This Christmas Eve sermon reflects on the teachings of Jesus, the work of Christmas, and wonders about the Herods of today.

Merry Christmas everyone! We’ve come to the still and quiet hour of the year once more. The longest night has passed only a short time ago. The light is lengthening our days. We call for peace from our hearts. We gather around our tree, with sparkling light in the air, and music on our lips, waiting for a child to be born – once again – in our minds and souls – a child – a hope – for this troubled world.

We come together in community. Kindling just a little more wonder in our lives. We sing carols that bring us back to our childhood. We teach our children how to sing joy into our neighborhoods and our homes. Expectation becomes a virtue in this season of miracles. Grace can enter our lives at any time. We wait with hushed voices, or a smile on our lips. May good will prevail. May there be peace on earth. May it begin with us – again and again.

The story of the manger, happens after the passing of the longest night. Often, we think of it in terms of the story of hope overcoming the darkest night. But the dark of night is given too little credit in our busy, frenetic world. The long nights of the year give us pause. The noise, and work, and bustle of the daylight hours slow to a contemplative pace. We’re more thoughtful in the dark, more tentative, more deliberate. This night, the dark is not a fearful thing, the dark takes on a hopeful, wise presence. Maybe the dark is always such a force, but on this night, our hearts turn so that we can rightly know it for its depth.

It’s a time of reflection, of yearning for wisdom, of making space for the important things – the important people – in our lives. The beautiful lights we trim our homes and our streets with, aren’t overcoming the darkness, the darkness is highlighting the beauty of our spirits when we are the most poetic, the most artistic. Awe and wonder are sometimes easier to see in the dark. …The stars the wise men followed, could only be seen in the dark.

So with all the sound and noise that easily distract us in our fast-paced lives, let us be present to the lessons of the dark of night, taught in this story from ancient times. At the time of Jesus’ birth, we hear a story of a ruler who is willing to sacrifice the infants of a town, to protect his own power and life of extravagance: The wants of the most powerful, taking precedence over the basic needs of the most vulnerable. The very birth story of Jesus is a clear repudiation of the false gospel of wanton greed, of baseless ego. Salvation is wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. The great and the powerful are the villains of the Christmas story, and take no part in the nativity scene.

The Herods of today… take away health care for low-income children, to afford extravagance for those who have so much already. As the baby Jesus lies in the manger this night, we are watching CHIP (Child Health Insurance) being defunded in the dead of night. Low-income families, much like Mary and Joseph in tonight’s lesson, will be turned away yet again, when they’re in their most need.

The Herod’s of today… take close look at the refugee children coming into their towns, fearful that they may signal the end of their reign of greed. As Mary and Joseph seek refuge for themselves and their child, we wait with the young Dreamers – children born in our country – fearful of being deported to a land they never knew, a land they’ve never even been to – wondering if our nation can become big enough to match its highest aspirations.

The Bible teaches these stories, not as a singular theological lesson separate from the world we live in. The bible teaches these stories, these stories have life to generation after generation, because they speak to a spirituality that is embedded in human community. The adult Jesus will teach us that however we treat our neighbor, is how we are treating Jesus. It’s so important a teaching, that it’s one of the few things he says straight out, and not couched in a parable. The baby Jesus, silently draws attention to his family, in need, who are turned out again and again from inns with no room for these poor migrant workers.

If we ever wonder what role we would have played in the manger story, we only need to look to how we respond to the refugee, to the migrant worker, to the child in need of care, to the poor just trying to get by in a world that closes door after door to them. If this is hard to sit with, if this is uncomfortable to hear, remember that the baby Jesus would grow into a man who made a vocation of making people uncomfortable; uncomfortable to inequity, uncomfortable to greed, uncomfortable to corruption of the powerful. He survived the Herod of his day, to teach others to notice the Herod’s of their day. The manger story happened 2000 years ago, and it happens anew in each generation. That is why the bible teaches this story, again and again.

And then the wise men came, the three kings from the East arrived toward the end of the story. Wealth, and power, and privilege would be the last to the witness the new birth, not the first. The three kings are mostly silent figures in the story, aside from deciding not to betray the young family, and turn away from Herod’s prodding for the location of the refugees in the manger. …Is that why they were wise, listening to the warning of the angel to turn away?

Earlier, we heard a poem, “The Riding of the Kings” by Eleanor Farjeon, that as best I can find was written somewhere in the first half of the 20^th century. She lived from 1881 to 1965.  “And one was old, and one was young, And one was in between. The middle one had human sense, The young had loving eyes, The old had much experience, And all of them were wise.” And all of them were wise…the poet disconnects wisdom from human sense, from loving eyes, and from experience. Three traits many of us would consider marks of wisdom. “Oh, far away in time they rode Upon their wanderings, And still in story goes abroad The riding of the kings: So wise, that in their chosen hour, As though the world they filed, They sought not wealth or place or power, But rode to find a child.” Their wisdom was not in what they achieved, or what they might have been previously known for – their wisdom was shown in the central choice of the Christmas message: Not wealth, nor place, nor power. They sought out not what was fleeting, but rode to find a child.

May we once again this Christmas, return to quiet of the dark night. In the longness of this night, may we find hope for newness, birthed in the most unlikely of places. May we grow to be the innkeepers who choose not to turn away those in need. Where we are wise, may we seek not what is fleeting, but what is eternal. Merry Christmas.