Christmas Reflection, 2009

It is quite amazing to be here reflecting on the meaning of this season with all of you on Christmas Eve. I have most often spent this time alone and intentionally so. I left home when I was a young teenager and did not grow up with a traditional family – or any family at all really – with which to celebrate. Knowing this, good friends, who are like family to me have always tried to take me in, thinking that it is sad to be alone at Christmas. It has been difficult to convince them that this was not ever my experience. I really love the peacefulness and indrawing of this time. When everyone else is “going out” I have usually been “going in”.

What I want to consider together tonight is the deeper, inner meaning of this time, as I have come to see it. I want to return to the beginning of the Christmas story where the author of the Gospel of Luke tells us that Mary “kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” as she waited for this birth. I suspect that Joseph was also doing a mighty amount of pondering around this time too! He had heard that his betrothed was pregnant and that he needed to return with her to the place of his birth in order to be taxed. A journey that would probably have been “taxing” even without her “being great with child”.

While I am sure that you have all been doing a lot of preparation to make these holidays materialize (and some of us may leave here with more to do before we go to sleep!), I wonder how many of us have taken the time to ponder these things – the core stories of Christmas -- in our hearts.

What is the significance of this story – this holy day -- to us here in Canada, at the dawn of the 21st century? The carol we often sing at this time of year heralds the coming of a divine infant. What does it really mean to us, “il est né le divin enfant”? What do we know, or believe, about the divine in this day and age? What do we see being born and manifesting in children today? Are we creating a world where the divine in infants can flourish?

The old story begins with a poor and pregnant woman and her caring betrothed, looking for a place for her to give birth on the road, because of a national political decision about where they need to register for tax purposes. There is no room, no place for this family, when they arrive exhausted at their designated destination.

Some scholars have said that the educated Luke, writer of this part of the Bible, was a Gentile Christian who was concerned with “social ethics, the poor, women, and other oppressed groups”.  He was communicating a social message: that spirit is accessible to all and not the privileged few.  Christ the Lord wasn’t born in a 4 star hotel…and, as God made manifest, he could have been. His was a birth that challenged the social order, and in so doing empowered and created hope for people who were disenfranchised.

However, I suspect it is not the politics of this season that has brought you out tonight, nor biblical scholarship, but something much more profound and enduring.

The divine child arrives on this same earth we now inhabit, in a place so modest we can hardly envision its like: stables these days are pretty well-equipped and fancy. On the one hand we are told he is a king – the messiah – a son of god. And then we are faced with the vulnerability of a baby, born to poor parents in humble circumstances. So this story contains a contradiction. It is, and is not, about a powerful king.

Tonight we read Luke’s account as a message about the gift of human life and the potential that lies within us to transform our world. It calls us not to examine or to analyze or even to study – but to ponder – this possibility. Can we access the great compassion of which our hearts are capable? We have been gifted with life and life experience; access to the stories of the ages; with insight and wisdom. And we have the ability – even the responsibility – to pass this on.

When I think of how this might happen, I am instructed by the Christmas story itself. How do we bring the divine through us in our daily lives? In simple ways. In humble ways. I am reminded of recent moments in which time was taken to listen to a teenager who often does not feel heard; or in the unassuming act of reminding a co-worker that she can ask for help if needed and that we will respond to the need; or even in my taking a few seconds each morning to apply a protective wax to my dog’s paws so that they are not further injured by the assault of bitter cold and drying salt.

Hope for the future is calling us forward this night – like a light from a star. It is we who pass on the legacies of the past, the truths of the present, and the potential of the future. Have we truly considered this in our hearts?

It seems to me that winter’s stillness and brilliance here provides the perfect milieu for contemplation. As the earth rests, so may we, taking time for inner nourishment and reflection. The ruffling of streams is silenced and the rattling of ice covered branches seems spare and stark, yet the dark and star crusted nights glisten and shimmer. In winter’s challenge we are called to nurture ourselves on other levels – to gain access to the light within.

Let us sit here for a moment with the quiet and the dark and wonder what we most want to be born within us. What would it mean to allow ourselves to give birth to a sweet and powerful love, to commit to compassion, to seek the light? To offer this to a world that needs our unique gifts? Take a moment for pregnant pondering. Breathe in a full deep breath. Feel for the inner light. Access your connection to the divine, your spark, your genesis. Then let us turn back outward, knowing that this reflection is not something that you do solely for yourself, but you do this so that your outward manifestations reflect your values and beliefs into the world. This contemplation is not the end. It isn’t over when we do this minute long connection, or even when the service has ended. Our presence in the world -- our actions in the world -- are grounded in embodied love and embodied compassion.

Let us be lifted up by these soaring yet grounded words of Rilke, and may you experience the joy and the peace, the vision and the power, born in these days.

You see, I want a lot.
Perhaps I want everything
the darkness that comes with every infinite fall
and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing
And are raised to the rank of prince
By the slippery ease of their light judgments

But what you love to see are faces
that do work and feel thirst.
You love most of all those who need you
as they need a crowbar or a hoe.
You have not grown old, and it is not too late
To dive into your increasing depths
where life calmly gives out its own secret.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, Das Stundenbuch

Once again I wish you a Joyeux Noël!