Sermons

Minister: Rev. Margaret A. Beckman | Christmas Eve 2018
Every Moment is One by Quinn G. Caldwell    
Read by Rev. Margaret Beckman

One of my favorite things about all the rituals and traditions attached to this time of year is the way they mess with time.

My husband and son and I decorate our Christmas tree, and as we hang each ornament — the ones we brought from our parents’ houses and the ones we got together — we tell their stories. As we do, we find that we are not just standing in the living room we share, but we’re also standing in footed pajamas in the living rooms we grew up in, decorating every tree we’ve ever decorated, right in that moment.

We gather on Christmas Eve with the lights down and the candles lit, and we sing “Silent Night.” As we do, it’s like we’re singing it at every Christmas Eve service we’ve ever been to; it’s like we’re singing it at every Christmas Eve service yet to come; it’s like, by our song, we’re calling the birth of God into existence again.

It’s not nostalgia; it’s not just a hazy remembrance of the time back when things used to be better than they are now. It’s more than that; it’s like a collapsing of time, a drawing in of past and future into one long now.

Theologians would say we’re stepping out of ordinary time, or what they call chronos, and catching a glimpse of God’s time, or what they call kairos. In chronos, minute follows minute, and you can only go forward; that’s where we live most of the time. But for God, in kairos, every moment is one, and your first Christmas, your last Christmas, this Christmas and the redemption of the whole world are all happening right now, forever.

It’s one of the reasons people love this time of year so much, that quality it has that, for many people more than many other time of the year, lets us glimpse the world the way God sees it. So what things or traditions do that for you? What brings you back to your childhood at warp speed? Whatever it is, you should plan to do it soon.

The Story of Silent Night – As told by Johanna Sweet

“Christmas in the Trenches” by Jon McCutcheon Read by Alvion and Cindi Kimball

Homily: “All is Calm, All is Bright: Two Hundred Years of Silent Night”
– Rev. Margaret Beckman

Each night a child is born is a Holy Night –

A time for singing
A time for wondering
A time for worshipping

These words, written by Unitarian Religious Educator, Sophia Lyon Fahs, long ago, and set to music by Jason Shelton, are comforting and profound. We often say them together on Christmas Eve as a reminder that just as the night the babe born in Bethlehem more than two thousand years was a holy night, every night a baby born is a holy night. Every night a babe is born is a worthy of singing and wondering and yes, even worshipping. All children are bundles of wonder and possibility to those who receive them.

This Christmas Eve, my heart is drawn toward the children who long for a home and family and safety. How many children tonight would be so very happy for shelter in a stable, the warmth of a hay-filled manger and the company of sheep and a donkey? For a moment, let me reframe the words of this familiar poem. I will make just one small change.

Each night a child arrives is a Holy Night –

A time for singing
A time for wondering
A time for worshipping

Each time a child arrives is a Holy Night.

Imagine we are the gate keepers along our southern border and we see hundreds of children, many with their parents and many traveling alone, coming to us for safety and shelter.

Imagine we are the inn keepers as refugee children flee for their lives from any number of war-torn or violent homelands.

Each night a child arrives – no matter how they arrive – is a Holy Night.

We struggle to know how to welcome them. What shall we do with so many young ones who need shelter and safety and healthy food and warm clothing and a place for their own family or a way into a new family that will give them love and care – a chance for a meaningful life?

They want what our children want – love and a bright future.

This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the Christmas carol, Silent Night.

This carol is about Love and a Bright Future and a new-born babe.

Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, All is bright
Round yon Virgin, mother and child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

We sing these words together – no need for the printed page – we know the opening stanza from memory and by heart.

All is calm. All is bright.
What do these simple words mean for us today?

For me, Silent Night is a reflection of faith; faith in life that continues to bring forth precious children, faith in the goodness of humanity to support these children, and faith in ourselves as we search for ways to transform our present world into a world with more love and more peace – for all the children of the world.

Jesus was born far from home in a town where his ancestors had lived but not where his present family lived. Joseph and his family were forced by an occupying government leader to leave his home and physically report to the town of his ancestors where he would be registered and put on the tax rolls to support the Roman government – not his people of Israel. And there, Jesus was born – far from home.

Then, because of the threat of violence and possible murder, his parents fled that land too. This babe, born on a Holy Night, spent his first few years as a refugee in Egypt, a foreign land where his parents, with the help and compassion of strangers, found a way to live while waiting for a time when it might be safe to return home to their own country.

This is the story of the Christ Child. Born in captivity. Infancy as a refugee.

All is calm. All is bright.
When Father Joseph Mohr penned the words of his poem, he was not proclaiming victory over a fallen and hostile world. He was putting into words the deepest prayer of his soul… that our world might be saved from harm and that children everywhere would finally sleep in peace.

On that Christmas Eve in 1818, when the organ refused to come alive, Father Mohr and his organist, Franz Guber, collaborated to bring a Christmas hymn to their small congregation. They needed a tune that would be simple enough to be played on guitar and easily learned.

They did very well with their task and this hymn is one of the most loved Christmas songs of all time.

When we sing Silent Night, we too sing this prayer of long ago – that our world might be saved from harm and that children everywhere might sleep in peace.

We proclaim our commitment to things hoped for not yet seen.

This song is an affirmation of what we desperately want but is yet to be … when all might be calm and all might be bright.

As we come together tonight and in the days and years ahead of us as people of good will and limitless compassion, may we bring forth the promise of Silent Night. May we welcome the refugee. May we care for the struggling and those who suffer. It is not enough to sing about heavenly peace, we must work for heavenly peace. We are blessed to be people with the means and the opportunity to be instruments of the universal love that surrounds and enfolds us. May we, this Christmas Eve resolve to come together across whatever divides us and work without ceasing to bring forth a world where each night a child arrives is a Holy Night and where “All is Calm, All is Bright” is not a dream but a reality.

Blessed Be.