SERMON: "Joy is Our Resistance"

A Christmas Meditation
Alongside the Community Church of Durham

Sunday, December 24, 2019

Luke 2:1-7

1.

Banksy: Bethlehem

“In those days,” says the old, old story, “a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.”  Decrees and manifestos and tweets: emperors are all about manipulation and control; they’re all about intimidation and fear.  So in those days, a decree went out.  Let’s not miss how very specific Luke is, in his storytelling tonight: how very precise he is in situating Mary and Joseph and their pilgrimage in a dangerous and oppressive and vulnerable moment in time.  “In those days, a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.  And this was the first registration and was taken,” says the old story, “while Quirinius was governor of Syria.” 

Friends, this isn’t just another tableau from the “bleak midwinter,” and it’s not just a sweetly mystical moment in the “midnight clear” either.  Augustus is the Roman Emperor.  Quirinius is the Syrian governor.  And they’re registering folks who are unregistered; they’re documenting folks who are undocumented.  And this is how empires operate.  This is how empires exercise control.  This is how they animate their base. 

So Mary and Joseph wander a landscape governed by fear, organized for conquest, exploited by tyrants.  And when the time comes, when that holy moment arrives, when earth and heaven embrace, Mary gives birth to Jesus in a cave, maybe in a manger, among the other common animals.  Because that night, there’s no room for a poor couple in the inn or in any other shelter in town.  You can bet that Augustus and Quirinius are safe and warm in their tall towers and their white houses.  But Mary and Joseph and Jesus spend that first night in a cave. 

Close by his cradle, Mary

Bravely the secret sings:

Love is a sea of sorrow.

Love is a broken wing.

Love has no guns, no forces.

Love cannot win a battle:

And love is everything.

That’s the Christmas story, my friends.  Captured in a 21^st century carol (“And Love is Everything,” 2012, J. Mary Luti).  The power of Christmas is not the power of intimidation or violence.  The power of Christmas is not the force of argument or the rhetoric of contempt.  The power of Christmas is Mary’s song, the kindness of a broken heart, the perseverance of a beloved community.  “Love cannot win a battle: / And love is everything.” 

Tonight, our story is a story of love embodied in a poor couple determined to raise a family in a cruel and divided world.  Tonight, our story is a story of love embodied in a young revolutionary whose only weapons will turn out to be mercy and generosity and love.  It’s a sweet and wonderful story, but it is not an easy life or a comfortable journey. “Love cannot win a battle: / And love is everything.”  Augustus and Quirinius and all the tyrants of history will dismiss Jesus and mock him and in time even spit upon him.  But they will prove powerless to silence his teaching, his message and our good news.  Because Christ is born in Bethlehem.  And because Christ is born in refugee camps in Syria and detention centers along the Rio Grande.  And because Christ is born in us, in our compassion, and in our commitments to the common good.  The good news is not a victory march: the good news is a love song.  It doesn’t make us mighty, and it doesn’t make us right.  But this good news names us, and it claims us, and we are made new.  Christ is born in Bethlehem; and Christ is born in you and me. 

2.

So, if I can be so bold, I want you to walk out of here tonight aware of this great mystery, and awake to this great mystery in our own time and place.  Augustus and Quirinius would have us believe that the world was made for tyrants, that the planet is powerless to overcome their madness and meanness.  But we’re called not to concession, but to confession.  Christ is born in Bethlehem; Christ is born in you and me.  And we’re called not to despair, but to joy.  Joy is the great resistance in the church.  Joy is the love that takes root in our souls and rises into fruition through action and service.  I want you to walk out of here tonight: awake to this mystery and alert to God’s call in your lives.  You are called—even in this generation, especially in this frightened generation—not to despair, but to joy.  And tonight, I know this for sure, you’ve got it in you!  Every one of us does.   

So, friends, what we want to say tonight—heck, what we want to proclaim and sing tonight is this: Joy to the world!  The Lord is come!  The wonders of God’s love meet the madness of empire, and the wonders of God’s love resist madness with kindness.  The wonders of God’s love meet the cruelty of tyrants, and the wonders of God’s love resist cruelty with compassion.  

Tonight, we believe, we know that heaven and earth embrace.  And there’s nothing Augustus or Quirinius or any orange-topped tyrant can do to stop it.  Heaven and earth embrace.  In the brave light of a hundred candles.  In the joyous reunion of old friends.  And in our prayers for one another.  Heaven and earth embrace.  In the desert where mothers and fathers rush their children across borders to new life.  In the plains country where indigenous activists fight without violence for safe water to drink and good land to live on.  Heaven and earth embrace.  In caves where babies are born and tears come tumbling town and new dreams take shape. 

So enjoy tonight: with all of its lovely darkness and dancing light.  Enjoy tonight: the company of good friends and the welling of gratitude in your heart.  And then, when you rise tomorrow morning, when your feet hit the floor, look out the closest window you’ve got and know that you are needed.  Know that the world of God’s blessing needs your joy, your kindness, your belief and your love.  Know that the church—this one, right here—know that the church needs your creativity and commitment, even your fierce and unsettling compassion.  Edgy’s OK!  Passion’s good! 

For heaven and earth embrace.  And Christ is born in Bethlehem.  And Christmas, my friends, is not just an night or a day or even a season.  Christmas is our way of life.

Merry Christmas!