Year A Christmas 1, 24 December 2022 A People of His Own

Year A Christmas Eve I,  December 24,  2022

St. James the Less Episcopal, Ashland, VA

“A People Of His Own”

Collect: O God, you make us glad by the yearly festival of the birth of your only Son Jesus Christ: Grant that we, who joyfully receive him as our Redeemer, may with sure confidence behold him when he comes to be our Judge; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Old Testament Isaiah 9:2-7

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light; 
those who lived in a land of deep darkness--
on them light has shined. 
You have multiplied the nation,
you have increased its joy; 
they rejoice before you
as with joy at the harvest, 
as people exult when dividing plunder. 
For the yoke of their burden,
and the bar across their shoulders, 
the rod of their oppressor, 
you have broken as on the day of Midian. 
For all the boots of the tramping warriors
and all the garments rolled in blood 
shall be burned as fuel for the fire. 
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us; 
authority rests upon his shoulders;
and he is named 
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 
His authority shall grow continually,
and there shall be endless peace 
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it 
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore. 
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. 

New Testament Titus 2:11-14

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all, training us to renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

The Gospel Luke 2:1-14-20

In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see-- I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest heaven,

and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" 

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us." So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

We have arrived at Christmas! All the joys and all the excitement culminates tonight! 

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; 

those who lived in a land of deep darkness– on them light has shined. 

You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; 

We celebrate the coming of the long-awaited Messiah, prophesied about for centuries and millennia before his birth, Jesus came quietly into a scared and hurting world.

One of the great gifts of Jesus coming was that we could broaden our horizons, gain a greater view of what life is about, and make our families bigger by bringing in those that used to be strangers or even enemies. Thanks be to God!

In our Gospel reading you hear a story you know well. We hear about Joseph and Mary having to go 90 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem. With Mary being so very pregnant we tend to tell the story with her riding a donkey, but that is never mentioned. She may have; I hope she did, but we have no way of knowing. 90 miles is a long way on or without a donkey for anyone, especially someone about to give birth. So this couple, alone, vulnerable, and far from home, are in a stable with a newborn. How desperate they were.  

And then the story takes a turn. We are introduced to some who God wanted to be a part of this singular event.

…there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see– I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." 

God sent an invitation. God sent it to those who were so low they were the only ones who might look up. Now you need to erase the pictures in your heads of beautiful kids dressed in bathrobes and towels wrapped around their heads in our Christmas pageants.

In the faith of the Hebrews, being spiritually clean was tied to physical cleanliness. That is probably where we got the phrase, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” And these shepherds were some of the lowest paid in their society, and they were unclean. Spiritually and physically, because of what they were doing when Jesus was born. That funny little phrase, “keeping watch over their flock by night” means something. This was when the ewes, the mommy sheep, were giving birth to the lambs. The shepherds were there, all day and all night, to assist in the births of the lambs. The mud and muck, the filth and the blood, all the messiness of the birthing of the animals covered them, and they would have been seen as Unclean. They would have to bathe and cleanse themselves before they would be allowed back into normal society. Which makes this whole story more miraculous. No one on earth would pick them, but God in heaven most certainly did!

God wanted to make sure that the ones NO ONE ELSE WOULD INVITE were specifically invited. He had a choir of angels proclaim to people that would never have been on anybody else’s list for any party. God wanted them at the party. God still does.

Friends, Jesus was born not to make good people feel better about themselves. God sent Jesus, his only begotten son, because he loved us, all of us, and wanted us to be with him forever.

Jesus came to take away any excuses, to take away any barriers. Those who are seen as Outsiders, unclean, messed up, sinful, despised, anyone can find a way in. Jesus even called himself the Open Door. (John 10:7, Revelation 3:7-8) He is the one who lets in who he lets in, no matter what anyone else says. Thanks be to God!

In our reading from the letter to Titus, a line affirming this jumped out at me…

[Jesus Christ] it is who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds.

Jesus came to take away any possible reason for anyone to not come in, or as Paul said to Titus, “redeem US from all iniquity and purify for himself a people…”

Jesus came to make a people for himself. Jesus came to bring us home, all of us who would follow him and be, as St. Paul put it, “zealous for good deeds.”

Over my life I have been so blessed. I have been able to travel three continents working and being blessed with relationships with other brothers and sisters in Christ. I have been welcomed into homes to break bread or have a cup of tea. I have been welcomed into pulpits at some rows of log benches at camps and in glorious cathedrals to share the word of God. I have been cared for when I was sick. I have been celebrated when good things happened. But it is not about me.

And who am I? A child of a humble, widowed school teacher, who am I to have had the experiences I have been gifted with? On my own I am nothing. In Christ, I have everything!

The last few weeks we have welcomed bishops and guests from Europe and Africa. Our new bishop even declared that he would want to be a part of this community if he did not have to care for a whole diocesan community. Many of you fell in love with our dear brother in Christ, Father Nana Kessie from Kumasi, Ghana. You welcomed him into our church, he preached from our pulpit, some of you broke bread with him and heard and shared stories. I even heard the words “We adopted him!” from more than one mouth. 

This is what we are talking about. Nations when they began to be formed were different. Groups used to be seen as a singular tribe, people bonded by blood and culture. Tribes would band together to make peoples, and peoples became nations. There would be cultural and biological similarities that became most important.

But Jesus came to erase all that. Of all the world religions, Christianity is the only one which does not require its adherents to worship in the language of its founder or founders. As clergy, I have taken Greek and Hebrew to help us all understand and follow Jesus better, but it is not requisite. Jesus came to make a people, a nation, an ethnos, of his people. People he claimed, not claimed by some grouping of tribe, people, or nation. 

The Church, literally the “called-out ones,” have been “Called Out” to be a people separate of culture, unrelated by blood. We have been bound together by Jesus’ blood, not our own. He redeemed us to make us one. One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. We are called to let go of the binding of our cultures and our bloodlines, to cherish them but not to be bound exclusively to them.

When I am in Liverpool next summer, or Ghana the summer after that, I am first a follower of Christ and a priest in his Church, though my passport says I am a United States citizen. I know my first allegiance is to Christ, and any other tie is secondary.

Nana Kessie is my brother, and together we relished our commonalities and our differences. He joined with my family, and we hung ornaments on our Christmas tree. He had never done that. And we gave him the joy and the honor of putting our angel atop our tree. The smile on his face said everything. He LOVED it. We took a picture together, him in his new Santa hat, smiling from ear to ear. We do not become less of who we are, but we broaden our horizon, we expand our worldview, and our family increases beautifully as we grow in Christ. 

We are a people of Christ’s own. And it is a beautiful thing.

Shepherds, unclean and covered in filth are invited in by angel choirs.

Kings bow their heads in honor to him, bearing gifts fit for royalty.

The wretched refuse on so many teeming shores are brought into homes they never knew they had.

The mighty are humbled, and the humble lifted up.

Christ came to bring a great reversal, an upturning of the way things have been, an invitation to the way God wants things to be. 

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; 

those who lived in a land of deep darkness– on them light has shined. 

You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy.

The lowly, the wise, the poor, the rich, the big, the small, each every one, God loves us all and claims us as his own. And that, simply, is the message of Christmas. Amen