her thirty-year old human son when he starts his radical teachings of love and equality, since such teachings could get him killed as a rebel.

She is the heartbroken mom who stands by to comfort her thirty-three year old human son as he dies on the cross.

She’s the mom who grieves and tends to the corpse of her son.

She is the mom who is a disciple of her son’s Way in the early church as it evolves.

But this time of the year Mary is first and foremost an ordinary teenager in First Century Palestine who does extraordinary things, whether we think of her as literally a virgin or not.

See, she is understood to not only conceive Christ, but to follow His teachings before He is even born. Jesus is not there yet, but we are told in essence that she gets what following Christ means, what Christmas is to be about. Just like his followers do after he dies when he is not in his human body, Mary gets it before Jesus lives that human life.

The point of Mary getting it before he lives and the disciples getting it after he dies is that we don’t have to have Jesus walking about in his body to do as he taught, to live for love, all we have to have is Christ within ourselves – to conceive of Christ within. And we can do what is required of us, bring peace on earth good will to all, and work towards that.

And Mary shows us how. Upon conceiving Christ within she sings a new song. We heard read the words in the lesson from Luke today where Mary sings this amazing song called The Magnificat.

This is a song we are all supposed to sing with our lives as Christians. I couldn’t find an English version of The Magnificat that we could sing, so I did what any Christmas-loving pastor would do, I turned to our magnificent music director, Chris and her wonderful husband Rick and we came up with lyrics and a tune and an arrangement of a new Christmas song called Magnify the Lord that the choir and band has worked on and all of us are going to sing.

Yes, right here this morning we are going to be the very first public performers of what I am sure will one day be a famous Christmas song sung on the television show Glee or recorded by Justin Bieber.

I know you are all excited now, but before we sing the song we wrote for Advent, I am going to read again The Magnificat as Mary sang it in the lesson today. She sings after conceiving Christ.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.

Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luk 1:46-55 NRS)

You can hear that the translation into English does not have a lyrical quality like we sing our songs today. And of course there is no tune in the text. So we took some liberties with the words to make it apply to us as a community singing, and to be lyrical . . . and we added a tune. The result is a song that’s meant to capture for us Mary’s whole point and allow us to apply it to us. That’s the point of Christmas, that we magnify God in what we say and do.

You may remain sitting, but, please join in singing Magnify the Lord, and who knows this may be the recording that makes it on to a CD!

Magnify The Lord:

Mary we want to be like you/Having Christ growing within/To Magnify the Lord too/Bringing Christ to Christmas again.

We rejoice, rejoice in God who saves all/We rejoice, rejoice in the Christmas call.

Mighty God’s done great things for us/Holy is our God’s name/In God’s love we always can trust/For in God’s eyes we are all the same.

We rejoice, rejoice in God who saves all/We rejoice, rejoice in the Christmas call.

God’s strength scattered the proud abroad/God’s brought down power to fear/Those too proud they can’t see the down trod/Don’t feel the Love of God near.

We rejoice, rejoice in God who saves all/We rejoice, rejoice in the Christmas call.

For God looks upon even me/lowly to others, as blessed/Let me, God’s servant/help relieve Creation, which is distressed.

God lifts up the lowly and down/Fills the hungry with good things/More holy are the poor and sick/Than the uncaring rich and the kings.

We rejoice, rejoice in God who saves all/We rejoice, rejoice in the Christmas call.

Mary we want to be like you/Having Christ growing within/To Magnify the Lord too/Bringing Christ to Christmas again. . . .

That was magnificent! Please be seated. Thank you. That’s the end of the sermon. AMEN.

COPYRIGHT Scott Elliott © 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED