The Sin of the World Broken Against a Manger

Luke 2:1-20

Personally, I find that the Christmas story is by far the most difficult story to preach on during the liturgical calendar year. 

In a society that has created it’s own Christmas narrative, it is far too easy to find yourself leaving out essential characters from the more modern version we happily embrace, especially on this night. 

Drummer boys, Innkeepers, Nester the long eared Christmas donkey, and an extensive array of livestock that would lead us to believe that Jesus was born on a midwestern dairy farm rather than in a bustling Palestinian town. 

We are enamored with these specific details of the story that aren’t present in any of the Gospel descriptions. 

John’s Gospel really doesn’t say a word about Jesus’ birth. 

Neither does Mark’s Gospel. 

Matthew’s Gospel acknowledges that the birth took place in Bethlehem; but other than a brief confirmation of those events, Matthew goes into greater detail about Joseph’s elaborate efforts to protect Jesus from Herod

He then jumps into the Epiphany story, describing the Maggi’s visit, but it is unclear how long after the birth this occurs.

Matthew also makes no mention of the Shepherds, the Angels in the field, the manger, or any other description of the accommodations in Bethlehem. 

In our modern retelling we really like to spruce up the story a bit. 

If we combine Matthew’s description with Luke’s account -which we have read tonight- then we can spend more time with Jesus in the manger. 

But, those details don’t really give us enough time at the scene of the birth, so we add layers to these combined stories. 

Nester, a claymation favorite

Painting a picture that combines the Maggi, the Shepherds, the manger scene, and the star all in one

Then we sprinkle in livestock, innkeepers, barns, drummer boys, and yes, Nester the long eared claymation donkey. 

Pulling these stories apart and taking out the details we have added to scripture is difficult and it is equally frustrating to those hearing the story as well as the preacher, attempting to present a message that is both hopeful and honest. 

One of my favorite movie scenes involving prayer is from Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. 

In a dinner prayer scene the main character -race car driver Ricky Bobby, played by Will Ferrell- is tasked with saying grace over a feast of Domino’s, KFC, and Taco Bell. 

After repeatedly addressing Jesus in prayer as “baby Jesus” and “Tiny infant Jesus” Ricky’s wife attempts to broaden Ricky’s limited perception of Jesus pointing out to Ricky that; 

“Hey, you know? Jesus did grow up, you don’t always have to call him baby. It’s a bit odd and off-putting to pray to a baby”

To which Ricky responds

“Well, I like the Christmas Jesus best and I’m saying grace. When you say grace, you can say it to grownup Jesus, or teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus or whoever you want.”

When the disagreement escalates to include other friends and family members, Ricky’s teammate and friend Cal comes to his defense when he shares his own view of Jesus, proclaiming; 

“I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo T shirt, 'cause it says, like, “I wanna be formal…" "... but I’m here to party, too.”

This exchange, while a bit exaggerated, certainly gets to the heart of the issue at hand for us, not only in the Christmas story but throughout scripture. 

We take the parts we want to hold onto the tightest, the parts that give us the comfort we crave, especially on this night of all nights. 

And if we need a little extra pizazz we sprinkle on some details that we find in Christmas movies and books that we devoted as much time to, if not more, than the texts in scripture. 

So here it is in a nutshell. Luke sums up the birth of Jesus in two verses; 2:6-7

While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the guest quarters. 

Those are all the details we get, and the place we think of as an inn is probably a home belonging to Joseph’s relatives which is filled to the brim with other family there for the same reason that Joseph and Mary are there. 

Not only is the possibility of limited space a factor, but giving birth to a child in front of a house full of family members doesn’t seem like a pleasant method to introduce Joseph’s new bride to the rest of the family or vice versa. 

So they are sent into another room, a room that is less of a barn and probably more of a garage. 

Considering Luke only makes mention of a single manger we really seem to think that implies a rather expansive farming operation with an elaborate barn. 

But the room they are sent to is most likely a place to keep the few animals needed for transportation and commerce, like sheep or a donkey.

These animals were expensive investments often kept within the structure of a home to be protected from the elements but often separated from the living and dining areas as you can imagine. 

In a pinch, this is an area that could be used as a spare room when guests were overflowing or you wanted to spare everyone, including Mary and the unborn child, the sight of childbirth. 

A house packed full of people probably offered few options for privacy other than this spare space, probably the lower portion of the structure or as some believe a cave which many houses were built around or over. 

So this doesn’t give us as much detail as we would like. 

It certainly doesn’t give us front row seats to the birth of Christ, maybe because Joseph and his family preferred to keep it from becoming the spectacle, which we have made it into. 

Being a father myself, I was rather shaken when I discovered the vast array of gazing eyes the day my children were brought into this world. 

I’m not quite sure how I would have felt if someone wrote a book giving an account of the birth of those children down to the finest details. 

Especially if those details portrayed me as providing anything less than the ideal or sanitary accommodations for such an event like the birth of a child. 

And given the significance of this birth in particular. 

The announcement of the birth of this child in Luke’s Gospel overshadows not only all other descriptions of Jesus at birth but the word Savior is seldom used throughout our Christian scriptures. 

We only find the word 24 times in the New Testament and only three times in the Gospels; twice in Luke and once in John, thats it. 

So, this is a big deal and this big deal is being born in a less than big deal way. 

All of the great Kings of this day have magnificent stories that surround their births; 

Gaius Octavius -Who Luke names in our Gospel tonight- was himself considered the offspring of a divine being. 

Caesar Augustus

Gaius Octavius is in fact named Augustus in order to differentiate him from any other Emperor  who came before.

He is considered majestic and largely responsible for establishing the longest lasting and most expansive civilization yet seen. 

Using the military might at his disposal to protect and keep order throughout the empire under his power, establishing what becomes known as the peace of Rome (Pax Romana). 

And regardless of how we see this empire, it was, for the most part, the closest thing to a civilized peaceful society that this region had seen in a very long time. 

Roads, education, art, architecture, commerce, all the benefits of a fully functioning republic were put in place by Caesar; “the magnificent one”. 

In the midst of such a political, sociological, and economic feat like the establishment of the Roman empire, what is so special about Jesus on this night, in this place, at this time?

Is it the fact that the Emperor and Quirinius, the governor of Syria, end up using their own power to put the birth of Christ in just the right place, at the right time?

Is it the fact that the Roman empire -the empire in which the sun never rises or sets-  itself will one day become the means by which the story of Jesus is spread throughout the world?

Is it the fact that the empire that seeks to crush such a Man and a faith as a subversive movement, ends up embracing that same Man and faith as the most influential event that impacts the world still to this day?

Is it the fact that God, not Caesar, uses the greatest empire the world has ever seen up to this point to share the story far and wide?

Eh…. maybe……

Perhaps there is something bigger though, wrapped in the modest packaging of this very small less than grand story. 

Maybe it is bigger because the greatness of this particular magnificent One, this Savior as Luke describes him, entertains an audience of not Kings in Luke’s Gospel, but Shepherds. 

It is bigger because this Savior, born to a poor craftsman and a poor girl who is surrounded by a cloud of condemnation for her unwed pregnancy, are the ones who usher in such an event. 

~

I have been wrestling with this story for two weeks. 

It’s been difficult, not only due to the story, but our whole house seems to have come down with something, just in time for Christmas. 

We took my oldest to the Doctor at the end of last week, to find she had pneumonia. 

The Doctor prescribed an antibiotic to treat the infection in her lungs. 

In the midst of a hectic schedule and a long to-do list, we couldn’t get her to take the medicine because it made her sick. 

We spent three days going back and forth to the Doctor’s office. 

On the third day, I tried again -without success- to get her to take the medicine. 

She refused and I flew into a rage 

I was concerned we would be spending Christmas in the hospital

concerned about our repeated visits to the Doctor

concerned about her health

frustrated that she wouldn’t do what I told her to do

frustrated that she wouldn’t take the medicine that was her only option for getting better. 

I yelled, I screamed, I stomped, I… acted like a child. 

As we were driving to the Doctor’s office for our final visit we came to a stop at a red light. 

I turned around and glared into her eyes tucked behind weary shadows and angrily asked

“Have you ever seen me this angry?”

She wearily shook her head no. 

“Do you even care that I am so angry?!” I asked

She again wearily shook her head no

“You don’t even care that I am this mad?!” I repeated

She again shook her head no

“Why not!?” I scolded

She looked up at me with her weary eyes and replied tenderly

“Because I love you too much, Daddy.”

In that moment my anger, my frustration, my rage, was shattered against the love of a child. 

~

There is a lot to take away from this story, sisters and brothers. 

But we obsess over that scene surrounding a peasant child, in a pathetic place, in a modest package, with an audience of powerless people, 

Because speaking to us through the weary eyes of that less than royal picture we hear the voice of God in a Child, Emmanuel,  simply saying; 

Because I love you too much. 

And in that moment our anger, our frustration, our rage, our hate, our sin, our brokenness, is broken against that manger.

Amen

Faith in a Glass Case

Ezra 1:1-4; 3:1-4, 10-13

There are some of you here today who can recall the events of September 11, 2001, with great clarity. 

Others here cannot recall the New York city skyline before the attacks on the World Trade Center on that fateful day. 

But we have all seen pictures, videos, and heard descriptions of those towers. 

Even for those who have never seen the towers, they, too, are inextricably tied to them as an iconic national symbol that remains as potent today in our psyche as it did on September 12, 2001. 

The destruction of those towers left a gaping scar on the skyline of New York City, and that geographic scar in turn left a deep emotional scar. 

Following the attacks declarations of war were made, there were calls for response from leaders, there was a need for prayer and reflection, concerts were held, memorials built, and almost any other reaction that one could imagine. 

But no reaction or response could heal the wound caused by the attack.

What the attack did was supply a physical location where we could express our grief as a nation by associating it with those two towers. 

NYC Skyline before 9/11

Politicians and leaders assured the citizens of New York City and the entire nation, that the site would be rebuilt, in not only defiance against those who orchestrated the attacks, but in order to restore hope and healing to the nation and the city itself. 

Meetings were held less than 5 months following September 11th to propose designs for the new construction. 

But regardless of the early planning and proposals made by those charged with the planning, criticisms and controversy ensued over what, if anything, should be done with that place.

Later further controversy arose when Larry Feinstein, the leaseholder on the property, claimed, while commenting on the 2037 completion date,

“Billions have been spent on this project even though it is still just a hole in the ground” 

and "I am the most frustrated person in the world....I'm seventy-eight years of age; I want to see this thing done in my lifetime.”

What is interesting is how the financial center of the world became the central expression of America’s grief and loss. 

Not the Statue of Liberty, the White House, or Mount Rushmore, but today when we think of an expression of what we would call American exceptionalism, we have a tendency to envision a reconstructed World Trade Center standing on the horizon of the New York City skyline. 

I’m sure that for many of you this is a painful memory. 

But this memory that sticks in all of our minds gives us a taste of what the returning exiles and Ezra feel as they, too, return to the geographic epicenter of their own identity. 

For us the World Trade Center was the center of the financial world, but imagine for a moment what it felt like to see the spiritual center of the world destroyed in the midst of an invading army.

This tragedy that we hold so closely gives us an insight into the story we hear today in Ezra, when we hear that they “wept with a loud voice when they saw this house, though many shouted aloud for joy, so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the joyful shout from the sound of the people’s weeping.”

This doesn’t sound much different from the controversies that surrounded the construction of the current World Trade Center site or even the opening of 1 World Trade Center which now rises high above the city skyline. 

NYC Skyline today

Each dedication and opening has been met with both triumphant shouts of joy and simultaneous tears of mourning. 

And much like Ezra’s plan to rebuild the Temple we have also vowed that such a tragedy will never occur again. 

The painful memory of the devastation left in the wake of the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and witnessing the strength of the Persians leaves Ezra and the returning exiles with only one hope for surviving in the new world that they now face:

First, rebuild the Temple;

Second, build a wall that will exclude anyone outside of their returning community; and

Third, get God to sign the lease and move back into the Temple.

The greatest fear is that if it isn’t built just right, by the right hands, surrounded by the most devout followers they just aren't so sure that God will come back at all.

And if God doesn’t come back, they know that they don’t stand a chance against the forces they face in this new era. 

But nostalgia is a funny thing.

Nostalgia is a sentimental longing, usually grounded in feeling rather than the reality of what really was. 

The truth be told, Israel was traveling down a road towards destruction long before the Temple was destroyed. 

The Temple didn’t prevent the suffering and destruction of Israel. 

The Temple only stood for 23 years before the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom divided in conflict with one another

The Temple before exile

Egypt invaded 27 years after the Temple is completed.

93 years after the Temple is constructed a drought ravages the region.

And neither the presence of the Temple, nor the words of the prophets sent to guide Israel prevents invasion, tragedy, war, famine, and suffering time and time again. 

If we are really honest about it, historically, it would almost seem that the Temple stood during the days of Israel’s greatest suffering. 

But Ezra, Nehemiah, and the returning exiles plan, prepare, and begin construction of a new Temple to usher in a new golden age, reminiscent of the era that maybe they are seeing with rose colored glasses. 

The Temple rebuilt by Zerubbabel

Their plan is to put all their trust in a building.

A mere empty shell that will no longer be occupied by God.

Regardless of the careful construction,

regardless of their pure religious practice,

regardless of the exclusivity of those who can enter into the surrounding walls,

I would argue what they are building is not a Temple.

It’s not even a synagogue or a church. It is museum, a mausoleum, kept safe behind a wall, sealed behind a glass pane. 

~

Within our own Christian faith there are many illustrations that can help illuminate how this occurs in our own faith tradition. There is none greater than our own Holy of Holies; the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre 

This church is built on top of the sites that most consider to be the location of Christ’s crucifixion and the tomb in which he was buried. 

It is a site frequented by Christians, from around the world, making the pilgrimage to see the site and touch what some believe to be the very stone of Golgotha; Mount Calvary where Christ was crucified.

This church -located within the walls of Jerusalem today- has space that is shared by the Greek, Armenian, Roman, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox churches. 

These six different expressions of the same Christian faith, that we ourselves claim, are so incapable of sharing the property that the keys to the building have been entrusted to a Muslim family who daily unlock, lock, and safeguard the church as well as those inside. 

The keys have been handed down from generation to generation and the responsibility is considered a great honor to this family. 

But even the precaution of entrusting the keys of this revered site to an outside party has not assured the care one would warrant to such a place. 

In 1927 an earthquake shook Jerusalem and damaged the structure of the building. 

Not only due to the earthquake but the climate, large numbers of visitors, and the normal wear and tear of time, this site has fallen into great disrepair. 

Actual physical fights have broken out between Priests and Monks in the church, and no agreement can be reached among them in how best to repair the damage or who is responsible for what repairs where. 

As a result, inside the church you find plywood, scaffolding, ladders, and even railroad ties holding the fragile building together like duct tape and bandaids. 

This lack of civility and cooperation is the cause of my favorite point of interest throughout the entire structure. 

It isn't even a permanent structure; it is a ladder located just above the front door of the church under a window. 

The "Immovable Ladder"

It is known as the “immovable ladder” and has been sitting, propped against the wall above the front door for at least 250 years. 

It's made of cedar wood that is slowly rotting away and for no reason 

what-so-ever except for the simple fact that no one can agree on who is responsible…… 

to take it down. 

~

Much like Ezra and the returning exiles we continuously find ourselves attached to objects and buildings. 

We're latching onto these things as if they are the true expressions of God, the true expressions of God at work in the world, at work in us. 

When we fall into this trap we find ourselves building walls around these places, this…. STUFF.

Encasing this stuff behind glass with the intention of protecting it from the world but in doing so it becomes nothing more than just stuff

Stuff that lays dormant, and in our stuff’s dormant state it begins to rot and decay. 

Much like the Temple, it will rot and decay. 

Rotting from the inside out,

Rotting from corruption,

Rotting from the absence of an authentic faith,

Rotting from an exclusive faith being hoarded from those outside the walls. 

~

George Carlin talked about stuff in a bit in 1986.

He claimed that a house is nothing more than “a place to keep your stuff…. while you get more…. stuff”.

He went on to say, 

“Did you ever notice when you go to somebody else’s house you never really feel quite at home? 

You know why?

There’s no room for YOUR stuff!

Somebody else’s stuff is all over the place!

And what awful STUFF it is!”

~

The Church, God’s Church, not the Temple, not the church of the Holy Sepulchre, not even Our Saviour’s but God’s Church, the Body of Christ is not just the place to keep YOUR stuff, MY stuff, OUR stuff, but it is a place to invite everyone in with their stuff

Their sin, 

Their brokenness, 

Their hate, 

Their fear, 

Their anger, 

Their pain, 

Their hurt, 

Their loneliness,

Their suffering, 

Their ……STUFF.

Because the Church is not a place where we go, but the Church is who we are called to be. 

Not encased behind the glass of these walls to rot and decay, but dragging the Gospel out into the world on our backs the way that Christ did. 

Amen