Sermon: Christmas Eve

An Incarnation of Imperfection
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Christmas Eve, Year B (RCL)
Luke 2:1-20

When I was a kid growing up, Christmas was as much about perfection as it was about the coming of Christ. Whether she wanted to or not, my mom always felt that she needed to make sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, a green bean casserole, another casserole, a ham, a salad, a cake, cookies and pies. Inevitably it would happen. While trying to do ten things at once, she’d burn something. She’d burn something and the kitchen would be filled with smoke and my mom would end up disappointed, frustrated and crying. For the Christmas meal, everything had to be just right; everything had to be perfect. My mom would bring out the best dishes, her finest table cloth, polish all of the silver, make sure that everything was in its place and that everything was as good, if not better than, it was the year before. While I carry with me many joyful memories of Christmases gone by, those haunting memories of everything having to be ‘just so’ or else Christmas would be ruined, those memories have stayed with me as well.

I also remember the pressure, the anxiety, the stress that came with getting just the right gift for that special someone. Nothing ordinary would do. In our family gifts were like fingerprints; there was only one perfect match per person. Buy the wrong gift and you’re sure to disappoint was the message that I heard from my family then, and still hear even today, though now through advertisements on television and not from those closest to me. Buy just the right gift, the perfect gift, and you’re sure to make this the best Christmas ever. So very much is wrapped up into our expectations of giving and getting. One year when I was in high school I told my family that I didn’t want to exchange gifts for Christmas; that instead, I just wanted to be with all of them in church on Christmas Eve. Come Christmas morning, I still got a gift from everyone, along with the expectation that they’d be getting a gift from me in return, and the disappointment when that gift never came. Needless to say, that wasn’t the perfect Christmas either.

I’m also reminded of the expectation, the pressure, the perfectionism that goes into picking out just the right Christmas cards, writing just the right message in them, and mailing them on just the right date so that they don’t get there too early or too late. In so many ways it seemed like a game. I remember my mother being horrified when we received a Christmas card from someone who was not on her list. She would start a small pile in a corner on the kitchen counter where she’d collect return address labels so that she could add these names and addresses to her Christmas card list for next year. The following Christmas she’d inevitably mail out even more cards to even more people. Some of the names I didn’t even know. Heck, some of the names she didn’t even remember. She had just been sending them Christmas cards for years, and well, this was just another year.

Aside from the perfect Christmas dinner, the perfect Christmas gifts, and the perfect Christmas cards, there was and is always the perfect Christmas attitude as well. Much to my dismay, we vilify Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch, at least until they come to their senses and into the fullness of the Christmas spirit of joy, happiness and glee that we’re all supposed to feel. This is the time of year when our attitudes are most on display and up for evaluation. As we all know, Santa is making a list and checking it twice, trying to find out who’s been naughty or nice. And if you’ve been naughty… watch out, for you might just get a lump of coal in your stocking. It’s at Christmas more than any other time of the year that we try our best to be perfect in our attitude and in our actions; that we try to be on our best behavior when dealing with others. It’s at Christmas that God returns to his judgment seat and we plaster on plastic smiles and perfection in the hope that we’ll somehow be good enough to earn a front row seat to the birth of the Christ child.

Yet in reality, all of this yearning for perfection smacks in the face of God. For the first Christmas wasn’t about perfection at all. Rather than being perfect, the birth of Jesus on that first Christmas day was imperfect and ordinary, it was ill-timed and unfortunate, it was as far from normal, happy, and perfect as the mind can imagine. According to Jewish norms and customs, Mary wasn’t supposed to be pregnant, but she was. Joseph and Mary should have been married, but they weren’t. It would have been best if the birth had taken place in Nazareth instead of them having to trek for miles and miles to Bethlehem, but it didn’t. The inn would have been the perfect place to give birth, but it didn’t work out. In each and every part of the nativity story, we don’t find perfection but rather its antithesis. Given all of the actors in this play, we’d be hard pressed to say that anyone got it right; that anyone did things perfectly.

It was into this imperfection that God was born and came to live among us. In the world’s greatest twist of affairs, God stumps us and elects to be born not into our perfection, but rather, into our mistakes, into our failures, into all those things that we seemingly run from come this time of year. In all of our best attempts to separate our perfect-selves from our flawed-selves, in all of our attempts to build ivory towers and elevate ourselves from our own humanity, God laughs and comes to us through all of the guilt and the blame and the shame which cover our lives. God takes our worst case scenario and calls it his own. As we rush to make the perfect meal, buy the perfect gift, select the perfect card, put on the perfect attitude, God sits and waits for the time when we will surely fail and will need healing, comfort, and support. God sits and waits for the the time when we will crumble and fall, then comes to us to pick us back up.

This is the meaning of Christmas; this is the greatest gift of all. Christmas is not about our doing things perfectly. It’s not about our becoming more like God. Instead, Christmas is about what God does for us. It’s about God choosing to become more like us. Ultimately, Christmas doesn’t depend on us at all; none of us can ruin Christmas or delay its coming. Christmas was God’s decision, was God’s gift to us and not something we make manifest through our perfectionistic ways. If we think that our getting presents or lumps of coal depends on how good we’ve been, if we think that God’s love of us and approval of us and even our salvation depends on our own merit, then we’re horribly, horribly mistaken. God’s love is a gift which will never depend on us, but instead comes to us freely because we depend on God.

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the story of the prodigal son. For those of you who don’t know it, it’s a story about a father and his two sons. After the father has given them both their inheritance, the oldest son invests it wisely and chooses to stay with his father and to continue to help out on the family farm. The younger son, in contrast, moves to Vegas, blows all of his money in bars and casinos and becomes homeless. After a while, the younger son realizes that he’s made his fair share of mistakes in life and returns home since he needs some food and a place to stay. As he pulls into the drive, the father sees him from the window and runs out to meet him. Throwing his arms around him he tells him “welcome home” and then throws him a huge party. The older son takes his father aside and asks why the party isn’t for him, since he’s the responsible one. He’s always been faithful to his father; he’s always been perfect, so he’s the one who should get the party, not his screw-up of a younger brother. To this the father replies to his older son, “Son, you have always been with me. But your younger brother, he was lost and now is found.”

As I think about our posture as we enter into the Christmas season, it occurs to me that it isn’t that of the older, more responsible brother—although we may sometimes fool ourselves into believing that this is the case. To the contrary, it’s that of the prodigal son. As we enter into Bethlehem and approach the manger, God sees us when we are still far off and runs out to greet us through the incarnation. The birth of the Christ child, the incarnation isn’t primarily for the older, perfect brother, it’s for the prodigal son; it’s for you and me as we struggle through life and come to fully realize our weaknesses, our flaws, our need of God’s care and compassion, our need of God’s care. As Jesus, the great physician once said, “Those who are well have no need for a physician, but those who are sick.” We are sick, we aren’t well, we are frail and fragile and break from time to time, we aren’t perfect. Yet ironically, this is what makes us the perfect vessels for God’s grace and love. Because we are lost we have been found.

This Christmas, I invite you to be yourself in all of your humble humanity, and to enjoy this holiday season, knowing that your perfect or imperfect Christmas won’t change the world. For God already changed the world that first Christmas, that best Christmas, with the birth of the Christ child. This Christmas, don’t worry about others unrealistic expectations of you; don’t even worry about your unrealistic expectations of yourself. Instead, know that God’s love and grace comes with no expectations, with no conditions. This Christmas, don’t give but receive; receive that unconditional love which became a part of your DNA that first Christmas day when Christ was born. Amen.