Christmas Eve 2022

Sermon

This week I’ve been thinking about our friend Aaron Gray. Aaron would show up on a Sunday morning every now and then, usually late, often making his own version of a grand entrance. A couple of times he came in from the room behind me and would startle whoever was in the pulpit at that moment as he came down the stairs and made his way to the pews.

Sometimes when he came to Sunday morning worship he was drunk; sometimes he was sober and looked exhausted. Sometimes he lived on the streets. For a few years he slept on the porch of a Catholic church up the road, with their blessing. Sometimes he couch-surfed. Near the end of his life, a friend had taken him in and let him live in his house; when the friend died, Aaron knew he would have to find a new place to live. If he was able.

Two years ago, on Christmas Eve, Aaron was struck by a car and died. We didn’t find out until a few weeks later, and for many of us here, it was terribly sad news. Not because Aaron was finally turning his life around; not because we thought we could “save” him. It was such sad news for us because over the years, many of the folks here came to love Aaron. And in his own way, Aaron loved us; he knew he was always welcome here.

I tell you this sad story on Christmas Eve, this sparkling, sweet, and holy night, because I need to remember—and maybe you do too—that the Christ child came for all the Aarons of the world just as much as he came for you and me.

We see the hints of that truth right there in Luke’s story in the cast of characters he has assembled. There’s Mary, bearing the shame of being pregnant before being wed; Mary, who could have been cast out by her parents and her husband. But they loved her, so they kept her safe.

There’s Joseph, the man who protected his wife, bringing shame to himself.

There are the powerful despots, King Herod, Governor Quirinius, and Emperor-Caesar himself, men who abused their power and sought a good life for themselves but not for any of the people counted in this census.

There are shepherds, the worst of the lot; theirs was a despised occupation. Shepherds were considered not only unreliable—keeping watch over their flocks by night, instead of being home with their families—but also unclean, as anyone who tended animals was considered ritually unclean.

Amid all these less-than-perfect, possibly unsavory characters, Jesus is born. And that should give the Aarons of the world hope. And that should give the likes of you and me hope, too.

Now I don’t know what brought you to Westminster tonight. Maybe this is your church, and of course you’re here. Maybe going to Christmas Eve services is your tradition. Maybe you live across the street and hear the choir rehearse on Thursday nights, or you hear the organist practicing at all hours of the day, and you wanted to hear things close up. Maybe you’re here on Christmas Eve because you had a weird feeling that you needed to be here.

For whatever reason you are here, I am glad that you are. You’re welcome here any time. But especially tonight, on this holiday that is weighed down with so many expectations and demands, I am glad you are here.

There is nothing you need to do here tonight.

There is nothing you need to wrap and tie up with a bow.

There are no hors d’oeuvre to serve, no glasses to be filled.

There are no grand meals to prepare and no dishes to wash.

There are no lists to check once or even twice.

And there is no one you need to be tonight, except yourself—

However faithful or doubting.

However much you’ve got your life together or however much it’s all falling apart.

However perfectly you have lived, or however long you think your list of sins:

You are welcome here tonight, because if you’re not welcome at church on Christmas Eve, then there really is no hope for any of us. And here’s why.

The Christ Child was not born in perfect circumstances among perfect people. God did not send the Beloved Son to earth because humanity followed all the rules, and who wouldn’t want to live amid all that peace and justice.

No, Jesus came to the world to find the lost, to heal the sick, to (in the words of a hymn) show love to the loveless, that they might lovely be. In the thirty-something years of his life, Jesus didn’t make much of a dent. When he died and rose, things still weren’t right.

Things still aren’t right, even on this Christmas Eve, and I don’t need to tell you that. But what I get to tell you is this: God has not given up on us. I learned that from Jesus.

You know, I’ve gone to church my whole life. I took some classes on the New Testament in college, and I have a Masters of Divinity degree (which is not, as might be supposed, a degree in candy making). I’ve studied the Bible in its original Hebrew and Greek, I’ve read theology, and I’ve done all that stuff that’s supposed to make me a decent pastor.

But what keeps me in this faith-thing is not the academic teachings, although I love them. What keeps me in the faith is watching people love. Watching them love each other in times of grief and failure. Watching them love Aaron when he comes in, wearing a daffodil he picked from the church garden in the buttonhole of a sports jacket he got from who knows where. Watching them love God by loving their neighbor to the best of their ability on any given day.

So whoever you are, and whyever you’re here, please know this: you are loved. You are as beloved as that little baby Jesus, with or without his tuxedo T-shirt. You are as loved as Mother Teresa and Aaron. You are as loved as the person sitting to your left and the person sitting to your right.

God knew that the only way the world would ever get better was with more love. So Love came down at Christmas, as another song goes. Love came down to this planet earth, and Love never left.