Joy to the World! (Christmas Sunday)[1] 

INTRODUCTION: One of the indulgences I enjoy periodically is my once or twice a month visit to the new library on Gladiolus, which is not too far from where I live. I don’t go to the library to check out books, nor to use the computers, nor the DVD’s; rather, it’s to their “Friends” section, which is right on the left as you enter. There, they have a few hundred copies of various books that have been given to them that the library doesn’t need or already has.

Volunteers – or “Friends of the Library” as they’re called – run a little used book sale – or “previously owned,” shall we say – with hardly any title costing more than $1, with paperbacks only fifty cents.

I think of myself as one of their favorite customers. Last week when I left, I had eight books – with titles I couldn’t wait to explore, all for $8 – and as one of the last of the big tippers, I gave them the extra $2 from the $10 bill I paid with. Because I now own them, I can write in them, underline statements I like, and put little tabs for areas to refer back to, and also a tab for where I stopped reading last. And no worry about a return date.

I came home so proud of myself. I took them out of the sack, placed them on a shelf and looked intently at this latest addition to my library. Then I pulled them down one at a time to scan them before reading them later. Half were hardback and all in great condition.

-- There was Frank McCourt’s ‘Tis, which I had been wanting to read every since I heard his book on tape, Teacher Man, and read Angela’s Ashes.

-- Then there was a big, almost new, DayBook, with readings for each day of the year – just as the New Year is arriving.

-- A small paperback of Lincoln quotes, in which the author of the text researched the statements Lincoln made that revealed his leadership qualities.

-- There was a book I hadn’t heard of by the physician who wrote Kitchen Table Wisdom.

-- Another was on world politics.

-- And another one was one of Robert Schuller’s lastest books. Years ago, I happened to attend a service of his in Pomona, California, when he still had the Drive-in Church. He had just received from his publisher, copies of his first book on possibility thinking. I bought one and had him autograph it for a colleague. This was quite recent.

As I was thumbing through the others, I came to the last one – a somewhat small book, that I couldn’t even remember securing. The title: The Joy Diet. Like you, I initially thought it was a book on food and dieting…how not to eat so much and how to take off those extra pounds. But as I scanned it, I realized differently: One of the first lines I read said, “This book contains instructions for a different kind of ‘diet,’ one designed not for the body but for the soul.’”

Suddenly, it dawned on me: My sermon title this Sunday is “Joy to the World!” How fortuitous that I would purchase a used book on “joy,” the week before my sermon. I mean: Is there a God or is there a God! It was not only the joy of finding eight books I wanted for $8, but one of them was on my specific sermon subject today!

So what did it add to the topic: Joy to the World?

SCRIPTURE.

As we know, there are four, mini-biographies about Jesus in Christian scripture – I call them “four-corner” Gospels. They all see things from a different perspective. Only two have birth stories. And only one has a choir of angels – what Luke calls, “a multitude of the heavenly host” – and together they sing, “Glory to God in the highest, and on Earth, peace, good will toward men <and “women,” we would add>.”

And in the Christian tradition, this is a moment of great joy, when Jesus was born of Mary, in the little town of Bethlehem, in a barn, in the place where they fed the animals – “a manger” – as the King James Version describes it.

It is from this humble scene that we get the event we celebrate this week on Dec. 25^th, to commemorate that birth, though the actual date of Jesus’ birth is not known. Some thought because of shepherds herding sheep and Wise Men traveling, that it must have been in the Spring or Summer. In the year 354 ACE, the Bishop of Rome began to observe Dec. 25^th as the appropriate date, but it was more to fill the void left when pagans converted to Christianity, and in so doing lost one of their best kept and wildest holidays. Orthodox Christians, observe Christ’s birth on January 7^th, 13 days after the Roman date.

But neither is actually the date; the point is the story and what we’ve made of it. The appeal of its poetry may have been lost to many of us; but the attraction of its message has survived for lo these almost two millennia. And so we gather once again to listen…to listen…to listen.

Martha Beck, whose book on “joy” I referenced earlier, writes that, virtually every ancient tradition holds that there is a point of perfect stillness at the center of our being. “From this still core of the self, this infinitely fertile emptiness, springs all that is authentic about us!”

And the point of the angel story is not to get us to believe in angels; rather, it is to say that if we were to be confronted by such a situation, our response would most likely be one of awe and quietness…listening. We would tap in to that inner source of stillness.

It’s not so that we could “believe in angels,” but to imagine the authentic sense of awe we would feel were we to experience something so vivid and unreal. For certain, we would be still…quiet…and we would listen.

It’s a little bit like the story I heard about the young boy who was given his grandfather’s prize watch for Christmas. Not only was it “Grampa’s” watch, but it was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship.

The next day, the boy proudly takes it in and out of his pocket several times to check the time. Since it’s winter in Maine where he lives, he’s surrounded by snow as he walks around. Then he reaches in his pocket, and guess what: He’s lost his watch. He panics and begins to search frantically for the priceless watch, but he can’t find it!

Then another idea comes to him: He gets down on the ground and is as silent as he can be. He begins to listen ever so intently for the tick of the watch…and sure enough there it is, lying in the snow where he had dropped it.

 So how do we tap in to that inner core…that silence: We have to get as quiet as possible to listen. And when we do, it will be a listening for silence, for quietness, for that center of stillness. Without knowing our center, we’re like a giant ship on the sea without navigational equipment. We go here and there on a whim. We stop one thing and do another. Always on the move, but without focus and direction. The message of Christmas, the inspiration it seeks to proclaim is, listen.

I read once of Helen Keller’s visit to hear a popular singer. You remember that she was both blind and deaf. After the performance was over, she and her aide went back to the singer’s room, where he performed one of the major pieces on the program just for her alone. As he sang, she was less than five inches away from his face. She put her fingers on his lips as he sang, and her hand on his throat. After he was finished, she smiled largely and said, “I heard!” She listened!

In fact, Helen said in her autobiography, written when she was only 22, that, “I try to make the light in other people’s eyes my sun, the music in others’ ears my symphony, the smile on others’ lips my happiness.’”

She listened. And so can we. It’s a message that says we are of infinite worth. Our lives, our gifts, our story is unique. And even when the balance to life seems to have been skewed, we may need merely to find that quite moment…that special place…and listen.

That’s especially important at this time of year when our culture and economic system are so dependent upon us spending money we don’t have to spend, borrowing money we can’t pay back, and still feeling it’s not enough. It’s especially hard this year due to the Great Recession.

Joyce Schaffer told me of working at the McGregor Clinic last week to put used clothing on hangers so their 700 or so patients can choose the five pieces they’re allowed. She said there was also a small amount of toys still needing wrapping for the children who came with their mother or father for treatment. That’s a different kind of Christmas.

Last night, Doug and Dianne Cartwright, Joyce Ramay, Bill and Donalie Benyak, and I all attended a special dinner for those who had worked together for the Nations this past November; many of you were among those who worked so hard to make it a success. The images of those with so little are so real.

This is also a tough time emotionally for many. Despite all the hype…the music…the celebrations, there are still some for whom this is not a joyful time. Maybe it’s a loved one missed…a job lost…or family far away. So how do we make it through Christmas…through New Year’s, and into the New Year ahead?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in the Prison Chronicles, of his years in a Siberian gulag:

“The bitter doesn’t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold and if hunger and thirst don’t claw at your sides. Rub your eyes and purify your heart, and prize above all else in the world, those who love you and wish you well.”

CONCLUSION

Twenty years ago, while living in Norman, Oklahoma, on a cold Christmas Eve morning, I bit down on some cereal and broke a tooth. I’d just moved to Norman and not yet found a dentist. So I called a friend in Kingfisher some 60 miles northwest. His office was closed, but he agreed to open up, and put on a temporary cap for me, which he did.

Afterwards, instead of returning home, I decided to drive South, over to the Golden Age Nursing Home in Guthrie, Oklahoma, where my mother was residing. I had told her I wouldn’t be up to see her until Christmas. But since it was so close, I was confident it would be a neat surprise to pop in on her unexpectedly on Christmas Eve.

When I walked in to her room, I was stunned to find her lying with her arms tied to the sides of her bed. She began to cry as I untied her. Mother had suffered a stroke several years earlier that had paralyzed the right side of her body, leaving her with severe “aphasia.” That meant that on rare occasions she could say what she wanted, but most times, it was pure gibberish.

After I had been there awhile, Mother indicated that she wanted me to play the Cassio keyboard we children had bought her. Mother had started playing a pump organ at church when only 12 years of age, and had continued to play the piano until her stroke.

Now though, she wanted me to play and for us to sing Christmas carols. So as the snow fell outside her window, I played chords and Mother and I sang the songs of Christmas. Of course, she could no longer carry a tune, nor say any of the right words. But to my memory it was some of the most beautiful Christmas music I’ve ever heard.

We had just finished singing Joy to the World when Mother said the only recognizable words of my entire visit. As clear as a bell, she said, “Oh, son. God’s so good to us.”

I was absolutely stunned. Only a half-hour ago, she had been tied like a dog to the bed. Now she was talking about how good God is. I wanted to say, “Why, Mother! You can’t walk. You can’t talk. You can’t even go to the bathroom by yourself. Dad’s gone, you don’t have a house or car anymore, and you’re lying here on this little half-bed, unable to read or even to watch television. How can you possibly say, ‘Oh, son! God’s so good to us?’”

But instead, I put my arms around her and hugged her, and told her I loved her and that she was a wonderful mother.

In a little while I left, promising to come see her the next day, Christmas. As I drove back home to Norman, I reflected on what I had just witnessed, in relation to my own life. I was going to be alone on Christmas Eve for the very first time in my life. My children were all going to be with their mother. In fact, it seemed like everyone I cared for, had other plans, none of which included me. As a result, I was committed to having a giant-sized pity party, for poor, pitiful Wayne.

But as I drove back in the snow, I realized that I had just witnessed the wonder of the Universe, which is this:

Each of us, no matter who we are, has the capacity to look the most daunting obstacle in the eye, face the bleakest horizon possible, and utter our own words of faith, our own good tidings of great joy, or as Mother said, how good God is.

2,000 years ago, the followers of Jesus had no clue where Jesus was born or when. They knew he was grindingly poor, and that poor people sometimes had babies in the strangest of places. But they refused to accept that his birth, or his life were inconsequential. To a dark and dank manger, they added adoring shepherds, and to the shepherds, an angelic chorus, and to the chorus, an Ode to Joy.

That birth says to us today that in the face of life’s most distressing events, we too can have a song in our soul and hope in our heart. We too can sing a hymn of faith at Christmas time.

Shalom. Salaam Aleikum. Amen. And blessed be.