A Sermon for Christmas Eve
And the Word
became flesh, and dwelt among us.
Where is God?
That might strike you as a peculiar question -- after all, we all “know” the answer: God is everywhere. It may seem an even more peculiar question to
ask on Christmas Eve, because we all also “know” the truth of the particularly
Christian answer that is before our eyes tonight: God is in the infant Jesus, the Word made
flesh, dwelling among us, lying in a manger.
Nonetheless I am going to persist with my peculiar question despite
what we “know.” I persist, because I’m
not interested in the theologically correct answers which we’ve been taught in
Sunday School or seminary.
I want to ask the question more personally: Where is God for you? When you are searching for God, where do you
turn? When you are seeking God, where do
you look? Where is that you actually
expect to find God in your world and in your life-- assuming you expect to find
God at all? This night when we celebrate
God’s birth in a human infant is a good night to ask this peculiar question. For if the Word made flesh to dwell among us
means anything at all, it ought to have some bearing on our own, personal
answers to the question, Where is God?
The Christmas story we tell tonight can have an odd effect on where we
begin to look for an answer to that question, “Where is God?” Because this is an old, old story, it can lead us to look for God some place
long ago and far away. Tonight we hear
of God’s coming in the once-upon-a-time fairy tale world in which a virgin can
be with child and bring forth a holy infant in a manger marked by a magical
star; a world in which that baby is visited by shepherds, sung of by angels and
worshipped by kings. The Christmas
pageant costumes used in most parishes make the point -- to tell this sacred
story, kids have to dress up in ways they never otherwise do -- a reminder that
this is a story of long ago and far away.
In the 1940’s, English mystery writer and theologian Dorothy Sayers
wrote a series of radio plays for the BBC on the life of Jesus in which all the
characters spoke contemporary English -- an undertaking that met with great
opposition. Many church people thought
it shockingly irreverent to have biblical people speak anything but the long
and far away language English of the King James’ Version of the Bible. It is remarkable easy to think that the
answer to the question, “Where is God?” can only be found in some magical, once
upon time, long ago and far away world.
Fortunately, Christmas worship can begin to bring the long ago and far
away story nearer, teaching us to look for God closer to home. Tonight, at least, the infant Jesus is not
some place long ago and far away, but right here in the crèche before our eyes; beloved music and shimmering candles can seem
to bring God’s presence closer; and, in
the Eucharist, the Word is made flesh again for us in bread and wine. Tonight we look for God not long ago and far
away, but come to dwell in our presence, close enough to see, close enough,
maybe, to touch.
And maybe if we find God in the sacred physicality of our worship here
and now, then we can find God, too, in
the sacred physicality of the rest of our world -- in the beauties of the creation that stir our
hearts to wonder and gratitude, in the faces of people that we love, and, as
Jesus taught us, in the hungry, the naked, the stranger, the sick, the
imprisoned. In the way the Word becomes
flesh in our worship, we learn another answer to the question “Where is God?” We discover that God is not only long ago and
far away, but here and now, that God can be found in the world we live in, made
flesh and dwelling among us, to be looked for, sought, seen, and touched here.
But for all that that is true, it does not bring God close enough. There is another, more immediate answer to the
question, “Where is God?” -- an answer
that directs us to look in the place that is nearest and most intimate: within our own bodies, within our very selves.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. God
was born into the world as a human being, so that God could live in all human
beings, as Emmanuel, God with us, God in us. For each of us, the most personal answer to
the question, “Where is God?” is simply this:
“In me.”
This, also, is one of those theologically correct things that we all
“know” – God lives in us! But do we take
the truth that the Word has become flesh in us at all seriously? Do
we, for instance, take it with anything like the seriousness of St. Symeon the
New Theologian who wrote these words nine centuries ago:
We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ,
He enters my foot, & is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him...
I move my foot and at once
He appears like a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous?
Then open your heart to Him
and let yourself receive the One
who is opening to you so deeply.
Symeon takes with utter seriousness that the Word made flesh lives in
him – in his hand, his foot, his body, his whole being. What difference might
it make if we took seriously that the most personal answer to the question,
“Where is God?” is “In me”? What might happen if we listened to Symeon’s
seemingly blasphemous words, and opened our hearts to Christ made flesh,
dwelling in our bodies?
First of all, we just might find a deeper reverence for ourselves as
the dwelling places of God. We might
learn to give real esteem to our own value as the people in whom Christ lives. I sometimes think that one of the greatest
sins we commit is our failure to honor what the Prayer Book calls the “dignity
of human nature.”
All too often, we denigrate and diminish ourselves, and imagine that in
so doing that we are being humble. “I’m
only human,” we say, thinking of our weaknesses, fears, sins, and
faithlessness. All of that is real, of
course. But more real is this truth about being human: that the Word is made flesh and dwells in us; that there is within us a Love of unwavering
patience, a Beauty which nothing can
root out; a holy Presence which will
never go away.
To accept this truth about ourselves can be daunting – but necessary. Marianne Williamson writes in her book, Return
to Love: “Our deepest fear is not
that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear
is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, who are we to be brilliant,
talented, and fabulous? Actually, who
are we not to be? We were born to make
manifest the glory of God within us.”
“We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.” That is our honor, dignity, and glory as
people in whom the Word made flesh lives;
as people who can truthfully answer the question, “Where is God?” by
saying, “In me.”
Second, when we answer the question, “Where is God?” by saying, “In
me,” we are less prone to imagine that God is elsewhere – beyond our
grasp; out of our reach. Remember how,
in The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy dreams
of a land somewhere over the rainbow, where all her troubles will melt like
lemon drops? Or consider the old saying
that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. We human beings tend to look for fulfillment
and happiness someplace other than where we already actually are. The unholy commercialism which besets this
season exploits us precisely here -- by repeating the lie that if only we buy
or give this thing or that, we will find the fulfillment we long for.
So, too, we tend to look for God on the other side of some fence, somewhere over the rainbow, someplace far
away, if not long ago; a place more
beautiful & wonderful than we ourselves could possibly be: in an idealized family, perhaps, a friend’s love, a beautiful sunset, a moving Church service.
Its not that God isn’t in these good things, of course. But if we neglect the truth that God dwells in
us, if we look for God only on the
other side of some fence, we will always be restlessly searching for God
somewhere over the rainbow, and, like Dorothy, always coming up short, finding
less than the fullness of God we desire. Only when we answer the question, “Where is
God?” by saying, “In me,” we will be able to come home to the God who has dwelt
in us all along.
Finally, when we answer the question, “Where is God?” by saying, “In
me,” we learn more of what it is to pray. We learn that prayer is not projecting words
and feelings towards a distant God, a God who think is long ago and far away, or somewhere over the rainbow, or on the
other side of a fence where things are, of course, much nicer than they in our
neighborhood. Prayer, rather, is opening
ourselves to the God who lives in us. Prayer is learning to experience what we
already have been given. Prayer is discovering what we already possess. Prayer is finding again and again that the God
we seek is closer than we know.
A friend who had moved away from a church she loved found visiting
parishes in her new location not only a painful reminder of what she had lost,
but also spiritually empty. Eventually,
she realized that had been going to these churches hoping to find God there,
instead of going to meet the God she already knew. And so to recover a spiritual life in her new
home, she first needed in her own prayer to reconnect with the God who had
always dwelt with and within her. In her
prayer, she needed to answer the question, “Where is God?” by saying, “In me” –
and once she did this, her life with God in a new place and a new church began
to grow again.
I started with a peculiar question and you may
think I’m ending with a peculiar answer. On this night when we celebrate the birth of
the Word of God made flesh in Jesus, it may seem peculiar to have talked about
God’s dwelling in us; maybe even a little blasphemous, like St.
Symeon, to speak of Jesus as so intimately dwelling in us. But that’s the point of Christmas: the Word was made flesh in Jesus not so we
could remember something long ago and far away, or look for God over some
magical rainbow, or on the other side of a fence; The Word of God was made flesh so that God
might come to live in all of us, here and now,
so that we might be able to answer the question “Where is God?” by
saying “In us.”
And lest you think this is just my peculiar idea
cooked up with the help of an obscure medieval Greek theologian, in closing, I’d
ask you sing with me words that I quoted on Sunday and which you I bet you know
by heart:
O Holy child of
descend to us we pray,
cast out our sin and enter
in
be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
the great glad tidings tell.
O come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Emmanuel.
Be born in us; Abide with us. That is what we pray for – and rightly so, For that great glad tidings of this Christmas
night are exactly this: We can answer
the question, “Where is God?” by saying, “in us.”
The Rev. Jack Zamboni
December 24, 2008