“Making the Spirit of Christmas Visible”

Sermon Delivered By Rev. Dick Stetler – December 25, 2016

Centenary United Methodist Church

Psalm 98; John 1:1-12

Christmas Day

    This morning I want to discuss the decline of the importance of Christianity in our culture during our lifetime. There was a time when the Church told the followers of Jesus what to believe, how to think and what God expected of them. 

    As science and archeology began to erode the accuracy of the Biblical narrative in the19th Century, trust began to decrease among believers that the scriptures were dictated to various writers by God.  Of course, this understanding was never the official message of the Church.  More people, however, became like an old car engine; they began missing before they quit. 

    As many authorities in the church know, attendance at worship services is not what it used to be.  People have found it easy to fill their Sundays with other activities.  With the erosion of the commandment, "Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy," stores began to open on Sundays, employees had to work in  them and athletic events and team practices lured children away from Sunday School.  Unless students were in parochial schools, the transmission of religious education has become nonexistent.  For societies everywhere, Sunday has become just another day. 

    Before anyone understood the unintended consequences of what was slowly happening, people found themselves no longer anchored to an orientation toward life that inspired, stimulated and encouraged the spirit by which they lived.  Today, what is more likely defining people is the allure of economic and political issues.  

    Last week there was an interesting experiment on the campus of the University of Virginia that revealed how desensitized some people have become regarding the symbols of their religious heritage.

    A disguised news reporter visited the campus to see how many signatures he could collect on a petition to get rid of Christmas as a national celebration in the United States.  The whole prank was bogus but he wound up with hundreds of signatures from intelligent college students.  He lobbied for their vote citing the following reasons:

Christmas manipulates people into spending money that they do not have on gifts, cards and decorations.  Christmas forces all businesses to celebrate the birth of Jesus even if the companies are owned and managed by Jews, Muslims and agnostics.  Americans have to understand that Christmas is no longer everyone's holiday, and out of consideration for other populations living within our borders, Americans ought to deal with Christmas in a more personal and private way.  

    While this understanding of what is happening may cause concern among the faithful, what is interesting is that since the beginning of time, people have had a powerful urge to deal with matters of spirit. This urge is documented by the findings in caves that date back to a half million years ago.  This need to reach beyond ourselves is a quality that appears to be baked into our species.  It is a condition from which no culture has successfully escaped.

    Shortly after Christmas Day one year, an article appeared in the Op-Ed section of a local newspaper where a mother described such a feeling. She wrote:

My father retired as a Baptist pastor.  My husband had a Jewish mother and a Roman Catholic father. We have two young daughters.  We have never attended any church.  However, I find myself longing to reconnect with my spiritual side that is starving to death for lack of nourishment.  I want to give my girls some grounding in understanding the power within them to govern their attitudes and decision-making.  But how?  Where?  Who would take us? 

 

The day after Christmas, I was watching my daughters dancing around in their fairy princess garbs that we bought for them.   I mused out loud:  "Aren't we a beautiful picture?  One lapsed Baptist.  A secular Jew.  And two little pagans."  My oldest daughter heard me and exclaimed.  "Mommy, we are not penguins.  We are little girls."  Well, at least that much in our family is settled.

    In our lesson today, the prologue of John's Gospel really gives us an earful of information that tells us that while people may drift, truth remains completely untarnished.  It says:

The energy of life that has always existed has brought light and understanding to people.  This energized understanding has provided a light for guidance to people who live in the darkness caused by their own ignorance.  As powerful as that darkness appears, it cannot exist in the presence of light. (John 1:1f)

     Translated this means that Truth does not depend on anything to exist. Truth does not care whether someone takes the time to discover it early in life or waits until much later by learning that nothing else works to provide the benefits of having peace of mind, an increase in the quality of their attitudes and their productivity.

    What Jesus taught is capable of being expressed by anyone, whether that person is a United Methodist, a Roman Catholic, a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu, a Buddhist or someone who is an agnostic.  Jesus taught what happens to people emotionally when their spirits become energized by the urge to reach out to all living things with compassion.

    It was Christmas Day in England during the final phases of World War II.  Three soldiers found themselves with some free time.  Since the weather was warm they decided to explore the area.

    While being lost in conversation, they came to the outskirts of a village where they found themselves facing a rundown pub.  Having developed a thirst by this time, they thought a little English libation would taste pretty good.  When they tried to enter the front door, however, they found that it was locked.  To their complete chagrin a nun opened the door.

    She explained that the place used to be a pub and now it was an orphanage for children who have lost their parents during the war.  She invited the three men to come in.  The children were very excited and fascinated to hear how Americans spoke English with a foreign accent. 

    One of the men noticed a small tree in the corner decorated with many ornaments that had obviously been made by the children. He whispered to the nun, "Where are the Christmas presents?"  She said, "We have so little money to feed them that I'm afraid the tree is all we could afford this year."

    When the three men heard this, they emptied their pockets of pens and pencils. They gave away everything from their medals and watches to their chewing gum. 

    After everything was disbursed, one of the soldiers noticed a little boy shyly hiding beside an old piano.  The men looked at each other realizing they had nothing left to give him.  One of the men walked over to the boy, knelt down to his eye level and said, "And, what would you like to have for Christmas my little man?"  The boy's eyes filled with tears as he silently reached out to be held.

    Talk about a spiritual awakening kindled by emotions, the soldier picked him up with tears flowing down his own cheeks and asked the nuns if they could borrow him for a little while. The nun mopped the soldier's face and said, "Of course." They carried him back to the barracks where they summoned the troops. 

    When the other men learned about the nuns and the orphanage, over a hundred of them responded with trucks for transport, filled with blankets, trinkets for the kids, food from the base pantry, and enough other staples to stock that orphanage with everything those nuns would need for quite some time. 

    They even threw in a case of wine for the nuns just in case they wanted to party or have something to celebrate Holy Communion. One of the new guys from the base knew how to play that old piano and the men and children sang Christmas carols for the rest of the morning. 

     This spirit is inside of us regardless of our skin color, religious heritage or ethnic background. This is how God created us. All of us have the ability to reveal our identity as spirit-beings that existed with God before we chose to incarnate into our limited, physical forms.

    Today, we celebrate the birthday of Jesus that offered humanity a marvelous path to awakening the spirit-beings within each of us.  God has no timetable for when people awaken from their animal spirits. What God knows unequivocally is that eventually all of us will.  Why?  Because absolutely nothing else works to instill joy, peace, character, and creativity in people until they discover the emotional sensations that come by sending their energy away from themselves just as God does. 

    All of our spirits are of the same substance.  It is our world's religions that have attempted to squeeze us into particular molds that teach, "We are the ones that have the true religion." What is odd is that no one ever told that to Jesus. (Luke 9:50)  He loved everyone and wanted people to follow him by doing the same.  That message is not revolutionary, but it is vital enough to transform the world with its simplicity.