Christmas Eve reprise: The Friendly Beasts

We've had quite the Christmas at St. Paul's! And the snow began to fall just as we were finishing our Christmas Day worship.

On Christmas Eve, we put a new wrinkle on the singing of an old carole -- "The Friendly Beasts" (Ok, it is my personal favorite; you can hear it by clicking HERE).

We gave children toy animals to bring to the manger. They come up with their animals and I gave them a short children's homily.

Then we led them around the church in a long extended children's procession while we say the Friendly Beasts. When we got back to the manger, the children gave their animals to the baby Jesus. I then finished the homily in the pulpit. The idea of two parts came from my mentor Don Brown, and the photo is by Diane Wakat, showing the children during the homily. We had about 75 kids marching around the church. Here below is my Friendly Beasts homily:

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Merry Christmas!

First, I want to talk to the children, but the rest of you can listen in. So, kids, come up here for a few minutes. Bring your animals, but hold onto them because you are going to help them in a little while.

Tonight you are going to meet the animals that who were there on that first Christmas night. I want you to imagine what happened with the animals on the night Jesus was born.

Do you know where Jesus was born? Jesus was born in a stable, or a barn. He was surrounded by his mother and father and many animals.

Each of the animals brought a gift to the baby Jesus, and tonight I want you to help the animals bring their gifts to the baby Jesus.

In a few minutes, you will bring the animals to the baby Jesus so the animals can give Jesus their gifts. Think you can do that for them?

Let me tell you about the gifts from the animals.

These are not gifts that the animals went out and bought because, of course, animals don't have any money.

There was a donkey whose gift was to carry Jesus’ mother up hill and down so she could get Bethlehem where Jesus was born.

And a cow whose gift was hay for a pillow; and a sheep with a curly horn who gave Jesus a blanket. And a dove who watched and cooed to help Jesus go to sleep.

And there were many more animals too. On that first night, the animals stayed with Jesus, and his parents, Mary and Joseph.

All the animals simply gave Jesus the best of who they were. They gave freely and happily just because they loved this special baby who was God's gift to the world.
The animals understood who this baby was long before the Wise Men came.
Maybe animals are smarter than people sometimes. What do you think?

All the animals are with us tonight to teach us a lesson. They know that Christmas Eve is very special because we all get a very special gift from God that last forever.
On Christmas Night, the animals teach us we are all blessed by God's Son, and they know they are loved by God forever.

If the animals know they are loved, maybe we can learn this too.

We are all loved by God – that is the real meaning of Christmas for all of God's creatures – you and me and all the animals.

In a minute, we are going to stand up, and we are going to march around the church to bring our animals to Jesus.

You are going to help the animals by bringing them to the manger, representing the first gifts on that first Christmas night.

And when we start marching, I hope you will stand up and sing for our children, and sing like you never have before. If you miss a few notes, who cares?
So let’s get started…

[SINGING FRIENDLY BEASTS]

Tonight, I as our children brought the animals to the manger, I am reminded once again what a gift our children are to us.

Our children are reminders that we are all loved by God, no matter our age, our station in life, or what we have done right or wrong in life.

God loves our children unconditionally, and God loves you. No strings attached.
The voices of the Angels declare this love in the starry night, in the carols we sing, in the beauty of creation, in the glow of candles, in the joy we find even in the midst of sorrow and troubles.

And inside all this is the mystery of God's great boundless love that reaches out to embrace you and me.

This love heals and makes possible new beginnings. This love can transform you, and bring joy to the very heart of your life.

This is the truest gift of Christmas; the gift of Jesus brings into our world on a dark winter night. Hold that in your heart this night.

The angel tells us “Do not be afraid,” so don’t be.

To hold Christmas in your heart is to set aside fear, and see that God loves us enough to dwell among us as one of us, to knit us together as one community with many members.

We don’t think alike, talk alike, look alike, or vote alike. None of that is important tonight.

What is important is we are all loved by God no matter who we are or where we come from.

In a short while we will do something to show ourselves as one community, knit together by Christ as the people of God who are loved by God.

We will come together to share in the bread and wine of Holy Communion. I hope you will stay for this, our first meal of Christmas, the first Christmas present given to us.

Whether you have been to Communion a hundred times or this is your first venture into this sacred shared meal, I hope you will take the opportunity tonight to see and taste this bread and wine in a new way.

I hope you experience this Communion tonight as part of your deepest connection to each other and to the God who brought you here, and your connection to a baby born long ago.

So please don’t be shy in coming; all are invited tonight to share in this wonderful communion with each other and the Christ child who comes to us this night.

And don’t let this Christmas communion end for you when you leave tonight. Make tonight a new beginning.

Leave here with new eyes and new ears – for you are Christmas people, and you can see the world in a new way – just as the animals saw the Christ child for the first time on a starry night long ago.

This Christmas season, I would invite you to find ways to deepen your faith, to set aside a regular time each day for prayer, and to join a community of faith if you don’t have one.

If you live here in Charlottesville, and if this experience tonight speaks to you, join us here at St. Paul’s. If you have been away from this church for a while, come back. We want you here with us.

Join us and let’s explore this way of faith together.

May each of you, young and old alike, again know the presence of Christ's blessing and love in your life on this night and forever more. Amen.

Blessings this Christmas Day!

May you be filled with joy this Christmas Day!

Here is my sermon from this morning, based on Luke 2:1-14(15-20):

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

Something happened long ago, something so extraordinary it seemed ordinary at first:

The birth of a baby.

Only his parents knew how extraordinary this was at first.

No wise men came, no shepherds, no disciples, no adoring masses, no one was there but his parents.

The gospel writer tells us this baby was born in a stable; born not into wealth, not

into power, not into social status or aristocratic inheritance.

This baby, like so many tens of millions of babies then and now, entered life in obscurity and relative poverty.

The survival of this baby, like tens of millions of other babies then and now, was not so certain at first.

This baby was born out of wedlock, to Jewish parents living in a land occupied by a foreign power, the Roman Empire.

The mother was barely a teenager; her name was Miriam, or Mary. She was to have an arranged marriage with a man named Joseph, but she became pregnant – and not by him – before the wedding.

Her life was immediately in grave danger.

Joseph was a carpenter, and in those days carpenters made simple implements like wooden bowls and mallets. Carpenters like Joseph led a meager hand-to-mouth existence.

Joseph stuck by Mary when he didn’t have to. He could have had her stoned to death, but instead the two fled their hometown of Nazareth.

The gospel writer gives this a polite patina by saying they were going to Bethlehem to register for a census. Except that historians tell us there was no census. Mary and Joseph were probably fleeing scandal and the judgmental eyes of their relatives.

They had nowhere to go in Bethlehem; either there were no relatives in Bethlehem or none would take them in.

And so they had their baby in a stable – a barn.

There was absolutely nothing outwardly extraordinary about this birth.

Not at first.

Then, the gospel writer tells us, the angels started showing up.

And the angels didn’t come to kings or aristocrats. They came to shepherds in a field, at night.

Shepherds were an even lower class than carpenters. They lived outdoors, they lived with sheep, they smelled. And these particular shepherds had the night watch, the lowest of the low.

The angels came to the shepherds to tell them something extraordinary was happening. The birth of a baby in a stable, and this baby would be the messiah, the one who would bring them salvation and freedom, the one they had been waiting for.

How could that be? This baby? Here?

The shepherds were terrified. We are but lowly shepherds, and look, over there, this baby is in a barn. This is not what we expect. This is very different.

But the shepherds went, and looked, and then they understood. They found the Anointed One, the Christ, lying in a hay trough.

They expected a king on a throne tossing off judgments like thunderbolts, but they got a healer who would lead a life of simplicity, prayer and truth.

They expected a God of war. They got the Prince of Peace.

The truth of the message of Jesus Christ can be heard right here, in the story of his birth. This messiah is different than anyone or anything the world expects. He comes to set people free in their lowest places, their lowest moments, to bring unconditional love and unlimited healing that lasts beyond this world.

What better way for God to tell us this than by coming to us in a helpless baby, born in the lowest caste?

The world of power and politics is turned upside down by this one birth. Everything is now different.

The story of Jesus – his birth, his life, his ministry and his death on the Cross begins this day. So does the story of Easter, and how Jesus after his death appeared to his followers and gave them strength and courage against all odds.

Christmas forms this great bookend with Easter, and truly the two must be seen together.

Those who first saw the Risen Christ of Easter continued to write this story in the way they lived afterwards. The first Christians called this new religion simply “The Way.”

Their story is also our story. We continue to write this story by the way we live our lives.

This way of life, this way of faith, is not just about the afterlife. It is about this life. It is about how we live right now, here, today and tomorrow.

This Christmas season, I would invite you to find ways to deepen your faith, to set aside a regular time each day for prayer, and to join a community of faith if you don’t have one.

If you live here in Charlottesville, and if any of this speaks to you, join us here at St. Paul’s. If you have been away from this church for a while, come back.

Join us and let’s explore this way of life and faith together in this loving caring community.

And then we have work to do, people feed, the sick to comfort, children to rear, and a hurting world that needs every single one of us.

This way of life will change you if you let it. This way of life will change everything in this world if we let it.

This way of life begins today with the birth of a baby long ago.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shined.”

May you have many blessings this Christmas Day and always. AMEN.

Christmas 2010: A Message from Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. —Isaiah 9:2

That's how the first lesson of Christmas Eve opens. It's familiar and comforting, as the familiar words go on to say that light has shined on those who live in deep darkness, that God has brought joy to people living under oppression, for a child has been borne to us. The name of that child is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace — and God is bringing an endless peace through an heir to the throne of David (vv 3, 4, 6, 7).

This year we're going to hear a bit we haven't heard in Episcopal churches before, in that missing verse 5. It's pretty shocking, but it helps explain why the hunger for light is so intense, and the joy so great when it comes: "For all the boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire." The coming of this prince of peace will mean the end of all signs of war and violence. An occupied people will finally live in peace, without anxiety about who or what will confront them the next time they go out their front doors.

People in many parts of this world still live with the echo of tramping boots and the memory of bloody clothing. Many Episcopalians are living with that anxiety right now, particularly in Haiti and Sudan. Americans know it through the ongoing anxiety after September 11 and in the wounded soldiers returning to their families and communities, grievously changed by their experience of war. Remember the terror of war when you hear those words about light on Christmas Eve. Remember the hunger for peace and light when you hear the shocking promise that a poor child born in a stable will lead us all into a world without war. Remember the power of light when you go out into the darkness after hearing those words — and pray that you and those around you may become instruments of peace.

Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors! —Luke 2:14