Sermon

INTRODUCTION: The story’s told of Itzhak Perlman who was hit with polio when only four. Despite its crippling effect, he went on to become one of the greatest violinists of our time. But when he performs he walks in off stage with a slow and awkward gait, assisted by braces and crutches. He then sits, places the crutches on the floor next to him, and releases the clasps that hold his leg braces in place.

The audience watches all of this, and they wait while he positions his legs and body, then puts the violin to his chin, lifts the bow and nods to the conductor. And then he starts to play the beautiful music that only he can create.

But on one particular night, Perlman had played for hardly a minute, when there was the unmistakable sound of a string on his violin breaking. When it happened, the conductor stopped, and the audience held its collective breath. Would he now need to put on his leg braces, grasp his crutches and slowly work his way backstage to replace the string? Or would someone bring a string from backstage? What would he do? They waited.

Perlman sighed and looked at his violin and the broken string. Then he put the violin back under his chin and nodded to the conductor to begin the piece again. Perlman closed his eyes and began to play. It was a masterful piece of concentration as he transposed and adjusted to playing on three strings instead of four. His concentration was so intense, and his virtuosity so great, that some thought it was the best they had ever heard him – even on three strings instead of four.

When he was finished the applause was thunderous, wave after wave. Silence finally returned, and Perlman said quite modestly, “Sometimes we must find out how much music we can make with what we have left.”

Let me repeat that if I may: “Sometimes we must find out how much music we can make with what we have left.”

Now it seems to me that what he is saying is about more than playing the violin. But it refers to life and living at all levels. Because I submit than none of us has had a perfect life. None of us has had everything go right. We all have had to “find out how much music we can make with what we have left.”

Today, across America, families and individuals of all sizes and shapes, are preparing for Christmas. But please be sure, that simply because it is the Christmas season does not change the bleak reality that many face. For many, reality is not a jingle-bells moment. It’s not a deck-the-halls-and-be-jolly time. There’s a vacancy, a loss, a pain that can only be glossed over. But down inside, the pain is still real.

So in that context – reality – let’s look for a moment at why it is we continue to believe in Christmas, or at least the trappings of Christmas.

INTRODUCTION TO SCRIPTURE

Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, the tiny nation of Israel was occupied by the mighty Roman army. As any map shows, Israel, located on the Eastern shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea, occupied the crucial corridor between Europe and Egypt, between the North of Africa and the South of Europe. That corridor was the highway for the armies going to and from battle. That meant little Israel was susceptible to whichever great power came through. And any peace was totally dependent upon the powers that be.

But there was something about Israel that made it different than every other nation: They were lousy subjects of Rome. When the Roman Army tried to conscript their young men, they discovered that their new conscripts would not eat army fare – especially pork – nor would they march on Saturday, their Sabbath, nor would they subscribe allegiance to the emperor of Rome.

They had this understanding of themselves as unique…as different…and it shaped their actions and lifestyle. In fact, as a people, they were so unwilling to adapt to the demands of Rome that they kept fighting them. It upset the emperor so much that only thirty years after the death of Jesus, Israel was destroyed on command of Rome and its religious temple demolished stone by stone. So hostile was Rome to Israel that Jews were forbidden ever to return to any part of that area. Truly, Jews were not a go-along-to-get-along kind of people.

Scroll forward 2,000 years to now. For the past almost 60 years, that same region – Jerusalem and Bethlehem – is being bitterly fought over due to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in the land of Palestine – contrary to the edict of Rome 2,000 years previous. And the Palestinians who have been there for so many centuries are fighting not only modern Israel, but also among themselves on almost a daily basis. And Israel just finished a war with Lebanon, one of its other neighbors, only this past summer.

And in one of the travesties of right-wing ideology, in 2003 America invaded Iraq, a neighboring Middle Eastern nation and wreaked havoc upon its people and territory, and now finds itself unable to extricate itself from the quagmire. We’ve wasted billions upon billions and continue to make things only worse. This is all in the region where the Christmas story was born.

So the natural question to ask is, are we supposed to find handholds for living from this self-destructive region? Is this the place that is to point us to a new way of living and a different self-understanding? Is it from here that we are to find a message of peace and hope…a word for the weary…and a song for the soul? Say what?

Why Israel? Why Bethlehem? Why Jews? Why Jesus? Why 2,000 years ago? What about now…here in River City? What is the message? Let’s look at the sources to try and determine an answer.

SCRIPTURE.

Last week I read Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus. Today, I want to read from the Gospel Attributed to Matthew. As I’ve told many times, when working on my doctorate of ministry at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, I went to Israel and the Occupied Territories and visited every site that Matthew purports Jesus visited. And when I went to Bethlehem, it was slightly different from how Matthew depicted it. Instead of a sleepy little town with no one of significance present, armed Israeli Defense Forces were positioned throughout the area. Young Israeli soldiers with weapons and telescopes were upon many of the roofs, stationed strategically throughout the plaza, watching closely for any outward signs of potential violence. Welcome to Bethlehem, 20^th century.

And then at the Church of the Nativity, I stepped down some well-worn stone steps of that ancient church to the place where tradition says Jesus was born. Some big, burly Armenian Catholic priests were repeating the mass and releasing incense. As they did, in the dimmest of light, I turned in my pocket sized New Testament to read these words:

Here’s the jump required: In an evolution that even Darwin would not be proud of, in 2000 years, the story of the birth of Jesus goes from a livestock pen in Bethlehem to the huge commercial enterprise we call Christmas in America today. So many major businesses depend upon sales at this time of year that even a slight dip is deadly, which is why the president said in his news conference this past week that we ought all to go shopping.

n If you’re happy and healthy, Christmas means something very different to you, as compared to someone who is facing serious ongoing health issues. We have both kinds of people here this morning.

n If your work is going well, then you’re feeling one way; if you’re out of work and searching for a job, it’s a different matter. We have both among us.

n If you’re with family and friends you feel one way about the holidays, but if you’re going to be alone, quite another.

n If your relationship, partnership, or marriage is strong, you see life through one set of lens, but if you are in the midst of divorce or separation, as I know some of you are, then it’s very different.

So what does Christmas have to say to all of us, regardless of how things are going in life? What is the Christmas message that we can take away this morning? I think it’s this:

APPLICATION

In the Gospel Attributed to Luke, an angelic choir appears on the hillside and sings to the shepherds about the birth of the baby Jesus. Even though we wish the commercial Christmas wouldn’t start before Halloween as it now does in so many stores, there’s something very special about hearing Christmas music as we shop. Even in sunny Florida, we love to hear about “Dashing through the snow, in a one-horse open sleigh.” Or, “chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”

And children and adult children that we are, we still enjoy the appearance of Santa Claus, and the whole mythic structure of that wonderful fairy tale. Coincidentally, it was a Unitarian theologian at Harvard back in the early 19^th century who wrote the poem for his children, “Twas the Night before Christmas,” which informs so much of our Santa mythology.

But if we look at the Christmas scene told to us in the Gospels, it’s not the wholesome American version. First, Joseph and Mary are grindingly poor. Poverty gnaws at the soul. Second, they had to choose a livestock pen in all of its filth, for their baby’s delivery room. Third, Mary was having a baby conceived out of wedlock.

All of that sounds very American, when we realize that 46 million Americans have full-time jobs but can’t afford the basics; that an almost equal number do not have health insurance; and that an increasingly large number of babies are born outside of marriage and many times without the benefits of two parents.

Yet Christmas is a way of saying that we believe regardless of the situation in which we may find ourselves, we must still find a way to make music.

The truth is that faith is not about changing the world around us; rather, it’s about enabling our response to the world around us. That capacity means making the best of every day no matter the deck we’ve been dealt…no matter if one of the strings on our violin is broken.

I’m sure that everyone here could talk for a long time about what if I had done this differently back when, then how changed the scene would be now. Or what if this had occurred or that had taken place.

That kind of thinking is all wasted time. This is the deck we’ve been dealt in life. And faith says, when one string breaks, play with the strings that are left…make music out of what we have. And beautiful music it can be.

CONCLUSION

One of the many wonderful new couples in our congregation is Jeanine and John Johnes. John disclosed to me a story about his parents that I want to share with you.

John’s father and mother met at a school for the deaf and blind in Idaho, where they both taught. Naturally, they were both fluent in sign language. After a few years of doing that, John’s father was hired as the superintendent at a school for the blind in Connecticut, which he administered for 30 years.

But shortly after retiring, a cancer he thought he had conquered, returned with a vengeance. As his condition worsened, he became bedfast, and eventually he lost the ability to speak. As he lingered, John’s mother who is here with us today, was standing by his bed. You can understand the sense of helplessness that we all feel when we can’t communicate with the one we love…when we can’t have a normal conversation.

As she stood at her husband’s bedside, with the end drawing near, he opened his eyes and retrieved a communication’s mode that they hadn’t used in more than 30 years: sign language. He took his right hand and formed the words, “I love you.” And those were his last words.

So on this Christmas Eve morning, when so many things are right for some of us, and so many things not right for others of us, I want us to take a moment and put our fingers together and form those same words, and turn to someone near and tell them those same words in sign language: “I love you.”

That’s the message of Christmas. It’s why we believe in Christmas. It’s all about loving one another. Amen.

[1] Given December 24, 2006, at All Faiths Unitarian Congregation, Ft. Myers, Florida, meeting at the Crestwell School, 1901 Park Meadows, by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister, fourth in a four-part holiday season series.

INTRODUCTION TO SCRIPTURE

SCRIPTURE.

<Matthew 02:01-12>

APPLICATION

CONCLUSION