Though this sermon is from Christmas (almost six weeks ago) the content has a timeliness to it that makes it worth visiting and sharing ... on Christmas Eve, Rev. Shawn paused to consider the power of the Christmas story, and what kind of welcome we would or wouldn't extend to the Holy Family today if they were journeying through the darkness to Bethlehem ... Today the ism's and fears that give rise to acts of violence such as we witnessed a week ago in Quebec City should concern people of faith deeply ... Inaction and silence are no longer viable options ...
The sermon for Christmas Eve 2016:
How different would the Christmas story be today if we were
celebrating the birth of Jabran of Aleppo? Or Jamal of Jalalabad? Or Aseer of
Mosul? Rather than Jesus of Nazareth?
We tend to
overlook the circumstances of the Holy Family and that they were essentially a
homeless refugee family … the baby was born in a stable amongst farm animals
and forced to rely solely on the benevolance of strangers …
Even as a
child growing up in Nazareth, the Galilean village, Jesus’ family would have
real time memories of the scorched earth advance of the Romans through the
region bringing Pax Romana … Pax Romana was not a kind compassionate peace but
was the imposition by force of a Roman peace – all males old enough to fight
were killed or enslaved and hauled away, women were abused and enslaved, homes
were leveled, fields were burned, farms left in ruins and Pax Romana – Roman
Peace was imposed.
Contemporary
writers described Pax Romana as creating a desert in the name of Casear … it is
highly possible that his father Joseph was killed by the Romans in his
childhood simply because he was a male of the right age.
Today, the
scenes from Aleppo, Mosul, and countless other territories of the world where
violence is happening with frightening regularity would be painfully familiar
to the Holy Family … the tens of thousands of migrants and refugees moving
across the face of our planet today are not dissimilar to Mary, Joseph and Baby
Jesus … the circumstances of their lives and world can be found in corners of
our world like Colombia … Afghanistan … Syria … Nigeria … wherever conflict and
violence has oppressed people and broken communities there is a very real
possibility of seeing anew the holy family …
Yet tonight,
in this place and in tens of thousands of churches around the world we
celebrate the birth of a child to a homeless teenaged Arab refugee girl who was
far from home and likely fearing for her future … we celebrate this refugee
family while voices call on our Government to stop welcoming the refugees from
war torn corners of our world …
What if the
baby in the manger had an Arab name?
What if the
young girl who gave birth was wearing a niqab?
What if the
father standing guard through the long dark night looked more like an Isis
militant than a beloved saintly figure?
What if – we
opened our eyes and our hearts and our minds to seeing and experiencing the
discomfort that is central to the Christmas story, and seeing and experiencing how
truly RADICAL the story is even today …
The entire
story from the mom who is too young through to the visitors like the shepherds
who were regarded as thieves and bandits in their world – the entire story is
about turning OUR expectations on its ear and wrestling through the discomfort
of the story to understand fully how amazing the transformative message of
Christmas truly is … we are so familiar with the idealized version of the
nativity story that we miss completely the powerful impact of the message that
God is present in our world in wholly unexpected ways.
Tonight is
about hearing the very familiar story with bold new ears and having the courage
to revelle in the discomforting parts of the story that challenge us today … in
a world awash in refugees and homeless people if we welcome in the Christ Child
and the Holy family we can and must do better …
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