The Church of the Advent - Sermon by Fr Gray, Christmas Eve 2007

I hope this doesn’t shock you too much, but clergy are not really big fans of holidays. Fr. Warren reminded me after my ordination five and a half years ago what he had already discovered – that I as a priest would most likely work every Sunday and every holiday for the rest of my life. No more weekends, no more holidays off. And besides that, it’s the same thing every year. It’s like the little girl who went to see the nativity scene in the center of town with her grandmother, and said, “Isn’t Jesus ever going to grow up? He’s the same size that he was last year.”

So I think this forced labor on holidays combined with the repetitive nature of the celebrations breeds a wicked streak in us clergy. We long for something different, for something slightly askew. Now you never know what’s going to happen at the Christmas Pageant with children, and ours this year was great, but it was still the same old story. We want something to happen like it did at the Christmas Pageant at the church across town. At that church, the part of the innkeeper, the man who turned Joseph and Mary away because there was no room in the inn, that part was assigned to Terry, a fourth grader. But Terry didn’t like the part. He came from a friendly and hospitable home, and visitors were greeted heartily and nobody was ever turned away. Every time Terry practiced his part he almost cried, he felt so bad, even though the teacher explained that he was just playing the part. So on the day of the performance, Mary and Joseph walked across the stage to the door of the inn, and Terry answered their knock. There was a sob in his voice as he told them: “No room.” But then his true feelings came to the surface, as he through open the door, and exclaimed, “Oh, come on in anyway, and have a drink.”

Something new, something different, something to help us really see it again, when we’ve seen it again and again, when we’ve heard all about it. Something interesting that we can ponder. Just enough to grab us one more time. I remember a couple of years ago right around Christmas, what was helpful to me was the release of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as a movie. Maybe you hated it, but my guess is you saw it. And maybe the Chronicles of Narnia resonate with you as they do with me. All I need to do is think about Aslan, and I start choking up. Maybe you’re like that, too. So maybe it was as difficult for you as it was for me to hold back the tears as the movie progressed, from the opening scene of the Blitz and Edmond rushing back into the house to save the picture of his father, to the closing scene of Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy stumbling out of the wardrobe. And who knows, maybe the movie helped you open your eyes as it did me, maybe it helped you open your heart as it did for me, maybe Narnia helped you realize as it did me that the problem wasn’t with my work (being a priest), the problem wasn’t with the same old same old story, the problem was me, the problem was my own heart, the problem is our hearts of stone. How easy it is to let our hearts, our lives, how easy it is to allow them to become like Narnia under the White Witch, where it is always winter, and never Christmas. And so we carry around these hearts of stone, this heavy burden of self-justification, of self-creation, and we refuse to weep because we are reluctant to be transformed. We’re all so sincere in everything we do, but we avoid the truth at all costs. And if anything is to be done about it, we need not only something interesting, we need something powerful, we need something good, we need something true to change our hearts.

But that was a couple of years ago. And come on, in many respects, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is as familiar a story as the one we hear every Christmas, that we celebrate every Christmas, about this little baby born in Bethlehem. And besides, I have my own baby to attend to. Besides our almost four-year-old boy, I have a two-month old baby girl, and all that comes along with a two-month old baby girl. Now our little daughter Eleanor is great, she has certainly been eating well, being in the 98 th percentile for weight, so that’s not an issue. And in fact, she’s not a bad sleeper for being an infant, but if you have children, being an infant who sleeps well does not necessarily mean your infant is a good sleeper compared to the normal adult, or a child for that matter. So I’m tired. I’m distracted. What I look forward to most during the day is going to bed at night, as I carry our little girl back and forth, back and forth, in our living room in the evening, while my wife Naomi collapses on the sofa, thankful for a few minutes respite from baby duty.

So I have baby on the brain, but maybe not the baby I should be focused on. But I don’t think many people would begrudge me a free pass this holiday, not having to think about it, ponder it, too much. I’ve established I know the story, I will be doing this every holiday for the rest of my life, and I have a responsibility to my family. So I deserve a break. And my guess is that your situation isn’t too different than mine. Sure, you may not come a lot during the year, but you do on Christmas and Easter, so this is surely the story you know, and you’re busy, too. You may not have kids, or infants, but you got your busy lives, with not a lot of time to ponder.

That’s why I’m thankful for the Archbishop of Canterbury. Fr.Warren and I have decided that the writings of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, are extremely enlightening at times, and profoundly confusing at others. We have both had the experience of reading a page of his prose, only to realize at the end of the page that neither of us had the foggiest idea what he was talking about. But he’s worth reading, and you can imagine my delight when I discovered that Archbishop Williams considers The Simpsons one of the most important TV shows ever made, not simply because it’s funny, but due to the fact that The Simpsons is “one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue." And after a hard day at the office, Archbishop Williams goes home, and the first thing he does is flick on the TV, and watch the antics of America’s favorite animated family. Now that’s my kind of Archbishop!

So I try to pay attention to what he says we should pay attention to. And a few years back, he recommended, of all things, a fantasy trilogy, written at about the teenage level by Philip Pullman, the trilogy called His Dark Materials, which is a line taken from Milton’s Paradise Lost. Now I thought that was sort of curious, the Archbishop would recommend a fantasy trilogy, but I became even more intrigued when I discovered that Pullman apparently wrote this trilogy as a response to C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. That in fact, it was an explicitly anti-Narnia tale. So here’s the Archbishop of Canterbury recommending a fantasy trilogy that is at odds with the apparent message of Narnia, the message that I received loud and clear when I was a child and read the books, and two years ago when I saw the movie. The very same story that helped me hear the story we’ve heard again tonight in a fresh way. And Pullman challenges that, and the Archbishop of Canterbury suggests that I read it.

So I read the trilogy a couple of summers ago, while we were on vacation. And there’s nothing that I can really add that hasn’t already been said – it’s well-written, engaging, and disturbing. Disturbing on all sorts of levels, particularly in terms of theology and doctrine. And again, there’s nothing on this that I can add that hasn’t already been said, but I remember what disturbed me most was Pullman’s portrayal of what basically passed as the church in this created world. It was a church, in a sense, without redemption. In Pullman’s world, it was winter all the time, so to speak, and there would never be a Christmas. The stories the church told were all lies. Lies designed to control those who heard the stories, rather than freeing them. And it’s better to stare winter straight in the eye, rather than wish for some sort of sweet by-and-by like Christmas. Because nothing like Christmas will ever come, and to teach it, is to breed a lie that is used by those who teach it for control. If it’s always going to be winter, then prepare the people for winter. Tell them to bundle up. If our insides are like stone, if our hearts are rock, and there is no hope of change, or at least change from anywhere but our own hearts, then get to chipping away at that heart, get to work. Stop looking for help from the outside, because those who say they will help are going to do anything but. So get to work.

And then I went back to work. I went back to work, and more than a year has passed since I read His Dark Materials. But then the inevitable happened, as it seems like it does with any fantasy story nowadays – the first book, The Golden Compass, was made into a movie. Now I haven’t seen it, (remember I have a two-month old, I’m not going anywhere!), but I saw the previews, and it looks good, I mean, it has two polar bears in armor fighting each other. How can it not be good? But I haven’t had the opportunity to see if the movie would cause the same disturbance in me that the books caused.

But sometimes, all you need is a preview, a glimpse. It was one of those nights recently, we had the television on, and I’m walking back and forth, back and forth, in our living room at night, holding my little girl, trying to give my wife a bit of a break. And the preview for the movie comes on, and I make a mental note to add it to my Netflix request list, knowing that the chances of me seeing it in the theatre are slim to none, but I remember something else, too. I remember that disturbance, that question, “What if it’s all a hoax?” What if it’s all a lie? And I look down at my little girl. What am I going to teach her? What am I going to show her? Lord knows she’ll see enough Christmases, being a pastor’s kid, but what difference will it make? Is it truly always winter? And is the idea of Christmas, the story of Christmas, is it at best, wishful thinking, and at worst, a rather dangerous thought to place in someone’s head, when it doesn’t match reality at all?

There were so many great scenes in the movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but the one I like best didn’t actually make it into the movie, or at least not the dialogue. It was edited out. I wish it hadn’t been, because I think it answers at least a little bit the questions that Pullman presents. It’s that great moment with the Beaver’s when the children asked Mr. Beaver about Aslan the Lion. “Is Aslan quite safe?” “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “‘Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” And if you remember the rest of the story, this unsafe but good King knew what to do with stone. This king knew that being made of stone wasn’t the end, no matter what the White Witch said. So Aslan breathed on those who had been turned to stone, and they came alive.

My brothers and sisters, our God is good, and our God is grieved at our hearts of stone. But our God is also unsafe, very untidy, and so he decided to do something about our hearts of stone. Not to punish us, as Pullman would seem to suggest, but to breathe on us, to give us the very breath of God through his incarnate Son, Jesus Christ, to turn our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, hearts that courageously embrace Christmas in the midst of winter, and despite the odds, show forth a way of living that cares for others as God cares for them. And we can only do it if our hearts are changed, we can only do it if our lives are transformed.

And God doesn’t stop there. He not only wants you to have a heart of flesh towards others, towards your neighbor, towards your friends and family, towards your enemies, God not only wants you to have a heart of flesh towards others, he wants you to have a heart of flame towards him. The living God wants you to be aflame with love towards him, as he shows us this night what it means for him to be aflame with love for us. God’s flame of love has been made flesh, so that our hearts of stone can become hearts of flesh for others, and aflame with the love of God. It starts this night. Let it start for you this night.

You’ve come on a very dangerous night, my brothers and sisters. For this God that we worship is not safe, but he’s good. And he’s the King. So let him give himself to you this night, and give you the heart that he has always wanted to give you, to give you the life that lives in God’s abundance, and let God ignite your heart with his love, the love that he has revealed to us in sending his Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.