Sermon preached by the Rev. Dr. Bradley Pace
24 December 2021
I keep seeing this funny meme on social media that captures our moment nicely. It says something like: “2021 ends soon. And although we have our differences, I think we can all agree on one thing: What. The. Heck. Was. That?!?” It has been a year to be sure. And of course, 2022 just sounds like 2020, part 2.
Here we are though. We’re in-person this year—some of us anyway—but we’re still in this pandemic. We’re still wearing masks. We’re still getting shots, still reading the COVID dashboard or listening to the grim statistics on the news. We’re still waiting for test results, still quarantining. We are still worried about those who are sick or particularly vulnerable, still frustrated with those who refuse to take this seriously. More and more, it feels like COVID is going to be with us for the foreseeable future; an endless cycle of variants and vaccines.
Perhaps COVID will be one more thing we get used to, one more thing we shrug off. After all, we’re still doing school shootings. Unarmed Black and brown folks are still being killed, and while some families have received justice, it stills seems rare enough to be the exception rather than the rule. Too many of us hold onto old prejudices about race and gender and identity that isolate and marginalize others and to the systems that further oppress them. Some of us continue to “go along to get along” or accept the status quo because we benefit from it in one way or another. Regardless of their names or titles, the same group of people are in charge—people who worry more about their own political fortunes than about the common good. People in Afghanistan and Ethiopia and Yemen are still starving, still living under the threat of extreme violence. We continue to do irreparable harm to the planet. We are still divided and those divisions—political, social, economic—continue to deepen and lead to more and more misery.
At home, we continue not talking about “it”—whatever “it” is. And so, our relationships suffer. We cheat, we lie, our marriages collapse. We kick our kids out of the house or we refuse to speak with our parents. We abuse and we are abused. We continue to numb the pain with food or technology, alcohol or drugs. We bury ourselves in work. Then we bury our family and friends.
So here we are. We all showed up together to hear the same old stories. We all showed up to say the same old prayers, to sing the same old carols. Are we really doing this again? Mary, Joseph, the manger? Shepherds and kings? Wasn’t there a kid with a drum? And how did we suddenly end up in Who-ville? Why does Father Bradley have to bring up that dragon every Christmas?
To be fair, the little drummer boy or the Grinch notwithstanding, that old story shares some of these same elements. First century Jews lived with the constant threat of violence, with incredible political and social divisions, and with many of the same fears and anxieties. They lived under the Caesars, under this or that Roman Governor, under a series of puppet-kings with the first name Herod. This wasn’t new, of course. There had almost always been Pharaohs or Philistines, Assyrians or Babylonians, Persians or Greeks. Just like all the rest, these rulers cared more for their own fortunes than for the fortunes of those whom they served. And so, the people lived under the constant threat of oppression and violence. The people were terribly divided about all of this. How should they respond? Some of them went along, to get along and benefited from those systems of injustice. Others responded with violence of their own. But those who lived by the sword, too often died by the sword; and widespread violence was meted out against whole cities, whole regions of people. The people in our story knew all about this violence, and the ones who wrote them down knew about it firsthand. Aside from all of this, they continued to be divided along the tired old lines of ethnicity, tribe, and sect. The more things changed, the more they remained the same.
And even though the story as Luke tells it involves a census—an accounting of all the people—it is clear from the beginning that many of the people in our story simply don’t count. Zechariah and Elizabeth are old and supposedly can’t have children (the one thing, the story suggests, that really matters). Joseph is just some carpenter. Sure, he is “of the house and lineage of David”, but those pretensions to a royal bloodline seem long bereft of any real claim to a throne. Mary herself is a young girl, and she and Joseph aren’t married yet. So surely, she shouldn’t be having a child. And the shepherds? They’re still out in their fields watching the flocks. They don’t count. They literally don’t even get counted.
It would be easy to imagine someone in the story—and let’s be clear, there are a number of such folks in the background—asking, “Are we really doing this again?” Are we going to continue to hang onto the same old promises, say the same old prayers, sing the same old songs?
But the people in our stories held their old stories, their old prayers, their old songs so close, so dearly. For them, those stories held the great promise of what God had done, of what God was doing, of what God would do. They knew all about the seemingly never-ending cycles of oppression and violence, of division and brokenness, of injustice and sin. But those stories showed them a new path, those prayers spoke of a hope for a different direction, those songs expressed the joy that was even then breaking into the world.
And so, when Zechariah saw his son John, the one who would pave the way for the fulfillment of God’s promises, he remembered those ancient promises:
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; *
he has come to his people and set them free.
He has raised up for us a mighty savior, *
born of the house of his servant David.
Through his holy prophets he promised of old,
that he would save us from our enemies, *
from the hands of all who hate us.
He promised to show mercy to our fathers *
and to remember his covenant love….
In the tender compassion of our God *
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, *
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.
When she greeted her cousin Elizabeth, Mary expressed the hopes of a new world:
The Lord, God my Savior… has mercy on those who fear him *
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm, *
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things, *
and the rich he has sent away empty.
And when the angels sang their song of great joy, they delivered it—not in the halls of power, not to Augustus or Quirinius or Herod—but to the shepherds out in the fields, the shepherds who didn’t count, the shepherds who weren’t even counted. They sang together in one voice:
Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace, goodwill among all people!
They remembered and they hoped and they rejoiced because, in that moment, all those cycles had been disrupted. Something had happened. Something had changed. New directions were now available. New possibilities were now opened. A new order was breaking into the world. Old things were passing away, new things were coming to light and life. This new order, the Kingdom of God, would set a different trajectory for creation.
It was a major disruption, a revolution, as one writer describes it, “of thought, life, values, and behavior.”
It’s true, those ancient promises were being fulfilled in new ways, in ways, perhaps, that no one had expected. This child would grow into a prophet, a priest, a king. He would be God’s own presence in the world. And he would call those who followed him in new directions, toward new possibilities, toward a new world order. But it meant that those old cycles could now be broken. New avenues could be taken. New communities were possible. This is exactly how Jesus’ earliest followers talked about it.
This is why we come together tonight, friends. We come together remembering the promises in those stories. We remember that in God’s compassion, the dawn from on high will break upon us” that God’s light will “guide our feet into the way of peace.” We remember that “the Lord has mercy on those who fear him in every generation” including ours. We remember God’s blessing of peace and goodwill. We come together saying the same old prayers in hope that we might be released from bondage and receive power to become God’s children. We come, all ye faithful together, singing the old songs. We “rejoice with heart and soul and voice” because God has come to dwell with us, to launch the Kingdom he had promised, to renew the world and break the cycles in which we are trapped.
Yes friends, we are really doing this again. Because God has come and now calls us to join in the disruption, to be the genuine human creatures we were created to be, to shine God’s light and love into the world. We do that, not by the same old means of going along to get along or of reciprocating violence or by numbing ourselves, but by seeing and believing like Zechariah, by saying “yes” like Mary and naming the truth of the kingdom, by rejoicing with the angels, and by sharing the vulnerability of the Christ-child. We break those cycles by being peacemakers, by standing with the poor and the poor in heart, by thirsting for justice and righteousness. We change the world by loving God and loving our neighbor.
My friends, on this Christmas Eve night, may we remember together the ancient stories. May they fill us with the hope of new possibilities, of a renewed world. May our songs echo with the joy of the angels, the joy of hearts filled with God’s love. And may we reflect that love into the world.
Amen.