The Reverend John E. McGinn, Rector
Saint John’s Episcopal Church
Sandwich, Massachusetts 02563
December 24, 2007
Christmas Eve
This sermon is taken from the
Gospel according to Luke.
Let your goodness, God,
appear to us that we, made in your image, conform ourselves to it. In our own strength we cannot imitate your
majesty, power and wonder, nor is it fitting for us to try; but your mercy
reaches from the heavens through the clouds to the earth below. You have come to us as a small child, but you
have brought us one of the greatest gifts:
the gift of eternal love. Caress
us with your tiny hands, embrace us with your tiny arms and pierce our hearts
with soft, sweet cries. Amen
This is the twenty-eighth
Christmas that I have celebrated as a priest, and I have to say to you that
each one is more special than the other.
One of the things that comes to me over these many years is, what do you
say at a service like Christmas.
Yesterday afternoon we had
almost three-hundred fifty people in the church, all the seats were taken and
there were many folding chairs. It was a
wonderful service as the children put on a beautiful pageant in which they
depicted the love of God, the love of Jesus, coming to us in the form of a
baby.
The last thing that we do on
Christmas Eve is to finish our creche, and we do that by placing the baby Jesus
in the creche. I have difficulty every
year as I look around at all the children raising their hands, and I try to
give it to one of the children or two children so that they can bring the baby
Jesus and place it in the creche. This
year it just happened that Juliana and Aurelia Reynolds were sitting very
close, and I saw them eagerly raising their hands. Juliana (I think she’s about three years old
and her sister is maybe about eight years old) - and the thing about that that
moved me so much is they took the baby Jesus and they brought it over to the
creche and placed him there; but I also looked at the eyes their parents. Tom and Celeste are going through a very difficult
time right now. Celeste, who is
thirty-four years old, is suffering from breast cancer, and I know all of them
are frightened, but positive, as they go along.
I wanted to share with you
this morning a funny story. It came
through the internet, and I have to thank Flo Buchinsky for providing me with
this. I also had a copy that was sent to
me by Louise Stupack and also my son-in-law, Rob White. It’s about a man in
Topeka, Kansas, who decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started by flying to San Francisco and
started working East from there. Going
to a very large Episcopal church in San Francisco, he began taking photographs
and making notes.
He spotted a golden telephone
on the vestibule wall and was intrigued with a sign which read, “Calls $10,000
a minute.” Seeking out the rector, he
asked about the phone and the sign. The
priest answered that his golden phone is, in fact, a direct line to heaven, and
if he pays the price he can talk directly to God. The man thanked the priest and continued on
his way.
And as he continued to visit
churches in Seattle and Dallas and Denver and St. Louis and Chicago and New
York and Philadelphia and Milwaukee and around the United States, he found more
phones with the same sign and the same answer from each of the ministers in the
church. And finally, he arrived in
Massachusetts and upon entering a church in Boston, Massachusetts - actually
Trinity Church in Copley Square - behold he saw the usual golden
telephone. But this time the sign read,
“Calls $.35 a minute.” Fascinated, he
asked to talk with the priest.
“Reverend, I have been in cities all across the country and in each
church I have found this golden telephone and have been told it is a direct
line to heaven and that I could talk to God; but in the other churches the cost
was ten-thousand dollars a minute. Your
sign reads only thirty-five cents a call.
Why?” The priest, smiling
benignly, replied, “Son, you’re in
Boston, Massachusetts, now: home of the
Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots, the Boston Bruins, the Boston
Celtics. You’re in God’s country. It’s a local call.”
In all seriousness, the
reality is that this world is God’s country, and Christmas is about the love of
God - Jesus coming into our world.
A number of years ago the
cartoon strip, Family Circus, carried a cartoon that illustrates what happens
so often to Christmas. It showed a
little girl holding her baby brother in her lap and telling him the story of
Christmas. Here is how her account read: “Jesus was born just in time for Christmas up
at the North Pole surrounded by tiny reindeer and the Virgin Mary. Then Santa Clause showed up with lots of toys
and stuff and some swaddling clothes.
The three wise men and elves all sang carols, while the little drummer
boy and Scrouge helped Joseph trim the tree.
In the meantime, Frosty the snowman saw the star.”
Now it’s easy to see how she
could be confused. So many secular
trappings surround the celebration of Jesus’ birth that we could easily lose
track of the real meaning of this wonderful and mysterious part of the
season.
The question this morning
is: What is Christmas all about? And what is more important, the baby Jesus or
the celebration of Christmas? It’s an
especially interesting question in our multicultural world. We don’t know what to do with that baby Jesus
anymore. Those two little girls knew
what to do: they placed Jesus in the
creche. But every December schools
across the nation make preparations to celebrate winter festivals, pale
attempts to celebrate Christmas without any mention of God or of Jesus. We understand, but it’s frustrating not to be
able to let people know that the baby Jesus is the reason for the celebration
of Christmas.
Christmas is about love. Jesus was love. This is the message of Christmas, I believe;
and we need to state it, I think, in the present tense. Jesus is love. We sing love was born at Christmas, and we
know this is what Christmas is all about.
I read a story of a
grandfather, and it was a story that I could identify with, because this
grandfather was trying to comfort his little grandson, Jeffie. Jeffie has done something wrong. His punishment is a time out in the playpen,
but Jeffie cries and begs his granddad to get him out. Grandfather knows Jeffie’s punishment is
just, but his love for the boy won’t allow him to watch the child to
suffer. So grandfather chooses to be
both just and loving. He climbs in the
playpen with Jeffie. In this way, he
shares his grandson’s punishment, and at the same time offers him comfort.
Christmas is about love. From the very beginning, this has been
so. God saw God’s children’s plight, and
God crawled into the playpen of our existence.
To have the spirit of Christmas is to have the spirit of love.
Every once in a while, we
hear about someone who has been touched by the spirit of Christmas love, and it
renews our hope.
Now, I know each of you could
share this morning a story, something you’ve seen in the past couple of weeks
that has renewed your hope, because you have seen God’s love at work.
This past week over two
hundred fifty children received gifts for Christmas because of the Toys for
Tots program which is run by the United States Marine Corps Reserve. This is such an important program. In our parish, Ned Harrington and Mariah
Bruce are responsible for seeing that the parents who come in receive those
gifts for their children. And I saw
mother after mother come into the church office, and with tears in their eyes,
thank us for giving those toys so that their children could enjoy this
Christmas. I can’t tell you how that not
only emotionally touches you, but how it spiritually touches you. To know that someone’s hope has been renewed;
that they have experienced, once again, the love of Jesus.
That is what I think
Christmas is all about: love. We all know that that’s true, and from the
heart of the Creator straight into our lives.
And it’s all wrapped up in a tiny babe, surrounded by his mother, Mary,
and his father, Joseph, and cattle and sheep and shepherds and later wise men;
and above them lingers a star. Angels
sing in the heavens and for one glorious night we see a glimpse of why this
world was created. It was created for
love.
We live in a God-invaded
world. Because we could not go to God,
God came to us. And because God came to
us everything is forever changed.
Someone has summed it up in
this little Christmas fable. I want to
tell you this fable, and I also want to tell you that I have taken liberty with
the name “fisherwoman” instead of
“fisherman.” The reason being, I am trying to make up to many of the
women of our parish after sending our stewardship this year and kind of leaving
them out of the whole situation. I want
to make it clear that we are a church about inclusiveness and we are a church
also about love.
Once there lived a humble
fisherwoman and her crabby husband.
Nothing the fisherwoman did was good enough for her husband. His complaining nearly drove her up the wall. One day the fisherwoman caught an especially
shiny and large fish. Before she could
toss it in her nets, the fish spoke up.
“Release me into the sea again, and I will grant you a wish.” The fisherwoman, though skeptical, gave it a
try. “I wish my husband could be a
gentleman of leisure and live in a comfortable house with a big man room
and a large high-definition
television.” Imagine the fisherwoman’s
surprise when she returned home to find her humble home transformed into a cozy
house with lovely furnishings and a large high-definition television in a man
room. And instead of his usual shabby
clothes, the fisherwoman’s husband wore designer clothes and took her out to
dinner regularly.
Not much time passed before
the fisherwoman’s husband began to complain again. “You had one chance to make
a wish, and all you wished for was a nice house with a man room and a TV. If you had been thinking straight, you would
have asked the fish to turn us into a duke and duchess who live in a splendid mansion.”
The fisherwoman thought she would
never hear the end of her husband’s
complaining. Then one day what
should pop into her boat, but the shiny, talking fish that had granted her a
wish. “I’ve got another favor to be
asking you,” the fisherwoman stammered.
“Ask away,” the fish replied.
“Could you maybe make my husband and me into a duke and duchess living
in a fine mansion with a home theatre and a bar?” “Of course,” the fish replied, and then it
leaped over the side of the boat.
For a very short time the
fisherwoman enjoyed peace and quiet at home, but she knew that it couldn’t
last. Soon her husband wanted a bigger
mansion and a better title. Each time he
complained, the fisherwoman would go back to the lake and call for the fish to
grant her wish.
Finally, the fisherwoman’s husband
decided that he wanted to be God.
Nothing less than ultimate power and luxury would do. The fisherwoman reluctantly returned to the
lake to make this final request. “So he
wants to be God, does he?” the fish asked.
“Are you sure that that is what he wants?” “Positive,” the fisherwoman
replied. “Of course,” the fish replied,
and then it swam away.
The fisherwoman dragged her
heels going home that evening. She was
too scared to see the results of this wish.
But once she rounded the corner in the woods, she didn’t see the fine
castle that she shared with her husband.
In its place there was a small cave, and inside that small cave was a
feeding trough for animals; and inside that feeding trough lay a tiny
baby. The fish had granted her final wish.
We live in a God-invaded
world. The world is God’s country, and
that’s why we are here this morning.
That is the great truth that we celebrate. Jesus is love: love of the Creator for the creation, love of
God for all God’s children; and as we return to our homes this morning, may the
love of Christmas be with us.
Amen