Sermon by the Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS
December 24, 2016
A few weeks ago, one of my children asked me, “Mama, why are all the songs on the radio always about love?”
Such a great question. I don’t remember exactly how I answered. I think I laughed a little and said something lame like, “Well, love seems to be awfully important to most people, doesn’t it?”
How do you begin to explain to a child that Love goes so far beyond all those pop songs on the radio? That Love is the single greatest force unleashed in the universe?
We teach our children about the power of Love by showing them, of course. But we also teach them through stories. I think of Aslan, that great lion from the world of C.S. Lewis...and when I sit with Susan and Lucy, burying my hands in his soft fur I can feel a bit of the magnitude of what it means to love. I stand with Hermione and Ron and marvel at the love of Harry’s parents and how it lives on in such a young boy. I continue to watch the unveiling of that long-ago-and-far-away galaxy of George Lucas and have a feeling that something about The Force is also rooted deeply in that great Force of Love.
It’s not just our songs that are about Love. Our stories, too.
The story of our faith began with a love song: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….”
The chorus of God’s creative act of Love echoes through the millennia as we hear the songs passed down through the First Testament.
From Sarah and Abraham, who were beloved of God and cast their lot with the One for whom all things are possible.
To the strong hands of Shiphrah and Puah - the Hebrew midwives who put their own lives on the line because of their love for the next generation, refusing to kill the baby as Pharoah had ordered. To the words of Love whispered by that baby’s mother as she gently hid her son in the reeds, praying that some Divine Force might continue to protect the one she had named Moses.
To King David, who was loved unfailingly and sometimes by God, even though, God-love-him, he never quite seemed to learn how to love well himself.
To Queen Vashti who refused to dance because she loved herself. And Queen Esther who bravely loved her people. To Job’s dear friends who did their best to love him in the midst of strife but mostly just caused more problems.
The prophets sing to us of Love - “Comfort, O Comfort my people….” says God through the prophet Isaiah. And they reveal to us the natural byproducts of walking the ways of love.
With Amos, we sing of God’s justice that comes through Holy Love: “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
With Isaiah, we sing of the peace that comes in God’s Realm of Justice, “The wolf shall lie down with the lamb…..and a little child shall lead them.”
That great symphony of Love crescendos until it is almost overpowering. The heavenly chorus of God’s love roars and cannot be contained. And we hear our ancestors singing to us a new song. One that rises out of the terror of Empire and oppression. One that will not be silent, even in the face of great adversity and anxiety.
Quiet now, can you hear it?
“In those days a decree went out from the Emperor Augustus that all the world should be taxed…”
What an odd way for a love song to begin. It’s so secular. So rooted in the yuckier parts of human life. Taxes? How can anything holy begin with Empire and taxes?
But this is not a Love song content to float in the clouds with heavenly harps. This is the song of a Love that comes to dwell with us. A love that breaks into the midst of our everydayness - our faults, our fears, our mess. The love of a God who cannot stand to be far from her children, a God who must come to us now and dwell within us.
A God who created us in his image and now creates himself in ours. Emmanuel. God with us.
When “Love came down at Christmas” it came not in the form of some mythical creature or pyrotechnic salute. Instead, the One Called Love arrives looking like us. It is the fulfillment of a love story that has existed since before time began. It is the promise to all future generations.
So, here and now, on this holiest of nights, we sing together. With Mary, we raise our voices in a song for justice. We remember the Love Song she sang when she learned she was to become a mother:
My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour….
He has shown strength with his arm.
He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has cast down the mighty from their seat and has exalted the humble and meek.
It seems to me that if Mary sang that song before Jesus was born then she likely also sang great songs of Love rooted in Resistance to him when he was young. Lullabies about turning the world upside-down. The sweet voice of a strong mother infusing radical hope for the entire world into a tiny brown body in the middle of the night. Strength for the days ahead. Love that is bigger than Empire and oppression because it is rooted in the One who always sides with refugees and foreigners, the silenced and the marginalized, the forgotten and the pushed aside.
Like Christ, we live in a world that feels utterly unpredictable. The powers that be grumble and connive, playing with lives as if they were mere toys. We often feel helpless, wondering if God even hears our prayers for justice - wondering, if Christ came to make things better, where is he now?
Christ comes us to again each Christmas as what theologian James Cone calls “a liberating force.” A force singing loudly and lustily of Love. Love that cannot be stopped. Love that is bigger than fear. Love that fights until the end and beyond for those who Empire has pushed aside.
And as this Love is born anew we are both the mother and the midwife…..providing sustenance and care as this kicking, crying Love-Force enters our world once again.
As the tiny spark grows into a roaring flame, we sing and we sing and we sing and we sing.
We sing of Love. We sing of Justice. We sing of Peace. We sing until our voices are hoarse. And still the chorus of Love cannot be stopped because there are more who come after us, still singing of God’s love.
The greatest force in the universe. That which cannot be contained. That which has no beginning and no end. That which comes to us on Christmas and every other day. That which will reign forever and ever and ever.
Amen.
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