First United Methodist Church
December 24, 1999
Birmingham, Michigan
Last week’s mail brought a Christmas letter from friends, the first line of which reads: “Well, another year under our belts….and I mean that literally.” And most of us can identify with that, since we will be saying pretty much the same thing, come the middle of January. For whatever else Christmas may be, it is an unbridled adventure of tasting and feasting, nibbling and snacking, that commences around the time the Thanksgiving Day Parade rolls down Woodward Avenue and concludes shortly after half time of the Orange Bowl. People talk to each other about “eating their way through the holidays,” with such conversations taking place as they are standing in a buffet line, or attempting to balance one snack plate, one punch cup, one napkin, three pieces of silverware, and several small-speared-things dangling from the ends of toothpicks. Christmas is a time of going out….having people in….shipping cookies from house to house….and taking goodies to the work place for munching over coffee. And we love it….right down the last finger-licking morsel. Besides, what else would you expect from a culture that uses refrigerator doors to serve as everything from “message central” to a children’s art gallery?
Much of this can be explained by the fact that Christmas is a season of re-discovered fellowship. From Old Testament times to the present, fellowship has not only been enhanced, but literally cemented, by a willingness to eat together. In fact, a refusal to eat is taken, in some quarters, as a refusal to bond. The root of the Hebrew verb “to covenant” is said to be a derivative of the Hebrew verb “to eat.” To the degree that when Jonathan broke covenant with Saul (I Samuel 20:34), “he rose from the table and ate no food.” Keep that in mind the next time you are inclined to refuse a plate of cookies that someone passes your way.
But Christmas is more than fellowshipping over food-in-general. Christmas involves the bonding of family and friends over some very special foods-in-particular. For at Christmas, food becomes a link to places one has been before and to people who have gone before. Every family will serve something during the course of this holiday season which will connect them in memory to some other country or some previous generation. Some things will be eaten simply because grandma made them or because grandmas’ ancestors (in the old country) enjoyed them. And grandma’s death (when it comes) will occasion the question (most often asked by the youngest child) as to “who will make the angel wings this year?” Inevitably, someone else in the family who doesn’t have the faintest idea how to make angel wings….and who may not even enjoy them all that much….quietly says: “I will.”
In my family, it was “flanceta” (angel wings) and “poteca” (Slovenian nut roll). Lori Lachowicz’s mother makes “nut roll”….only she calls it “kolach” rather than “poteca.” That’s because Lori’s mother is Hungarian rather than Slovenian, giving further evidence of the fact that Slovenians and Hungarians have never been able to get together on much of anything, including a common name for “nut roll.”
Meanwhile, Kris’ family was big into pickled herring, scalloped oysters, plum pudding, and real mince pie (made from beef cooked over a low flame for a minimum of eight and a half years). All of the above were acquired tastes for me. But I learned….because the desire to bond with the people one loves is stronger than the desire to turn up one’s nose at what is deemed unfamiliar and strange.
Some Christmas foods, of course, become legendary….thus surpassing all family traditions and countries of origin. Take fruitcake. For years, I have heard the rumor that there are only 75-100 fruitcakes in the entire Western world….and that nobody has ever actually eaten one. Upon receiving them as gifts, people promptly freeze them and begin figuring out who in the world they can give them to next year. But Mary Jane Russell gave me one this year. She actually made it. And with a most mischievous twinkle in her eye, said: “Try it, you’ll like it.” So I tried it. And you know what? I liked it.
And what is so special about figgy pudding, so as to cause millions of carolers to demand it in return for wishing us a merry Christmas? That demand is voiced, even to the point of absurdity:
We won’t go until we get some,
We won’t go until we get some,
We won’t go until we get some,
So bring it right here.
I don’t know which is less appealing, the song or the dish. But I’m sure that before the week is out, I will have heard from lovers of figgy pudding everywhere.
But strange as all this may seem, many genuine Christmas carols have linked feasting with faith. In my college years, I sang tenor in a madrigal group. Our specialty was the Oxford Book of Carols, many of which openly combined praise for the birth of our Savior with delight taken in the sharing of good food. In fact, “The Boar’s Head Carol” was not only my favorite, but something of my signature song.
And who can forget that incredible moment in the beautiful story, “The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever,” when a kid (very much from the wrong side of the tracks) manages to crash a very proper Presbyterian children’s pageant and claim a part as one of the three kings. After marching down the aisle to the quiet gasps of the deacons and elders, he slips over to the manger and lays a Polish ham at the feet of Baby Jesus. And while his gift was far from historical or theological, it was eminently practical, and certainly edible, assuming that allowances are made for the fact that the original Jesus-Baby was a good little Jewish boy.
All of which may have been what prompted Roger Wittrup to show up yesterday….promptly at noon….with my Christmas present. It was a huge ham sandwich from a place on Michigan Avenue (near Tiger Stadium) called Mike’s Ham Heaven. It was not so much a sandwich, really. What it was was half a hog, slaughtered and stacked (albeit precariously) between two slices of bread.
One day, in the earthly ministry of Jesus, some friends of John the Baptist came to our Lord and raised a thorny question. “Why is it (they wanted to know) that we fast and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” To which Jesus answered: “Do people fast at a wedding when the bridegroom is among them?”
Well, my friends, Christmas Eve is (at the very least) the equivalent of a wedding. Jesus is here tonight, so very few of us will….fast, that is. Which is not really a commentary on how much we ought to eat on Christmas Eve, or how much we ought to drink on Christmas Eve, but how much sheer joy and delight we ought to take at his coming on Christmas Eve.
And then there is the sharing that accompanies the delight. For the true “Jesus people” of the world are not simply those who greet and eat, but those who also greet and feed. “Where do we see Jesus,” asks the gospel, if not in the hungry who receive our food. Which is why (whatever one’s position on welfare reform) nobody decries a soup kitchen. And which is why, appearances to the contrary, any money we spend (as a church) on poinsettias is a pittance….a miniscule pittance, I tell you….to the money we spend on bread.
So we feast. And we feed. Even though some of us are still hungry for that which bread (or figgy pudding) cannot satisfy. For every worshiper with a stomach that rumbles in this sanctuary tonight, there is someone else with a spirit that rumbles….someone who is hurt and needs healing….someone who is empty and needs filling….someone who is lonely and needs loving….someone for whom the winter is already too cold, and the night is already too dark….and who is visibly “bent beneath life’s crushing load,” and slipped into the pew dragging “the fears of all the years” behind them. Not everybody came tonight just to sing an old familiar song and hear an old familiar story. Some came looking for a whole lot more.
To you I would say, take nourishment from this place. Trust that God can feed your heart this night. For where weak souls will receive him still, our Christ still enters in. He never refuses, no matter how shabby he may find the stable to which he is invited as a guest (and some of the lives into which we invite him are pretty shabby). He always accepts. He always answers. He is not too proud for you. Are you too proud for him? Think carefully before you answer. For if you answer correctly, this could be your birthday, every bit as much as his.
* * * * *
Christmas Eve, 1999. The last one of the millennium. I guess I always thought I’d live to see it. But it never occurred to me that I’d be “pushing sixty” when it came.
But Leah Kropf is “pushing 99.” She’s one of our homebound members (I hate the words “shut in”). Leah was my last poinsettia stop, late yesterday afternoon. She lives….on her own. Manages….on her own. Gets by….with a little help from family and friends.
We’d never met, she and I. For which I feel badly. Dr. Thomas is the last minister she really remembers. But, after putting two and two together, she said: “I know….you are the fellow who writes me those wonderful letters each week.” And just as I was about to confess that I’d never done any such thing, I realized I was. That guy, I mean.
But now we were sitting in her living room….meaning that our “connection” was personal, not printed. Which, too, will preach….if you let it. But don’t stop there. Move with me, deeper into the conversation….past the point where she told me about seven decades with her husband, Alvin (dead, six years)….past the point where she told me about holding her first great-great-grandchild, Justin (born last September)….all the way to where she shared her philosophy of living. Said she:
I don’t see very well. I need a really bright light to read. But I celebrate the fact that I can still see the possibilities through the disabilities.
And to think, I almost didn’t get there in time to hear that.
As for me and mine, this Christmas, there are no disabilities worth speaking of. And a plethora of possibilities. Life is as promising as it is precious. Which says a lot about life. And even more about faith.
In a matter of hours, I will go home with two of the most incredible women God has ever given one man to share. Where it will be time for a hot fire….cold shrimp….a bowl of bisque….a present or two….along with the cherished memory of one who (from our sight) is gone for awhile, but (in another sense) never left….coupled with this picture of you….here….and the night we are sharing together.
There is so much to this night. And there is so much to this place. So my very dear friends, don’t go until you get some.
