John says, ''The Word (the eternal Logos, the Christ) became flesh and dwelt among us." Flesh. Meat. Incarnation, which me.ans ''in the flesh," ''in the body." That's Christmas, ''The Feast of the Incarnation." Our God didn't stay up on Cloud Nine, aloof, unscathed by what troubles us in this world. In the flesh.
Sometimes well meaning folk say, ''After all, when you get down to it, all religions are fairly much the same. Right?''
Wrong. When you get down to it, and today, on the Eve of the Feast of the Inca t nation, we are getting right down to it, what Christians are believing sets us totally at odds with any religion I know anything about. We're weird, different, peculiar. We believe, or we are here attempting to believe, that ''The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."
God came among us as a baby, wrapped in rags, lying in a feed trough. Flesh.
It was mid-January somewhere outside Moorehead, Minnesota, a forgettable little motel. He sat next to me at breakfast, ascertained that I was clergy and he was professor at a nearby community college, and then he began to talk. Something had happened to him a couple of weeks ago, on Christmas, and he needed to tell me about it. Now, I’ll tell what be told me to you:
F1ight attendants in Santa Claus hats, plastic holly in their lapels, he said.
''Great, I muttered, settling into seat 5C, my usual seat on the aisle, not forward as to be the bulkhead row, close enough to be off the plane first. Just great, I said, as the plane explodes into bits, we shall be helped off by four grinning Santa Claus' decked with plastic holly berries. This is what I get for flying on Christmas Eve.
I had told Mother, you see, that it would be easier, probably even cheaper to catch an early morning flight on Christmas. But she wouldn't hear of it.
''Your sister's coming early, with the kids and Bob. We can all go to church together after breakfast on Christmas morning. And it is the first Christmas since your Father passed..."
So there I sit on Christmas Eve, ready to race Santa in this 747 commandeered by grinning little helpers offering ''Coke, Sprite, Juice. Beer or wine, four dollars."
I was warned. An unprecedented number of small creatures were being hauled on the plane, all mittoned, stuffed in new coats with drool down the fronts, clutching recent acquisitions meant to pacify them for the trip to Cleveland. Over Illinois and through the Chicago vector to Grandmas's house we fly.
''Say excuse me, Gabriella," a mid-Western, nasal voice whined.
I looked up from my paper to see a small face topped by a sprig of artificial green and red, pushing now persistently at my knees, attempting wordlessly to shove herself into the seats beside me.
''Oh, let me get out and let you in," I said, without a note in my voice to betray my sense of infinite aggravation.
“Gabriella, say thank you," she said as she hauled in enough stuffed sacks to equip an army. Some of these she then proceeded to cram in the overhead bins while I stood in the aisle, then helped her cram, cursing USAir for not enforcing their carry-on rules. I suppose on Christmas Eve you could bring on a herd of cattle if you wished. No. Reindeer.
Finally settling in the seat, she sticks her hand out at me saying, ''Hi! Donna Raphael here and Gabriella. Gabriella, say Hi! to the nice man who helped us with Granny's."
Dear little Gabriella stared at me vacantly. ''Where's Coke?'' she asked. Then she turned and stared out the window, wheezing slightly.
''Her first time to fly," Mom informed the entire plane. ''Just about to bust with excitement. Going to see Granny. Well, her Granny. She's my mother-in-law. My mama's gone to be with the angels. Choked to death a year ago. On Thanksgiving! That made for some Christmas! I said to Gabriella, 'Honey I'm not going through another one again by ourselves. I'll even go visit your Granny Thompson before I do that."
So engrossed was I in this awfully fascinating declaration by Mrs. Donna Raphael that I was surprised when the plane lurched forward down the runway for takeoff. Without warning, dear Gabriella started to shriek. I made out, though her piercing wail, something about ''We die!''
I looked across the aisle for pity and received a sympathetic glance from a young sailor whose eyes said, ''Thank God it's you and not me."
After an eternity, Donna Raphael was about to calm Gabriella by stuffing a full sized Baby Ruth in her. Chocolate now ran down both sides of her mouth.
''I want Granny!'' she demanded through the clumps of Baby Ruth. ''Where's Granny?''
Before we reached cruising altitude I learned of Ms; Raphael's divorce, the location of her duplex, why her brief relationship with the accountant didn't work out, as well as a listing of the various foods which upset dear Gabriella's tummy. She also let it be known that she planned to take a stand, to cut her Granny-in-law off short the first time she made some smart remark about Ms. Raphael's weight.
That evening, he said, I learned the relativity of time. Cleveland, it turns out, is an eternity away. An hour-and-five minutes once airborne can be an aeon in the clutches of Donna and dear Gabriella.
Gabriella had to be taken to the toilet an infinite number of times, once smearing the remains of her Baby Ruth on my new wool trousers, twice depositing animal cracker crumbs in my lap, thrice pressing her encrusted face precariously close to mine. She threatened nausea, eliciting a catalogue from Mom Raphael of all the occasions, locations and contents of Gabriella's previous bouts with this malady. At last she overturned her Diet Sprite, as I predicted.
Descending into Cleveland, Ms. Raphael helpfully recounted to me the details of her former marriage. ''He was a creep," she admitted. "Everybody knew it but me. What can you do?''
''What indeed?'' I agreed.
Gabriella began to whine as we made our approach to the air port. Before we touched down, her whine grew into a wail, something about, ''I don't wanna see Granny!''
At last we landed. I carried a bundle of assorted plastic bags out for the Raphaels. Gabriella had to be dragged, coaxed, then swatted smartly on her laced rump down the ramp into Cleveland. Donna managed, between tugs and swats at Gabriella, one last soliloquy on the difficulties of in-laws after a divorce, noting that love is good in a family, if you can afford it, but guilt also ''keeps some people together like Superglue."
I don't even know you, I kept thinking to myself. This is the penalty I must pay for indulging Mother at Christmas.
I managed to evade a goodbye kiss Donna demanded that Gabriella offer. Planned Parenthood had a new convert.
The next morning, sitting next to mother at St. John's On the Interstate, I was mildly dozing through the service, when words caught my ear, words read by the nasal priest, words until that morning, I had thought to be words of warmth and comfort. Now these words sneaked upon me, struck me as terrible, or wonderful. The First Lesson: ''God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son...." Gospel: ''And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us...." Son. Flesh. Us.
He said, leaning over at me, That's, when you think about it, when you really think about it, in context, that's an odd, frightening, wondrous idea of good news. And dwelt among us.
Notes:
Odd, if one reads today's Christmas gospel carefully, that we should be so guilty of sentimentalizing Christmas. It is almost as if Matthew bends over backwards to paint the birth of Jesus in realistic, utterly mundane, and somber colors. It was an embarrassment, this birth, causing the worlds of poor Mary and Joseph to be turned upside down. He came to a specific people, in a specific place, in a most unusual way. It's all very earthy, mundane, incarnational. This insight into the gospel shall set the tone of our attempt to communicate the Christmas good news in a fresh, engaging way.
Today's sermon is an experiment in indirect communication of the gospel truth. If, as we sing, God is born among us, as a child, in Bethlehem, then all our human weakness, our flesh, has been taken up into God. God has intruded among us in a decisive way. Now, whenever we look upon any other human being, we are gazing upon the site where God came among us, in the flesh. Now, we are made close to God, not by our efforts or actions, but rather by God's holy Incarnation.