Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
For those of you who thought you’d never get from the waiting room to the birthing room, welcome home. You’ve come to the right place. The stores are closed now. The traffic has thinned now. The mood has mellowed now. And, as Ed Ames once sang: “There’s a kind of hush, all over the world.” I only hope that you feel as settled on the inside as you look on the outside.
“Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight,” wrote the poet. And I suspect ‘tis true. Certainly in Traverse City, where one church has widely circulated its intention to hold Christmas Eve services in a barn. “Dress warmly and bring lawn chairs,” the advertisement reads. But also in the major cities of Indonesia, where services will also be held, but where Christians are warned to be wary in attending them, given that large numbers make attractive targets….in a nation where 25% of the polled population recently voiced sympathy for those who express ideological conviction through suicidal terrorism.
Clearly, the baby is not the only thing we must be watchful for tonight. For were I to say the words “on stand-by alert,” virtually all of you think “military,” while almost none of you think “maternity.”
But such has been the case more often than not. The biblical vision of the Peaceable Kingdom is still more “vision” than “peaceable.” Do you remember the Russian exhibit at the last great World’s Fair? Where, in the interest of world peace, the Russians put a lion and a lamb in the same cage….and the people oohed and aahed, until someone finally said to the keeper: “Tell me, how do you do it? How do you manage to have a lion and a lamb share the same cage?” “Oh, it’s very simple,” said the keeper. “We change the lamb every morning.”
Sadly, we live in a world where lambs get carried out….frequently, if not daily. For, as someone said: “The meek may inherit the earth, but that’s not the popular way to bet.” To those of us living in the north, Christmas comes when it is both dark and cold. Which may be a good thing. Because, quite apart from how the weather is, that’s often how life feels.
Except it needn’t be that way. It can be other than it is. It can also be better than it is. For Christmas is the ultimate rebuttal to the pragmatist….the verbal “yes, but” which interrupts the argument of the realist.
While certainly not a Christmas movie, one of my all-time favorite scenes occurs in a rather dark film entitled Grand Canyon. In it, a hotshot attorney, driving a sleek and expensive car, finds himself in a humongous traffic jam on an L.A. freeway. Spotting an exit ramp, he impulsively takes it in hopes of advancing his progress. Hey, I’ve done it. You’ve done it. Nothing to it. Except, he gets lost in the effort and his route takes him along streets that grow progressively darker and more deserted. Then the nightmare happens. His expensive car stalls on one of those alarming streets where teenage gang members favor expensive guns and even more expensive sneakers. Locking himself in the car, the attorney does manage to phone for a tow truck. But before it arrives, five young street toughs surround his disabled car and threaten him with considerable bodily harm.
Just in time, the tow truck shows up and its driver….an earnest, genial man who answers to the name of Mac….begins to hook up the disabled car. The gang members protest that the truck driver is interrupting their meal. So the driver takes the leader of the group aside and gives him a five-sentence introduction to theology.
Man (he says), the world ain’t supposed to work like this. Maybe you don’t know that, but this ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. I’m supposed to be able to do my job without askin’ you if I can. And that dude is supposed to be able to wait with his car without you rippin’ him off. Everything’s supposed to be different than what it is here.
I’ve gotta tell you, I like that. And I’ve gotta tell you why I like that. I like it because while (for purposes of Hollywood) Mac may be a mythical truck driver, for purposes of organized religion, Mac is a biblical prophet. For what is a prophet, if not someone who….for better or worse….and in situations ranging from hell to high water….stands in for God, saying: “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Well, the cynic counters, it’s been this way for as long as any of us can remember. Back in the neighborhood (and the neighborhood church) of my childhood, there was a woman whose sins were sufficiently known, so that people whispered to each other about her “having a past.” But the painful truth is that all of us have….had a past, I mean.
But while that weighs us down, it need not tie us down, don’t you see. Evil rolls across the stage. But so does good. And to speak of what has gone wrong….is going wrong….will go wrong….is to forget the resolve of God, who wants peace around us, peace among us, peace within us, and will pay any price to get it. To concentrate solely on our depression and defection is to say to the world: “I have some bad news….and I have some more bad news. Which do you want first?”
But this news is good news, given that it’s God’s news….“as God imparts to human hearts, the blessings of his heaven.” For years, I sang that line wrong….singing not “the blessings of his heaven,” but “the message of his heaven.” But either way, it works, don’t you see. Because the message is the blessing. A child is born. And with it, comes the light….whether it be the light of a great star whose path has been aligned in the highest of the heavens, or the light of a 40-watt bulb whose chain has been pulled in the brains of humans. To be sure, Christmas is about light, as in “I see it.” But Christmas is also about light, as in “I get it.” It really doesn’t have to be this way. There is more to life than meets the naked eye.
The light still shines, dear friends. Trust me, the light still shines.
· In the eyes of those who go the second mile,
· In the home fires awaiting one who has gone the longest mile,
· On the porch of a parent whose child has wandered the deviant mile,
· In the confidence of a saint who is walking life’s final mile,
· Atop the candles of a cake, being cut by a couple who have logged 50 years’ worth of miles,
· In the warming shelter at Cass, where there are toddlers who have to be carried a mile,
· And in tonight’s manger in Bethlehem where God’s child has yet to walk his first mile.
Christmas Eve, 2002.
As for me, presently jogging my 38th lap around the oval called “ministry”….and my 62nd lap around the bigger oval called “life”….I pray that there are yet miles to go before I quit, and even more before I sleep. In the midst of so much about Christmas Eve that (mercifully) stays the same, life’s circumstances do change (not always mercifully) from year to year.
Following her death at the end of August, this is the first Christmas without my mother. But come Saturday….along about 4:30….Miss Becky Mayhew will have said “yes” to Mr. Trevor Wilson (right there in the middle of the aisle), and our family will be able to call the year a draw. One lost. One gained. And come March, we may even be one to the good, when Juli (the niece) delivers herself of a child….recalling Sister Mary Corita’s wonderful line that each newborn infant is God’s way of announcing that life will go on.
Meanwhile, Julie (the daughter) has a new job that really challenges, while Kris (the wife) has a new job that really blesses. As for me, I am the lucky one, given that I have a job that does both, along with two women in my life who do it all. Meanwhile, a building goes up in the east….the same direction (I have noticed) when whence the kings come. Next year, they can come early and play basketball.
Tonight, the three of us will wend our way home about a quarter to one….light the fire….turn up the volume under the Three Tenors….zap the crab cakes (the gift of one of the best chefs inMichigan, who just happens to worship here at First Church)….while Kris ladles up three bowls of bisque made from some of the ocean’s most delectable crustaceans.
Then we will lift a glass to Bill (who has inherited the Kingdom)….offer a prayer to God (who owns the Kingdom)….and give thanks for you (who constitute the fruits of the Kingdom).
So from us and ours to you and yours, Merry Christmas.
