The community that lived

 

Luke 2: 1-16
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
Christmas Eve 2021

I want you to imagine yourself as part of the original audience for Luke’s gospel. It’s about 60-80 years after the life and death of Jesus. All those who knew him are gone. You are part of a bunch of new church starts whose founder, the apostle Paul, was arrested and executed by the state. You’ve heard some of the stories about Jesus, you’ve heard some of the letters by Paul or by someone writing in his name, maybe you’ve even heard a few passages from a gospel called Mark. It’s been at least 20 years or so since the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Second Temple. There had been some terrible persecution of Christians under Emperor Nero, but the current emperor doesn’t seem to be as interested in enshrining his sovereignty.



For a little while now the hope that Jesus would return has started to fade. People are realizing that empire is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable but uncertain future. Many know how the story of Jesus ended but no one knew how it began. The hope of resurrection isn’t the whole story. How to live a compassionate, justice-filled life isn’t the whole story. And so Luke composes a story that resembles Jewish midrash—a story to fill in the gaps. If you are living through uncertain times, adrift and wondering how you and your band will get through the gap between what was and what will be, a good story about a tender and vulnerable beginning is, well, you know that feeling tonight. You know it in your bones.

Though we would love to hear and sing this story face to face and shoulder to shoulder, ironically it is the right story for this unexpected or at least unwanted moment of separation and distance. It’s even in the music we sing this season: “Someday soon we all will be together/if the fates allow/until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow”.



Queer womanist freedom fighter and UCC pastor Rev. Marilyn Pagán-Banks writes, “Coming to terms with an unexpected reality takes time, takes work and takes letting go of what could have been in order to make room for what is. The struggle to remain faithful when it seems your world is crashing in all around you is hard as hell! But, love makes it possible.”

There are so many different ways to interpret this story, but one thing is sure: it was and is a story to see a covenant community through tender and vulnerable times. It is a story that, when circumstances are beyond our control, reminds us of what is important: solidarity with the poor, the outcast, the oppressed and marginalized. It is a story that is intended to take us out of ourselves when we’re feeling like a misfit, emphasizing that God’s story is full of misfits and that God chooses again and again to be Love enfleshed in those the world casts aside and denies.



Though it may be story that comforts us in the midst of uncertainty, it is a story we should not get too comfortable with or allow it to become tame. When we light Advent candles we signify that we are a people who wait: a community that waits with hope, peace, joy, and love, not only for the birth of Jesus but for the birth of that kin-dom within us, in our life together, and in this world. It is a story that has led us to where we are now and yet we have not come this far to only have come this far. This is a story that is not intended to leave us unchanged each time we hear it.

I recently heard these words from the last episode of the Netflix series “Sense8”. The title of the episode is Amor Vincit Omnia: Love conquers all, a phrase that has been with us since before the birth of Jesus. And this quote spoke to me about the Christmas story and what we are living through now.



“The improbable unfolding of recent events has led me to consider that no one thing is one thing only. How people endow what is familiar with new, ever-evolving meaning and by doing so, release us from the expected, the familiar into something unforeseeable. It is in this unfamiliar realm we find new possibilities. It is in the unknown we find hope. …All the differences between us and all the forces that try to divide us—they will never exceed the power of love to unite us.”



Those who originally heard Luke’s gospel, they were a community that lived through their own turbulent times. They were Church in their own way and that story of the first Christmas became part of their DNA. Almost 2,000 years later, we are the community that lives on, and so much has changed. Christmas is not one thing only. The story of Christmas releases us from the expected and familiar into something unforeseeable. It is in the unknown we find hope. And nothing will ever exceed the power of love to unite us, to bring us into solidarity with those who need love and justice the most.



Merry Christmas, Church. Amen.

Benediction – Meredith Anne Miller

If you are not in the Christmas spirit
Have no fear.
Are you weary?
That’s the Christmas spirit.
Are you desperate? That’s the Christmas spirit.
Unsure if God will ever really show up?
Afraid of the way the powerful might act?
Are you longing?
You don’t have to be anything different this Christmas.
That’s the Christmas spirit.

Amen.