Homily for Christmas Eve

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A Homily for Christmas Eve All Saints Episcopal, Southern Shores, NC December 24, 2012 Thomas E. Wilson, Rector

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. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people

This has been a long service so this will be a short homily; can I hear a “Praise God!” or an “Amen brother!”?

As we gather here tonight, we can ask ourselves “Why did the incarnation happen at this time and in this place and witnessed by these people? There is Mary and there is Joseph, there are the shepherds. We all know the story, the most important figure in all of history is born in a backwater part of the Roman Empire, far away from where the movers and shakers of the world had their splendid palaces and petty kingdoms.

Mary was a pregnant teenager who, upon discovering she was pregnant, was sent off to her cousin Elizabeth's house. She stays there for three months and returns to her surprised and shocked fiance. Her reputation is clouded, for even in ancient times, people knew how to count to nine. Tradition tells us that Joseph is a carpenter, which was another way to say a day laborer. We tend to want make the family of Jesus important and remember stories of Jesus as a skilled artisan, but Nazareth was a small town, about 400 people, and not rich enough to provide a living for an artisan.

The powers that be wanted to show their power and as a result this poor couple would have had to walk the 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem which would have taken about four days. If you are a day laborer; you don't work you don't eat. The word in Luke's Gospel for the place they wanted to stay would have translated as “Guest chamber”, a large upper room, the same word used for the place that Jesus held his last supper. So there is the possibility that they wanted to stay with relatives - they don't have money for an inn. Can you imagine relatives from four days away showing up with a pregnant teenage wife in tow and she is ready to pop? How would you respond to them? Probably that is why they were shuffled off to the cave where there was a feed trough as a cradle, so that they were out of the way.                

Then there were the shepherds - and we are not talking about the kind of people who would be invited to supper when the baby was born. They were shepherds because there was no other kind of work for them, and they did not belong. God doesn't seem to have any taste whatsoever… How would the relatives have responded to the rabble? How odd of God to use these people. Apparently Joseph and Mary stayed in Bethlehem for a couple years, and he may have found work there, for in Matthew's story, the Magi found Jesus in Bethlehem, and the Greek word used for Jesus is for a child who walks and talks, not a baby. The Magi went into the “house”, not the “stable”, so they have found a shanty in which to stay. When the Magi failed to show up to see Herod the Great again, he sent word that the children of Bethlehem under two years old would be slaughtered.

Joseph and Mary leave town and head to Egypt where they become undocumented laborers for a couple years and then head back to Nazareth, when Herod the Great dies and where they hope that memories might be short and forgiving and work could be found. Nine miles north of Nazareth, there was a massive public works building boom was going on in Sepphoris, where Herod Anitpas, the son of Herod the Great, wanted to build a Roman style city. Pat I went to the ruins of that city some years ago, and we saw how there would have been plenty of work for traveling day laborers. My guess is this is where this poor family spent much of the time Jesus was growing up, an outsider in an alien culture.

God chooses the strangest people. You would think that the divine would choose better people, but God is an equal opportunity lover and picks all sorts of people. In 1924 in The Weekend Book, William Norman Ewer, a British journalist, wrote an epigram: “How odd of God to choose the Jews.” In reply Ogden Nash replied: “It wasn't odd; the Jews chose God.” In our story God called every one of these people. We know that Mary, Joseph, the Shepherds, and the Magi heard the call from God. But how many others heard the call? I think God called a bunch of other people, but they were too busy wrapped up in their own agendas - or they thought they had better taste than God. I think that God is calling us all the time. We sometimes use the word “call” to be chosen for a job in the church, but I think we are all called to be connected to the living God. We are called to be God bearers in this world which keeps forgetting what God's love looks like. Our call is not about a particular task but to BE - to be outward and visible signs of God's love wherever we find ourselves and with whatever sorts and conditions of people.

Tonight we remember something that happened in a place far away and in a time long ago in a filthy stable, and also to re-live the events that are right here and right now in this clean church. Maybe we can hear the better angels of our nature glorifying God and joining in singing, not just with our lips but with our lives: “Glory to God in the highest, highest heaven and on earth peace among those who God favors.”