Christmas Hope

            We had a wonderful Christmas.  Our granddaughter hosted the whole family for a brunch.  We exchanged some gifts, watched the little kids play and enjoyed talking with one another.  Later in the day, I went to the Church of the Atonement in Carnegie and visited with them and all of the volunteers who came from all over the diocese as they hosted the people of their neighborhood for a Christmas dinner.  I loved watching the people come in and sit down and be served the food that they came for.  There were a few families, but mostly ones and twos looking for something on Christmas Day that they had no way of getting on the other days of the year.  At first, there were more volunteers than there were customers; but slowly the people began to trickle in and the place filled up.  This church has been doing this for years, not only feeding the people who come to the church building, but also sending out dinners to shut-ins and others who have no way to get to the church.  What they are doing at Atonement is what we are all called to do by our God.  To take care of the poor, the outcast and those with no means of taking care of themselves. 

            That isn’t news to you, or really to anyone.  It has been the mission of the church since Jesus came to us; and indeed from the foundation of the world.  We forget it easily.  We get seduced by the commercialism of the season and fill our houses with brightly wrapped packages and extravagances that we could easily do without.  What distresses me, when I look at it is that often repeated phrase: Jesus is the reason for the season. That we have to say that to one another is the problem.  Our mission gets subverted by our need to gather in the bargains and spend more than last year.  That certainly isn’t going to change, it is the way of our society.  This fragile church of ours needs to exist in the midst of it, not find ways to force the culture to change.  While this commercial craze is going on around us, it is our job to make sure that those who are the neediest among us are given what they so desperately crave; not only food, clothes and shelter, but also dignity and respect. 

            I love the Christmas stories that we have heard during this season.  It is notable for me that the Angels came and filled the skies with song over the fields of the shepherds instead of on the streets in front of the houses of the rich.  The shepherds in that day were the least of the least.  They tended their flocks outside of the view of most of the rest of society.  They were the poor and the neglected.  I have always loved the fact that when Samuel went to Jesse’s house to find the next king of Israel, he saw all of his sons and then, not being satisfied with any of them, asked if there were any more.  Jesse told him that there was one more, but he was a shepherd out in the fields with the sheep.  When David appeared, Samuel knew immediately that this was the one that he had been sent to crown the king to replace Saul.  It is certainly interesting that our Lord came from the root of Jesse; born of the house of David the shepherd boy in Bethlehem.  Out of the roots of the poorest came our greatest king.

            The other image that strikes me in this Christmas season is the idea of light transforming the darkness.  John’s marvelous eighteen verse fable that begins his gospel is a great testimony to the light of heaven piercing the darkness that covers humanity:

                In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

                and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

                All things came into being through him, and without him not

                one thing came into being. What has come into being in him

                was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines

                in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

            Bringing light into the darkness of the world was God’s intention with the incarnation of Jesus.  God come into the world as a human being to comprehend the nature of humanity and to know what we all experience in this life.  To do that, God chose a humble birth for Jesus; not a noble birth full of pomp and ceremony.  Jesus began his life as an impoverished child in a stable, not a room at the Hilton.  He called disciples from the lowly of his time and he spent his life among the poor and the outcast giving them constant hope in a world full of those whose only goal was greed and power.  Taking care of those people was his ministry, and his charge to the people who followed in his footsteps.  As a church, we haven’t always done that.  We have also been often seduced by wealth and power, and have forgotten our mission.  When we have done that, we have largely disappointed God, who continues to hope that by the disciples who have been called to follow our Lord Jesus, that ministry to the poor and the outcast can be the salvation of the world.