HOPE IN WINTER SERMON

A few weeks ago, I was visiting Sean, Jen, and Kiera. We’d just finished dinner and Kiera was winding down for bedtime. I felt so privileged to behold their nightly ritual, which included, of course, the obligatory bedtime story. When Jen told her to pick out a book, she grabbed one called CHEWY LOUIE, about a little dog that just can’t quit chewing.

And I chuckled to myself when I heard Sean moan, “Not that one again!” because I can remember my own mother saying exactly the same thing to me when I was a child. But there was no escaping it, then or now. Jen dutifully took up the book about the puppy, and began to read.

But that incident made me wonder: Why IS it that Kiera—and I, and millions of other children—want to hear the same stories again and again?

We could very well ask the same question about our lessons tonight. They have not changed in the fourteen plus years that I’ve been at this parish, and in the history of Christian worship, they go back a good deal longer than that. Why? Why do we leave the warmth and safety of our homes to trek out into the night to hear the same stories again and again? What is this mysterious force that is stronger than couch inertia?

We do it because we love this story. We want to hear this story because it is filled with wonder, and magic, and hope. But we also want to hear it because this story is a part of who we are—religiously, culturally, historically, and personally. We read it for the thrill of a good story well-told, for the sentimentality evoked by the season, but we also read it tonight as an act of worship.

I love Lawson’s definition of worship. Worship, he says, is any act that serves to connect us—to the universe, to one another, to the deepest part of ourselves, and to God. The telling of this story is an act of worship because it connects us to a larger reality.

In telling this story we are connected to the past—and to all those who have come before us who have also told this story, whether whispered in musty catacombs or proclaimed in medieval cathedrals.

But it also connects us forward into the future—to all those who are to come who will also tell this story, for the very same reasons we are.

Likewise, telling this story connects us to people all around the world who gather this coming week to tell this story to one another—our sisters and brothers in faith, regardless of their actual religion.

We also tell this story to remind us of our connection to both heaven and earth, to the God who is named, Emmanuel, “God is with us,” who said, “Lo, I am with you, even to the end of the world”—the God who entered into the thick of things at a very dangerous time, and who has never left us, regardless of how dark the times might seem.

And we also tell this story to connect us to the divinity that lies inside of us, like a gestating baby, waiting for us to come to term, to give birth to the gift entrusted to us, a gift meant for the whole world—a gift meant to bring light into darkness, and hope in a time of despair. A gift that only we can bring forth, a gift whose Advent even God awaits with hopeful eyes.

 It’s a veritable fiesta of connection! In our souls, of course, we already know all of this. But sometimes, it’s good to be reminded. Just like we already know these stories. But sometimes, it’s good to be reminded—that God has not left us, that the sun and its light will return to the wintry world, and that we are not alone. Indeed, we are connected in all directions to the very love and hope that we proclaim in this season, that we’ve been singing about tonight, and that we’re about to sing about again! Let us pray…

God our companion,
Through Jesus you have taught us
that you dwell not in some heaven far away,
but beside us, and among us, and within us.
Help us to know, and believe, and proclaim
this truth, so that the wonder and joy and hope that we know
Might touch others as well, and nudge us toward that time
When all people shall dwell in peace and charity;
through him who became human,
so that humans might become divine,
even Jesus Christ. Amen.