Sermons from St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Christmas Eve 2006
Luke 2:1-14
The Way it Is
The Rev. Melissa Skelton
In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,
“Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”
Ted Wardlaw, President of a Presbyterian seminary in Austin, Texas, tells about the Christmas when his daughters were eight and five. As was the family custom, they cleared off a table to display their crèche, a precious heirloom, hand painted by great-grandmother. All the characters were there: Mary, Joseph and the baby, shepherds, sheep and the angel.
And so the crèche stood just like this for a few days.
But then gradually, other things began appearing in the crèche. First, next to a shepherd was a blue-green pony with fluorescent hair fashionably swept to one side. A day or so later a couple of reindeer appeared. Finally, close to Christmas, a purple Styrofoam ornament covered with glitter found its place right beside baby Jesus in the manger.
At first, the parents were tempted to remove all these extra things to preserve the beauty of the crèche and its figures. But something stopped them. In speaking about what that something was, Wardlaw said: “I looked at the things our daughters had placed there in the crèche and it suddenly struck me that this was their way of trying to connect the stuff of their lives to this story.”
He went on to say: “We—all of us—want to bundle up all of our lives, our secrets, our needs, our hopes and dreams, our fears and disappointments, our deepest love and most painful grief, the truest things about ourselves—we want to bundle these all up—and place them at the manger.”
And so this is what we’re here to do tonight. To come not to a palace, not to a temple, and not to clean-swept room at an inn, but to a crude, cave-like place where animals, wordless and warm, nuzzle each other and bed down. We’re to come to this place with all our secrets, our needs, our hopes and dreams, with our fears and disappointments, with our deepest love and our most painful grief. We’re to come to this place with the truest things about ourselves and stand empty-handed and without agenda in the presence of the mystery of the word made flesh, a mystery nestled among the animals, as vulnerable as a single candle flickering in the darkness, as fresh as the morning when it arrives after a long and troubled night.
All during Advent I’ve been reading the poetry and the prose of Northwest poet William Stafford. Once Stafford was asked to speak at a conference for writers interested in refining their skills. He was the last to speak. Speaker after speaker before him had urged the attendees to pay attention to the fine points of technique and organization in their writing. Stafford went to the podium and began: “I disagree with everything that has been said so far in this conference.”
This was because for him, the writing life was not about technique or outlining. It was not about having an agenda and using writing as a way to further that agenda.
For Stafford, writing was about rising at 4:00 a.m. every morning for 40 years, making a little something warm to drink to coax out the animal in him, turning on one small light in the corner of his home office, reclining on a little couch that looked out over a dark forest, taking out a blank page, writing the date at the top and waiting, empty-handed, for something mysterious, something fresh, something real to make itself known.
He did this each morning, recording his first thoughts, his first words, without judging whether he believed them to be particularly insightful or eloquent, trusting that what came up would somehow provide the basis for a thread that he would later follow into a poem.
His poem entitled “The Way it Is” was about this process and about the writer’s vocation.
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of that thread.
I think about these words as I look at our crèche tonight—newly refurbished and decorated with greenery and flowers so that it looks not only like a place where animals or the animal part of our nature would nuzzle and bed down, but also looks like a garden, like the first garden, the place of freshness, of possibility and hope. I think about Stafford in the early morning dark, empty-handed, trusting that a thread of something fresh and real would emerge. I think about some of you this past year in your own empty-handed darkness doing your best to trust that a thread of something fresh and real would emerge. And I think about our coming here tonight in the darkness, empty-handed, trusting that a thread of something fresh and real will emerge.
For us as Christians on this holy night, that thread is not one of our own making. It is the unbreakable thread of God’s love for us and for the world; a thread that holds onto to us even more than we hold onto it; a thread of love that began in creation with freshness and a garden full of wondrous creatures; a thread of love that continued through the tumultuous political history of the children of Israel, a history of men and women, kings and prophets; a thread of love that came to a preposterous climax in God becoming flesh, God living our life with all of its animal pleasures, with all of its darkness and with all of its fresh possibilities.
And so for us as Christians on Christmas, this is “the way it is:”
There is a thread that follows us.
It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about it how it can hold us.
We try to explain about the thread.
At times it is hard for us to see.
While it holds us we can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and we suffer and get old.
Nothing we do can stop time’s unfolding.
God doesn’t ever let go of that thread.
Works Cited or Consulted
The story about Ted Wardlaw is adapted from a sermon by John Buchanan at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, Illinois.
Information about William Stafford is from In the Early Morning by his son Kim Stafford. The poem “The Way it Is” is also from this book.
