Christmas Eve Sermon
Christmas is always a busy and bustling time of year, but
this year for my family and I it has been particularly hectic. Not only has there been the gift buying, the
dinner preparing, and the socializing in addition to the daily necessities of
work and, for us at least, caring for a household with a perpetual cold, but it
has also been a season of tending to the needs of others. While care for the poor and the needy is not
a Christmas only past-time, in this season of lights the needs of so many seem
particularly apparent. The sad, the
lonely, the afraid, the hungry and the hurt have lined our lives, and while it
saddens me to see so many in pain during this season of joy, I find myself
grateful in those all too few quiet moments.
Grateful that God has not forgotten them, and that God has not abandoned
them in the cold but sent them to us for the care we can provide them.
But it was in the busyness and the anxiousness that seems to
have permeated this year that I was reminded of an old college professor of
mine. Her name was Faith, and she was
the chair of the Legal Studies Dept at Hamline.
Feisty and Proud, and so incredibly sure of herself, Faith had a
confidence about her that was, well…intimidating. I remember being part of Mock Trial under
her, an organization where mostly Pre-Law students play at being lawyers, and I
remember time and time again being stranded in the snow every year. Faith was
gonna have us make that mock trial competition, weather be damned. I remember one year in particular, one of the
worst snowstorms in decades. White out
conditions were everywhere and every news agency in Minnesota said for the love
of everything holy don’t you dare leave your houses that weekend. I-35 was closed, every major highway was
impassable, and the authorities made it clear that we were all going to risk
our lives if we went out into that storm.
We approached Faith with what we believed to be rather reasonable
concerns. She looked us straight in the
eye, her face like flint. Like a modern
day Admiral Bird, she cursed us for cowards and shoved a map of side streets
into stunned little hands.
I’m happy to say that most of us made it. I mean, nobody died, and thank the Almighty nobody
got injured, but quite a few got stranded that year and could have gotten very,
very hurt. In hindsight these many years
later I’m not so sure a chance for the coveted Ames Iowa Mock Trial Regional
Trophy was worth the risk, but I digress.
Still, despite the emotional manipulation and the obvious child
endangerment, I still remember Faith fondly.
Dauntless and completely indestructible, Faith did care about her
students very deeply and we always learned a lot from her. But, I was not to be a young Pre-Law Student
forever, and Faith and I parted ways as I graduated college and stepped into
those hallowed doorways of the Hamline School of Law.
I didn’t see Faith for many years, and oddly enough it
wouldn’t be until I applied to seminary that we would touch base again. As part of the application process into
seminary they require four letters of recommendation from various sorts of people. I guess I can’t blame them for not trusting
me, I was trained by lawyers after all. But
it was precisely here that I ran into trouble.
My academic advisor from Law School, Professor Richard Oakes, God rest
his soul, passed away years before which left me in a bit of a pickle. Doing a little research, however, I had discovered
that Faith was still the chair of the Legal Studies department at Hamline
University, and so I approached her explaining my situation. There was one problem, though. Faith had lost her faith. Herself a lifetime Methodist, she broke with
God when she broke with her husband I think.
That woman had never failed at anything in her entire life, but when she
failed at her marriage…I think a part of her just broke.
She listened to what I had to say and what I wanted her to
do. The task was simple enough and she
was more than able to do it. She knew my
hard work as a student and could easily testify to it. But then she asked me, “Keven, why?” “Why do you want to throw away your career as
a lawyer? Why pass up the status, the
respect, the money…for religion?” Her
mind could not even comprehend it.
Christianity was nonsense, stupid tales for the control of thoughtless
masses. And Faith knew me. From day one in her Introduction to Legal
Studies course, when asked why I wanted to be a lawyer my answer was always the
same. I came from a corrupt rural county
in rural Texas; funds went strangely missing, drug deals went down, people were
kidnapped and wrongfully imprisoned; and every time I was asked why I wanted to
be an attorney I said the same thing, “I want to fight monsters.” I was not going into seminary because I was
some manipulative little rat, not fit for any other profession, I wasn’t
changing careers because I wouldn’t make it as an attorney. But still, she asked me that question,
“Keven, WHY??”
And so I told her. I
was perhaps not so very eloquent in front of my old Legal Studies advisor, but
what I simply said was this, “It fulfills me, Faith, and it will let me fight
the good fight in ways the law just can’t.”
She stood there for a moment, silent, nodding her head. I thanked her for her time and bid her good
day, and for reasons that I will never know, she wrote me that letter of
recommendation, and the results of that one act stand before you today.
It’s been about a decade since that meeting, and sometimes I
wonder what that awesome and frightful old woman would think of her law student
turned pastor. I’ve done things I know
she wouldn’t think pastors would do.
I’ve sat with Muslims discussing religion until midnight, has aided the
helpless, fed the hungry, shoot I’ve even presented on religion at a Twin
Cities pagan convention, shaking hands with the likes of elders like Oberon
Zell. I still fight monsters, indeed, I believe
I fight them more effectively than I thought ever possible. I fight the horrors of not just a handful of
men, but the worst humanity has ever offered.
Pestilences like Fear and Ignorance and Apathy; Diseases like Pride and
Foolishness and Hate. My weapons are not
just statutes anymore, but I fight with Knowledge and Reason, and it is my
spirituality that is my shield. But still, despite all this, I still see people
ask me that same question that Faith did so many years ago. “Keven … Why?” “Why give it up? Why turn your back on so much?” I’ll tell you why.
Christmas. Not the
Christmas of trees and decorations, nor the Christmas of pretty carols. Those are all done to celebrate Christmas;
but they themselves are not Christmas.
They are merely our response to Christmas, done in joyous gratitude for what
God has done. No, I am talking about the
real Christmas. The Christmas concerning
the God who did not abandon His world or His people to misery. The Christmas about the God who got His hands
dirty, who came into our world of suffering to be what we could not. He did not come with great fanfare or blaring
trumpets, he did not come in regal attire, indeed his nobility would only be
recognized by those who were actively looking for it. The God who, for the Salvation of all
Creation; man, woman, plant, and speck of dirt; was born to an unwed mother,
who became in that culture an illegitimate child. Born to be despised and destined to wander
the wilderness homeless and destitute, preaching the good news of God’s love to
a violent and uncaring nation. Treated
as a fatherless heretic his entire life only to finally, and illegally, be
executed as a traitor and a criminal. He
lived the life that none of us could bear.
The king, humble and righteous, who would rather spend every waking
moment of abuse teaching people to be better than give them the fate that the
law demanded of them. The God who became
illegitimate, so no one could mock the illegitimate. The God who loved every
single one of his children so much that he became homeless, became a refugee, became
condemned in every meaning of that word, so no one could despise them without
despising him, too. That God, that
all-consuming Otherworldly Reality, who steps down into our miserable, muck
filled lives, whose dedication to human redemption included a death so horrific
and shameful that they had to invent a new word for it. Ex Crucio.
Out of the cross.
IT IS THAT GOD, THAT CHRISTMAS, that I will follow to my
dying breath, and even after. It is that
God that gives this old soul hope in ways that the law just can’t, because if
all those things did not deter God from our redemption than I know there is
nothing that ever will.
I won’t lie to you, ladies and gentlemen. 2016 was a rough year. Politically, this election cycle has left
many of us exhausted, uncertain, and, perhaps, even morally compromised. Socially, I have never seen a more divided
America. The rifts between Democratic
and Republican, conservative and liberal, brother and sister, I have never seen
them this deep or this raw. Globally, we
are becoming not a world of peace but one of almost perpetual war. Human rights abuses thought unthinkable just
a few years ago in all but in the most disturbed minds have become commonplace,
and it seems that the 2010’s will be known not for advances in medicine and
spirituality, its great strides in improving the human condition, but crisis
after unsolved crisis.
So I get it. I get that
this year, more than any other year, the busyness of the season may be a welcome
distraction. That you may be exhausted, that
your emotional defenses are spent. There
are those dealing with grief this season, with loved ones lost. There are those dealing with family turmoil
and dissension, where the peaceful holiday meal will feel like walking on
eggshells; where the family finances are strained, where new bills pile up and
creditors fill your voicemail with daily reminders of your continued inability
to pay them back. All of this, this
Christmas season, in a world that literally more than ever before wants to rip
itself into absolute shreds, and it feels like it’s going to take you with it. I get it.
I really do. So believe me when I
tell you…
God… is … not … done … yet.
The King of the Universe, the Almighty Redeemer of Creation
became as vulnerable as you and me this night 2016 years ago, born to be
despised, kicked at, and sneered to ensure us a place in paradise. Do you really think THAT God is going to
abandon you now? Do you think He’s going
to leave you like this, leave His WORLD like this? The Infinite was born for you, lived for you,
and died for you: it is not going to leave you stranded now.
These things you see around you in here. The trees, the candles, the tinsel. They’re not for you. If you put your Joy in them, they can’t give
it back to you. If you rely on Santa and
Christmas Carols to bring you happiness or if you rely on a perfect family meal
for your peace, then this Christmas Season is going to leave you feeling
drained and miserable, so do not put your stock in them. Everything we do here, from the songs, from
the constant ups and downs on up to the Communion, it’s not about the nostalgia, American Traditions, or even the
duties of religion; it is about helping
you foster a relationship with the God who is both your Heavenly Mother and
Father. Go home tonight, be with family,
both the ones present and the ones departed.
Know that God is waiting to be your peace, and the Holy Spirit is
desperate to give you His Joy. Stop
relying on the world to be your light; if it could do that God wouldn’t have
had to be born into it.
Let Him bring the light into your life, and don’t think for
a minute that 2017 isn’t going to be an incredible year. Amen and Amen.
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