A Charlie Brownest Christmas
Mark T
Luke 2:1-20
"It's the most wonderful time of the year" If that is how you feel, then you
obviously finished your Christmas shopping early! The hype says Christmas
should make us happy, but some days that's hard to remember. The stresses
and strains can leave one out of sorts. I don't think I'm alone. (Video clip
from "It's Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown")
If you are familiar with the Charlie Brown series (and who in Minnesota is
not!) then you know that Charlie Brown seems to have the most trouble of
anyone in getting into the Christmas spirit. I think Linus sums it up
nicely. (Video clip from "A Charlie Brown Christmas")
Charlie Brown is probably the epitome of living in fear.
Bruce Larson who was once the co-pastor of the Crystal Cathedral wrote in
his book, Living Beyond Our Fears:
Tell me your fears and your strategies for dealing with them, and I can tell
you a great deal about yourself. Our fears are a psychological and spiritual
barometer of who we are. Our personalities are shaped by how we deal with
them. Fear is perhaps our oldest and deadliest enemy. Fear causes illness,
kills, stifles creativity. Fear prevents love, disrupts relationships, and
causes addictions.
Fear may seem a strange topic for Christmas Eve but it is exactly what makes
for the Charlie Brownest of Christmases. This is supposed to be the season
for "Jingle Bells" and "Joy to the World." Yet, the truth is fear is the
context for Christmas.
Remember that first Christmas night? The angels came to shepherds who were
keeping watch over their flocks by night. The angel's opening words were,
"Fear not, for we bring you good tidings of great joy."
And nine months earlier, a carpenter named Joseph discovered that the woman
to whom he was engaged was pregnant, but it wasn't his child. He decided to
divorce her quietly but as he slept on that decision, an angel came in a
dream saying, "Joseph, fear not to take Mary as your wife, because the one
conceived in her is of Holy Spirit."
Then, of course, we have the story from this past Sunday where Mary was
minding her own business when suddenly Gabriel appeared to her: The angel
said to her, "Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God. You will
bear a son, and call him Jesus."
Isn't it fascinating that in each case, before the messengers from God could
tell them the good news of Christmas, they first had to calm the listener's
fears? That shouldn't surprise us, though.
We, too, might tremble if faced with a visitation from God. If our lives
were about to be radically changed forever, our anxiety level might rise
sharply, too. Yet, isn't that the purpose of Christmas?
The years have softened many of the images. For us,
Mary was a beautiful woman dressed in fine garments.
The angels floated down on shimmering gossamer wings.
The shepherds carried mahogany crooks and were dressed in soft, clean, downy
robes.
However, the truth is quite different:
Mary was probably a teenager of 14 or 15. She was trapped in a sexist system
that decreed that a young woman pregnant out of wedlock could be publicly
tried, and even stoned.
The word "angel" simply means messenger.
And the shepherds, well, we Americans have obviously never smelled a real
shepherd. They were considered to be ritually unclean, and so they weren't
even allowed to worship in the temple in Jesus' day.
They were the outcasts, the marginalized. Like Mary, they were the most
unlikely recipients of the birth announcement of God. Yet, they are exactly
who heard the good news first.
I've often wondered if only those living at the margins of life are open to
hearing such news. It seems that only the marginalized are really aware of
their need for a savior. Although GLBT people are still among the
marginalized of our society, we manage to hide that reality even from
ourselves. Most of us seem to think we're doing all right on our own.
Maybe that's why we get nervous about the idea of God intruding too much on
our lives. We want just enough salvation to ease our discomfort, but not so
much to mess up our comfortable life.
Some of us are afraid God just might answer our prayers and like Mary,
invade our lives in a way that would be hard to explain. We are more
comfortable with a savior on the front of Christmas cards, than One who
wants to restructure our lives.
Gay poet, W. H. Auden, in his poem Who Trusts in God, described this
phenomena this way: "Once again, as in previous years we have seen the
actual Vision and failed to do more than entertain it as an agreeable
possibility . . ."
Sometimes, what we fear most is that God will disrupt our comfortable life.
We'd prefer a distant God to a present savior living among us and making our
lives pregnant with unexplained possibilities.
The fundamentalists are wrong. We don't need to fear God's wrath, but maybe
we should be a bit apprehensive about God's presence.
The God of Jesus Christ comes in love, not condemnation, to redeem and
revolutionize. Like Mary, Joseph, and the shepherds, our lives should never
be the same.
Christmas also tries to teach us that we do not need to be afraid of the
future. That is a word many of us need. Despite this time of unparalleled
prosperity, our anxiety level is incredibly high today. Perhaps, when we
have so much, we tend to worry about it more.
We may be like the stockbroker who found herself unemployed after a series
of bad investments. A friend asked her how she was doing in the aftermath of
it all. "Oh," she said, "Actually, I'm sleeping like a baby. I wake up every
three or four hours and cry."
We also seem to have the aching fear that this just may be all there is to
life. Edmund Sears had us in mind when he wrote the carol "It Came Upon a
Midnight Clear." Remember what it says?
And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way,
With painful steps and slow.
That describes where some of us are living, but for this, too, the messenger
comes to us from God saying, "Fear not."
Mary might have said, "That's easy for you to say. You don't have to explain
this pregnancy to Joseph or my mother." Mary could have ticked off a laundry
list of dire possibilities the future held for her. They were very real
fears. They were legitimate possibilities.
Yet her response was perfect trust. Mary said, "Here am I, the servant of
God; let it be with me according to your word." Mary was determined to face
an uncertain future as God's servant.
Understanding life like that re-frames everything. Her future wasn't based
on what happened in Jerusalem or Wall Street or Washington. She didn't
surrender control of life to fears of dire scenarios of the awful things
that might happen. She surrendered her future to God.
If your happiness depends on your vocation or another person or some
economic reality, then you have every reason to fear the future. We are
always in trouble when our self-worth comes from those things.
A man ran an advertisement in a Chicago paper for a whole week that said,
"Wanted: housekeeper for motherless home. Live in. $925 per month, all
expenses paid." He received no responses. The following week he ran the same
ad, but instead of offering $925 per month, he wrote, "Name your own
salary." He was besieged with replies, but not a single applicant asked for
as much as $925 per month.
Most of the time we don't know our own worth, because our sense of
self-worth is detached from the only stable standard of measurement in the
universe - God. The God of creation is exceedingly fond of you and none of
the circumstances of your life can change that fact. Like Mary, you too have
found favor with God. Don't let anything cause you to forget that!
Mary knew, that as a servant of God, she had eternal job security. She
learned to listen for the rest of that verse from Edmund Sear's carol:
Look now! For glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing;
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing.
When anxiety threatens to overcome us, we may need to rest for a moment
beside the weary road, and listen for the messenger God will send to tell
you not to be afraid - Fear not, for God is alive and has not forgotten you.
Lloyd Ogilve, former chaplain of the Senate says that fear is really
"loneliness for God."
Perhaps, that is why so many in the GLBT community live with such fear. Many
of us have been cut off from God and left to face our future alone. But we
who have fought to reclaim our faith must live with the confidence of people
whose future is eternally secure.
I don't know what anxiety and fear you brought with you into this holy
place. The truth is none of us can live without fear. It is possible however
to live beyond our fears. We can do that by trusting the God who came to us
at Christmas and by re-framing our lives in terms of what it means to serve
that God from here into eternity.
Helen Keller was blind, deaf, and mute, but she accomplished so much by
living beyond her handicaps. She wrote, "Life is a great adventure or it is
nothing. There is no such thing as security. Animals never experience it and
children seldom do."
For the children of God, our security is in knowing our lives have been
redeemed for an eternal purpose. That gives us the power to sing, even in
the face of death itself, "Joy to the World! The Lord is come!"
At the MCC Church in Jacksonville, Florida, every year at the Christmas Eve
service, one of their deacons named Corky would sing the call to worship a
capella "Do you hear what I hear." The effect of that solitary voice seemed
to make the congregation hold its breath and listen to hear what he heard.
Maybe they were listening for the voice of an angel telling them not to be
afraid.
In 1993 Corky died of AIDS, but this Christmas when I hear that song, I can
almost hear his distant voice (along with so many others) asking me to hear
what he now hears clearly. We must still listen to God's promise by faith,
trusting and serving sometimes despite our fears.
Even if you are having a Charlie Brownest Christmas, take the time this
Christmas to rest quietly beside the weary road, listening for the angel's
song of assurance - to know the peace of Silent Night and the exaltation of
Joy to the World. AMEN.
Sources:
Sermon by Rev. Michael S. Piazza, Cathedral of Hope, "Holy Night, Silent
Fright"
Videos: "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "It's Christmas Time Again, Charlie
Brown
from http://www.agcmcc.org/sermons_2003/122403.html