A Sermon for
Christmas Eve 2013
All Saints’
Episcopal Church, Southern Shores, NC
Thomas E.
Wilson, Rector
Telling Stories
“In
those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be
registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was
governor of Syria.” So begins the Gospel lesson for tonight which Luke wrote to
give a history of the Jesus movement. History is not lists of chronological
events with people, places and things, but the meaning of the events.
A couple months ago the Don and Catherine Bryan Cultural
Arts Series sponsored a visit and lecture by David McCullough - author,
historian, narrator, two time Pulitzer Prize winner, winner of the National
Book Award, Recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom - and one of my
favorite authors. He was here also to research the Outer Banks and the work of
the Wright Brothers for a book which will be published next year about the
quest of fulfilling the dream of manned flight.
I like the way McCullough does history for, while the facts provide the
skeleton, he also searches for the stories that people remember which provide
the meat and sinews of the body of the work. Stories may or may not be
factually correct, but they are the contemporary participants’ and observers’
attempts to find truth and meaning.
Tonight we tell the old, old, story of Jesus and his birth.
It is a story which we learned when we were children passed on to us over the
years through the Gospel of Luke. It is a true story; the surface facts might
be debatable, but it covers the deeper truth. The editor of the book of Luke
takes the skeleton of facts and adds the memories and remembrances of people 80
years after the event of the birth of a son to a homeless couple In Bethlehem. First
of all, the family told the story, Mary and Joseph to their children, nieces
and nephews, who re-told them to the later generations of family, and not just
blood family but the followers of Jesus who had joined the family. They passed
it on through Luke, and it is passed on to us, told and re-told for 2000+ years
to us members of the extended family. Can
you remember the facts of events 80 years before, or does memory and
imagination combine to fill in the details. How about less than 80 years?
Let me tell you of something that happened 65 years and ten
days ago, December 14, 1948, “when Truman was President of the United States
and
Salvador Castaneda Castro was el Presidente of El Salvador, on a coffee
finca owned by the United Fruit Company on hills overlooking the Capital City
of San Salvador in that Central American country.” How is that for a beginning
of a story? Like the Luke story it lists the leaders of the countries involved but they were far away from where the story begins. We had just moved there a few months before and were waiting for
our house in the city to be finished. Castenada Castro was a thug who had come
to power when he helped organize a coup d’état
against the previous fascist El
Presidente from 1931-1944, 
Maximiliano
Hernández Martínez, under whom he had served as head of his secret
police. After three years, a group of young army officers returned the favor
and threw Casteneda Castro out with a coup. My parents’ family photo album has
a snapshot of people at the finca looking down on puffs of smoke from one
fortress firing cannons against another one in the city. There were many times
when I was growing up when we would look at the album of life in Salvador and
stories would be told about how the cannons mainly killed innocent civilians, and
it was one of the reasons we were safely at the finca. The story continues that my brother, Paul, who
was almost three, was thrilled to see the sights and sounds of warfare, and my
sister, Anne, who was four months old, was held by my father, or mother, or
maid (depending on by who and when the story was told) - but I, almost two,
slept through the entire revolution. “Sleeping through the revolution” became a
line my brother would use to imply that I was clueless about something or
another. “Excitement for noise and carnage” was a line I would throw at my
brother. However, the reason the story would be told was to share a deeper
truth that my parents wanted to pass on to us. That deeper truth was the
fervent hope that, while the world may fall apart, as long as we were there for
each other, we could get through anything. That, at times, fragile truth, not
always upheld by surface facts, helped form our lives. It was the Wilson myth; myths are not things
that are not true, but stories, not always dependent on surface facts, which
are used to explain a deeper reality. That theme runs through our understanding
of ourselves in so many other stories the Wilsons would tell. It is also a
theme that keeps coming forth in my dreams. Jung has said that “Myths are
public dreams and dreams are private myths.”
Maximiliano
Hernández Martínez, under whom he had served as head of his secret
police. After three years, a group of young army officers returned the favor
and threw Casteneda Castro out with a coup. My parents’ family photo album has
a snapshot of people at the finca looking down on puffs of smoke from one
fortress firing cannons against another one in the city. There were many times
when I was growing up when we would look at the album of life in Salvador and
stories would be told about how the cannons mainly killed innocent civilians, and
it was one of the reasons we were safely at the finca. The story continues that my brother, Paul, who
was almost three, was thrilled to see the sights and sounds of warfare, and my
sister, Anne, who was four months old, was held by my father, or mother, or
maid (depending on by who and when the story was told) - but I, almost two,
slept through the entire revolution. “Sleeping through the revolution” became a
line my brother would use to imply that I was clueless about something or
another. “Excitement for noise and carnage” was a line I would throw at my
brother. However, the reason the story would be told was to share a deeper
truth that my parents wanted to pass on to us. That deeper truth was the
fervent hope that, while the world may fall apart, as long as we were there for
each other, we could get through anything. That, at times, fragile truth, not
always upheld by surface facts, helped form our lives. It was the Wilson myth; myths are not things
that are not true, but stories, not always dependent on surface facts, which
are used to explain a deeper reality. That theme runs through our understanding
of ourselves in so many other stories the Wilsons would tell. It is also a
theme that keeps coming forth in my dreams. Jung has said that “Myths are
public dreams and dreams are private myths.”
The birth of Jesus is a fact, Caesar Augustus is a fact, Quirinius
is a fact, Bethlehem is a fact; all are facts of where, when, and who, but details
were added and expanded by generations of story tellers as they tried to give
the event a meaning within the community of faith. Hear how Luke gives the
facts, and then listen to the old, old story again and listen to the deeper
truth that God is present in all the God-forsaken places of the world, even in
human hearts. Listen to the truth that God keeps sending messages of love to
all people. Hear the truth that time is not only measured in hours and minutes
but in God’s time. Then tonight go home and, in your prayers, ask for help to listen
to the truth that God is sending to your dreams. Tomorrow gather with the
family and listen for the deeper meaning behind the stories that you will tell
and have heard and live into that deeper truth. On Sunday come back to
participate and become part of the story that God is telling at this place,
this family, this church to fulfill God’s dream.
Merry Christmas, and tell the story by living into it.
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