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| Torah, from Pixabay |
Christmas Day
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish,
Tucson, AZ
For readings click here
Lord, open our lips, that our mouth shall proclaim your praise. Amen
Merry
Christmas!
In
the beginning was the Word,
and
the Word was with God
and
the Word was God.
What
are words for, I wonder?
Poet
Regina Walters wrote:
“Your fear is
contagious
Your anger spreads like weeds
Your joy moves with the speed of good news.
As you speak with me you create the world.”
Your anger spreads like weeds
Your joy moves with the speed of good news.
As you speak with me you create the world.”
Indeed,
what are words for?
What
if there were no nouns?[1]
Would
our world still be composed
of
distinct and separate things?
What
if our only language
for
describing the world was dance?
Would
we constantly move around in
conversation?
Would
it be like watching the waves?
What
if there were no pronouns,
would
you and I cease to exist
as
independent beings?
Here
is a story[2]:
A
mother takes her daughter to the zoo;
she
stops before an enclosure,
holds
the girls finger and points to a shape.
“See
the zebra?” she says,
“Zebra.
Zebra. That is a zebra.”
The
girl looks puzzled, looks at the shape
and
says, “horse.”
“No”
the mother replies, “not a horse, a zebra.”
Slowly,
the girl says, “zeeba.”
“Not
quite, zebra.”
“Zebra,”
responds the girl,
to
which the mother says,
“right,
now you have it! Zebra, see the stripes?”
and
in this moment,
words have changed
their world,
to
a world now inhabited by zebras.
Before
this, her world had horses,
but
no zebras.
Through
this word exchange,
zebras
have now been born.
Words.
The
Hebrew term for word is dabar,
which
actually means both word and deed.[3]
So,
to say something is to do something.
Words
have the power of creation.
With
words, we both discover
and
create who we are.
With
words, we elicit response from each other.
To
say “I love you”
Or
“I forgive you”
Or
“I’m afraid of you,”
To
say these things, we create a reality
that
can never be undone.
Something
that is hidden in our heart,
with
these words, is launched
through
speech into time
and
is given substance; is created.
When
God said, “Let there be light,”
there
was light, before which
there
was only darkness.
When
I say “I love you”
there
is love, before which
there
was only vague silence.
Only
by speaking I give it reality.
In
the beginning was the Word,
says
the gospel, before which
there
was Silence (with a capital S).
Then
the Word. The Deed.
The
Beginning.
The
beginning in time of time.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
By
uttering,
God
makes God heard
and
makes God hearers.
And,
along the way,
one
of those hearers “sent from God” was John.
He
came as a witness to testify
to
what God said and what God did.
He
came to testify to God’s words,
“Let
there be light”
before
which
the
world didn’t know light
or
couldn’t say light was there.
Sometimes,
we, too, don’t recognize *that* light
or
we can’t say if it’s there.
And
so we ask, “where is God, anyway?”
Like
when we have our first Christmas
after
our loved one died,
or
when we are stressed by the media season
of
consumerism, rampant since Halloween,
or
when images of beheadings by ISIS
showers our
news,
or
when Ebola outbreaks spread fear and panic,
or
when school shootings
evaporate
any sense of security.
Yea,
sometimes, we, too, don’t see that light.
Singer/songwriter
Carrie Newcomer reflected on *that* light that shines
just
below the surface of everything.
She
says, *that* light is
“…the
light that happens when you see a sunset
and
your heart becomes too big for your chest,
or
when you see
the
first red or yellow leaf of autumn
and
it’s bittersweet
and
so incredibly exciting at the same time,” or when you meet someone
who has every
right to be bitter & resentful
but is
effusive with gratitude,
or
“the first time you hold your baby
in
your arms and time expands
in
all directions from that child.”[4]
*That’s
the light that is shining
just
below the surface of everything.
And
so, there was a woman sent from God,
whose
name was Ruthie,
and
there was a man sent from God
whose
name was Gene,
and
there was someone else sent from God
whose
name was your name.
Y’all
came as witnesses to testify to *that* light,
so
that all might believe through you,
through
your words.
Y’all
were not the light,
but
came to testify to the light.
Like
John, we are to testify to *that* light shining
just
below the surface of everything.
We are to
testify
with
words of hope
in
the midst of darkness.
God
calls us to speak (and so create)
of
hope, with hope.
Not
in a greeting card or wishful thinking
kind
of way,
but
hope that is “gritty” –
the
kind of hope arising from God’s Word,
the
kind of hope we have to
“get
up every morning and choose to make
the
world a little kinder place
together,
with others.”
And
then the next morning,
we
get up and do it again.
And
then the next morning,
we
get up and
(even
though we have been disappointed, )
we
do it again.
That’s the kind of
hope Niebuhr described when he said, “anything worth
doing
will
probably not be achieved
in
one lifetime,
so
we are all saved by hope.”
That
hope, in word and deed,
is
a tougher kind of hope to live with,
because
it’s hidden in our hearts.
But
when we get up and say it again,
hope
is created, before which
there
was only cynicism,
the
easy alternative
to
disappointment.
God’s
Word of hope is a gritty hope
that
takes courage,
because
at some point
our
heart will be broken.
But
we get up and say & do it again,
because
that Word made flesh
renews our courage
and
reminds us about *that* light
shimmering
just below the surface,
that
has been there “since the beginning”
and
will be there for ever.
In
our Judeo-Christian story,
Word
after word,
God
kept trying to find just the right
word.
When
creation itself doesn’t seem to say it right – the sun, moon, stars, nature –
finally,
God tries flesh and blood.
Word
after word,God tried,
saying
it to Noah, saying it to Abraham,
saying
it to Moses, saying it to David.
God
tried saying it to John the Baptist
and
it almost worked.
So
God tried once more.
The
exact Word of God,[5] Jesus.
And
this flesh, Jesus, is how God
finally
manages to say what God is
and
what human is.
In
this flesh, Jesus, God knows
what
it is like to be human
and
we know what God is like.
Just
as your words have you in them –
your
breath, spirit, hiddenness –
so
Jesus has God in him.
What
was hidden in the heart of God,
with
this Word,
was
irreversibly released
through
speech into time
and
was given substance.
And
this is good news! The Word,
God’s
breath, spirit, power, hiddenness,
became
flesh and revealed God’s glorious light.
In
this unexpected grace,
we
find our calling to testify to that light.
In
this unexpected grace,
The
Word is made flesh and lives among us;
that’s
where God is,
in God’s Word
and
in our words and our lives.
And
so, today we, too,
risk
becoming a word of hope for the world
and
testify to *that* light that
shines
just below the surface of everything.
Today,
God
sees us as God’s own creation,
God’s
own Word and deed.
Today,
God
promises to be with us
into
the new year
with
all that it might bring.
Today,
God’s
Word – Jesus – commits to be with us
through
all of our living
and
struggling and yearning
and
loving and dying.
Why?
Because,
In
the beginning was that Word...
Amen.
Merry
Christmas!
[1] Inspired by Kenneth Gergen,
Swathmore College at
[2] Ibid. Gergen
[3] Inspired by
Frederick Buechner essay “Word” at www.frederickbuechner.com, ~originally published
in Wishful
Thinking
and later in Beyond
Words
[4] Krista
Tippett – Carrie Newcomer interview http://onbeing.org/program/transcript/7053
