Thursday 24 December 2015

Welcome to the World (Luke 2:1-20)



(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Christmas Eve Worship, 2015)

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Who’s Welcoming Whom?

“So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger” (v. 16).

So we too have come in haste, amid the bustle of family gatherings and last-minute shopping, amid the excitement of wrapping gifts and cooking favorite dishes. So we too have found the child lying in the manger—finally filling that empty spot in our nativities.

And yet…it is a little bit ironic that we have come here of all places, that we have come to church on Christmas Eve. We come here, of course, with the best of intentions: we come to welcome the Christ child, and we do it here at church, because in our society, church is where respectable people go to pay their respects to God.

But on that first Christmas Eve, God did not receive a welcome at church. No one at the Temple sung God’s praise, no one in the local synagogue organized a welcome party. On that first Christmas Eve, God was not being welcomed so much as God was welcoming. God was out in the fields among the shepherds, those dirty, smelly wanderers who were among the least respectable in their society, who were considered by many to be the riffraff of the fields. On that first Christmas Eve, God went out into the brisk backcountry, welcoming the least among us.

And so it is ironic that we are here at church tonight welcoming God, when according to the Christmas story, God is out in the cold, dark world, welcoming us—especially those of us who, like the shepherds, are on the outside of life.

The truth is, for many in our world tonight, perhaps even for many of us, God is actually the last thing on our minds, because heaven seems so far away from the earth we walk—from the hospitals we visit, from the vacant seats at our tables and the emptiness in our hearts, from our fractured relationships. But if the good news of great joy that the angels proclaim is for anyone, it’s for these people, for those of us who feel this way. The good news of great joy is for anyone who feels unwelcome in this world, who feels like a stranger in this world, scavenging for hope, scrapping about for a bit of warmth. It is for anyone who feels a deep disconnect between the sentimental Christmas cards we share and the daily life we endure. The good news of great joy that the angels proclaim is not that all is well in heaven and one day we’ll get there, but that somehow all is well here even as all is not well, because God is in the dirt and shadows, among the shepherds and the lowest of the lowlife, because heaven is come to earth for anyone with eyes to see.

There are two welcomes going on tonight. There is the small welcome that happens here in church, where we presume to welcome God. And there is the infinitely larger, life-saving welcome that happens outside these doors—where God is welcoming us, where the angels are singing the good news of great joy that God is not tucked away in some holy book, or far away beyond the clouds, or beyond the tick-tock of our clocks. God is here with us, being born among us in countless indescribable ways. This world is God’s home, and we are all welcome. The good news of great joy that the angels proclaim is God saying to the shepherds—and all of us:
Welcome to the world—my world. I made all of this for you. I cannot promise an easy or safe life. See, I myself have made my home in this manger, in this little town of Bethlehem, watched over by a couple of nervous teenagers and you, a band of dirty, smelly shepherds. I myself will hang out with people who are broken and needy. I myself will be one of them.

I cannot promise an easy or safe life. But I can promise great joy and I can promise peace. I can promise you the stars and dinner feasts and companions along the way.

You have lived here all your life, but as strangers and scavengers. You have lived here all your life, but the world has been a hostile stopover rather than a home. So here, at this manger, in the mysterious murmur of this newborn child, I say to you again, “Welcome. This world is yours. I made it for you. It is my home—and yours too. Life is a gift. You need not look for it anywhere other than where I am—which is right where you are.”
God is with us tonight. Here in church, yes—but not just here, thank God. God goes out into the cold darkness of our world, to wherever we feel most unwelcome, to wherever we feel like strangers on this earth, and extends there an infinitely large, life-saving welcome, the kind that opens our eyes to the life right in front of us. And that, if ever there was, is “good news of great joy for all the people” (v. 10).

Merry Christmas

A merry Christmas to you all: a merry Christmas as you leave this church, as you return to family, as you return to the daily grind. A Merry Christmas to you as you return to the world, where God in Christ is welcoming you in ways as small and mysterious as a newborn child.

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