30 th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST The Very Rev. Steven J. Belonick 2015

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1 30 th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2015 The Very Rev. Steven J. Belonick 2015 I. Today, I want to share with you some ideas that I have been thinking about as this wonderful feast of our Lord s birth has been approaching and has come. What got me thinking about these ideas is the statement made by so many well-intentioned people. And that statement is: we need to put Christ back into Christmas. Perhaps, you have uttered such words yourself. I know that I have. And perhaps, we have been justified in thinking this way, given the fact that this feast grows less and less about Christ and more and more about the bottom line for retail stores. II. But after thinking about this expression, I am convinced that the premise is misdirected. To put Christ back into Christmas is, in a sense, to compartmentalize Him. Sure, we remember the reason for the season, but then after everyone has left the dinner table and the 1

2 presents have been exchanged and we have sung every carol we can remember, we do back to our ordinary lives without anything changing in us. We put him away for another occasion. III. Instead, as followers of this Christ-child, we are called to put everything that we are and everything we do back INTO CHRIST, or better said, back under His Authority and Will, back under the One who sustains and gives Life to life. In other words, whether we sing, celebrate, speak, work, eat, or play, everything needs to be united, reconnected, and surrendered to Him. If Christmas has lost Christ along the way, it is because we have allowed all the substitutes to take His place. We have allowed a separation between the sacred and the profane to take place. So, instead of putting Christ back into Christmas, let us find in Christmas the door that reminds us that we have been grafted to Him. 2

3 IV. The Bible says that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. These words are the names for the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. When they are used to describe Jesus, they mean that He is the beginning and the end of all things; they mean that He is the author of all things, and all things find their fulfillment and completion in Him. V. Christmas helps us to discover this. We know that the world of children and the world of adults are often very different. For children, the world is made up of play, songs, laughter, wonder, a sense of security and expectation. For adults, the world is made up of worries, bills, mortgage payments, sickness, retirement concerns, and the like. But at Christmas, for a short period of time, the two different worlds come closer together. The sense of wonder and expectation in children only heightens and deepens. And a change takes place even in adults. You might have noticed it yourselves. During this season, 3

4 we have a bounce in our steps. We are more likely to greet strangers with a Merry Christmas instead of the cold silence of disengagement. People smile more, seem happier, and are more generous to each other. We are more likely to give the benefit of the doubt, and to be more accepting of others, even to strangers. It seems like the weight of our problems seem lifted for a short period of time. In a very real way, we rediscover what it means to be a child again. We dare to think like a child, feel like of child, and experience the wonder of a child. We might even say that we rediscover the child within us, which has been covered over by concerns, anxieties, and cares of the world. We can say that the child within us is the image of God in us. And we are in touch with that child for a moment. VI. Last Sunday about 11 of us went caroling at some of the nursing homes. We went to visit our parish members who can no longer be here in church with us. 4

5 As we sang, other residents, non parishioners, began to gather and joined in singing. You could see the joy on their faces. You could even see the child within them come through. They smiled; they nodded to each other; they acknowledged each other. They remembered the words of the carols. One woman on the Memory Loss unit, began smiling and moving her hands from her heart upward as if she remembered how to pray. It was just charming and deeply touching. VII. Jesus taught us that unless we become like a child, we can t enter the Kingdom of Heaven. He didn t mean that we should act irresponsibly or in a childish way. Instead, He meant that we should have the trust, the sense of wonder, and joy of a child. He meant that we should seek the embrace of our Heavenly Father like we once sought the embrace and protection of our earthly parents. St Paul even makes that point in the epistle that we heard today 5

6 when he wrote that through Christ s birth God the Father has adopted us as His sons and daughters and made it possible for us to call out to Him in shocking informality Abba, Father which means, Papa. VIII. Christmas reminds us of this. Christ came to us as a defenseless, vulnerable, and helpless infant to remind us of this. This is not putting Christ back into Christmas. Rather, it is rediscovering, even for a moment, that we can recover our true self, our lost self, the child of God within, only by clinging to this Christ-child, in Whom we have nothing to fear. When we discover that again, we discover the spirit of generosity, trust, expectation, joy, and love. These are innate in us because God has placed them there. Only in clinging to Him can these wonderful qualities come forth from us. IX. If we only try to put Christ back into Christmas, then He will remain only in December. If, 6

7 however, we put ourselves into Christ, these child-like qualities, these Christ-like qualities, will guide us throughout the year. We will look at everything with the eyes of Christ. X. So, let me greet each of you with the feast. Let me encourage you to observe your children and your grandchildren. Observe how they play, how they relate to other children, how they relate to you, how they laugh, and how they rejoice in life. Watch them in their sleep and in their prayers. And you will not only see the beauty that rests in them, but you will see a glimpse of the beauty that resides deeply in you also. That beauty has its origins and fulfillment in our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen. 7