The Stars in the Sky Looked Down Where He Lay
I’m repeating this greeting some of you heard earlier tonight…because it’s worth hearing again. Just because you’re in a building doesn’t mean you’re in a Church. Church isn’t a guarantee. Church is a spiritual privilege—it is sharing something extraordinary—Grace and Peace—with God’s help. So hear these words that only a Church can say, “God bless you.”
I wanted to open this Christmas sermon; a reflection on the Gospel of St. Luke with a very simple greeting, “Merry Christmas.”
And then maybe sit down.
And then I was reminded that our Anglican tradition tends to wince at that greeting because it sounds like, what is the phrase I’m searching for, “like drunken sailors!”
Ah yes. I can just imagine the royal family, the head of The Church of England saying,
“Merry. Oh no.
That’s a name.
Mary is the name of Jesus’ mother, not a greeting.”
“If you must say something, say, Happy.
Happy Christmas.”
I’ve been watching a lot of old Netflix so, I’m not sure whether that’s the Crown’s young Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip or the middle aged or senior royals who could be having this kind of imagined exchange.
It’s clearly an invented dialogue so the words belong to a fictionalized version of the telling of real history. In the spirit of real history and invented dialogue let me say something that may be interesting to anyone who listens to National Public Radio on their commute. But first here are two verses of the Gospel of St. Luke.
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.
This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria.”
What if we heard it this way,
“In those days…oh the politics.
This December is the first in more the 50 years that an Assad is no longer ruler of Syria.”
It’s interesting; not particularly Spirit led, other than to remind you that the complexity of the Middle East today was the same as the complexity of the politics then—complicated.
There are many, especially Episcopalians, who would have us not dwell on the ancient or contemporary politics of that region, or our economic or our political interests.
Let us avoid all that.
I suppose that is one way you get the real-life professor from the General Theological Seminary in New York City, the son of a minister to donate land—an entire city block in Manhattan—to The Episcopal Church for the purpose of the education of Priests. You probably don’t know that; but you definitely know who I’m talking about, not by name maybe, Clement Clarke Moore; but you know him by the author of his Christmas poem:
Twas the night before Christmas,
when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there…
My my my. This poem says nothing about the politics of 1821 and 1822 when it was written. There were just 23 states for example, until that year when Congress combined East & West Florida into—Florida.
The poem says nothing about the 1822 creation of African nation of Liberia; why it was necessary or who founded it. (Psst, formerly enslaved Black Americans founded it as a place of refuge and freedom—from American slavery.)
The poem says nothing about 20,000 Syrians who died in an earthquake in August of 1822
It doesn’t talk about faith, not Biblical faith at least.
Instead, the poem says,
The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And ma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled down for a long winter's nap,
And the truth is Episcopalians are really good at polite and faith; so good in fact that even a secular poem is a cherished holiday tradition. It welcomes almost everyone.
It’s hard to wish people Merry Christmas these days; not because it’s crude, but because it’s a bold truth claim.
Christmas means:
Jesus is the Son of God.
The Messiah in a manger means:
we are sinful—separated from God and one another—
Joy to the world the Lord is come…no more let sin and sorrow grow…
No?
Maybe…maybe we are better off sticking with Happy…
Happy Holidays
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
If you haven’t noticed We’ve got something new here, inside and alive—trees. Not evergreens, or holiday trees, or solstice trees, Christmas trees. And if you want to know the truth the trees are kind of political.
Just maybe not the way you think.
They are here because I was convinced in June after that disaster of a debate; and I was further convinced in July after an assassination attempt; and even more certain in August after Hulk Hogan and Bobby Kennedy’s son endorsed him that we were on the verge of…let me not use the word catastrophe. You can use that word. Let me say, we were going to need something to help us heal. Something beautiful and something living—something like Christmas trees.
Because we are sick.
We are a soul-sick, sinful, culture.
Umm, at least I am.
This summer as all these things—Hulk Hogan and bullets—were happening I got it into my head that maybe I wasn’t getting the whole story. I had a better idea than listening to National Public Radio on my commute to Jersey City. So one day, after my drive home, I said to my wife, “I have something to tell you.”
My wife is really the best thing about me. She didn’t react when I said, peak middle-aged white guy thing, “I started listening to Joe Rogan podcasts.”
She just looked a me and flatly said, “Please stop. I cannot help you or welcome you back once you’ve gone down that road.”
It doesn’t matter that there are some honest to goodness New Jersey connections I share with Rogan. Joe was born in Newark. She’s right. Once you turn him on It’s hard to turn him off.
My sister-in-law says it more bluntly, “the disinformation guy? You know he invited Matt Walsh on right? Walsh made an entire movie denying systemic racism.”
How’d you do that? Joe asked him.
How do you get people to participate in a hidden camera documentary that makes fun of them?
It’s easy.
I just pretended to be their friend. I earned their trust and slowly I started to ask leading questions.
Huh said Joe.
An hour after gaining his trust Joe Rogan asked Matt Walsh if he thought the moon landing might be the single most important American accomplishment of the last century.
Without a doubt.
Huh?
Then for the next two hours Joe Rogan offered evidence that the moon landing was a conspiracy and a fraud. He said it never happened.
I cannot prove that Joe Rogan did this on purpose.
But he is a comedian.
And he dislikes mean people, which Walsh pretty plainly seems to me to be, so it seems to me maybe.
Maybe he was just messing around about the moon landing and he really does think the moon landing is real.
What does the moon landing have to do with Happy Christmas though?
Some of you, born before 1960 know from memory, others from google images, that there is a photo called Earthrise. It is a photograph of Earth and part of the Moon's surface. It was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission.
That mission and the photo set the stage for the Moonwalk in the summer of 1969. The photo from the vastness of space helps us forget that 1968 was the year both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. The picture of the earth as small helps recalibrate the 1968 Chicago democratic convention— a disaster, a police riot—as inconsequential in the scheme of the universe.
There’s an episode of The Crown…and I know it’s made up, but the scene speaks to a desire to see something bigger.
Prince Philip is in awe of the accomplishment of the American Astronauts. He wants to know what it’s like, space, the immense vastness of it. How it feels to be a speck in the giant universe; a speck that looks down on that pale blue dot.
The Space Travelers. The Explorers. The Astronauts. They want to know how many bathrooms are in this place —Buckingham Palace.
That may be a fictionalized scene but it’s important because the infinite size of space is sacred. The silliness of those who’ve seen it first hand, are awed by bathrooms, and impressive, but mundane material wealth. This failure of imagination helps us see how tiny we really are —often fighting each other with deadly force…
Remember dear friends, we lack imagination too. Church is not a building or an institution.
Church isn’t even a guarantee.
Church is a spiritual privilege—it is sharing something extraordinary—Grace and Peace—with God’s help; that’s what makes us a Church. It’s not pretending to be friends in order to gotcha. Church is God’s people in relationship with one another through Jesus.
So friends it’s Church in a hospital room.
It’s Church at a park outside a community center.
It’s Church in a stable…it’s Church where we are because there’s a baby, and we believe that baby is the Son of God. We hear the story tonight not to convince anyone it’s real…we hear it, to know, in a way that you can see, touch, taste, and especially share—this is story that lives in us tonight.
I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”
Blessed Christmas friends.