Sunday
December 27
The Gift of Faith
By Marsh Chapel
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Preface
The birth of Christ places before us a new possibility.
We can live in a new way.
“Christ is alive and goes before us, to show and share what love can do. This is a day of new beginnings. Our God is making all things new”.
You can continue to live in the old way.
Or you can live a different life, living the gift of faith.
Paul’s Christmas Gospel
Paul writes to the Galatians: But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption, as children.
Paul of Tarsus rarely is mentioned at Christmas. He never saw Jesus and knew almost nothing of the birth. Or of birth. Of Christmas, he says only: “born of a woman, born under the law”. (Gal. 4) A human birth, still in the dark shadow of religion.
Paul is our earliest, best witness to the primitive Christian church. Yet he says nothing about any of the things we take for granted in this season: Mary, Joseph, manger, Bethlehem, shepherds, Kings, Herod, Rachel weeping.
In fact, you may have ruminated a little about how Paul might have approached our reading from Luke 2: 22-40, composed some thirty years after Paul’s own (legendary) death in the Roman coliseum. How would the celibate rabbi have thought about Mary and a complicated birth?
More basically, more biologically, how would a man like Paul have connected, if at all, with the multiple nursery scenes found in the first three gospels?
You will admit, if pressed, that there are few things more bemusing than listening to men talk about child birth. All the gospels and almost 2000 years of Christmas sermons fall beneath this judgment. What do we know about it?
And Paul?
How can men–how could Paul–possibly fathom the pain, change, and transformation of childbirth? Especially when this birth is not just birth but–Incarnation?
Which brings us to Christmas 2020 and the stunning news that Paul, more than all, “gets it”! Better than virtually any other piece of the New Testament Paul names the Christmas Gospel with utter precision in Galatians 4: 4-7.
This verse of Holy Writ, read for this Christmas Sunday, places a claim on you and me. If Paul can “get it”, if Paul can receive the grace of Christmas, the gift of faith, and faith is ever and only and always a gift, then there is hope for everybody. Especially for you this morning if you feel at some distance from the Christmas traditions, the old stories, the church’s habits and patterns. Especially if you feel, that is, a little on the outside. Come COVID, we are all, by some measure, on the outside. Here is Christmas. And Christmas is all about God’s love for the outside. Paul—what a friend we have in Paul!—changed, was changed, became a changed man, in the full morning light of Christmas.
There is a place, a bit earlier in his collection of letters, that gives us the full picture. In the earliest piece of our New Testament, 1 Thessalonians, as he describes his happy relationship with one of his first churches, Paul offers us a glimpse of the gospel, the Christmas gift of faith. We will lean on Thessalonians to interpret Galatians. Paul wrote, For we were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. For we were gentle among you, like a nurse taking care of her children. It is Christmas testimony that we can live in a new way!
The coming of Christ changed Paul. Christmas changed Paul. From Pharisee to freedom fighter. From lawyer to preacher. From religion to faith. From law to gospel. He has been given the “wings of the morning”. There is no other way to interpret his self-designation, a Christmas nametag if ever there was one, here in 1 Thessalonians. Nurse.
Paul refers to himself and his way of living as “gentle as a nurse”. Gentle? Paul? Apparently so, at least now and then. And then, “nurse”. In our COVID era, we readily and rightly and with great gratitude and respect think of heroic nurses, first responders. It is right for a quiet moment, here, just to think of all that nurses and others have given, to us and others, this year, 2020. And now some receiving vaccines, a modern miracle if ever there was one, even as we converse here this morning. Yet here, in Paul’s letter, the word does not refer to white gowns, medical degrees, stethoscopes, or medications. It means the other kind of nurse and nursing, the nurse-maid. We learn this, even without reference to the Greek, from the rest of the verse, a “nurse caring for her children”. The word, ηπιον, means wet nurse or nursing mother. The image so jarred one early copier, one early scribe, so much, that he added an extra letter to one text to “clean it up” and change the meaning. Paul is staggeringly clear, however. He describes himself as a wet-nurse, like a woman nursing a child! Paul, that is, is referring to his own new way of living as a kind of nursing, as intimate, physical, personal, vulnerable, self-giving. As in, well, as in nursing a child.
You may find this astounding, that one who could speak so harshly of his opponents in Galatia (it is Christmas and we will avoid a direct citation) could understand himself by analogy with a mother and child in the moment of nursing. If the birth of Christ can move Paul that far, how much more can Christmas do for you and me!
A generation ago, I discovered, James Clarke had a similar insight, writing about Paul’s self-designation as a nurse maid:
Here is conversion in great might. It is easy to think of Paul as the missionary who made Europe and Asia his parish and lifted Christianity out of its Palestinian cradle; as the warrior who fought the good fight of faith and whose sword seldom rested in its scabbard; as the statesman who conceived vastly and executed daringly; as the theologian who handled the huge imponderables and grand peculiarities of the faith with ease and judgment; as the personality, powerful and decisive, who cut his signature deeply into the life of his time; as the mystic who beheld the faraway hills of silence and wonder, and whose great theme was “union with Christ”. But it strains the imagination to picture him, who was so imperious, in the gentle and tender role of nursemaid. Truly there is no limit to the converting power of God in Jesus Christ. (IBD loc cit)
Yet Clarke climbs only half the mountain. Yes, it does astound our imaginations to picture Paul as a mother with a child at the breast. What is doubly astounding, however, is to realize, fully to intuit, that Paul understood himself this way! Paul understood himself this way! Paul, at his most converted, could see his life in a new way, a marvelously new way, as different from all he had lived before as a nursemaid is different from an imperious religionist.
Paul may not have known the account narrated in our reading from Luke 2 today. He may not have had any more idea than we do about the exact nature and detail of these birth narratives. He probably would have been somewhat surprised by their imaginative peculiarity.
But the meaning of Christmas he fully knows. Paul ‘gets it’.
Your Christmas Gospel
And, so may we, mais oui, may you and I, ESPECIALLY, if you are not easily or closely enthralled by magic stories, birth miracles, speaking wombs, nursery rhymes, and angel voices. Paul hears the truth of it all, and his life changes. Ours can too.
Paul may not have known the Christmas stories we do, but his pastoral life embodied the incarnate love of God in Christ, physical intimate, personal, vulnerable self-giving, gentle as a nurse-maid.
Ours can too. Yours can too. You can live in a new way. You can.
It is the way of the turned cheek, the offered cloak, the second mile. It is the way of love for those who are not lovely. It is the way of the love of enemies. It is the way of forbearance. It is the way of tenderhearted forgiveness. It is the way of prayer for those who persecute. It is the way of God, who is kind to God’s ungrateful and selfish children. Gentle as a nurse…
A famous leader, once, and sadly, scornfully disdained the “turn the other cheek approach”. You had to wonder whether his Methodist Sunday School had shown him Paul’s letters. Maybe he was absent that day.
Christmas gives birth to the daily, very real possibility, starting again for you at noon, the real potential that you can live in a new way. Christmas gives birth to the life and death decision for or against Jesus, for the new path or the old.
If Paul can “get it”, all can. This is the change that God works (GOD works) in the human heart. The God who said “let light shine out of darkness…” It is the gift of faith. Faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the word of God.
We live in age of violence, even global and extreme violence. Certainly cultural, verbal, rhetorical violence. But this is Christmas! With Luke we may marvel at the mystery of Christ. But with Paul we may practice the partnership of the Gospel, living as gentle as a nurse with her children.
We can live in a new way. The world does not lack for promise, but only for a sense of promise. But how?
Three Applications
First. We can live as those who look forward to a gentler world community. In a year, 2020, of manifold and multiple difficulties that included environment, virus, government, race and loss—pollution, pandemic, politics, prejudice and pain, we can afford to listen to the strange language of the Bible, and of Paul. All of us listening this morning, liberal and conservative, democrat and republican, urban and rural, blue and red, hawk and dove. We can all share the horizon of hope for peace on earth, good will to all. We can look out for ways to “soften the collisions” that will come in our time. As Inman says, in that great old novel Cold Mountain, life is riddled with “endless contention and intractable difference”. Collisions are virtually inevitable. But they can be softened.
Our guide here is the great quintessential liberal British philosopher, Isaiah Berlin:
Collisions, even if they cannot be avoided, can be softened. Claims can be balanced, compromises can be reached: in concrete situations not every claim is of equal force—so much liberty, so much equality; so much for sharp moral condemnation, so much for understanding a given human situation; so much for the full force of law, and so much for the prerogative of mercy; for feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, sheltering the homeless. Priorities, never final and absolute, must be established.
Of course, social or political collisions will take place; the mere conflict of positive values alone makes this unavoidable. Yet they can be minimized by promoting and preserving an uneasy equilibrium, which is constantly threatened and in constant need of repair—that alone is the precondition for decent societies and morally acceptable behavior, otherwise we are bound to lose our way. A little dull as a solution you will say? Yet there is some truth in this view.
Not just some truth, much, much, much truth.
Second. We can work toward a gentler local community, in the heart of the city, in the service of the city. More than you know, you transform the culture around you with every act, every choice. Remember…
Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill made low.
He shall feed his flock like a shepherd.
And the glory, the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
And all flesh shall see it together.
Since by one man death came, so by one man shall come the resurrection of the dead. (my favorite)
Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him!
So, they received Christ. Here is a door held. There is a criticism softened. Here is a preparation made. There is a courtesy extended. Here is a listening ear. There is a gesture of welcome. As we follow our course let us not become coarse.
One Christmas decades ago, when we lived in NYC, Lily Tomlin produced a single actor play. One night a street person stumbled into the theater and was treated roughly. She made the paper by stopping her performance, guiding the man to center stage and quietly addressing the audience: “Let me introduce you all to–a fellow human being.” She gave him a seat.
At our best, Marsh Chapel and this community both set a fine example of liberal gentleness, even gentility. (That is a compliment to you, by the way. Just so you know.) It is not just what you do that counts, it is how you do it.
At our best, we can live together, watching over one another in love, and treating one another “as gently as a nursemaid”. Men and women both. I can be even more personal. The Christmas Gospel in its Pauline cast directs me as a minister. It gives me the courage to be, to be a pastoral administrator, and to be so with gentle care. Now I will admit that the phrase, “pastoral administrator” is something of an oxymoron, two words that contradict each other. Like jumbo shrimp or United Methodist. Either you are pastoral or you are administrative, tender or tough. But here is Paul, the Great Tough Apostle to the Gentiles, identifying his way of being with that of a woman, a tender mother, breast feeding her kids. That means time spent. That means some tolerance for untidiness. That means a willingness to admit imperfection, some fruitful slobbery sloppiness. That means a habit of being that is more rounded than rectangular, more organic that engineered, more maternal than mechanical. That means not to worry when things aren’t perfect and not to listen when others want them immediately perfect. Life is messy. Community life is particular messy. That means a willingness to go the second and third mile, as you would for your infant. That means risking getting bitten. That means burping and wiping and holding. And especially that means a fierce focus on the future of now young life! That sounds like hard work! Manger work. Nursery work. New Creation work.
Third. We can become gentler people, one by one. Christmas too can become a season as gentle as a nurse. Someone wrote, mimicking, yes, Paul, in 1 Cor 13:
If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another decorator.
If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to my family, I’m just another cook.
If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home, and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to my family, it profits me nothing.
If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend myriad holiday parties and sing in the choir’s cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.
Love stops cooking to hug the child.
Love sets aside decorating to kiss the spouse.
Love is kind, though harried and tired.
Love doesn’t envy another’s home that has Christmas china and table linens.
Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.
Love bears, believes, hopes, endures all things, and never fails.
Board games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust. The gift of love will endure.
A Time to Choose
This is the spiritual change that God (and God alone) works in the human heart. “Born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth”. Here are the birth pangs of the new creation.
Gentle globe, gentle community, gentle soul.
Are you ready to live in a new way?
For their parts, the ancients were caught off guard. So the Kings meandered, the shepherds shuddered, the cattle were low and lowing. There was no ready expectation of Jesus, a poor Messiah. No, there was no prepared expectation for God touching earth in a manger. “A smoking cradle”, said Karl Barth, is all we have of Christmas. How about you? Are you ready for Christmas? That is, are you, as did Paul, able and willing and ready to receive the gift of faith? That is, are you, as did Paul, able and willing and ready to receive the gift of faith?
Merry Christmas!
-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean of Marsh Chapel
