Sermons
Christmas Eve 2006
Gracious God—pull us to your presence; in your Holy Name we pray.
Amen.
Good Evening.
Are you afraid of God?
Are you just a bit terrified of our Lord?
Annie Dillard, in her book Teaching a Stone to Talk (pp 137-139) writes this piece, entitled, “God in the Doorway.”
She recalls,
“One cold Christmas Eve [when I was a child]
I was up unnaturally late
because we had all gone out to dinner
—my parents,
my baby sister, and I.
We had come home
to a warm living room,
and Christmas Eve.
Our stockings drooped from the mantle;
beside them,
a special table bore a bottle of ginger ale
and a plate of cookies…
[Then]
There was a commotion at the front door;
it opened, and cold wind blew around my dress.
Everyone was calling me.
“Look who’s here!
Look who’s here!”
I looked.
It was Santa Claus. [Santa Claus]
Whom I
never—ever—wanted to meet.
Santa Claus was looming in the doorway
and looking around for me.
My mother’s voice was thrilled:
“Look who’s here!”
I ran upstairs.
Like everyone in his right mind,
I feared Santa Clause,
thinking he was God
…Santa Claus was an old man
whom you never saw,
but who
nevertheless saw you;
he knew when you’d been bad or good,
he knew when you’d been bad or good,
And I had been bad.
My mother called and called,
enthusiastic, pleading;
I wouldn’t come down.
My father encouraged me;
My[baby] sister howled.
I wouldn’t come down,
but I could bend over the stairwell
and see:
Santa Claus stood in the doorway
with night over his shoulder,
letting in all the cold air of the sky;
Santa Claus stood in the doorway
monstrous and bright,
powerless, ringing a loud bell and repeating
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas.
I never came down.
I don’t know who ate the cookies.
For so many years now
I have known that[ this] particular Santa Claus
was actually a rigged-up Miss White,
who lived across the street…
Miss White was old;
she lived alone in the big house across the street.
She liked having me around;
she plied me with cookies,
taught me things about the world
… I liked her.
She meant no harm on earth,
and yet
half a year after her failed Santa Claus,
I ran from her again.
That day,
a day of the following summer,
Miss White and I knelt in her yard
while she showed me a magnifying glass.
It was a large, strong hand lens.
She lifted my hand and holding it very still
focused a dab of sunshine on my palm.
The glowing crescent wobbled,
spread, and
finally contracted to a point.
It burned; I was burned;
I ripped my hand away
and ran home crying.
Miss White called after me,
sorry explaining, but I didn’t look back.
Even now I wonder:
if I meet God,
will he take and hold my bare hand in his,
and focus his eye on my palm,
and kindle that spot and let me burn?
But no.
It is I who misunderstood everything…
Miss White, God,
I am sorry I ran from you.
I am still running,
running from that knowledge,
that eye,
that love from which there is no refuge.
For you meant only love and love,
and I felt only fear, and pain.
So
once in Israel
love came to us incarnate,
stood in the doorway
between two worlds, and we were all afraid.”
And an Angel of the Lord
stood before them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them
and they were terrified.
For not that much
has shifted in two thousand years.
God comes,
God calls,
and most of us are still terrified,
filled with fear in a field,
refusing to come near.
The most we’ll do,
like Annie Dillard,
is lean over the banister
—looking at God—
seeing the wide world beyond—
looking & wishing
God to go away
—and leave us with our lives
as we know them.
Maybe fulfilling, maybe not—
but our lives—just the same
—the ones’ we know.
And the Shepherd said,
“Let us go now to Bethlehem
and see this thing that the Lord has made known to us.”
God comes, God calls—
we could go with the shepherds,
follow the star—
see the Holy One in the barn—
or we could not.
“Let’s not and say we did.”
We don’t go—
we don’t get disappointed.
We don’t venture forth
—we get to stay
rooted in our cynicism,
sheltered by our skepticism.
We don’t go—
we never have to long for,
hope for
work for
something more.
So my friends—
When was the last time
you felt God, saw God,
heard God or even appealed to God?
When was the last time
you and God were intimate?
When was the last time
you intertwined, intermingled your life with the Lord’s?
When was the last time
you imagined
the wide-world of possibilities
of a Holy One born in a barn:
the valleys are lifted up,
the mountains are laid low,
the lame walk,
the blind see
and the poor hope.
When was the last time
you let yourself believe in something more?
And the Angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord, shone around them and they were terrified.
Would you stay or would you go?
The reason I would hesitate
—the reason I might not go—
is the thing
that I have struggled with my entire life
—perhaps some of you—
share this struggle.
In my darker moments
I’m pretty sure
that I’m not good enough for God.
Like Santa Claus,
if God knows everything
I have ever done
or said,
or thought about doing
than I am pretty convinced
that God wouldn’t like me very much.
So my first thought is to stay away.
But I got to tell you—
I long for so much more.
I long for those moments
when I feel God’s embrace.
I long for those moments—
when I know for sure
that I am not alone.
I long for those moments
—when the possibilities
of a God born in a barn—
seem not so much as flickering mirages,
but concrete realities
—which become more and more tangible
each time I relax
and believe that indeed I am Good ENOUGH
to live out Christ’s hope for our world.
In spite of my fears
and because of my inadequacies
I go to that barn—
because it’s there
that I have seen houses rebuilt,
outcast neighbors embraced,
and starving children fed.
I go to the barn—
because each time I go
—I get a glimpse—
of what our world could be.
I get a glimpse
of what my life could be.
I get a glimpse of what we can be
—when we let go of our fears—
and believe.
What our world will be like
when we remember
“that onto us was born this day,
in the city of David—our savior who is Christ the Lord.
So they said to one another—
Let’s go to Bethlehem now
to see this thing that has taken place.
So they went with haste—
may we—this night—do the same.
In Christ’s Holy Name we pray.
Amen.