Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ

preached by Winton Boyd on December 20:
* text at end of sermon

One of our dearest friendships began 22 years ago this month, in a worship service just like this. My wife Tammy, in the language of the season, was ‘great with child’ (our son would be born on Dec. 30th). During a time of prayer concerns, a young woman about our age, whom we had never met, said, “I don’t know this lovely couple behind me, but I can see that she is very pregnant, and I’d love for us to pray for her and the delivery of their baby which will obviously be soon.” What we did not know at that moment is that this woman had just recently delivered her first-born child too. In a moment of connection that only two woman who have carried children can have – a friendship was born. Just a couple of years later, now dear friends, these same two women had their second child on the exact same day. It was a great joy to have the experience of pregnancy, birth, and child rearing at the same time.

I’m remembering the birth of this friendship today because at the center of our Christmas journey is such a connection – two expectant mothers being surprised, amazed and grateful for a sense of purpose and responsibility and even a burden, that has entered their lives. It is not the only kind of connection between people in the Bible nor in our lives, but it is amazing that in a patriarchal culture and in a religious tradition that did not value or highlight women often, one of the central stories revolves around two young, poor, expectant, and overwhelmed women. At the core of this friendship between cousins is a sense of hope, yearning, mystery, and awe. They are aware, in the language of the stories, that these children they bear will carry the hope, yearning, mystery, awe and expectation of a whole people. Standing in this gap between what their lives have been and what their lives and the lives of their sons will become, they seek to support and strengthen each other. It is a touching moment, shared just before the author indicates Mary’s prayer – what we know as the “Magnificat”. Within a few lines of this incredibly powerful and faithful prayer, the story seems to move away from this intimate moment of joy. In some ways it is also a reflection of our lives. The few moments we have of deep faith, deep connection with God and others, are often fleeting and illusive.

One of the carriers our longing and yearning for many of us is, ironically, Christmas music.

In over 20 years of planning and leading Advent and Christmas services, I have never had as many comments, concerns, requests or complaints about Christmas music as I have had this year. Often it is expressed as “why can’t we sing traditional Christmas carols?” or “why can’t we sing more Christmas carols, or better Christmas carols, or the good Christmas carols?”

I know that in generations past Christmas music was learned at both school and church and that our children today have fewer opportunities to learn music. I know that we have a wonderful hymnal whose most significant downfall is that way changes were made to some very familiar, beloved carols – at least a change from the way some of us learned them. I know that we don’t all agree on what constitutes good or traditional or appropriate or fun Christmas music. But the funniest comment came while I was playing a Christmas mix at home while we were cooking and Tammy said, “why can’t we have some Christmas music?” Dear, I said, this IS Christmas music. It’s George Winston!” (one of our favorites)

Of course, when she said “Christmas music” she meant something else. She might have meant Amy Grant or Manheim Steamroller – but she could have meant the St Olaf Choir, Mel Torme, Handel, Celine Deon, Kenny G, the Kings College Boys Choir or Yoyo Ma. She probably didn’t mean Bob Dylan, or the “south of the border” Christmas CD we have, or the Jamaican version of Hark the Herald Angels sing, or Bruce Springstein’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town or the “Country Christmas CD” that we were given a couple of years ago. Even though she didn’t mean that – for someone else – that IS Christmas music, that does connect them to the season in a powerful way.

She didn’t say Bing, or Frank or Burl although they are quite popular –even on a first name basis -in certain circles. She didn’t mean the music of Iona, Nat King Cole or the Cabbage Patch Christmas, or We Three Kings of Orient are, tried to smoke a rubber cigar – but for someone those bring Christmas alive

At first, I was miffed as to why the singing of Christmas music seems to have taken on more importance this year. I don’t intend to psycho analyze those of you who have spoken to me. At the same time, seeing the comments as a pattern that exists beyond one person, I began to wonder if something else was happening in our midst. For many of us Christmas music – however we define it – connects us with family, experiences of our past, churches, our faith, our deceased loved ones, vacations we have taken, rituals we have had, and even our hearts yearning for peace and meaning and hope in the world. For some of us, those memories are moving and wonderful. For some they are painful and ones we would love to forget. But because Christmas time is a high holy day in the church and even in our culture beyond the church – the music of the season often pulls us face to face with the expectations and sadnesses of this time. It reminds us of the longing and hope and wonder and bewilderment about the purpose and possibility of our lives in a way expressed in today’s gospel lesson.

• What has become of what we were?
• What is the state of our lives now?
• How possible is it that the hopes and dreams we have today will be actualized?
• Will this be my last time singing Silent Night?
• Will I ever feel the joy again that I used to feel when I sang “Joy to the World” as a child?

In this snapshot of Mary and Elizabeth, we get a sense of the longing, expressed in community, which is at the root of our faith. In all the discussions that happen around here, this theme of longing for more, longing for connection, seeking greater understanding about life – is present in so many ways. We gather in community in order to help us move from longing to action, yearning to reality. Mary and Elizabeth shared this moment at the beginning of their pregnancies – but they also shared full lives beyond this. They shared raising children and being faithful and hopeful. Mary herself was there at this moment of conception, at the first miracle, and at the moment of Jesus’ death.

The invitation of Christmas, the pilgrimage of a faith rooted in love, is the journey from wanting and hoping to taking steps to bring something into fruition. Again, in this congregation, the big question is not “what are we hoping for in our spiritual or personal lives?” The question is how do we close the gap between what we want and what we do? Increasingly, I think we as people of faith, as individual Christians, as friends and housemates and lovers and family and congregational colleagues need to think together how we take the first step from where we are today, into the direction of where we want to go or be in the future.

I heard this great story on Speaking of Faith with Adele Diamond, a cognitive developmental neuroscientist who currently teaches at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Diamond is learning about the brain challenges basic assumptions in modern education. Her work is scientifically illustrating the educational power of things like play, sports, music, memorization and reflection. One of the small examples she gave was that when she was a child if she wrote a letter or number wrong, the teacher would invite/demand that she write it 1000 times. Maybe it was a misspelling of the color red verses the verb read. Maybe she didn’t capitalize her I’s. She told of brain research that poses the question, “how do people best change their behavior and how do we encourage it in a non-judgmental way.” A teacher she observed as a professor had a young child who confused 6 and 9. Tonight, when you do the math homework, she told the young student, every time you go to write a 6, pick up a red pencil. “The reason it works is because picking up the pencil allows the child to take a moment and think and do what they really know you should do but is not your first inclination. But if you ask a child this young to wait it doesn’t help. Picking up the pencil gives the child a tangible way to wait.

This is, in a very real sense, is an important spiritual discipline. It is a function that we can and must learn to help one another learn – this stopping, reflecting, waiting, considering what we really want in our lives. This kind of learning and support and behavior modification that is required will not come from your pastors alone, but will come as we live in community together, as we share our practices and we witness to one how we moving into our yearnings in tangible ways. The support for such spiritual living begins in moments when we share a deep connection. It is nurtured, corrected, challenged, and celebrated as we journey through life together.

The invitation of Christmas is to open our hearts to the longings of our past, the hopes for today, and the willingness to take those first steps together into becoming who we want to be. The invitation of the gospel lesson is to trust that in good time the Spirit will bring to fruition, (as it did with Elizabeth and Mary, that which is growing inside and through us. In this time of silent meditation and prayer, I invite us to consider what next steps, what small change or addition to our life we would like to make in order to step more fully into hopes and dreams for our life and the life of the world.

Amen

Luke 1:39-45 Elizabeth’s journey to Mary

Luke 1:39-45
39 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. 45And blessed is she who believed that there would be* a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’