Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: John 1:1-5,10-16
One of the charges made against religious people concerns the fact that they do not always practice what they preach. This is probably said about Christians more often than other religious people, not because Christians practice the faith with standards that are so abysmally low, but because Christians preach the faith with standards that are so abnormally high. So let's be honest. Why deny the indictment. We should put more effort into practicing what we preach. And we don't. This much needs to be said frequently and in the posture of honest confession.
But there is something else that needs to be said. And I have appointed myself to say it this morning. Sometimes we Christians need to preach what we practice. You heard me correctly. We ought to preach what we practice. For there are times when what we do with our lives speaks a more eloquent and interesting word than what we preach with our lips.
Consider Christmas preaching. What is the most commonly preached Christmas theme which regularly resonates across the land? It is nothing less than the injunction to "keep Christ in Christmas." It is frequently suggested that in our frenzied and frantic attempts to fill the holiday with good things, we have somehow forgotten Jesus. I really believe that if I had a quarter for every sermonic suggestion that the real meaning of Christmas has been perverted, forgotten, lost, stolen, sentimentalized, secularized, or otherwise misappropriated, I would be wealthy enough to retire. Somehow, goes the argument, there lies a babe in a manger who is buried beneath an avalanche of presents, lost in a forest of cards, surrounded by a swarm of party-goers, and floating on a rising tide of egg nog.... a child whose cries cannot be heard over the din of twelve drummers drumming and eleven cash registers ringing (fueled by the promise of a pre-Christmas, 30% off sale on five gold rings).
Let us conclude that much of this is true. Let us further admit that there are some extremely crude and very un-Christ-like excesses of celebrating the season. High on my list of offenders are the video game makers who figure that the birthday of the Prince of Peace is a wonderful reason to create an insatiable demand for electronic simulations of brutal murders and domestic violence. A good friend of mine, trying to be a "with it" grandmother, received (over the telephone) the Christmas wish list of her 9 year old grandson. She then purchased the video game that was on the top of his list, only to find it highlighted (on the 11:00 news) as being the most violent of this year's offerings. So she played it for her own edification, and then returned it for a gift more grandmotherly in nature. Which is probably why that same grandson will be receiving underwear and socks this Christmas morning.
And who can absolve the publishers of the monthly skin magazines, who strategically drape a garland of greenery over the shoulders of an otherwise-unclad young lady, put her picture on the cover, double the number of pages, double the price it takes to buy them, and then have the audacity to call the whole thing "the Christmas issue." And not far behind these folk are the frenzied revelers of December, for whom a Christmas party represents a wonderful opportunity to get both sentimental and sloshed..., two things which happen pretty much simultaneously, as I recall.
Each of you can add to the list of horrors in your own way. I'll not belabor the point. All over America, my clergy colleagues are doing it for me. Clearly, what passes as Christmas sometimes bears little resemblance to the spirit of the One whose birthday it really is. But having said that, I find myself becoming mildly irritated every time I hear someone begin to wax eloquently about "putting Christ back into Christmas." Kindly indulge me as I explore my irritation publicly.
I begin by wondering what might constitute a "proper" Christmas. Just what is it that we are supposed to do....we who are charged with putting Christ back where He belongs? What would satisfy us? Would there be a noticeable increase in spirituality, were we to eliminate all presents and parties, all cards and carol sings, all office observances and charity appeals? What if we were to minimize the importance of everything seasonal that did not revolve around the church? Would we be any richer for it? What if we were to spend the last three weeks of Advent in spiritual retreat or book air passage to the Holy Land? Would Christ be any nearer or dearer as a result? Possibly.... but certainly not automatically.
My wondering, wandering mind rolls on. Even if we preachers know the proper things to do (the better to keep Christ in Christmas), why don't we do them? I get as many cards from clergy as from anybody else. Preachers, when last I looked, tend to party as much as anybody else. And I know of no study suggesting that clergy buy fewer presents than anybody else. Last Monday evening we had our District Ministers Christmas party, which differed from the average Christmas party only in the fact that nobody had too much to drink (nobody had anything to drink). But we all dressed to the nines, ate more than we really needed, and individually "threw in" on a gift for the boss. And there have been other minister's Christmas parties (in past years) where Santa, himself, put in an appearance.
What's more, if schedules are over-busied at Christmas, it would be my guess that preachers are among the primary culprits in making them so. I look at my own life. I have about as much to complain about as anyone (where seasonal excess is concerned). Yet I have noticed that I am not terribly inclined to give much of it up. Every year I seem to send more cards, even as I wish there were more time to write personal notes within them. And every year I enjoy as many dinners, brunches, open houses, and party-type gatherings as I can make room for, even as I realize that there are others I would love to see, if only additional evenings could be found. Here it is five days before Christmas, and I just bought a tree yesterday. Hopefully I will have time to set it up today (prior to the pageant) and trim it tomorrow. But I lament the fact that there is no time to go out in the woods and cut one down (and no chain saw with which to do the cutting).
Only once, in twenty-five years, have I made it to J. P. McCarthy's carol sing. Only once have I heard the symphony perform the Messiah. And I have yet to see the Nutcracker ballet. But I wish that I could do it all.... and more.
So it all begins to come clear to me. Many of us who preach one kind of Christmas, live quite another kind of Christmas. And maybe....just maybethe time has come to listen to our lives rather than our sermons. Hence, my suggestion that we preach what we practice. In that spirit, then, let me dare to suggest that a worldly Christmas is not only permissible, but may have about it things that are both biblically and personally desirable.
I would begin by urging us to take a more careful look at some of the things we call "worldly." Look at some of the neat things that happen at Christmas time. I see sanctuaries filled with more strangers than at any other time of the year. I see more money being expended by the haves on behalf of the have-nots than in the 11 other months combined. I see men, some of them rather old and feeble, standing on cold street corners selling newspapers. I see women who darned their last sock twenty-five years ago, sewing dresses for little girls. I see our chapel filled with bags of gifts for the children of prisoners and realize that many of our people must have shopped their hearts out in the past few days. I also see cease fires on battlefields and parties in nursing homes, even as I hear sacred music being performed in secular concert halls and carols from our hymnal being played in our local shopping malls. I see better television programs than are available any other time of the year. I see people going out of their way to be a little kinder, a little more tolerant, and a little less abrasive than normal. I see good service being remembered and rewarded. And I see twinkling lights in people's bushes, nativity scenes in people's yards, and plastic wise men (astride camels) on the front lawns of corporate headquarters.
Push the point even further. For every card that is sent, I see people trying (ever so fleetingly) to reach out and re-connect themselves with others. It is as if they are saying: "Look, we may not see each other as much as I would like, but I want you to know that I remember and treasure the time we once shared together.... and that (even after all these years) it continues to mean much to me now."
For every party and gathering of friends, I see an attempt to acknowledge that this world can often be very lonely, very cold, and very cruel. Therefore, in this season of the year when we celebrate the true center of fellowship which is Christ, why shouldn't we gather with those precious and cherished people of our lives, the better to blow fresh fire upon the coals of the heart.
And for every gift begrudgingly given "because we got one from them last year," I see people spending hours looking for a gift that will say far more than its price tag. In fact, the Santa Claus tradition, itself, comes to us as the result of charitable acts first performed by a Sixth-century Russian cleric, Bishop Nicholas of Myra. It seems that the good bishop combined an impulsive nature and a charitable disposition into a tradition of leaving anonymous gifts on the doorsteps of his most needy parishioners, each Christmas Eve after midnight.
But stretch the point further still. Look at the worldliness of the Christmas story itself. One wonders where the church gets permission to be so territorial about Christmas. Whoever said that Christ was the sole province of the church? Christ belongs to the world. He did not come to save the church. He came to save the world. And I suppose that says something about what constitutes a fitting location for the Jesus story and its retelling.
For several years, during the decade of the eighties, I delivered an annual Christmas message in the basement of a bar. The bar was the Dakota Inn, and its basement was the regular meeting place for the North Woodward Avenue Lions Club. My favorite undertaker had retained his membership in that club from the years in which he had conducted funerals out of Highland Park. Somehow, it fell to him to find someone to give the annual Christmas talk. And I was that "someone." One year, when I was speaking, I could hear a party going on upstairs. There was a piano, to which people were singing with obvious relish. I was mildly annoyed until I recognized the tune. For I was hearing the unmistakable strains of "We Three Kings of Orient Are," which I shall sing with Dick Kopple and Bill Ives this very afternoon.... not in the basement of the Dakota Inn....but in our lovely sanctuary.
And one year, not so long ago, I preached a Christmas sermon in the ladies' shoe department at Crowley’s. The occasion was a gathering of the employees, who had come together at 7:30 in the morning on the heaviest shopping day of the year. And why had I come? Because they asked me to. And once I got used to preaching in a room full of ladies' shoes, it didn't seem the least bit strange. No, it didn't seem the least bit strange at all.
And then there was the Sunday, three years ago, when I joined with a Catholic priest (among others) celebrating an Advent liturgy for some street people....around a bonfire....in an oil drum....on a vacant lot....in the Cass Corridor. But that's such a rich story that I need to save it for another day. All I know is that when I shared a Christmas message last Friday morning at Kirk in the Hills, the setting didn't seem any more appropriate (for all of its elegance) than the basement of the Dakota Inn or a vacant lot in the Cass Corridor.
Put Christ back into Christmas? What I want to know is, how in the world are we going to keep Him out. Part of the secret of this wonderful saga of the stable of Bethlehem rests in the fact that it is so wonderfully worldly in the first place. The Jesuit priest, Andrew Greeley (whose ability to understand the power of a good story is probably enhanced by his ability to write one), pens these words:
The secret of the story is this. Who could have thought that the image of a man, a woman, and a child in a cave, with animals and shepherds hovering in the background, could have possibly possessed any religious significance whatsoever?
The story survives, not because of its inherent religiosity, but because it is so incredibly ordinary.... and therefore, universal.... that its message of hope and love cannot help but be understood, whether or not one comes to it with a mind previously schooled in the things of faith.
It is a worldly story to which the world responds in a worldly way. And if the world's response to the story be slightly extravagant, can anything (Greeley asks) be more extravagant than the love which God spilled upon the world in Jesus? We had always suspected that God might be good, and that God might even love us. But the surprise of the gospel (in its day, and ours) was that nobody could comprehend the fact that God could love us this much. Edmund Steimle, the beloved Lutheran from New York, suggests the very same thing, when he writes:
The only way to respond to such divine extravagance is to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, buy an electric train for your first-born, three-month-old, boy-child, and more perfume than you can possibly afford for your wife.... even as you spread flowering pot-plants all over the sanctuary, put up trees in outlandish places, and fill the streets with music.
If that sounds a little bit crazy, I suppose it is. But maybe we need to rethink the definition of the word "crazy." One afternoon, a very disturbed ward of patients in the state mental hospital was startled by a loud noise. Rushing to the windows, the patients saw that a middle-aged man, while driving on the street below, had suffered a blow out. Collectively, the patients began to laugh at him, combining ridicule with gibberish. The driver became visibly nervous. In his anxiety to replace the blown-out tire with the spare, he accidentally kicked the hubcap into which he had placed the wheel nuts. They all went rolling down the drain in the pavement. In great consternation, the man stood up, cursed twice and threw his arms heavenward in despair. The gibberish stopped. At which point the most violent patient on the ward (who had scarcely uttered an intelligent word in months) shouted: 'Take one nut from each of the other three wheels, put them on the spare, and drive carefully to the nearest gas station." The driver looked startled.... and then followed the suggestion. But before driving away, he waved his thanks in the general direction of the anonymous word of advice. Whereupon the violent man shouted: "Just because we're crazy, doesn't mean we're stupid."
My friends, it is my suspicion that in this crazy, frantic, frenetic celebration we call Christmas, we are far from stupid. We know what it means and where it's at. We know what Christ means and where He's at. He is for us. He is among us. And that is a rather crazy and amazing thing in itself.
"Let's have a sensible Christmas," the lady said to me. To which I said: "My God, lady, why in the world would you want to do that?"
