Isaiah 52:7-10 Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem.
Titus 2:11-14 Let no one look down on you.
John 1:1-14 Full of grace and truth.
O God of grace, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
I love having a service of Holy Eucharist on Christmas morning. It’s not such a popular time for worship in our corner of our culture – but in the rare years when Christmas Day falls on our Principal Feast Day, which is Sunday, we get to look at the stories of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ in the light of day. In the light of day, we can see that each of our four Gospels tells the beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ completely differently. For the Gospel of Mark, the beginning of the story of Jesus was his baptism in the Jordan River. In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke the beginning of the story of Jesus Christ was his birth, but only Luke has the pageant narrative. Jesus’ ancestry, according to Matthew, went back to Abraham; and according to Luke, his roots went all the way back to Adam.
But in John, the beginning of the story of the Christ – the Word – the Logos — is creation itself. Our English capitalization of the word Word can be somewhat misleading (there were no indications of proper nouns with capital letters in the Greek New Testament). In her book about the words and worlds of the Bible called The Grammar of God, Aviya Kushner writes that “Capitalization makes everything look confident, definite…Capitalization helps close the door on doubt.”[1] Those of you who’ve heard me preach before know that I’m always trying to pry back open that closed door on doubt!
The Greek word logos can be translated many ways. At its most basic, it is a general term for a vocalized expression of the mind. It carries with it a sense of order, of reason – it’s the root of our word logic. It can mean utterance, proclamation, exhortation, prophecy, message, teaching, assertion, declaration, and reckoning. According to Genesis, the spoken word is God’s instrument of creation. Think of all those meanings applied to the word – the logos – made flesh. In John, the birth imagery, so central to our Christmas season, is applied not only to the person of Jesus, but offered to everyone. In John, we are reminded that the Word of God is God.
Those who receive the Word, who believe in the light and truth of Love, have the power to become its children. For John, believing what is not obvious – not seen by all – not automatic – is to be born of God – to become a child of God, a child of the Word. It is we who are truly born as children of God in this Christmas story. In John, we are told of God’s move to become one of us, to enter into us, to look for a home in human beings. In John, the Word of God is looking for a home in which to live. According to John, it is we who are born when we open our eyes to see – when we believe that the light and life of the world are found in the light and life of Jesus. Notice too, at the end of our Gospel portion, that the glory of the Word become flesh is the glory as of a father’s only son. It’s like an only son – not it IS a father’s only son.
This birth narrative in the Gospel of John is more clearly a hymn or a poem than the other Gospels, which take poetic license, but are not written in the form of poetry. The other day, someone was telling me that he didn’t really “get” poetry. He asked, “Why write poetry when you can say it straight out?” (That person doesn’t come to church at Emmanuel!) I responded, “why paint? why compose or play music? why dance?” Emmanuel’s ninth rector, The Rev. Al Kershaw answered that question this way, because “art and love alone are capable of opening us up to the eternal that stands behind them.”
And what I know about Al Kershaw’s ministry is that it wasn’t enough to see and receive the eternal that stands behind art and love. The purpose of being opened up to the eternal behind art and love is to see and do the work of Christmas, which is to make room for people who are lost, broken, hungry, imprisoned, devastated. The work of Christmas is to lead the ruins to rejoice and break into singing, as the prophet Isaiah declares. The work of Christmas is to “let no one look down on you,” as the letter to Titus says right after our passage from today, remembering that you are not better than anyone else, but nor are you worse.
John’s metaphor is light shining in the darkness. I like to imagine that John knew the Gospel of Luke’s story of no room at the inn, of an infant laid in a feeding trough because there was no other place to cradle him. The Gospel of John is shining a light on the work of finding room. In the light of day, I see Emmanuel Church as a kind of stable for people who do not find room at other inns.
I’m not just talking about physical accommodation for overnight and day shelter provided to people who are homeless and suffering from mental illness. I’m not just talking about fourteen 12-step addiction recovery meetings that take place here week in and week out. It’s responding to questions like, “what do I tell the 12-step group that is scheduled to meet on Christmas Eve in the Lindsey Chapel?” with the answer, “Tell them we’ll move them over to the parish hall. Tell them, ‘Welcome, we’re glad you’ll be here.’”
It’s meals shared and conversations that take place in the parish hall, in the lobbies and stairways and offices. I have former rectors on my mind – it’s stories like my colleague and predecessor, the 11th rector of Emmanuel, The Rev. Bill Blaine-Wallace, working with a woman who was living on the street because she was terrified of being indoors. Patiently, over time, Bill helped her to come inside for just a minute, then a couple of minutes, then for a half hour, until she could manage hours, and then, finally, manage to live in her own apartment.
I’m talking about people who come here seeking sanctuary on a regular basis from as far away as Freeport, ME in the north and Providence, RI in the south; people who come from Cape Cod in the east and Worcester Hills in the west. It’s about groups and organizations seeking sanctuary. Many years ago, during a particularly rough patch, Emmanuel Music looked for another place to be and couldn’t find one. I thank God they are still here! More recently, the Korean college chaplaincy I:um Chapel looked and looked for other places to house their worship and community gatherings – they couldn’t find one. They’re here, too.
Last Sunday, our partners at Central Reform Temple offered their annual gift to the wider community with their program called “Light Through the Ages,” stories of Hanukkah from the last two thousand years. It is an eight lessons and carols format, stories and choral pieces alternating as one by one, the candles of the menorah are lit. Each candle is lit by a person representing a Boston area organization or institution being honored by the temple for their contributions to the cultural and social fabric of our city, reflecting the core values of the synagogue: embracing the work of justice and peace, stimulating interfaith dialogue and providing cultural enrichment. I won’t list them all, but this year, honorees included the Boston Arts Academy, the Boston Police Department, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, and the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center. After the service was over, our friend, the executive director of the Islamic Society, Yusafi Vali, found a quiet place in this very chapel to say his evening prayers before returning home.
This is the nature of Emmanuel – God with us. This is the nature of Emmanuel Church in the City of Boston. It seems to me to be in the very DNA of this place. And you all are now Emmanuelites – whether you’ve been coming here for many years or you just walked in for the first time this morning; whether you will come back again or are just passing through. I want to say to you that in a culture where we are bombarded with messages (both external and internal) about giving and receiving perfect gifts for Christmas, you are giving and receiving the perfect gift by your witness, by your presence here this morning. You are giving and receiving perfect gifts by engaging in the risk of opening yourselves and opening this place to the art and love, to the light and life, to the faith and doubt, to the work of Christmas.