Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth
The Fourth Sunday in Advent
December 21, 2008
CHRIST AT THE CENTER: THE FAMILY OF
FAITH
WHEN THE SHOPPING IS DONE
Scripture: Luke
2:1-20
INTRODUCTION
Back in the 1990’s, a friend
gave me an article from The Times Union newspaper in
“Wesconnett resident Debbie Kozloski
and her husband Mike tried to emphasize the spiritual reasons for Christmas,
but they discovered that their five year old daughter needed some coaching.
As the family was unwrapping the
nativity set, little Kara asked the question: Why do we have all this God stuff
for Christmas?
The parents reminded her about the
birth of the Christ Child and what happened during that first Christmas a long
time ago.
The young girl thought for a moment,
then placed the Baby Jesus inside the stable and stood the others – Mary and
Joseph, the shepherds and angels and wise men – in a straight line. She looked at her mother and father and said the
Baby goes here – and all the customers line up outside.” (From “Bob Phelps’ People,” The Times Union,
Jacksonville, Florida, December 11, 1996)
I
Well, that child will pick up
the story as she grows older. But the
truth is, there are far too many people who forget, ignore or just don’t know
the real reason for this season. To
them, Christmas is a shopping spree, trying to find the best buys, standing in
long lines waiting to purchase the merchandise that they want but probably do
not need.
One of The New Yorker
cartoons that I have shared with some of you during this Advent Season pictures
a department store scene with clerks at the cash registers, customers walking
around and a woman sprawled on the floor with her bags spilling out. The caption announces from a loudspeaker
somewhere in the background: “Main floor, aisle six, ladies’ scarves. Shopper down.” (The New Yorker Collection)
Tragically, that actually
happened three weeks ago up in
“Thanksgiving wasn’t even over yet
when shoppers looking for Christmas bargains began gathering outside the Green
Acres Mall Wal-Mart…The crowd grew all night, swelling to more than 2,000 just
before the store’s scheduled 5 AM opening.
Then the restless throng started pushing against the sliding glass doors
with their shoulders and pounding with their fists. Suddenly the doors shattered and the mob
surged through in a blind rush, crushing 34 year-old Jdimytai Damour, a
temporary Wal-Mart worker who was trying to keep the crowd in check. But the 6-foot-5, 270 pound Damour was simply
no match for the frenzied shoppers who trampled over him. He was pronounced dead about an hour later…
‘Enough already,’ said Derrick Jackson
in The Boston Globe. ‘When someone dies
in a stampede for the bargain bin, it would seem like a good time to reassess
the difference between what we want and what we need.” (From “The Week” Magazine, December 12, 2008)
Did you hear that my
friends? “The difference between what we
want and what we need.” I think that we
as Christians need to be careful about our own shopping sprees, we need to be
prayerful about our own Christmas rush anxieties; as Christians, we need to ask
God, as one little boy prayed at bedtime, to “Forgive us for our Christmases as
we Christmas against one another,” and we need to repent if during Advent, any
of us have slipped into materialistic behavior and lost sight of the birth of
our Savior.
So if you have come here
today looking for the way to the Manger, if you want to find joy in the journey
toward Bethlehem, if you are searching for hope in these hard times, and desire
peace in your heart, soul and mind, then listen to these words from the
Presbyterian poet Ann Weems, words that I believe can lead us in the right
direction:
“What
do I want for Christmas?
I
want to kneel in
The
air thick with alleluias,
The
angels singing,
That
God is born among us.
In
the light of the star,
I
want to see them come,
The
wise ones and the humble.
I
want to see them come
Bearing
whatever they treasure
To
lay at the feet
Of
Him who gives His life.
What
do I want for Christmas?
To
see in that stable
The
whole world kneeling in thanks
For
a promise kept:
New
life.
For
in His nativity,
We
find ours.
(From
“Kneeling in
The
II
That is what happened during
the first Advent Season as Joseph and young Mary, who was nine months pregnant,
made their way toward
Marcus Borg and John Dominic
Crossan, in their book “The First Christmas,” describe the scene for us:
“Luke imagines
Now as much as I love to sing
“Silent Night” on Christmas Eve, Luke’s story implies there was a lot of
commotion in that little town of
At the end of the day, when
the angel announced to the shepherds that the Savior had come, and suddenly a
host of angels burst forth into a song of praise bigger and more glorious than
the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Luke says that the shepherds went with haste to see what had taken place – the first
Christmas rush! So that was not really a
quiet day nor was it a silent night a long time ago in
But then, when things calmed
down some and those divinely blessed people – Mary and Joseph, the shepherds,
eventually the wise men, and probably a number of relatives and friends – when
they gradually realized the miracle unfolding before their eyes, I think they somehow
knew that the promise of peace on earth was beginning to come true.
Howard Thurman, the mystic
theologian who had a major impact on the ministry of Martin Luther King Jr.,
Howard Thurman, in one of his most profound poems, pictured that first
Christmas and Christmas still today:
“When
the song of the angels is stilled
When
the star in the sky is gone
When
the shepherds are back with their flock
The
work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost
To heal the broken
To feed the hungry
To release the prisoner
To re-build the nations
To bring peace among people
To make music in the heart”
CONCLUSION
And so it is when the
shopping’s done. I finished yesterday
afternoon and walked out of Lenox Mall, leaving behind all of that commotion
and resolving to focus my heart and soul and mind on
It’s not that the shopping is
wrong, as long as we remember that Christmas should never be confused with what
we think we want, but rather connected to the Lord Jesus and to what He knows
that we need.
With just four days to go,
some of us caught a glimpse of that vision earlier this morning, as more than
700 homeless guests enjoyed a wonderful breakfast here and were given the debit
cards that so many of you made possible for us to share with them – and those
men, women and children went away from our church today with smiles on their
faces and hope in their hearts.
You see, when the shopping is
done, the work of Christmas begins.
During a worship service, the pastor asked the children gathered around
her what difference it would make if Jesus had never been born. She expected answers like “We wouldn’t have
any presents” or “The world would be a worse place.” What she didn’t see coming was the young boy
who spoke up and said “Preacher, if Jesus had never been born, you would be out
of work.”
My friends, these are hard
times in America, with unemployment statistics up that represent real people
who have been knocked down, including those whom we know and millions more that
we will never meet. But we see them all
around us – hurting and struggling human beings who need help. And in the midst of this economic crisis, an
increased number of people I know in our church are spending less on themselves
and sharing more with others, especially the poor across this city.
You see, when the shopping is
done, the work of Christmas begins.
“Christmas is about the transformation
of our world into the world God wants it to be.
Christmas is about our transformation into the beloved community. Christmas is about God’s selfless love poured
out into a world desperately in need of a Savior.” (From an article “Taking Back Christmas” by
Rev. Joan S. Gray, Presbyterians Today Magazine, December 2006)
You see, when the shopping is
done, the work of Christmas begins. So,
let it begin with you and with me.
God of Christ Child born of old
God of frankincense and gold,
God of song-filled starry night,
Fill our hearts with manger light.
God of peace and God of strain,
God of hope and God of pain,
God of sorrow and of mirth,
Grant our hearts a Savior’s birth.
Vic Jameson
In the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.