Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Christmas Eve 2004
Most jobs around the church I feel called to do. Some jobs around the church I get paid to do. But other jobs around the church, I volunteer to do them….either because they’re there….or I’m there….or you’re not there….or whatever.
One of my volunteer efforts that is more fun than work is that of traffic director/parking attendant on the nights when hundreds of women descend upon this place for Advent by Candlelight. If it is cold enough….and I am bundled up enough….I am hardly recognizable. Which is all the better. So I just stand out there in the street….with one arm waving and one flashlight shining….telling hundreds of women where to go. And they do.
But I can always distinguish the age of the drivers, given that young mothers drive humongous vehicles and they turn into the parking lot one handed. That’s because their other hand is holding a cell phone. I can only assume that last minute instructions are being relayed to husbands or baby sitters. Either that, or one child is being told to stop hitting another child….or to eat his vegetables….or is assured that “Yes, Mommy will be home in time to tuck you in, but no, you can’t stay up till Mommy gets there. In spite of what Daddy says.”
We are a cell phone driven culture. Before these services are done tonight, one will most assuredly go off….generally in a place where its owner can’t find it, reach it, or readily silence it.
I don’t have a cell phone. To me, it feels less like a convenience and more like a tether. But my wife does. So I borrow hers. And one weekend a month, I carry the church’s. Strictly for emergencies. But last night, when we were trying to coordinate the airport thing with Julie and Jared (delayed flights, huge crowds), cell phones were just the ticket. You get the picture. Which is another thing you can do with cell phones. Get the picture, I mean. But I digress.
There is, of course, one nagging little problem. Cell phones don’t work everywhere. Because the signal is not transmitted everywhere. Meaning there are “dead zones.” When Julie is in California, she often calls us while driving home from work….San Mateo to San Francisco. When suddenly she’ll say: “I’m about to enter a dead zone. Sit tight. I’ll call you back in a couple of minutes.”
It used to be that much of mid-Michigan was a dead zone. Could still be, for all I know. But they exist around here, too. I’m talking about places where connections suddenly stop….or never start. Portions of Bloomfield Hills are that way. Ditto, they tell me, for the village of Franklin. The bigger and grander the homes, the greater the reluctance of residents to allow for cell towers. Meaning that the rich don’t always hear what the poor hear. Which could be turned into a Christmas sermon by anybody with a fertile imagination and a rudimentary understanding of the Gospel of Matthew. For is not Mary’s lovely song….sometimes called the Magnificat….a reminder that the rich (we rich) simply don’t get it? Or, worse yet, that we will “get it” because we don’t get it. I quote from Mary’s lovely song:
He has shown strength with his arm
and has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
Putting down the mighty from their thrones,
exalting those of low degree,
filling the hungry with good things,
while sending the rich empty away.
But what does she know? She’s only a teenager. A pregnant, unmarried teenager. But again, I digress.
What were we talking about? Oh yes….dead zones. That’s what we were talking about. The world being full of them….literally as well as figuratively. Even a mess tent in the middle of a base camp can be a dead zone (as several of America’s own found out last week). It’s the sad and painful nature of war….especially this war.…that even the held ground is not safe ground. Let alone sacred ground.
But then you don’t have to go to Iraq to learn that. Daily….in the city….people get shot. A mile from their house. A block from their house. Sitting on the sofa, watching TV in their house. Mitch Albom told one of those stories yesterday, introducing us to Jerome Parker. Fifteen years old. Good kid. Bright kid. Athletic kid. Dead kid. Today, he is not polishing his jump shot in the church gym, drinking a quart of milk with his favorite breakfast cereal, or watching cartoons with his little brother. Because the other day they buried him in Woodlawn Cemetery (just down the road)….in his brand new suit. Or, as Albom wrote: “Another piece of Detroit’s future dressed up….boxed up….and covered with dirt.” Dead zones! We know much too much about dead zones. But still I digress.
Let’s get to the guy who infuriates me to no end. He’s on television every time I turn it on. Not singing. Not sporting. Not starring. But selling. Selling what? Selling cell phones (along with a cell phone network). That’s what.
If you buy what he’s selling, it will solve all your problems. It could even save your family and your marriage….that is, if cell phone static is what ails your family and your marriage. Buy what he’s selling and you will hear clearly. Along with widely. Because he is promising broader coverage with fewer interruptions. Say goodbye to dead zones. And to prove it, he runs hither and yon….stopping every few minutes to put a cell phone to his ear and ask:
“Can you hear me now?”
“Can you hear me now?”
“Can you hear me now?”
The truth being, I can. But I wish I couldn’t. But I continue to digress.
The other day….Tuesday, to be exact….Jennifer Montgomery was helping Lynn Hasley with the logistics for the Longest Night service. When she suddenly discovered that a Catholic supply store had just what we needed for lighting individual votive candles. So she tried calling them on her cell phone. But there are a lot of places in this building where cell phones won’t work (including the hallways and offices). So I offered the phone on my desk. In fact, I offered to dial the number. To which she said: “No. That’s all right. I’ll just go into the sanctuary. I can make a connection there.” End of digressions.
That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? Because this is not a dead zone. This is a very live zone. Never more than it would appear to be on Christmas Eve. You’ve come for all kinds of reasons. Beauty. Familiarity. Memory. Mystery. But also for connectivity. Some of you have come to connect….or reconnect….with something you once had, but lost. Or maybe never had, but desired. Or not so much with some thing, but some One (desperately hoping that the One who reaches out to the world….and enters the world….reaches and enters still).
Four weeks ago, on a Sunday night, Rabbi Daniel Syme (Temple Beth El)….son of the late Rabbi Irving Syme (Temple Israel)….told an interfaith gathering at Kirk in the Hills that he had a confession to make. Apparently, as a teenager, he used to confound (and mildly irritate) his father when he and his friends would slip into the Kirk for the 11:00 service on Christmas Eve. Which had nothing to do with questioning Judaism or flirting with Presbyterianism. But rather with the loveliness of the church….how it looked and felt and sounded….that particular night. I’m talking about the night when God says to the world what God has always tried saying to the world: “Can you hear me now?”
This is a very holy night. But a relatively wordless night. For this is the night that God has chosen to speak to us through a child….a baby, really. A baby who does not speak. Indeed, cannot speak. Which may be the best way of making the connection, don’t you see. Wordlessly, I mean. For how did Eliza Doolittle put it?
Don’t talk of stars, burning above,
if you’re in love, show me.
Show me. Don’t wait until wrinkles and lines
pop out all over my brow. Show me now.
The baby Jesus, my dear Eliza, is God’s answer to your question. And, for my money, the baby Jesus is the best speech God ever delivered.
* * * * *
Christmas Eve 2004….snow covered and gentle. An altogether lovely culmination to a lovely year….personally, if not internationally. There was a brief hospitalization to remind me that I am not immortal. But it was more than matched by the love of two incredible women to make me occasionally feel immortal. Along with a new face in our midst….who, on a visit thirteen months ago, came downstairs before breakfast, looked me in the eye and said: “Okay, you win. I’ll marry your daughter.” Truth be told, he asked for her hand. Not that it was mine to give. But some traditions are sweet in the reenacting.
We came here, four. Now we are four again. Proving that although a good quartet occasionally changes members, if care is taken in the arranging, it can still sing.
This was also the year of the book about Bill’s dying and our healing….a book already in its second printing. An unusual seller at Christmas. But people keep buying it because, as they tell me, there is hope in it. The other day at Borders in Beverly Hills, there was a stack of my books on the “New Releases” table. It was located between a book on how to achieve fabulous abs and another on desperate housewives.
Tonight, about 1:00 a.m., we will head for the barn….a rather nice barn, really. Where we will light the fire, channel surf for a choir, and maybe look in on that movie about Ralphie (and whether this is the year he’ll get a Red Rider BB gun and shoot his eye out with it). Yes, there will be a little bread to break and some bisque to go with it. But it will be roasted red pepper bisque instead of bisque made with lobster….given that Jared is allergic to shellfish….and having just snagged him, it wouldn’t be cool to kill him.
But menus change. And so do people. And the God who gave us good old ways for good old days is still full of wonderful surprises.
God bless you, dear and precious friends. And merry, merry Christmas.
