Christmas Eve

There are no Bah Humbugs tonight.  For those that joined us through the Advent season, we journeyed through Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol.  Ebenezer Scrooge was encountered by the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future as his ice solid heart began to melt.  Through his visits from these three spirits, he learned that joy does not come through the self security of money.  Joy comes from engaging the community around him, using his resources as a means to bring healing and wholeness to others. 

One small voice, one small person, impacted him the most in this transition from selfish greed to overwhelming joy and that is the child of his employee, Tiny Tim.  Tiny Tim, gathers with his family on Christmas Eve, unable to walk without the use of a crutch, and even in his weakness, even in his slowly dying body, he proclaims:  God Bless Us Everyone. 

God bless us everyone.  God has blessed us everyone.  As the Angels break forth in the night sky and proclaim the Good News to the Shepherds that a Savior has been born unto them, the proclaim that this is good news for all the people.  All the people, extending away from Bethlehem, away from Jerusalem, away from Israel, to the far reaches of the land where the kings of foreign lands understand that they too are invited to witness what God is doing in the world. 

Mary and Joseph may have found no room in the inn, they may have had to dwell in a lowly stable stall, but God was not keeping this birth a secret.  There are no bah humbugs here, as shepherds are amazed and go with haste to see if what the angels have told them is true.  There is movement, there is hope, there is amazement, there is a sense of the sacred, the divine, the amazing power of God in this moment of time. 

God bless us everyone.  Ebenezer Scrooge emerges from his former self, a man on a mission, a man filled with life, because he finally understands, he finally gets it, he finally embraces that life is about community, about relationships, about blessings, and so he sings and he dances and he goes out into the streets and he goes to his nephew’s home and asks to be invited in.  The doors are opened, and a new day begins for Ebenezer and his nephew and for Tiny Tim.  Ebenezer learns that Christmas is more than just another day, a day, he would say is one without pay.  But rather, he learns that Christmas is a day that brings new life, a day where he falls in love with life, a day where, in his opinion, meaningless traditions fall away, but a day when he becomes family.  He does not just reach out to help Tiny Tim with costs for medical care, but, the story tells us, he becomes like an uncle to Tiny Tim.   They build a relationship, they become family. 

Christmas is the new day.  God has opened the door of love for all of us to receive.  We are all invited in.  We are to engage the community, and build relationships, and embrace the blessings, and leave the bah humbugs behind.  A baby has been given to us.  Babies are easy to fall in love with.  Will we this night, tomorrow day, find the gift of new life given to us in this baby?  Will we fall in love with him, fall in love with life, fall in love with the good news of God’s blessings?  For the message of Tiny Tim rings out above and beyond the bah humbugs, God Bless us Everyone.  Amen.  

Advent week 3: Who needs Joy?

“Bah Humbug, who needs Joy?”

            Bah Humbug, who needs joy?  Not Ebenezer Scrooge, or at least he does not think he does.  He has built up such an incredible emotional wall around himself that he feels nothing.  But that wall is beginning to crack after visits from the ghost of Christmas past and the ghost of Christmas present.  Now, the third ghost is upon him, the ghost of Christmas future. 

            What is the future?  Is it a predetermined path that we are all set upon?  Or can we influence our future in how we make choices in the now?  As Scrooge is tormented by this ghost, as he faces the reality of his own death, he cries out asking if this is the only outcome to his future or if there might be another way.  Is this the way it shall be or is it the way it may be?  Scrooge does not like what his future holds and has awakened within himself that he is ready to change, if only it is not too late. 

How can this be connected to the Advent theme of Joy?  There is no joy, only the fear of death. 

            Isaiah 35: the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom.  Scrooge is not the first one to experience a dry and empty life.  The prophets spoke of a better future.  They did not believe that the future had to be the reality of their current situation.  They believed through God, through a life of faithful living, God’s creating power for this world .  The prophets sought to bring hope to the people, that their future was not barren, but life giving. 

How is it that God can work out of death to bring new life?  How is it that God works out of barrenness and brings a new future?  How is it that God chooses the hardest places in the world, in our lives, to break in and create flowers and fruit and life giving resources?  Advent is all about the ways in which God is at work in the world to change the future into something full of life.  We move closer and closer to Christmas day, where we celebrate the fullness of God’s light in this world, we move out of the darkness, we move out of the despair, we move out of the fear, into the promise that God is still creating a future, a future for the Israelites, a future for Scrooge, and a future for us. 

Scrooges’ future, if he remains chained in fear, has been determined and he will die a lonely, mean, cold hearted man.  But, but, the future has not yet been written, and Scrooge has choices.  As he fights not just the ghosts that have visited him over the night, he has to fight his own inner demons.  He has to choose to let go of everything that he has built is life around.  As he sheds these things, as he chooses life over death, he finally understands joy.  According to Matt Rawle:  Joy is a passion filled experienced.  Joy is the steadfast assurance that God is with us.  Joy does not mean being happy, but joy is awakening to the understanding that no matter where we are in this life journey, God is with us.  In the midst of our tears, in the midst of our pain, in the midst of the worst news we could ever receive, God is with us. 

As we examine the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, each of the ghosts meets him where he is.  He is home, he is in bed, he is broken and unrepentant, but they come to him because his future does not have to be that way.  God is with us, and God meets us where we are.  Whether we are in the wilderness, or the dry land, or the desert, our future is not determined.  Taking the time to actually slow down and think about our actions and the ripple effect that they have upon the world is a spiritual act.  Just as a bell reverberates its toll out into the world, the bells that awaken Scrooge to a new future, our actions reverberate out into the world as well.  God calls us to make those actions, actions of faith, actions of love, actions of kindness. 

Today, in a couple of little ways, we are changing the future for the better.  What if, what if we did not have the toy march today?  What if, what if the deacons did not purchase sweatshirts for those facing challenging times in the Dover area?  What if.  What if we only focused on ourselves?  But we don’t.  We look out into the world and we see places and people that are facing hard times and we give.  And in our giving, we change the future.  Our love is reverberating out into the world, to families that can now give their children a few more toys for Christmas.  Our love is reverberating out into the world, to men living on the streets. 

Joy, the steadfast assurance that God is with us.  As we share the good news of the Christmas season, that Emmanuel has been born, that God has entered into our world, that God has been, is with, and always will be with us.  Perhaps, perhaps, we are a little bit like Mary.  Perhaps we can be those that bear Christ into this world, so that others can feel within themselves a movement, a movement of joy, leaping within them, just as the infant in Elizabeth’s womb leapt in joy as soon as Mary greeted her cousin Elizabeth.  Or perhaps, perhaps, just like Scrooge, you have felt something within yourself leap, something within yourself move, and called you to pay attention to the joy in your midst. 

Scrooge awakens a new man.  A man grateful to be alive, a man ready to celebrate life, a man ready to change the future.  He is ready to be the rain that falls upon the dry land so that the flowers will bloom.  And he has a specific family in mind.  He must do something, he must do anything, he must do everything within his power to give Tiny Tim a fighting chance to survive.  

Advent Week 2: The Redemption of Scrooge

Matthew 3

Bah Humbug, Who needs Peace?

Bah humbug, who needs peace? 

Scrooge doesn’t need peace, he has created his own.  He has insulated himself in a fortified bubble of his own financial security that guarantees him peace.  How many times do we wish we could do the same?  Insulate ourselves into our own bubble of peace, keeping the worries and concerns of the world away?  Every time I go on vacation, I joke about how great it would be to sell the house and just move to tropics.  To just ignore all the pain of the world and just be, just soak in the sun, eat yummy food, swim, read books, that would be the life. 

The bell tolls

Bah humbug, who needs peace?  Pop, the insulated bubble around Ebenezer Scrooge pops, as the bells toll and the Ghost of Christmas Present beckons him to come and hear what is happening in the world that very night.  Earlier in the night, Scrooge has turned away from his office men seeking donations for the poor, he had said: —the poor have only themselves to blame and would be better off dead.

So when he is visited by the spirit of the present, he is admonished to “look!” He must really see the truth of the suffering world and his own hand in it.  One of the places he is taken is to the home of his worker:  Bob Cratchit.  There, Scrooge gets a glimpse into the life of this family.  Poverty suddenly has a face, a connection, to Ebenezer, this is a direct connection to someone he knows. 

 ‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, ‘tell me if Tiny Tim will live.’

Ghost:   ‘I see a vacant seat,’ replied the Ghost, ‘in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.’

 ‘No, no,’ said Scrooge. ‘Oh, no, kind Spirit. say he will be spared.’

Ghost: ‘If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other will find him here. What then. “If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.’”

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

Pop, the bubble of peace Scrooge had fortified around himself no longer exists and he is overcome with penitence and grief.  Amazing what happens when we see how our life, how our choices, can directly impact the future of someone else. 

            In those days, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness proclaiming;  Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.  Repent, come and confess your sins.  I love the song from Godspell:  Prepare ye the way of the Lord.  What must we do to be prepared?  John calls us to repent and confess our sins.  The Kingdom of God is drawing near, the Prince of Peace has arrived, we desire to welcome him into our hearts, into our homes, into our lives and so we must prepare. 

            Whether Scrooge knows this or not, his heart changes, he makes the connection that his actions have consequences and he does not like what he sees.  And so he is overcome with penitence and grief.  Peace begins with us, it begins with how we view ourselves in the greater web of life.  Our choices, our actions have a ripple effect out throughout the world.  Whether it is the food we buy, the clothes we wear, the things we throw away.  It all ripples out and impacts others.  Just this morning on the news, there was a spot on truckers and the person interviewed stated:  we put profits over lives as he spoke about how tired so many drivers are working the long hours that they work.  Profits over lives.  That is the message of the life of Ebenezer Scrooge and if we are willing to see it in the world today, it still rings true. 

We don’t have to live that way, the Prince of Peace calls us not to live this way.  Just as Scrooge began to have a change of heart, we, as the people of God can model a way of living where we seek to do the least amount of harm.  It is not easy, but we can begin to be a part of a change to be more responsible consumers where we put the lives of others first. 

Open us to your miracle just begun

and in this season transform us into those whose giving

brings peace in a turbulent world.

Blessings sent us from above guide us on our way.

We raise our voice as we rejoice, bow our head and pray.

A miracle has just begun. God bless us everyone!

Two] candle’s light dispels the night; now our eyes can see.

Burning brighter than the sun, God bless us everyone!