Christmas.06                                                    December 24, 2006

St. Francis of Assisi made the first creche in the 11th Century.
He intended to represent the humble circumstances
         of Jesus’ birth.
But he didn’t know much about 1st Century Judah,
         so he actually made the Nativity Scene
         considerably cozier than it actually was.
He made it a shallow shed,
         a clean, and mysteriously well lighted place
                  with everyone posed just so.
It is a lovely, iconic scene from medieval Italy.

But in Luke’s story, the birthplace was a cave,

         – not clean, not well-lighted.
It was dark hole in the side of a hill.

Neither moonlight nor starlight reached within.
Kerosene lanterns and candles had not been invented.
They did not risk torches dropping sparks into the straw.
At most a single oil lamp’s small and solitary flame
         shed a modicum of light.

In that primal darkness, Mary labored and gave birth to God.
In that darkness, Joseph washed their newborn son
         and wrapped him in cloths.
In darkness, they huddled together
– Mary and Joseph with their child.

This picture of Jesus birth is not just about history or biography.
It is a picture of something deep and eternal.
God gave birth to the Universe in such darkness.
The universe gives birth to God in such darkness.
God’s emergence in our midst happens in darkness
         in the sense that it is the deepest mystery.
God’s coming among us is invisible and unspeakable.
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said,

         “About that of which one cannot speak,
                 it is best to remain silent.”
And sometimes we do.
Whenever we keep silence as part of our worship,
         we are acknowledging the truth too deep to be spoken.

But if it is so dark, so hidden from view,
         so mysterious like a cave at night,
         how can we know about it at all?
How do we find the Christ child
         and glimpse the miracle of Christmas?

In literal terms, how do we find Divinity in real life?
It’s easy to think about God as an abstract principle,
         or as a mythological patriarch thundering in the sky.

But how do we experience God, make contact.
How do we get the spark of insight
         that in there is more going on here than meets the eye,
                  that there is something to celebrate?

Our Christmas story tells us the answer.
It’s in the part about the shepherds.
They represent us in the story.
They show us how to find the Christ.

The shepherds were not rabbis.
They were neither Bible scholars nor theologians.
That first Christmas night, they were not meditating in an ashram.
They were not at a revival pumping each other up
          into an emotional state.
The Shepherds were not studying abstruse metaphysical philosophy.

Those things may be perfectly good practices.
But they are not the way to find Christ.
The Shepherds were watching the flock.
In the lonely hills, they were keeping an eye on the sheep
          just to make sure they were alright.
It is a simple task, sometimes a boring task.

But that’s what they were doing when

          “an angel of the Lord appeared to them
          and the glory of the Lord shone around them . . . .”
The contrast between what they were doing
          and what they experienced is staggering.
It is like the union of opposites when the rose blooms
          among thorns or the cactus flower, among the spindles

          – this miracle blooming on an ordinary night
                    in the hearts of ordinary people
                              practicing ordinary kindness.

Shepherds merely tend the flock – attend to the flock.
But God chose a shepherd, David, to make his people
          into a great nation.
An angel visited a shepherd boy in Ireland
          and called him to become St. Patrick.

Philosophers may know about God as a metaphysical idea.
Scholars may know about God as a character in the Bible.
But shepherding shapes the soul
          to know God here among us,
                    to find God in real life.

So if we want to glimpse the Christmas miracle,
          the story tells us the way is through this practice.
There is nothing lofty or proud about Shepherd spirituality.
It is absolutely simple.
It consists of / paying attention with a kind heart.//

Shepherd spirituality doesn’t generate jazzy mystical experiences.
It doesn’t pump up our emotions.
It doesn’t make us special or impressive.
It is the spirituality that notices when someone is sad
                   and says a kind word to them;
           that notices if someone is being left out
                   and reaches out to befriend them;
           that sends a card or an e-mail, a letter or a small gift
                   to lift a sinking heart.

We practice Shepherd spirituality for the sake of others,
           the people we care about

           – because we have chosen to care about them,
                   committed to caring about them.
What happens to our souls is a by-product.
It happens by accident, and we are surprised when we notice it,
           as the Shepherds in our story were amazed
                     at the appearance of the angels.

We can practice shepherding in our churches of course,
           but that’s just where it begins.
We can practice shepherding in our homes,
           at work, at school, in our neighborhood

                    – wherever we encounter other people.

In our Baptismal Covenant we promise

           “to seek and serve Christ in all persons.”
That is the Christian way of saying the same thing
           that God said to an Indian philosopher Sri Ramakrishna,

           “Adore each being// as my child.”//

If we cannot already adore, we at least pay attention to each being
           because each being is God’s child.
The Shepherds wanted to see the newborn king,
           so the angels told them to find a homeless child
                     lying in a feed trough because he had no crib.
Our Baptismal Covenant tells us where to look for Jesus.
We promise “to seek and serve Christ in all persons.”
Brothers and sisters, when we look for Christ
           where we have been taught to look for Christ,
                    we find him.
When we attend to the world in mercy,
           we encounter a mysterious grace hidden
           in the relational space between us and everyone we meet.
We find hints of divinity.
We find the fingerprints of God.

If we want to see the angels, we don’t stare into the heavens,
           but we watch over the flock.
If we want to kneel before the Lord,
           we visit the poorest.
The message of our Christmas story is a simple lesson
           for those who would be simple people.
Attend mercifully to one another
           and Christ will be born in your midst.

                                                         Amen.