Christmas Sermon 2018

          What a strange and compelling story, our Gospel, this story of Christmas. It is a story of great reversals, and no one behaves as we’d expect them too.

          Right off the bat the Empire is sidelined
—the main story of the day can be summed up by the Priene inscription:

“Praise Augustus a Savior who has made war to cease and who shall put everything in peaceful order.”

Gaius Octavius—called Augustus (meaning the Revered One), had won the Roman civil war, beating out 7 other would be emperors, winning a peace through superior fire power, and therefore seen as entitled to be the center of every story

… but not here, Luke nods at the emperor and moves on… this isn’t his story!

The Good News, the story of peace and salvation, of the Savior of the whole world
—it isn’t Rome’s story, it is a story that starts somewhere very different… it starts…

          It starts with a sojourner, Joseph, who comes home.

          Comes home along with his fiancé, Mary, a virgin who bears and births a child
—a strange story indeed.

          This child is wrapped in bands of cloth and laid in a manger, no place for his head
—such an out of the way place and space for this child who we proclaim to be the center of all that is!
God with us.

          And a heavenly herald comes to proclaim his arrival… and he chooses shepherds, those outside the city walls, those who spend a little too much time with animals and not enough time with people
—you know, they’re a little off
… and yet these outsiders are the ones brought in on the biggest story ever announced…

          Good news, and yet it terrifies them…

          Good news sung by a heavenly host
—a military unit of angels
—singing peace…
warriors singing peace in a society where warriors weave only strands of chaos.

          And finally, these shepherds, called to watch their flock, leave them, so that they may watch and see this new thing
—the heights of heaven knelt low to gaze upon the infant nestled in a manger.

          Sojourners finding homes, warriors singing of peace, watchers abandoning their post to see something truly special
—grand reversals, the world flipped on its head by the birth of Jesus…

          All of this marking a new world, one where God dwells with humanity, Creator with creature, God born in the flesh.

          And there is a terrible logic to it
—the mystery of God made flesh meets the logic of mortality—the logic of the grave…
once you are born you start dying
—so to with Emmanuel, God with us
—God becomes vulnerable for us, for our sake
—for you…

God among a people occupied by Rome.
God wandering with his parents, first to Bethlehem, then on to Egypt to escape the persecution of Herod.
God with outsider shepherds and stranger Magi.
God lost on pilgrimage as a boy. God baptized at the Jordon.
God three long years teaching. God scourging the temple.
God rejected by the religious and the politically powerful.
God crucified.
God dead and God alive again.

          God vulnerable like us, that we may be like him—beloved children of God.
Grand reversals not just in that story long ago, but now, today, including in our own life
—Gospel, life, peace, and salvation, for you!

          And, in the spirit of the vulnerability of this night, I’m going to ask all of you to be vulnerable too.
In our society that is obsessed with the perpetually new and never takes time to sit with something
—I would ask you to take some time to be like Mary
—Ponder and Treasure the mystery of God’s vulnerability.       And not just ponder, but like the shepherds share, talk to folk about what you come up with
—perhaps with your family over dinner, or with a friend when the moment feels right.

          In the back of your bulletin you will find some prompts for your pondering…
          -what false peace, saviors, and salvation are on offer these days?
          -Surely God reigns everywhere, yet where is God reigning for you and yours this Christmas?
          -Take a moment to think about the last time you were vulnerable, what did that feel like? Do you think that’s how Joseph and Mary and the Shepherds felt?

          And also, as you sit with the vulnerability of God that we celebrate this night, take some time to pray this Christmas.
An example of the prayer you could pray is this:

 O Holy One, heavenly angels spoke to earthly shepherds and eternity entered time in the child of Bethlehem. Through the telling of the Christmas story, let our temporal lives be caught up in the eternal in that same child, that we might join shepherds and all the heavenly host in praising the coming of Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.