A little bit closer

 

Luke 2: 1-16
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
Christmas Eve, 2020

When we realized we would have to celebrate Easter online, we had nary a thought we would still be online at Christmas. But as April headed into May and then June, we could see what lay ahead of us. We would be worshiping online, we would be virtual Church until a vaccine was available.



I did not and do not want to lose any one of you to this virus. Over 320,000 people in this nation have died, 1.5 million worldwide. Millions of lives affected, all of us altered and changed against our will by this pandemic. It all feels like such a waste because it did not have to be this way. We’ve seen just how deeply the divide and the wounds and the roots of racism and poverty run through this nation and how far greed and power will go to remain right where they are.

Like many of us throughout these past months I have thought more about my own mortality and the purpose of this whole existence. Whatever shreds of the illusion of certainty were left are now in tatters. People who took precautions and listened to the science got sick anyway. We understand at a deeper level that we only live one day at a time. None of us really knows what waits for us after this life. We have hopes and dreams that scripture says are not even close to what God has prepared for us. And yet if this is it, our one wild and precious life, if it’s not learning something to take with us, if it’s not eternal life in a heavenly realm, then why are we here? Human beings are meaning makers and storytellers and explorers. To ask the question “why?” is written in our DNA.



So why ask what some might call morbid questions on a night like tonight? Because tonight is the night when we celebrate what it means to be enfleshed. Tonight we understand when God said creation was good, tonight we know that holiness resides in our flesh and in every living thing. Tonight we understand that all life is connected, tonight we know that we are not alone. Tonight we know that the desire for justice and peace is a holy thing, tonight we understand why the lowly are lifted up and the powerful are brought down and how Jesus teaches that we are the means by which that happens. Rabbi Amy-Jill Levine reminds us that “salvation means there is respite from whatever oppresses, in the community that hears, and lives, this Gospel”, this Good News.

So why? Why are we here? Why am I here? I needed to make some kind of peace with this question, especially in the face of so much grief, so much loss, so much waste. Not so that I would feel content but so that my discontent would have more of a way to move forward.



This is a big cosmic question so the answer that came to me is a big cosmic guess at the answer. Ever since this universe began with a single point that stretched and expanded over billions of years, everything in this universe has been moving further apart; even now as planets and stars and galaxies are still forming, the universe is still expanding. We see this even on our own small planet orbiting an average-sized star in an obscure corner of our galaxy, the Milky Way. We keep expanding and moving further apart from one another, even as we have more technology to connect us, more ability to feed and shelter and educate every person, more knowledge and awareness of our impact on each other and the environment.

What if the point of my tiny, unique, never-to-happen-again life is to bring some of the disparate parts of the world I live in just a little bit closer? Especially those who are marginalized and vulnerable with those who are not. Especially to help repair that which has been torn or wounded or hurt. Especially to offer not only words but actions of love and acceptance and compassion. To keep company with those whom the powerful reject. To rebel and break systems that separate and divide us. To build community and make covenants. To share what we have without counting the cost, for justice’s sake. 

The Christmas story is a story of a little bit closer. In this story we move closer to migrants and people crossing borders to escape persecution, oppression, and death. We move closer to children and those who give birth and the poor who live in the shadow of empire and power. We move closer to those whose work is overlooked and devalued, to those on the margins of society. We move closer to those who live far from us, whose lives are unlike our own, who seek out the divine wherever it is, who have their own wisdom and travel home by another road. We move closer to each other as some choose a time such as this to gather the courage to come out to their families and friends, as we try to live and love as best as we can, as we seek and offer forgiveness as we have been forgiven.



This year may we all move a little bit closer to each other, to this world, to the holy within each of us, to the earth that needs healing. May we all move closer to the way of love that we know through Jesus. May that love be born in us once again this night and into the New Year.



Merry Christmas, Church.