ADVENT 4C 2009

Well, the McNairs put up their “Advent” tree this week, and I must say, it is beautiful. It is not one of those pretend trees, but one right here from El Dorado county! As I exist in this time of year, and I have a few miles on my life, I find that I am flooded with memories. Memory is an interesting phenomena, for it captures both detail and feeling, or emotion. Often when I drive over to Sonoma county in the summer and I smell the hills, I am transported back to my High School days. If I drive through a peach orchard on a hot summer day and smell the peaches I can remember my teenage years. During this season I can feel the excitement of anticipation of waiting for Santa Claus. I can feel both the excitement and disappointment at my presents. I can both remember and feel the year my mother died a few days after Christmas, as well as a few years later Kathy’s mom dying also of cancer. I can remember my first years as a priest, coming home from the midnight Christmas Eve service, and helping get things ready for the kids. I remember living Christmas again through the excitement of my kids.

Kathy and I were talking the other night about how, if anyone is over 50, this time of year is mixed with both joy and pain.. pain because many of us have lost people who made this time of year special. It is hard for a preacher to preach at this time of year, though before I started I thought it would be the easiest, because Christmas time evokes so many different powerful emotions. To most young people, it is just plain exciting. However, there are young children to whom this season just heightens their poverty and pain. To parents it can be a time of joy, because they can give to their children, but it can also be a time of struggle when there is little to share and give. To older adults, it can be the time they miss most their mom or dad, or a spouse. So while it is a wonderful and mysterious and fun time for many, the very expectations or memories of the past can also make it extremely painful for many others.

As I struggled with what to say this morning, I could not escape the word “rootedness”. I don’t even know if it is a real word, but the image of being rooted or grounded in life kept coming back to me. As I read the story of Elizabeth and Mary, I could not help but think about their being rooted and grounded in their Jewish heritage and faith. This whole story only makes sense when it is set in its Jewish context. And I began thinking of my own life, how this season makes some sense to me largely because my roots were set in this Jewish – Christian tradition. Family, tradition and culture give us a sense of who we are as well as makes sense of this mysterious thing we call life. Every tribe and culture that has ever existed establishes their own rituals and traditions to give some meaning and sense to life.

As I sat and sat and thought and thought… as this sermon was hard to come up with… I thought how incredibly thankful I am for the Church and its traditions. I love the season of Advent which then explodes into Christmas. They are like a warm blanket which keeps me warm in an often cold world. I cannot imagine this season without being rooted in the rituals and life of the church. I cannot imagine going through Advent and Christmas without being here, in the Church. I can’t imagine living this life without being rooted in the Christian faith.

But it isn’t just the rituals of the church that give me comfort. Rather it is what they convey, or teach. If we listen to the prayers and the words of the songs and hear again the Christmas story, we are forced to go deeper and deeper into the mystery of our human existence, and we are rooted and grounded in who we are as human beings.

As has always been the case, but is becoming more prevalent in recent days, there is the belief that one does not need to “go to church” to be spiritual, or to really be a Christian.

But I for one am truly thankful for the church. Down through the ages the church has often been called Mother Church.. And since my mother and Kathy’s mom died during this season, and since we just read about two Mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, I always think about my mom during this time. Let me take a moment of personal privilege and talk about my moms.

My mother always made the Advent and Christmas season special. I believe that she willed herself to live through Christmas. My folks had moved to Oregon and were living in a nice trailer outside of town in a beautiful setting. Contrary to our normal tradition this year we decorated the house and the tree a week or so before Christmas. Normally we decorated the tree on Christmas Eve, opened one present, and then went off to Christmas Eve Mass. The church would be full and we would sing carols, and when my older sisters were around, often mom would act like a teenager, talking and laughing through the service. She would put on a nice dress, wear gloves and a hat, and some sort of overpowering perfume.

I had a wonderful mom. She was, as I remember her, a complex blend of old, somewhat aristocratic ways and an aging child of the sixties. She loved her children unconditionally. I don’t think there was much we could do to shake her love for us. She was very patient, gentle and kind. As I look back on my life now I can see her trying to gently guide me down correct paths, knowing that I needed direction as I was searching to find myself.

Just about one year before my mother died I acquired another mom – Kathy’s mom. Years after my mother died, at exactly the same time of year, Kathy’s mom died of cancer. We have pictures of that last Christmas, with Mom looking very weak, but gamely trying to eat and participate in the family Christmas gathering. A few days later, she died. I remember her, at 5:00 or so in the morning, making breakfast for Dad and me – I worked one summer on the farm, which convinced everybody that I should be a priest – and Mom was happy and smiling and at great peace with herself. She was always this way. I don’t think I have ever met anyone, except Auntie Kim, her sister, who exuded such peace and simple joy. She accepted me into the family just as I was, and never made me feel anything but a part of the family.

I like to think of Mother church being like these two moms that I had. They shape us and mold us, love us and comfort us, and are not afraid to challenge us with the truth of life. They give us security and warmth, and their strength helps us to face day to day life.

This is what Mother church does for us. . If you are a parent here this morning, I would like to challenge you to not take for granted mother church and her power in molding and shaping and teaching your children. Imagine this season without the church. This time of year would be simply a winter holiday, one which has no more meaning that that fact that it is the shortest days of the year. Sure, we can get together for food and drink and family and friends, but as to any deeper message, there is none!

Imagine this season without the Christmas and Advent carols of hope and longing and fulfillment and joy? Imagine this season without Santa Claus – for he comes from our tradition of Bishop Nicholas of Myra taking gifts to poor children? Imagine this season without any mention of Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and the birth of Jesus?

Of course many cultures and religions don’t pay any attention to Christmas, but we Christians find in this season the birth of our whole faith. Without Christmas, there is no Christianity. Without Christianity, of course, we would not be who we are. Without our faith there would be no Western civilization as we know it. Many of the concepts that we take for granted about our lives would not necessarily exist without our faith.

If the church is our mother, than we are her children. Remember how Jesus said that for a person to enter the Kingdom of God, they must become like a child? Children have a capacity to trust and hope and believe without having all the answers. Can you redeemer back when you absolutely knew that Santa existed? I can remember the Christmas I put out a paper train by the fire place and in the morning it was knocked over. My mom told me that Santa must have knocked it over. I knew without a doubt that he had come… not worrying about how he fit down the chimney, or how he traveled all over the world in one night! My faith was simple and real.

Now some may say this is not a good example of faith, because this faith in Santa was in that which does not exist. And yet I think this simple faith reveals the true gift that we humans have for trust in God and the mystery of life. C S Lewis talked about how the myths of the world exist because they are a reflection of the one, true myth. We have the capacity to believe in Santa because we have the capacity to believe in the unseen truth of existence. A child ‘s ability to trust and believe what their parents tell them reflects our human ability to trust and believe, even in unseen reality.

In one sense, Christmas is for children. Very few adults can capture the excitement of this season that they felt as a child. But in a real sense, Jesus teaches us that our faith needs to be child-like…..At some point, we have to simply trust and believe. Our mother the church provides us with the stories about who we are in the Bible, gives us the sacraments and the rituals and traditions of Christian worship, but for them to make any sense to us, at some point, we have to simply embrace them and trust in them.

For you who are parents here today, my exhortation to you is to not take for granted the importance of the church in the life of your children. Root them and ground them, all the way until they leave home, in the life and traditions of the church. As far as I am concerned, this is the greatest gift you can give them – greater than even a good education. And of course this then means that we adults should root and ground our lives in the life of the church.

I like to imagine the church as a hot house for plants, an environment which is conducive for healthy plants to grow. Within the environment of the church, the spirit of God can nurture and teach us and strengthen us to thrive.

As we celebrate this holy season, we are thankful, then, for the community of faith which we call the church. This Thursday night is Christmas Eve. Let me encourage you, and your whole family, not to skip this opportunity to experience anew the joy and mystery and wonder of God’s love. Bring family and friends. And make the teenagers and young adults come! Together, as the Church, we will celebrate God’s great gift to us, Jesus the Christ, the savior of the world., and in so doing, we will be passing along our faith to generations yet to come. AMEN!