2 Christmas Homily
Jan. 2, 2022 St. Paul’s, Monroe
Still Christmas
We're still in the Christmas season. The 12 days of Christmas, ending on the feast of Epiphany, January 6th.
In my youth it was my Episcopalian relatives who emphasized this fact. Over the years it has been used to justify Sending out Christmas cards after Christmas Day. Early on when I was young, my mother used it to justify keeping Christmas decorations up until the Denver Stock Show was over -- that happened in the last week of January.
In more recent years I've used it to justify something of a counter cultural tendency. The world at large ends Christmas on Christmas night. I am determined not to let it end there.
Still pandemic
I can't help but recognize a parallel with the fact that here we are again in the year 2022, filming a liturgy to be broadcast over the internet.
At first our shifting into gear for the arrival of covid-19 felt like a jolt and a shock. In time it felt like it was bringing out the worst in humanity and driving brother against brother, sister against mother, like a Civil War.
52 From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12)
That's Jesus speaking in one of his mildly apocalyptic responses. This past week there were wildfires not very far from my son's home in Colorado. He was sheltering one of his friends whose home was in the path of the fires. He described it as an apocalyptic scene that was difficult to fathom.
I told my son Owen that the word apocalyptic actually means revelation, a revealing of something. He said to me, "Yes. That's what my friend and I were talking about. It leads one to recognize the true priorities in ones life. To see what's important and what's not important."
That's where we are today.
Where is the glory?
The collect for today evokes the glory which for too long and for too many has been hidden. Perhaps the glimpse of apocalyptic can help to reveal the glory if we let it.
"O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature"
Yes, to see with innocent eyes, the Wonder and Glory of Christmas.
To see the lights of Christmas
The scripture texts we read today invite us to see with such new eyes.
Jeremiah
I for one have become accustomed to thinking of the prophet Jeremiah, with a long flowing beard, speaking harsh words of anticipation of the destruction to come. Fire and brimstone kind of stuff.
But if he does in fact speak with fire and brimstone, there are clearly places where he equally speaks glorious words that evoke for us The Wonder and Glory. He talks of restoration. He evokes life emerging from the ashes.
Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob,
and raise shouts for the chief of the nations;
With weeping they shall come,
and with consolations I will lead them back,
Jeremiah seems to invoke the extraordinary new life that led Christians to embrace Jesus as the Messiah. Jeremiah gave us the concept of new testament or new covenant that was applied to the scripture of the emerging Jesus movement.
Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,
and the young men and the old shall be merry.
It was as if Jeremiah lived in a time of the bleakest of prospects, when the way forward seemed impossible to track, but he put all of his faith and joy into the hope that he saw emerging when others could not see it.
I will turn their mourning into joy,
I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.
Ephesians
From the time I first read the letter to the Ephesians I recognize the text that could lift up my heart. The image of Christ and the church in this letter evokes a glory that one only glimpses in this life.
Blessing and praise to God, the writer says, who points his finger to each one of us and designates us true citizens of a kingdom that glistens with joy and celebration. You are chosen. I am chosen. Adopted as children of the living God.
With that in our hearts, how is it possible to be down-hearted?
Magi
There are options in today’s appointed Gospel readings. The one I have just read anticipates the upcoming feast of Epiphany, January 6.
The Wise men arrive before King Herod following a star. They are foreigners who God has chosen to make manifest to the world the brightness of the incarnation. They are strangers to the covenant and yet beloved of God. Herod, of course, is frightened lest his power and prestige be usurped. The magi could not be detoured but found Jesus and Mary and offered their gift, never to see King Herod again.
The magi are a symbol or a sign post for us to follow the star, to follow the guiding light, that others can't see.
Music and glory
I had hoped that even in this minimal celebration of ours today we would have music that invoked the magi appearing before a child Jesus. The rules of engagement for us during these few weeks of the omicron variant tell us not to sing in public. I am aware that for me hearing certain music touches my soul in a way that words don’t. It speaks to why the singing of Christmas carols at the Christmas Eve mass is so important to us and we feel it as such a loss not to have been present for it this year.
I had thought we might at least hear the music of We Three Kings of Orient Are, even if we didn't sing it. Even though Mary Pat loves to hear me play the piano at home, she warned me not to try to do it in church. Can't you almost imagine it though:
O Star of wonder, star of night. Star with royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding. Guide us to thy Perfect Light.
For each of us, I suspect there is some music, perhaps smells, perhaps moments of déjà vu, that can transport us to a place that we don't see before us but where we recognize that we are in God's presence. The lights of Christmas. Glory and Wonder.
They still shine.
It is to each of us
It is to each of us, I think, to turn in whatever direction we need to turn, to smell the smells and sing the songs, that have the capacity to reveal to us the underlying glory.
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe.
It is to each of us then to shine the light which we have been given.
Under different circumstances, I might try to get the congregation to sing impromptu-style the children's spiritual: "This little light of mine."
1 This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine,
let it shine, let it shine, oh let it shine.
2 Ev’rywhere I go,
...
3 Jesus gave it to me,
...
But we are living in a different set of circumstances. God calls each of us to shine where we are. To light a candle to reveal God's glory and majesty. Let it shine.
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