2 Christmas C

Matthew's description of the birth of Christ includes two very different responses. The Wise Ones who see a star and follow it and Herod who reacts in fear with violence. What does this have to tell us about our own responses to the coming of Christ into our lives?

2 Christmas C

Sermon given on January 3, 1998

By the Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

At St. Alban's Episcopal Church, Brentwood CA

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

         Usually when the Christmas story is presented, the various traditions are so combined that we may be surprised to realize that the story in Luke and in Matthew are quite different, or at least describe different aspects of the story. And Gospels of Mark and John don’t mention anything about the birth of Jesus. Let’s just quickly review to give a context to today’s Gospel reading.

         In Luke we have the most extensive description of the birth story. It is in Luke that we hear of Elizabeth and the birth of John the Baptist. It is in Luke that the angel comes to Mary and tells her that she will conceive. It is also in Luke where Mary goes to visit Elizabeth and says that beautiful piece of poetry we call the Magnificat.  It is only in Luke that there is reference to the decree that all should be enrolled and the journey to Bethlehem of Joseph with Mary who was with child. It is in Luke that we hear of the lack of room in the inn and the child being laid in a manger. In Luke the birth is announced to the shepherds, and no one else. Eight days later they have the child circumcised and then they go up to Jerusalem for the purification rites after which they return to Galilee, to the city of Nazareth.

         In the Gospel according to Matthew we get a different picture. It begins with the genealogy of Joseph. It then just says that Mary was betrothed to Joseph and became pregnant (no angels announcing it to Mary). Joseph plans to divorce her, but an angel appeared to him in a dream and explained that it was a child of the Holy Spirit, so he marries her but doesn’t have relations with her. It then says that Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the days of Herod. There is no mention of traveling from Nazareth, in fact from Matthew’s description it would sound as if Joseph and Mary lived in Bethlehem before the birth. The birth is announced not to shepherds, but to wise men from the east via a star. (Luke doesn’t mention a star, yet the shepherds are usually shown with a star.) The wise men contact Herod about the prophesied location of the birth of the savior, and Herod decides to do away with the child. That’s where we get to the current reading where Joseph once again gets a message in a dream and goes to Egypt to protect the child and returns not to Bethlehem but to Nazareth, once again in response to a dream. It turns out that the only overlap in the two stories is that Jesus’ parents were Mary and Joseph, that Mary was a virgin, and that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

         Why should such different stories be told? Well certainly at the time of the writing of the gospels, 30 to 60 years after Jesus died, there were many stories passed on about him. Which of many stories the writers of the Gospels decided to include depended upon the emphasis that the writer wanted to make. They would also include those stories that were meaningful to them personally.

         So, today we have the story of Joseph, Mary and Jesus fleeing to Egypt and (although we skipped the description of it) the killing of all the male children under two years old in Bethlehem. Matthew presents two very different reactions to the birth of Christ. The wise men, who see a star, a glimmer of hope, and travel great distances to bring their gifts to the Christ child, and Herod, who reacts with fear and tries to destroy the savior of his people. Why would Matthew choose these two stories?

         One thing to remember about scripture is that it is written on multiple levels. On the one level it tells the direct story of events, on another level it is a parable, a representation of something deeper. It speaks on the concrete level and on the spiritual level. Let’s take a look at this stories form a spiritual level.

         We see here two responses to the coming of Christ. The coming of Christ, the birth of Christ, is not something that only happened 2000 years ago, it is also something that spiritually happens to us. The Christ, the savior, is born for us today, is potentially born in our hearts, in our beings. If we are like the wise men, we see a glimmer of light, a star in the east, a glimmer of hope, a spark of belief, that something wonderful is taking place. Inside us a spark of light is born, and if we are like the wise men, we follow that star and we respond with gratitude and gifts.

         But, often there is something within us more like Herod. Something within us that is afraid of the birth of the savior.

         Let’s take a deeper look at Herod. There is no historical evidence of the slaughter of the innocent children of Bethlehem, but there is agreement that it is the sort of thing that Herod would have been quite capable of. He was not descendent from the kings of Israel, but became king because he had helped the Roman’s when they took over the country. His claim to legitimacy was through his wife who was a descendent of the royal family. He was constantly afraid of losing his power, probably because he knew he didn’t legitimately deserve it, so he would brutally eliminate anyone who he thought would challenge his authority, including several of his children. When he heard of the birth of the predicted Messiah he was afraid of losing his power to this newborn “king”. Therefore, he tried to have him eliminated. The wise men brought gifts, welcoming the birth because of their wisdom; Herod brought death because of his fear.

         So, is there a part of us that is like Herod, a part of us that thinks it is in charge? A part of us that exerts a power and authority that is really not legitimate? Is there a part of us that is in truth a petty administrator but acts like it is a King? Is there a part of us that has been given some authority on day-to-day matters that has forgotten the real purpose behind that authority? I would say yes, that part of ourselves that has come to be called the ego.

         Our egos are necessary and important; they manage our activities and interaction with the world. They make decisions about what we will do when and how. They are the administrators of our psyches. They help us to survive. But they are not the king. They are there to serve our spiritual selves, yet our egos have forgotten that. When the Christ child is born in our hearts, when God’s love is born in us, the ego gets scared. When we begin to want to live our lives, not as our ego has learned to do in order to survive, but as our deeper, spiritual, loving essence wants us to, the ego gets scared. The Herod in us gets scared, and wants to destroy the potential new king.

         How do our egos respond? In many different and sometimes subtle ways.

         One way to think about it is that through Christ God is giving us a wonderful gift. The most wonderful of gifts - full, complete, and unconditional love. God stands there, with arms outstretched, offering this gift. How do we respond? “Oh, you shouldn’t have.” “I don’t deserve this.” “I couldn’t accept this from you.” “I am so unworthy.” “I don’t have anything to give you in return.”  or “What’s the catch?” “What do I have to do in exchange?” “Nobody gives this kind of gift without a hook.” “This couldn’t be for real.” All God wants to do is give us Love, but we are afraid to accept it. We are afraid to accept it because if we truly accepted that we are unconditionally loved by God, our whole sense of self, our whole way of being in the world, the whole game of our ego, would have to change. We would have to let go of guilt, of fear, of shame, of our poor self concepts, of our sense of ourselves as not enough, of not being lovable. And if we did that, the power of our ego would be eliminated. We would be free beings. Free and joyous beings. And that is terrifying. Terrifying to our egos.

         And so we ignore the gift, deny the very existence of the giver. We have doubt, our rational minds struggle against our personal experience. The Herod in us wants to destroy the gift of love.

         The real Herod did not understand that the kind of king that Jesus was would not interfere with his administrative duties. Jesus was not a king that would try to overthrow Herod. Jesus’ kingdom was very different than that. And the birth of God’s love within us does not want to eliminate the ego, we need our egos, rather it wants to transform it, have the ego become the instrument of spirit. And if we open to this we discover that we are more powerful then ever.

         If Herod had not been so insecure, if Herod had faith in his own abilities, if he had not developed a grandiose image of himself, he would have also been able to welcome the birth of the Christ. If we can love our egos, acknowledge their place in our lives, they may be more willing to welcome the birth of our spiritual selves, rather than try to destroy it.

         And if not, we have to take the Christ child to Egypt, to that country from which the chosen people came after going there in time of famine. We keep that sense of the spiritual, the divine, that spark of hope, that star burning within us in a safe place while we work on our egos. That is what all the spiritual practices are about, quieting our egos, putting them into place. All the prayers, the fasting, the meditation, the study, is to lead to the place where our egos as we knew them are dead, so that the spirit can return from Egypt and take its rightful place as the king of our lives.

         What is there within you that refuses the gift, that tries to eliminate that birth of the knowledge of just how deeply we are loved by God. Is it fear, guilt, shame, self-doubt, the need to know, the need for control, or that all pervasive sense of not being enough. Nurture the child of light within you, honor the fears of Herod, and accept the gift of love, the warm wonderful gift of God’s unconditional love, which is incarnated in the Christ child.

Christmas Eve Sermon

Have you ever wondered about why Christ was laid in a manger? Why a feeding trough for animals?

Christmas Eve Sermon

Transcribed from a sermon given

December 24, 2009

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

By Rev. Valerie Ann Hart

I have found myself pondering why Jesus was laid in a manger.  Now, I know you immediately think he was laid in a manger because he was born in a stable and that it was what was handy, but he could have been laid in a basket, or he could have been laid in a bucket, or he could have been held on Mary’s lap. But it says very specifically several times that he was laid in a manger. The angels say, “You will find the child laid in a manger.”  Usually the Bible has more to it than just the practically finding a place to put your kid. I felt there might be something more there so I was pondering that. I began by asking what is a manger?  A manger is a feeding trough.  It’s a place where they put the hay for the animals to eat.  It’s where the animals go to get nourishment. 

Now, let’s think about hay. Could you get nourishment out of this hay? Sometimes, if it’s good hay, it has some seeds on it.  You might get a little bit of nourishment chewing the seeds, but if you tried to survive on hay, you’d probably not do very well.  Now, you might be able to stay alive. But then again, you wouldn’t thrive, would you?  In fact, if you lived in a very, very poor country, that might be all there was, the grasslands, and you’d chew it, and it might fill up your stomach, and it might make you think that you’ve eaten something, but you wouldn’t be satisfied.  You wouldn’t be healthy.  You wouldn’t thrive.  There would still be a sense of hunger for something more. 

Do you ever feel in your life that you’re hungry for something more?  That all the things around you are just straw?  They don’t really satisfy?  When you’ve got your iPhone and your iPod, and you’ve got your new car that still smells like a new car, and you have your new clothes, and you have everything you’ve ever wanted and you still aren’t satisfied.  We read about these Wall Street executives who can’t live with only a million dollars a year.  They have to get a bonus, have another $500,000.00, in order to survive.  They have everything, but they’re still hungry for more. 

If you lived in a culture that told you the correct food to eat was straw and everybody ate straw, nobody would be particularly healthy, but the rich would have great big piles of straw, and the poor would have very little straw, but nobody would be healthy.  Nobody would be satisfied.  Nobody would be filled.  No matter how much they chewed and consumed and tried, there would always be somewhere inside of them a longing for something more.  Is there a longing in you for something more in your life?  You do everything you are supposed to do. You are busy and active.  You collect and you consume.  It’s wonderful we call buying “consuming”.  We eat it up.  We chew on it.  We try to take it into ourselves.  We try to satisfy ourselves by consuming things, and yet is there a part of you that isn’t satisfied, that’s still hungry, that’s still missing something? 

I think sometimes we try to satisfy ourselves with hay, with straw, because that’s what animals are satisfied with.  This straw would be great for a cow or a donkey, but for a human being, it’s not enough.  Having shelter and food and comfort is fine for the animal part of us, but we’re more than that.  We’re more than just an animal, and so we’re still hungry.  We still are hungry, so God chose to come to earth and be placed in a manger.  That within the straw of the manger, the straw of our lives that we’re trying to feed ourselves, is placed Emanuel.  God with us. 

We heard some other names for this child that was placed in the manger - The Prince of Peace, Lord of Lords, God of Gods.  One name he gave himself when he said, “I am the bread of life.”  “I am the bread of life. Those who eat me will know everlasting life.”  Those who consume me will be filled, will be satisfied.  He even used in Greek the word to chew, to consume, to swallow, to take in.  He is the bread of life.  He is what God offers us instead of straw.  If we consume him, then and only then can we be really satisfied.  Then and only then will we have all the nurturants, all the nurture, everything that we need to be whole and healthy.  God offers us food.  God wants to feed us.  And what is this food?  This food is God’s love. 

One of the carols we didn’t sing is “Love Came Down from Heaven.”  God loves us so much.  God loves us so much, so much that for each and every one of us, for you, God took the form of a human being.  And for you. And for you.  If it had just been you and there had been no other human beings, God still would have been born because God loves each one of us that much.  Chew on that.  Chew on that for awhile.  Chew on the idea that you are loved that much. 

And then he taught us some other things.  He said that what we are to do is to love God and love our neighbor.  He taught that it is through that kind of love that we will find meaning and purpose and satisfaction.  Chew on that for awhile. 

And chew on this.  You know, God loves you that much, but God loves that person over there also.  And you know what?  God loves you that much, but God also loves the people who haven’t come to church on Christmas - the ones who chose not to.  The ones who didn’t want to.  The ones who’ve been hurt by the Christian religion, or the ones who are apathetic.  But God loves each one of them just as much as God loves each one of us.  And you know what else?  Those who are Jewish or Muslim or Sikh or Hindu and therefore don’t want to celebrate Christmas, you know what?  God loves each one of them too.  Chew on that. 

God came down in the form of a little baby to show us of God’s love, and some people noticed.  The angels came and sang to the shepherds.  Now, the angels must have been pretty loud.  To have a huge chorus of angels, you’d think some other people might have heard, but they didn’t.  And there was a star in the sky that was a new star.  Anyone could see it, but it was just some wise people in another country that knew what it meant and took the time to follow.  And they came up to Herod, and Herod was told about what happened and he chose not to hear.  In fact, he chose to be afraid and tried to destroy it. 

We all react to the news of Christ’s birth differently, and each year, each Christmas, it’s a little different as well because we’re at a different phase in our lives.  Sometimes it is so easy to believe and be caught up in the joy and the wonder of God on Earth.  Other times, we’re not so sure about that.  We question.  We doubt.  And that’s normal.  We’re very fortunate that in the gospels, one of Jesus’ disciples happens to be named Thomas and is called Doubting Thomas because after the resurrection, he would not believe that Jesus was resurrected just because other people told him so.  He had to have his own experience.  It’s okay if you don’t believe just because other people tell you.  If you believe that Christ was born and laid in a manger because I tell you, great.  But you’ll really believe it when you experience something.  When something happens in your heart.  When something happens where you no longer can question that there is a presence - that there is a love that there is something more than the straw of our lives.  Something deeper and something more satisfying.

What will you see in the manger today?  Will you see straw?  Will you see a pleasant myth?  Will you see a child?  Will you see God incarnate?  Will you see the bread of life? 

I invite you to ask God to touch you, to show you, to let you have an experience where it no longer will be someone else telling you, but you will know.  You will know that you are loved by God and that God came to Earth to love you and to feed you.  Amen.

4 Advent B

Mary said, "Yes" and that made all the difference.

4 Advent B

Transcribed from a sermon given on

December 20, 2009

At St. Barnabas Episcopal Church

Arroyo Grande, California

By Rev. Valerie A. Hart

From the beginning of creation God had it planned.  God had a plan and an intention that led up to a particular moment that led up to a decision of a woman. Everything beforehand was leading up to that moment. It had been predicted by the prophets. It was in the Psalms. A child would be born to a virgin and born in Bethlehem, a child of Jesse’s lineage from Nazareth.  It was all planned and ready for that moment that changed everything; that moment when Mary said, “Yes”.  And when Mary said, “Yes”, the angels rejoiced and God smiled and things could move forward. 

But it wasn’t a given that she’d say, “Yes.”  She had a choice.  Julian of Norwich talks about God as being a Gracious Lord.  God doesn’t force God’s self on anyone.  We have to say, “Yes.”  And Mary, that young woman, said “Yes,” said yes to something that was unknown, said yes to something she knew would be difficult, said yes in faith and trust and simplicity and that has made all the difference in the world, in all of creation.  I think instead of BC and AD, it should be BY, before the yes and after the yes, because everything changed at that moment.

And what Mary said “Yes” to was that Christ could come into her heart and into her being and grow in her and be born and made part of the incarnation through her.  God’s intention was to come to earth and he needed the form to do it.  He needed a human being to birth Him, and Mary said, “Yes”.  And God comes to us and wants to come into us and to grow within us and be born into the world through us.  We’re invited to say “Yes”. 

But we have lots of excuses.  Mary was simple and she said, “I will be the servant, the handmaid of the Lord.”  And we’re asked to say “Yes,” to be God’s servant.  Well we have lots of reasons not to say yes.  First of all, we’re afraid.  Well, Mary was afraid.  The first thing that the angel said to Mary was, “Don’t be afraid.”  We are afraid when God asks us to say, “Yes,” because we don’t know what’s going to happen.  We are afraid because it means giving up control.  We are afraid because we like to believe that we have some control over what happens in our lives, but that’s an illusion, of course.

We never know what’s going to happen, but we like to think we’re in charge. We like to think that we’re the one that makes the decision.  We don’t want to be the servant, the one who says, “Yes” and does whatever we’re told.  So, of course we’re afraid.  And Mary was afraid.  And we’re afraid of, “Gee, if I say ‘Yes’ to God, what’s going to happen to my reputation?  If I start telling people about Jesus Christ, oh my gosh, what would they think at work?” and “My family would be embarrassed and what would my husband or my wife say if I follow Christ. If I did then my kids would look at me like I’d become some kind of fanatic” or “My parents would not want me to act that way” or “What would the neighbors say?”  We have lots of reasons for not saying “Yes” to God. 

Mary could be pretty sure that if she said “Yes” the neighbors were not going to approve.  In fact, it was quite likely that she might get stoned and killed if she really became pregnant. We can imagine after she visits Elizabeth and spends several months there.  She’s left town.  She comes back and she is obviously pregnant.  Can you imagine what it was like in that village?  Can you imagine what the other women were saying to one another?  Can you imagine how hard it would have been for Mary to go to the well when all of the other women were there?  But she said, “Yes.”  She’s a servant of the Lord. 

And we might have difficulty saying “Yes” to God because we don’t know what’s going to happen.  We don’t know whether it’s going to work or not.  We don’t know whether we’ll get a positive response.  We don’t know whether it is actually right or not.  “My goodness, what if I say ‘Yes’ to God and I lose all my money and everything is destroyed and I don’t have anything?  What if I say ‘Yes’ to God and it doesn’t work out?”  Saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee that your life is going to be easy.  In contrast to what some people say on TV, saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee you’re going to have enough money or that you’re going to have a new car or that everything’s going to go well. 

Saying “Yes” to God means that we trust God.  Look what happened to Mary.  Yes, we celebrate her as being the Mother of God, but she had a son who ended up leaving home and wandering around teaching. She and her other children thought he was crazy.  He abandoned her.  And then, what was the gift that Mary got for having said “Yes” to God?  She got to stand on Calvary and watch her son die.  No, there is no guarantee when we say “Yes” to God that things will be easy.  We do have the guarantee that there can be joy, that it can be joyous, because there is that wonderful Magnificat that we read today where Mary magnifies the Lord. 

Here she is, a young virgin who is pregnant and she is rejoicing in the Lord and she is filled with joy, not happiness.  Saying “Yes” to God does not guarantee that we’ll be happy.  Happy is the sort of thing that happens when you go to Disneyland.  Happy is the sort of thing you feel when you get a new car.  Joy - joyousness is that welling up from inside that has nothing to do with the outside world, but in which we feel full and whole and alive and just want to sing and if we can’t sing, we just want to smile.  That’s joy.  That’s what Mary had.  That’s why Mary rejoiced because she felt God’s love growing within her.  When we say “Yes” to God, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be happy.  But we are offered the peace that passes understanding.  We are offered joy. 

One of the reasons we say “No” to God is “Well, after all, I’m nobody special.  God couldn’t possibly be asking me to do something.”  Well, you know, Mary was just a young woman; nobody special, humble.  “Not me, God, no.  No, angel, I’m not worthy.  Go somewhere else.”  But God knows.  God lifted up the humble.  God used the weak.  And the Magnificat says that everything is turned upside down with the coming of Christ.  She doesn’t use the future tense.  She uses the present tense.  Not the hungry will be fed and the rich sent away empty.  The hungry are fed.  The rich are sent away empty.  The proud are cast down and the humble are lifted up.  Everything is shifted around.  The revolution has begun because she said “Yes” and Christ is growing inside of her.

What we are asked by God is to say, “Yes”.  To say yes to Christ coming within us, to letting Christ come into our hearts and our minds and our spirits and grow in there so that we can become God’s instruments in the world.  The spiritual practice that I do twice a day called Centering Prayer is also called the Prayer of Consent.  It’s a contemplative prayer of sitting quietly and opening oneself to God.  Thomas Keating describes it as the Prayer of Consent because what we do is sit and consent to God’s presence and action within.  It’s a time twice a day that I try to just be open to God.  And, of course, my mind thinks about everything else and I have to keep going back to remembering that intention and that’s what the whole practice is about, constantly going back to that intention.  That’s what saying “Yes” is.  It’s saying yes to God’s presence and action within.  Yes to God transforming us so that we can be Christ’s hands and feet and eyes and voice and heart in the world. 

It’s different than saying that Jesus Christ is your personal Lord and Savior.  That’s a fine thing.  That’s a first step; it is when you say, “You are my Savior.”  Saying “Yes” to God is saying, “I am your servant.  It’s not about me, it’s about you.  It’s not about my salvation; it’s about serving you regardless of what happens.”  It’s an offering of ourselves.  From the beginning of creation God has been longing to hear your “Yes”.  And when any one of us says “Yes” to God and opens our heart, God rejoices and the angels rejoice with Him and everything changes because we become an instrument of God.  And whatever God’s intention for us and for the universe, now it can be fulfilled and God can rejoice and Christ is made known.

I invite you to say “Yes” to God and invite the newborn Christ into your heart.  Amen. 

Advent 3 C

"You brood of vipers." What a strange way to win friends and influence people. And what was this "Good News" he was sharing?

Advent 3 C

Transcribed from a Sermon Given on

December 13, 2009

By Rev. Valerie A. Hart

St Barnabas Episcopal Church, Arroyo Grande CA

Now I don’t know what John’s training was, but he obviously didn’t take a class on how to make friends and influence people.  Here he was, out in the middle of the desert, and people traveled not just for miles, but for days, because it was all on foot, out into the wilderness to hear him.  They’ve come to hear him and what does he say to them?  “You brood of vipers.  Who told you to come?”  That sure would make me feel good.  How would it feel if it took you two days to walk here to church today and I got up and said, “Who told you to come?” 

I don’t know, but it worked for John.

Then, at the end of all this about unquenchable fire and judgment and all of that, at the end of it, the Gospel reading says, “And in this way, he proclaimed the good news.”  So, all that’s supposed to be good news.  Where’s the good news in all of that?  What’s the good news?  Well, it wasn’t good news for the rich because they were being told they had to share what they had.  If you owned two coats in that time, you were pretty rich, and you were being told give half of it away.  It wasn’t good news for them.

And for those who were of the Tribe of Israel, sons and daughters of Abraham, the ones who had the right upbringing, it wasn’t good news for them because they were people who believed that because of their ancestry, they were in the right relationship with God.  All they had to do was be born into a family that had its ancestry go back to the beginning of the Jewish tradition and they were set.  And John said, “God can make the stones into children Abraham.  That’s no big deal, your ancestry, who your parents were.  That’s not going to get you right with God.”  So it wasn’t good news for them.

But it was good news for the poor.  It was good news for the outcast.  It was good news for the stranger.  It was good news for the ones who were born to the wrong parents. Because John was saying it’s not about wealth.  It’s not about ancestry.  It’s about repentance.  It’s about being in the right relationship with God.  Because you see, John’s good news was that no matter who you were, where you came from, what your profession was, what you’ve done, you could repent and start over knowing that God loves you and is with you.  And that’s pretty good news. 

And there’s good news in the other readings.  In the very first reading Zephaniah is speaking to the people of Israel who are having a really tough time.  In the Old Testament time period, people felt if a country was having a hard time that meant that God wasn’t with them.  The writer of Zephaniah is saying, “Don’t worry.  Your tough times are almost over.  It’s going to get better.  God is with you.”  And in the Canticle here today (Canticle means song. This one comes from Isaiah; it’s a song within the Book of Isaiah.  These Canticles are used in our morning and evening prayers, our daily prayer in the prayer book, so, if you’re not familiar with morning and evening prayer, that’s where that comes from.) In the Canticle Isaiah is rejoicing because God is present.  He’s with us. 

And then we have Paul.  A wonderful reading from Paul where he says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.  Again, I say rejoice.”  Rejoice always.  And this is from Paul who was imprisoned, shipwrecked, stoned, kicked out of many different towns, had an ongoing chronic illness, and yet, he could say, “Rejoice.  Rejoice always.”  That’s some pretty good news.  That’s some pretty good news. 

What is your good news?  What is the good news that you might share with someone else?  My good news comes from my story, my life experience.  It comes from a time when I had brain surgery and I couldn’t think and I couldn’t work and I couldn’t take care of my children, you know, all those things you do to make yourself loveable?  I went to school and got a PhD so my parents would be proud of me.  I had long hair down to my waist so I would be attractive.  I wanted to be a good parent so I would be loveable.  We spend much of our lives, especially our young adult lives, trying to do something to make ourselves loveable. 

After my surgery, it was all taken away.  My long hair was gone and I was half shaved because of my brain surgery.  I had just had a baby and so my body, well, I wasn’t feeling real good about my body image.  All the women who’ve ever had children know that you don’t feel real good about how your body looks after you’ve had a child.  I was having difficulties in my marriage.  I couldn’t think clearly.  I couldn’t do my work as a therapist.  I couldn’t even be home alone with my children because I was having seizures.  It was like everything, everything I had done to make myself loveable was gone. 

But I discovered, not in one big moment, but over time, that I was still loved by God and that Christ was walking with me.  That even when all the things I did to make myself loveable were gone, I was and am loved by God.  That’s my good news.  That’s changed my life.  I have to tell people, “You’re loved by God, unconditionally, totally, absolutely loved by God.  And if you mess up and you do things wrong, God’s going to be right there. All you have to do is turn around and say ‘I’m sorry’ and He’s going to give you a big hug and He’s going to keep loving you.”  That’s my good news. 

What’s your good news?  What’s the story in your life?  What’s the good news that you could share with somebody else?  Perhaps your good news is that you’ve been lost in addiction and you found your way out of it and that God was there helping you.  Or, maybe your good news is that when you were alone, you found a community of faith that welcomed you in.  Or, maybe your good news is that when you went through a difficult time in your life, there were people there with you and Christ was there with you.  Maybe your good news is you had a time of deep guilt and discovered that you’ve been forgiven.  Maybe your good news is that you’ve made friends in a community of people who just like you for who you are and you don’t have to fit in with any group.  What’s your good news? 

I went to a program about two weeks ago on PR.  How do you present an organization or a program or a nonprofit or a political agenda, whatever, how do you present it to the world?  One of the talks was given by someone who had done a lot of work in politics.  She said that first of all you need to have short statements that are easy to remember and you have to have one message and keep everything you say on message.  One of the things that was said is you should be prepared with an elevator talk.  An elevator talk is what you can say to somebody when you get on the elevator and you’re going one floor.  In other words, you should be able to concisely state what’s most important about, say, your nonprofit.  You should be able to get on the elevator with someone and tell them what the issue is, what you are doing, why it’s important and what you want them to do before the elevator door opens back up again.

Can you develop an elevator story of your good news?  Can you distill the good news that’s happened to you in a way that you could share with somebody on the elevator?  Now some of you may not have good news yet.  Some of you may be here because you’re searching.  Some of you may be here because you are hoping that there will be something said or something will happen and you will feel the good news.  But those of you who have good news, can you distill it down into a couple sentences?  And can you tell it to somebody else? 

If you went to a movie last night or Friday night and you really liked it, if it was one of those movies where you were moved, maybe you cried during it, but you came out of it transformed would you go home and say, “Under no condition am I ever going to tell anybody about that movie because it’s private to me and I wouldn’t want to hurt them by telling them that I liked that movie because that might be uncomfortable for them.”  Or, would you go and call up your best friend and say, “You got to see this movie.  It’s really great!”  And then you’d go on Facebook and say, “I just went and saw the best movie.”  And you Tweet, “I was at the movies” and you say the name and you get it down to 140 characters somehow. You would want tell everybody what a great movie it was. 

We’ve got some really good news.  We’ve got some amazing good news.  The good news is that God loves us.  The good news that the angels proclaimed centuries ago, we’ll proclaim again at Christmas - glad tidings of great news - the Christ is born - Emanuel.  The good news is God with us, that God loves us, that God is with us, that God sent Christ to show us how much we’re loved, how completely we’re forgiven and that we’re never alone.  That's pretty good news.

And so, I’d like to invite each and every one of you to think and pray about who you’re going to invite to come to church on Christmas.  Inviting somebody on Christmas day is fairly safe.  A lot of people are looking for church on Christmas day and we’re going to make it really easy for you.  We made up these little cards and on the one side is the advertisement that’s been in the ticket about the Episcopal Church. It has a picture of Santa Claus with a little girl on his lap and it says, “Jesus, on the other hand loves you regardless of whether you’re naughty or nice.  Unconditional love and forgiveness are the Christmas gifts of Jesus Christ.  Join us as we celebrate the miracle of His birth.”  And on the backside is when our services are.  Take some on your way out.  They’re by the front door.  Give them to someone.  Give somebody this year a Christmas gift that really will matter.  Invite someone to open their hearts to Christ.  Give a Christmas gift that will last for eternity, and that’s a relationship with God through Christ.  You just might make a friend.  You just might change a life.  And if you’re really shy, you can just slip this on somebody’s desk and they won’t even know it was you who left it there. 

Indeed, we are about to proclaim, and we are proclaiming, good news of great joy.  Let’s not keep silent about it.  Let’s share what we’ve received and offer it as a gift to others.  Amen.