Merry Christmas!
Christmas Day is “No Time For A Sermon.”
No, it is not that there is no time for a sermon because the choir sang so many beautiful Christmas songs. It is not because there is no time for a sermon because it took so long to seat the “Christmas crowd.” It is not because the critters in the “live” nativity scene got loose and ate all the Christmas cookies for coffee hour.
The reason that on this Sunday, on Christmas Day, there is “no time for a sermon” is because on Christmas Day there is only time for each of us to discover “a silence in which another voice may speak” (Mary Oliver, “Praying”). Today is the time for us to FEEL the gift of Christmas from the top of our heads to the tip of our toes, not “hear” about it with our ears.
The gift of Christmas is something that sneaks up on us at unexpected moments. It may come in the wee hours of the morning after having spent a long night wrapping presents. It may come while we are waiting for a bus and are listening to “canned“ Christmas music and watching our fellow commuters who are wearing way too much red and green. It may come when our child, or grandchild, or neighborhood kid, suddenly offers a small gift and a spontaneous snuggle, instead of a hurried “hi” and scuttling away.
Until we experience our “Christmas moment” the holiday is all about “to-do” lists, stress tests, credit limits, and on-line access. Until that “Christmas moment,” we have been concerned with unemployment, skyrocketing grocery prices, troops coming home, and if the weather will turn freakish and spoil all our plans. Until we experience a true “Christmas moment,” Christmas is crazy and chaotic.
But then that “Christmas moment” happens. And “the hopes and fears of all the years are met” in that moment in a person.
In this week’s Hebrews’ text the author describes the cosmic significance of “the Son,” of Jesus the Son of God. “The Son” who is described in this morning’s Christmas text is much more than an angel, much more than a prophet, much more than a super hero, much more than a national redeemer. This “Son” is the very essence, the very image, of God. This Son was there at the onset of creation and is still among us, personally. Every day.
Because Jesus is in everything, in all of creation, Jesus can easily move from the manger to the marketplace, from Bethlehem to Blue-Ray. Jesus, the “Son” who was present at creation and is present always and everywhere, was born into the manger and yet is always and eternally being “born” everywhere.
When there is “no time for a sermon” there is time for only for presence. Christmas wakes you up and makes you take responsibility for the gift you are. Are you open to the presence of God, entering once and for all into your midst. If you are, there can be no room for anything else.
On the night before Christmas, theologian Karl Rahner hears God whispering to us: ‘When you celebrate tomorrow say to me, “You are here. You have come. You have come into everything that exists, into everything that we are.”
That is the message of the Hebrews writer this morning. We need say only that one thing. And that is enough. It is Christmas. Sing the carols. Light the candles. And celebrate the fact that Jesus is here. He has come. He has come into everything that exists, and into everything we are.
That is enough.
That is why this is “No Time for a Sermon.”
“No Time for A Sermon” is the title of my favorite Christmas sermon that was first delivered fifty years ago today at Williamsville United Methodist Church a suburb of Buffalo, New York. The person who delivered the same sermon every year thereafter for the course of his ministry was named Luther Ridgeway.
Long before “coaching” became popular and “mentoring” a mandate, there was Luther Ridgeway. Of all the “coaches” and “mentors” I have known, Luther Ridgeway stands out and stands up without a peer. He lived to provide faith coaching to his congregants, and mentoring in pastoral ministry to his administrative staff and ministry associates. At the age of 25, I was given the privilege serving under Luther as his associate pastor, and came to love this gentle spirit and tender soul as well as learn enormously under his tutelage.
Maybe it was because Luther had served two killer churches in a row, which landed him in the hospital for an extended period of healing. When he emerged, his ego had been rebuilt around not bringing attention to himself, but lifting up the arms of others for ministry. Luther didn’t have an “ego” that “edged God out.” He had an e-g-o that “educed God open.” In the front of the parsonage he grew spectacular roses which he loved to give away, especially to children. And in his basement he ground rocks into gemstones, which he turned into jewelry and cuff-links which he lavished on parishioners. He drew out of rocks and roses spiritual lessons he wanted to pass on. If Luther felt an associate was a better preacher than he was, he would insist that the congregation got the best sermon from the best preacher on the “high and holy days” like Easter, Pentecost, and even Christmas.
This is the “No Time for a Sermon” sermon my mentor and role model, Luther Ridgeway, gave every year. He had it memorized. But I shall read it as my “no time for a sermon” sermon.
The Bishop has issued no edict of prohibition, the General Conference has taken no official position, the District Superintendent has issued no directives, the Administrative Board has not met to consider the issue, the Choir has not threatened to strike, the staff is not in rebellion, no irate parishioner has threatened to leave, no mistake, typographical or otherwise has been made in the bulletin, and to the best of my knowledge at this point in time, no demonic force has contrived with the mimeograph to produce the topic, “No Time For A Sermon.”
It is not that Daylight Savings Time has come early, taking with it our hour together, nor that the other elements of worship have taken all the time there is, nor that we began late, nor that the preacher overslept, nor even that the offering was so great that the ushers required an additional twenty minutes to gather it. It is none of these, yet the topic remains in all its validity, “No Time For A Sermon.”
There is a moment that comes, just before Christmas, a moment when we find ourselves at “the still point of a turning world.” It may come in the wee hours of the morning after having spent a long night wrapping presents, or while we are waiting to catch the bus, or at that most precious time of all when we recognize that the wonder of the day can only be seen in the eyes of a child.
Until the moment comes we have been too busy giving out and taking in, worried that we may not have remembered everyone who gave us a gift or sent us a card last year,wondering if Aunt Matilda might not think the color of the sweater we sent a bit too old for her when we know, full well, that it is altogether too gay for her advanced years.
Until that moment comes we have been concerned with fuel shortages and high prices,wondering if we had enough gasoline to get home for the holiday or if the weather would turn freakish and spoil the whole season.Until then we are about ready to conclude that Christmas may be a tiger we caught by the tail, or a revolving mirror that won’t stop long enough for us to get out.
And then it happens, the moment of tranquility comes, always when we least expect it. Suddenly we know what Christmas is all about and why we cannot do without it and why we would invent it if it did not exist.Sometimes it comes at a moment when the postman brings us word from a person or incident in the almost forgotten past, or when we begin to think of other Christmases in other places.
An open invitation to its coming is when a child cuddles close and warm in the evening.And, with the moment comes the realization that fossil fuel is not the only item in short supply on the American scene.
It is in this moment that the bells ring loud and clear in our hearts that Christmas is people needing people, people condemned to love and be loved, people under compulsion to speak of their love, however brokenly, however hurriedly, in whatever form or pattern may come to hand.
Those who have witnessed this moment, even in a dimly remembered past, will attest to the position here taken, that of all the responses contrivedin the human mind for other occasions that this is no time for a sermon.
For a sermon, you see, is meant to inspire, to challenge or to comfort.It is meant to admonish or to instruct.And Christmas is none of these, but rather a feeling deep down in the uncharted regions of the human soul, a place taboo in our sophisticated scholarly surroundings.
Yet, wise men and simple shepherds alike responded to the call to the first Christmas.They heard the announcement flung out to the far corners of the earth “GOD is with us.God IS with us. God is with US” . . . upon whatever word the emphasis was placed the proclamation was clear, for when God is with us, nothing else matters.
If the time ever comes when we take seriously these words echoing from the ancient Judean hills, then we will have heard our last sermon and preachers join the ranks of the unemployed, followed quickly into extinction by soldiers and missile experts, newsmen and broadcasters, politicians and insurance salesmen.
For if we took the good news of the incarnation into the many worlds that we inhabit, we would so free the human spirit that at long last man could become the only thing he ever was or was ever meant to be, a child of God.
In the meantime the world is waiting for us with its balance sheets of inventories and back orders, of debts and credits, of cops and robbers, of pay check and time payments, of marked time and deadlines.
Yes, the world is waiting.
Let it wait!
Thank you, Luther Ridgeway, for this reminder that Christmas is “No Time for a Sermon.”
And thank you, friends and family, for this “Christmas moment.”
Merry Christmas!
COMMENTARY
The opening verses of Hebrews, called the “exordium,” offers both a theologically complete and rhetorically complex statement of Christian faith. It is a statement that upholds and validates the experiences of previous generations and yet testifies that the present and the future manifestations of the divine are the fulfillment of God’s plans. The Hebrews author declares a continuity of purpose and person, throughout the ages, from creation to salvation. That purpose is the right, repaired relationship between God and the world. The person who fulfills that purpose is the Son.
Our English translation(s) lose the lovely alliteration used by the Hebrews author to describe God’s ongoing revelations to the world, a relationship that has existed “polymeros kai polytopos” “at various times . . . in a variety of ways” as God spoke to “our ancestors” through the prophets.
The words and witness of these prophets is affirmed as God’s true words, but not God’s final word. As we enter into “these final days” there is a new revelation of the divine. Instead of “prophets” there is the “Son” (literally “in one who is Son”). These “last days” are the eschatological age that has begun in the person and presence of the Son, and brings God’s final word to the world.
The Hebrews author now begins to articulate the differences that distinguish the “Son” from all those previous prophets, and even from the rest of the inhabitants of heaven. No doubt with an intentional eye on “completeness” this author offers seven (the number of associated with perfection) distinctions that are unique to the Son.
First, he is “heir of all things.” The echo of Psalm 2:8 is evident, where God’s anointed and declared “son” is offered “the nations” as his heritage, and the “ends of the earth” as his possession. This inheritance, however, now extends beyond just this world, for the Hebrews author now affirms the cosmic nature of this Son.
The second declaration by Hebrews is that the Son was the one “through whom” came the “aiones” which can be translated as “worlds,” or “ages,” or as most render it here “the universe.” This uniquely Christian claim, that creation came into being through Christ, actually echoes affirmations found in wisdom literature, where Wisdom is the active force in creation (Proverbs 8:22-31). In John 1:3 and Colossians 1:16 and here in Hebrews, it is the Son whose presence is that through which God’s creative force flows out and becomes the universe.
The third quality the Son claims is that he is the “reflection of God’s glory.” “Reflection” (“apaugasma”) is another term used to describe God’s Wisdom (Wisdom 7:26) and describes a unique radiance shining from a source of light. As used here by the Hebrews’ author it is unclear whether this radiance has its source in the Son or if it is the reflection back of God’s own glory. Whatever its source, the Son’s radiance was not just a heavenly light. It was a light that shone on earth, for all people to see as he walked among them.
Fourthly, the Son bore the “exact imprint” or “image” (“charakter”) of God’s being (“hypostasis”). Just as a coin bears the exact stamp of the die that cast it, so the Son bears the exact image of God’s very being or essence. All that God is, in other words, is made manifest in the Son.
Fifthly, the Hebrews author affirms that the Son “sustains all things through his powerful word.” The Son’s creative presence was not just a one-time-wonder present at the moment of the universe’s conception. It is an ongoing force, a sustaining, enabling “word” that continues to hold the “worlds,” the “ages” together and pull them forward according to God’s plan. These third, fourth, and fifth assertions are woven so tightly together that many commentators suggest they may be an insertion by the author from an early Christian hymn or liturgical confession.
After all these cosmic qualities have been spelled out the Hebrews author next turns to the work of the Son that touches each faithful follower. The Son “made purification for sins,” translating his universal power into a personal sacrifice for the salvation of humanity. Throughout his text this author presents Christ as High Priest, the one who successfully and for all time accomplished what the Levitical priesthood never could: complete and completed “purification” (9:14, 22,23; 10:22; 12:24). The ongoing workings of the entire universe may reset upon the “powerful word” of the Son, but the salvation of every individual is dependent upon the grace offered by the personal sacrifice the Son offered up on the behalf of all of us.
This ultimate and eternally binding sacrifice and the salvation that it makes possible lead to the author’s seventh assertion about the Son. Having accomplished that work the Son now has “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty,” that is at the right hand of God. Jesus himself had cited Psalm 110 and asserted that the place of the Son of man would be “at the right hand of the power of God” (Luke 22:69). That the Son is “seated” is a significant detail. In Hebrews 10:11-13 the author notes that the Levitical priests continued to stand and serve the Lord with their ineffectual sacrifices, day after day. But since their sacrifices could never “take away sins” they were trapped in a circle of failure, serving without end or results. Christ’s once-and-for-all sacrifice accomplished the destruction of the hold of sin and death and so Christ “sat down at the right hand of God” (Hebrews 10:12). There is also the historic privilege of the House of David to “sit” before the Lord, as found in 2 Samuel 7:18.
Having so clearly and completely differentiated the Son from any of God’s previous prophetic voices, the Hebrews author feels the need to further distinguish the Son from any other heavenly beings. There is some suggestion by commentators that the Hebrews author may, in part, have been writing to argue against an outbreak of angel-worship. If such is the author’s reference to “all sorts of strange teaching” in Hebrews 13:9, then he clearly puts those other heavenly beings in their place with the final words in today’s reading. Although the language is ambiguous from the context, it seems evident that the “name” which is so “superior” is that of the “Son.” Just as he inherited “all things” from God he inherited the name of the Son. It is as this Son that he proclaims God’s final and best message to the world.