A sermon from Christmas Eve 2021: A Distant Kind of Christmas

 Luke 2:1-20

Christmas is about closeness. (At least that what we’ve always been told.) Christmas is about hugging the people you love, enjoying the joyous moment the curtain goes up at the theater with the rest of the audience, gathering together around a table to eat, singing in church together, clasping one another’s hands with a greeting of peace. But these day—again—the very idea of closeness can be complicated. Events and gatherings are again being modified or even cancelled and the intensity is growing as the days tick by. 

These days, closeness makes some of us nervous, and with good reason. It gives some of us pause as we calculate: mask or no mask, how much distance? How many people will be there? Test or no test? It makes others of us frustrated or angry because we are done with this distance. Enough already. The very act of thinking about closeness can rattle us one way or the other. 

There is certainly a closeness in our Christmas story: Mary and Elizabeth drawing together as they await the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus, the angel Gabriel suddenly appearing right there next to Zachariah or Mary, and everyone drawing close to the manger while Mary cradles baby Jesus close to her heart.  But our Christmas stories are pretty chalk full of distance and separation too. 

Those shepherds out there on the hillside are far away from everything and everyone who is important and powerful in the world in Rome or Jerusalem. They are way out there on the edge under the wide dark, distant sky wrapped that cold winter night when the angles call out to them from high above the earth.  

The Magi that notice that distant star of wonder. But it’s far. And they travel a long distance and for a long time until it stops over that stable.  Mary and Joseph are far from their home in Nazareth, maybe even feeling a little homesick. Who wants to welcome a new baby while they’re on this obligatory trip, distant from their loved ones surrounded by strangers? 

Even after our Prince of Peace is born, a power hungry king Herod runs the holy family off into the distance out to Egypt. There is, most certainly, distance and a rift in our Christmas story and there’s a yearning for something to be different.  The distance is hard:

Mary and Joseph long to be home in Nazareth. The shepherds hope for more just world and that leads them to rush into Bethlehem. There’s a yearning for the promise of something new that the Magi to search for when they follow that star. Mary sang of this hope and longing for different world where the mighty would be brought down and the lowly lifted up.  Zachariah sang of his tender hope that his tiny baby, John would make a difference in the pain and struggle around him.  Simeon, that church grandpa who greeted the baby Jesus in the temple, sang of hope of a new salvation that was dawning for the people in this child. 

The Christmas stories are full of a longing for this world to be different and a hope and belief that God will make it so.

If Christmases from past years with all the coziness and togetherness can give us a glimpse of the closeness that is at the heart of the story, then Christmases of today with this distance and separation that we’re weighing these days takes us, by a different path, also into the very heart of Christmas. Because into that space of aching and hoping and longing, into the distance and discord is where God decides to be born.  

In recent years, the world feels shadowy and full of distance. For some, it has felt that weeping has endured for the night,  but where, oh where, is the joy that comes in the morning?

There’s people struggling with their rent and folks needing to depend more heavily on food pantries. There’s a lack of opportunity and violence that hitting close to home.  School is tough with the masks and the stress and the risks. There’s health care workers who are stretched to the limits and people worried about if they can get the medical care they need. There are folks who respond to social change with hardened hearts and bigotry. There are tornados that whip through cities and fires that burn through towns. Some people are mentally maxed out and others are aching from loneliness.  We’re living in a time of great change and it’s not easy.

This kind of pain and hurt and (some of it) sin, shifts and fades or grows with each generation; but this longing for a light that no shadow will extinguish, this crying out from the wilderness for the closeness of Jesus from inside the very chasm, remains.

Into that cold winter night, ages ago, God didn’t send a magic bullet to fix all those problems. God didn’t send the wonder drug or the ultimate means to an end. God sent a baby: a real flesh and blood human presence. Jesus who is born to be with us this Christmas isn’t a fix-it God who eliminates the distance or the pain with the snap of a fingers. Yes, Jesus helps us, helps me and, as Jill Duffield writes, "gives us wisdom face our problems, strength for the journey, hope for the future and courage to live this life that we’ve been given" (or even just live this next day before us.)

This is Jesus who is with us in the distance
in the chasm,
in the disconnection,
in the discord.

Immanuel, God with us:

God who fights for us,

fights through us,

weeps with us,

weeps through us,

Wonderful Counselor,

Mighty one,

Prince of Peace and Savior of this world.

In Jesus we know a God who intimately knows our human suffering and longing because he was human.  Jesus will not turn away from it but will make a way through it so that each and everyone one of us knows that there is nothing of this world that we may face that is beyond the grace of God. Nothing. In those moments of distance, that’s exactly where God slips into the world and we almost don’t realize it. 

Jesus is alive in a hand that shares 
    when you’re running on empty, God with us.
Jesus is alive in the person who sits with us 
    when we’re afraid, God with us.
Jesus is alive in the supportive words 
    we needed to hear, God with us.
Jesus is alive in the bag of groceries 
    for the family who needs it, God with us.
Jesus is alive in the therapist 
    who helps you grow, God with us.
Jesus is alive in the tree 
    that was planted, God with us.
Jesus is alive in the truth tellers and justice seekers 
    and the deep dreamers who show us the way. God with us

Sometimes, Jesus Immanuel slips in so quietly that we don’t even quite realize it at first just like an ordinary baby born to an very ordinary family.

The light dawns slowly. Although we’re on the other side of the winter solstice by a few days here, these are still some of the longest nights of the year. Every day, we have a few more minutes of light but it will take some time to get to those long, easy days of spring. Even Mary, after everything has happened needs some time to get her head in the game and, scripture says, she ponders everything that has happened looking there at her baby.

The Messiah’s birth heralds a new season, a shifting tide, but there is still a ways to go. There’s still a road to walk, a distance to travel, a heart to transform, a world to renew.

And God is with us as we go.

A foundation of love (12.5.21)

 Our gospel today from is the first chapter of Luke I will get to that gospel story in a few moments, but for the meantime, I’d invite you to be seated while I give you a little backstory first. The gospel of Luke begins with a couple of characters that don’t normally get a lot of airtime around Christmas.  Shortly before the angel came to a town called Nazareth to visit a woman who’s name was Mary, that same angel known as Gabriel, made another surprise visit to the priest, Zachariah, one day at the temple and told him that after many years, his wife, Elizabeth, was going to have a child. 

There’s Gabriel with the trumpet, scroll and everything proclaiming the good news to Zachariah and instead of high-fiving Gabriel and jumping for joy, Zachariah is suspicious.  

Can you blame him? 

Besides the fact that there’s an angel standing in front of him, the bible alludes to how Elizabeth and probably Zachariah were really, really sad about how they couldn’t have a baby.  When Zachariah’s questioned the message from God, Gabriel, it seemed, got a little huffy and took away Zachariah’s ability to speak or hear for the next 9 months. (Moral of the story: do not mess with the angel Gabriel.)

In Gabriel’s defense the next stop on his earthly visit after sharing the news with Zachariah was to visit the unwed teenage mother in Nazareth and tell her she was bearing the son of God --a task which perhaps had him a little on edge.  

Zachariah is struck dumb and deaf there in the temple and herein our story picks up today. 

The gospel from the first chapter of Luke: Luke 1:57-80

However you spin it, adding or not adding children to the story can makes things complicated. While some babies are joyfully expected, other folks long for babies they can never have and it’s terrible.  Some pregnancies are a mess and hardly the “happily-ever-after” tale the world might paint them to be.  The absence or presence children complicate things. 

In the case of Zechariah and Elizabeth, in ancient Galilee, not having children was a problem (it can still be a problem in today’s day and age and one of these days, our own society will finally learn to chill out about whether or not people have kids).  In her own ancient words, Elizabeth called her struggle to have a baby a “disgrace.”  Oh, honey.  I doubt she was thinking of those biblical foremothers like Miriam or Deborah who never had children that we know of. Elizabeth wanted a child and it was terrible. In her case, not having children poked holes in her status as a valuable member of society. It meant there was no security net in old age.  Her social status was shaky.  No doubt her grief—and probably Zechariah’s—ran deep.  

Not only were Elizabeth and Zechariah living through this personal pain, that afternoon when Gabriel visited Zechariah, there was deep political conflict around them in Galilee where they lived.  There were divisions. There was hatred. There was rampant classism. In many ways, life was shaky.

Eight days after the child is born, his parents head to the temple to go through all the proper Jewish rituals and have him circumcised. I imagine Zechariah holding the baby just like you see on the front of your bulletin there in the temple when and an argument breaks out over what to name the child.  

“Name him after his father!” Elizabeth shakes her head. 

(Elizabeth might have been accustomed to the a backseat since she’s married to one of the priests, but she was also a pastor’s kid herself, and given that I have high hopes for my own children, I’m happy to report that she held her ground.)

“Nope.” She says. “We’re calling him John.”  

“Oh for goodness sakes, someone comes back at her. What is this name, John?! At least name him after a relative as is the custom.”

This is the point where Zechariah hands the baby to someone, asks for a tablet and writes: “his name is John!”

Right then and there,  Zechariah’s voice returns and he begins to speak or, rather to sing.  The first verse of his song is a rousing version of “thank you God, for sticking with us across the ages. You’re incredible. You’ve been here. You’re our everything. Thank you, Lord!"

Given this was the first thing he had said in quite some time, I imagine the people in the temple paying attention and even joining into the song so by the time Zechariah finishes the first part, the whole place has chimed in, or is in tears: Thank you Lord!  And then as Zechariah sings on, the tune turns wistful as he sings of his hopes for how this child will help heal this hurting world around him.  It’s a hope I think we all share for all the children in our midst.   

And this is where I had to pause the story for a moment. Because life has not been easy for Zechariah and his people. This last week has been tough on some of us too.  Not only are folks a little rattled with the news of another variant of covid, four kids lost their lives in a shooting inside a high school this week, Lord have mercy. 

Folks are rattled about monumental cases sitting in our supreme court, there has been continual violence across Chicago and even in this very neighborhood where we congregate. 

As the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, it’s not hard to spin out into despair, the weight of our pain can be so heavy. Life has not been easy around us and for some of us, it has been very, very hard.  All of these characters in our Advent and Christmas stories give us something different to cling to.  

Zachariah calls us to remember not the places where our lives seem empty, but to remember the moments where God’s grace and presence filled our lives, and has filled the lives and history of our people and then to hold onto the hope that just as God was, God is and will be.

Amy Butler writes,  “when the weight of your pain is so heavy, turn to the one who can balance out the scales of utter inequity and lift your countenance from sadness to hope. Open your eyes now to see your life, filled to overflowing with the goodness and promise of God. And then open your heart to the richness of justice making community so that together we may move this world toward what God imagines for us.”

In my case, when the shadows of this world accelerate my heart, when hopelessness squeezes at my throat, when I’m afraid of what the future will bring, I think, among several things, of you all. I think of the way people have raised their hands and said, “I’ll serve. I’ll give. I’ll lend a hand.” I think of the box of cookies that one of you sent to my door several months ago and the card of encouragement I get now and then.  I will think you all passing out Halloween candy to neighborhood kids and making blessing bags for GLBTQIA youth at the Center on Halsted in a few weeks.  I will think of our staff working with neighborhood groups to create a vaccine clinic here at church, for music you all help lead each week, through the way you reach out to each other through coffee and lunch and walks and phone calls. I will think of all the things we’ve learned this last year and how God has stuck with us through all of it and led us to grow. I will think of you all and remember what God’s salvation looks like when it comes alive in this space and in our lives. 

Then I imagine what will be and how we will prepare the way, all of us together for God’s love to be alive around us again. And we’ll again call out for God’s light to pierce our hearts and come find us in our brokenness.  To shine a light on the path to lead us forward in a way of peace. 

Surrounded by all of the uncertainty and pain, God’s love is strong enough to lead us, God’s love is strong enough to save us, God will never stop blessing this world and we hold onto and participate in that promise. As we wait for the one who is to come, we remember Zachariah’s song:

By the God’s tender mercy, the dawn from on high will break upon[b] us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, It will guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Let it be so.

Sing to the Lord a New Song! (11.14.21)

 I stood in the freezing patio a year a half ago glued to a phone call with a handful of you as we debated—should we do church in person that coming weekend or not? There was this strange new coronavirus floating around that had seemed to have arrived in Chicago. Many churches were canceling services. We decided that, given we might not be able to meet in person for a good 4 or even 6 weeks while this thing blew over, we should, indeed, meet for church that Sunday. Little did we know we were about to embark on a 59 week stint of virtual church. 

Here in Chicago, we all watched with unease as transmission rates rose and shop and restaurant windows darkened. Months passed, and over time, we all knew folks that had been sick with covid. We all knew folks that were newly unemployed. We all knew of food pantries that were maxxed. As our normal patterns were disrupted, a deeper normal was challenged when the voice of the Black Lives Matter movement rose up that spring calling attention to police brutality and systemic racism.  

The waves began to rock. The politicians began to growl. And we began to wonder about who we really were as people, families, as a society. Accusations of fear buzzed constantly. People pointed fingers and we drove in the wedges between people.  We hunkered down, some of us lonely, some of us frazzled, some of us grief-stricken and anxious.  Our family bonds groaned under the pressure. Our world doubled over as we watched the curves on all the graphs rise and fall. As we watched election results play out. Even with a vaccine, we still weren’t sure footed at first. When Spring came, it was like we all kind of stepped out squinting and blinking trying to get our bearings.  

Our story from this last year and a half, with the earth rumbling under our feet is an old, old story.  Last November, almost a year ago to the day, Marcia, a member here, shared a reflection in a zoom worship service and reminded us, “God has seen this all before. God has seen violence and scarcity of food and floods and famine and war and uncertainty.”  She’s right. We trace this ancient story through the pages of our scriptures and, yes, God has seen this all before.  The people of God have repeatedly faced difficult and even harrowing times.  

The Israelites were enslaved in ancient Egypt. Then, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years disoriented, uncertain, anxious, sometimes they got it right out there in the wilderness sometimes caught up in petty arguments, but they were always looking for hope.  Generations after their wilderness trek, the people of God were marched out of Jerusalem across the desert to Babylon where they were held captive. During the time of Jesus, the sky ripped in two, and nation rose against nation, eventually, the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Roman armies, and the Jesus-followers scattered, terrified. Throughout all of this, the ancient people were disappointed, confused, heartbroken, disorientated.  They grieved and doubted. They suffered and felt alone.  And yet, God’s Spirit never left them. Generation after generation, God has guided the people through “the valley of the shadow of death” to life.   

That phrase, “the valley of the shadow of death” is from Psalm 23, which is probably the most famous song in the Book of Psalms. It’s a song of comfort. It’s often read at funerals, but if you read it closely, it’s also a wilderness song. It’s a song of difficult days.  The musician that wrote that psalm wrote of “the valley of the shadow of death.” She speaks of “evil,” and of “enemies.”  That “rod and staff” that comfort her?—they tell us that there is trouble lurking near by. Shepherd’s rods were used for warding off and smacking off predators, their staffs were for helping hook around and rescue lost sheep that were trapped in crevices or brambles and lifting them out. In other words, Psalm 23 is a song of comfort-in-the-midst-of-difficulty. A song of hope-in-the-midst-of-despair. Our ancestors found – even in the throws of enslavement, of exile, and of what felt like defeat – new ways to sing to God, new ways to stay together as a community, new ways to praise God, who never promises to shield us from the valley of the shadow of death, but rather promises to be with us in it, to give us strength, and to shepherd us as we move through that valley. 

And so our ancestors sang new songs, songs of comfort and hope, songs of praise and thanksgiving. And all of that brings us to our reading today, Psalm 98 which we just heard a few moments ago: “O sing to God a new song, for God has done marvelous things!” 

When we praise God from the heart, our song of praise lifts us up out of the mire of circumstances and struggle, so we can remember who we really are: beloved children of the God of Love and Grace. We are made to praise - and not just in good times! Praise is like this ladder for our spirits, it helps us climb up out of the shadows and into the light to get a new perspective on things from high up there. It’s like climbing up that ladder and sticking our head out of the clouds to feel God’s glory on our faces, even if only briefly. Praise brings us back in touch with the truth of our situation: That we are God’s beloved. Praise God from whom all blessings flow, joyful, joyful Lord we adore thee!

We can and should sing the old, familiar songs, of course, but in times like these that we are living, we have to sing them in new ways, just as our ancestors did. When they were re-located to a new city, they had to sing the song differently. When their temple was destroyed, they had to sing the song differently. So too, do we.

We have found new ways of singing, “new songs.” We’ve found new forms of praise and thanks and delight - new ways of being the church, of being God’s people “together for joy” (Ps 98:8).  Who could have imagined these new songs we have composed?

Who would have thought that we would have been able to pivot the church to a virtual platform and not just keep our heads above water, but thrive.  We went out on a limb and filmed ourselves in a bunch of quirky little videos and made a worship service out of it.  You lit advent candles around your kitchen tables and met around bonfires.  Groups met around zoom and even occasionally on each other’s freezing cold patios.  We met virtually to discuss books and bible stories and discuss anti-racism. We created music videos to lament racism and virtual love notes for folks who are transgender that we shared on social media. We sang new songs. 

We reached out into the community with free little pantries that we established outside. We put together thanksgiving dinner for the friendship center food pantry. We created exhibits like the prayer wall, an outdoor rally day and a trunk or treat event. There were chorus’ of this song that we wrote that I didn’t see coming: We unexpectedly gave $8,000 to the friendship center in the spring of 2020 and $10,000 to a struggling sister church in Humboldt park last Christmas. We sent a kid from a sister church to camp. We tithed our income from rally day a few months ago and gave it to the Lutheran fund for Afghan refuges. We gave $23,000 to the synod this year which sang new songs with us as they started funds for tiny churches that had been whalloped by the pandemic, or supported disaster relief for fires, floods, to help mitigate food insecurity.

And then, it happened in your own lives. How many of you have started singing new songs in your own daily lives: You reflected on your participation in unjust systems, You worked to make sure all our youth know how beloved they are. You supported families who were struggling. You volunteered around the city at vaccine clinics and food pantries. You ran errands for home bound senior citizens.  You supported the teams you led at work. You were compassionate to coworkers in a new way. You marched downtown in Chicago, Maddie and Dave: you went and marched in Washington D.C. Wendy Taube, you’ve been working with an organization for international human rights to bring women judges and lawyers out of Afghanistan. 

You raised money for important causes through marathons. Your 5th and 6th graders honored the memory of those killed by gun violence last weekend in our All Saints service. Your new songs admitted you weren’t always okay and you gave others courage to sing or say the same. You sent cards and made meals and stretched to be generous with your money and time.

I will sing, sing a new song to the Lord. We sang new songs.

This is who we are as Luther Memorial. A place that listens to God’s voice and adapts. A place of growth in God’s love. A place that keeps our eyes on folks who are vulnerable. This is exactly who we’ll continue to be and become. Now more than ever, we need to reach out and lift each other up. Now more than ever, we need to find new ways to be “together for joy.” Now more than ever, we need to be the church! 

The church was made for times such as these: not times of ease and tranquility, but times of difficulty and struggle. Not a stroll along a sunlit ridge line, but a pilgrimage through the valley of the shadow of death.  Not a whimper or a whisper of silence, but a new song sung out loud, in harmony with all creation, as the seas roar and hills sing together for joy!

This new year, as we look towards who God is calling us to become we will continue to let God’s hand shape us.  We will challenge ourselves to level up and be generous in the face of selfishness, to be compassionate in front of pain, to be reflective in the face of complex problems, to sing a new song of community when the world keeps trying to wrap us up into ourselves. To love our neighbor.

We will continue to reach outward into the community.  The staff and council that God has called to serve here are the right fit to help us look outward and compose new songs. The number of kids involved in our older kid programming has grown by leaps and bounds. By the grace of God, you all have done some solid ministry with these middle schoolers and high schoolers over the years.  

We want to connect more deeply with our young people as they reflect on how God is alive in this world and who God is calling us to become. We’re going to listen to the new songs they sing. We’re going to make music together as a congregation, and study God’s word together and this is why all of us, as a community, ask each other to share our treasure and invest in our mission as a church today. 

Omar and I pledged a couple of weeks ago. Some of you have pledged on line, some of you have turned in a pledge card, some of you have emailed us saying, “I’m not really sure how to pledge…? but this is what my family and I want to do this year. We’re committed.” All good.

Some of you are still thinking about it. maybe you haven’t pledged before, maybe you’re not sure if it’s your style. Your participation matters. Your generosity matters.  It supports this ministry. It makes a difference. And God transforms you through your giving.

In a time of difficulty and despair for so many, we are a community of light and hope. In a time of injustice and struggle, we are a community of love and justice. In a time of silence and isolation, we are a community of gathering, a community of song--of new songs and new ways of singing, new ways of being God’s church for God’s world, together for joy. 

Thanks be to God!

 **With thanks to the Salt Project for the "Together for Joy" resources.