Sermon delivered by David Burrow December 15, 2024 - First Congregational Church, Algona, Iowa
Click here for an audio version of this sermon (11 MB - .mp3)
While I don’t have a “red bag”, this morning I did bring in a couple of small props with me. The main one is a coffee cup. Most of the time the coffee cup I use is a yellow travel mug with the Bishop Garrigan logo. I always keep a array of mugs at home, though, and I swap them out seasonally. I bought this one a couple months ago when I got an e-mail come-on from the P.R. division of the central office of the United Church of Christ.
The mug features the national denomination’s latest slogan, “Be a blessing.” Our church has a banner with that message in the fellowship hall, and they also sell buttons, bumper stickers, and refrigerator magnets with the same theme.
“Be a blessing” is a follow-up on the “be the church” campaign you might remember from a few years back, and the banners and stickers highlight many specific ways we can be a blessing:
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What a wonderful list of ideas! If each of us can find just one of those things to focus on each day, imagine how much better our world would be. I hope that all of us will keep those things in mind and really work to be a blessing to every one we meet.
Surely God is my salvation;
I will trust and will not be afraid,
for the LORD is my strength and my might;
and has become my salvation."
With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.
And you will say on that day: "Give thanks to the Almighty;
call on God’s name;
make known his deeds among the nations;
proclaim that God’s name is exalted.
Sing praises to the LORD, for he has done gloriously;
let this be known in all the earth.
Shout aloud and sing for joy, O royal Zion,
for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel."
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.
Let your gentleness be known to everyone.
The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Sing aloud, O daughter Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!
The LORD has taken away the judgments against you;
God has turned away your enemies.
The ruler of Israel, the Holy One, is in your midst;
you shall fear disaster no more.
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
"Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak.
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory;
The Holy One will rejoice over you with gladness;
And renew you in love;
God will exult over you with loud singing
as on a day of festival."
I will remove disaster from you,
so that you will not bear reproach for it.
I will deal with all your oppressors at that time.
And I will save the lame and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.
At that time I will bring you home,
at the time when I gather you;
for I will make you renowned and praised
among all the peoples of the earth,
when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says our God.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.
Let your gentleness be known to everyone.
The Lord is near.
Do not be anxious about anything,
but in everything by prayer and supplication
with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God,
which surpasses all understanding,
will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Three weeks ago at Thanksgiving I drove down to southern
Iowa to visit my brother. While I was driving I spent my time listening to an
audiobook of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. My family has a
long tradition with Scrooge and the ghosts. When I was a kid my mother would
have my brothers and I read the story aloud. That’s how Dickens himself first
presented his book in Victorian England, and reading it aloud and listening to
it read taught me the wonderful skill with words that he had.
At different times I’ve watched at least a dozen movie and TV versions of A
Christmas Carol, I’ve seen both professional and amateur stage performances
of it, and twice I’ve even acted in community theatre productions of the show.
What’s more, at least once a year, I always try to go back to either reading
aloud or listening to Dickens’ original words.
A Christmas Carol, of course, does not come from the Bible. Indeed, there’s very little that’s directly religious about Dickens’ story. Without directly preaching, though, the story does communicate the idea that Christmas is a time of transformation. Scrooge is transformed by the spirit of Christmas, and Dickens makes it clear that we should be transformed as well.
Another of my favorite Christmas stories is also a tale of
transformation that’s not found in the Bible. That’s Dr. Seuss’ famous How
the Grinch Stole Christmas. I was four years old when the olive-colored
animated grinch first aired on TV, and I’ve watched it almost every year since
then. To me that twenty-two minute cartoon has more meaning than any holiday
sermon I’ve ever heard, and I feel the joy of the Whos every time I see it.
I’ve always loved Christmas, and one of the things I love most about it is that
it is how transforming the season can be. It’s not just Scrooge and the grinch;
Christmas changes all of us into better people. As Dickens says, it’s “a kind,
forgiving, charitable, pleasant time”, a time when “men and women … open their
shut-up hearts freely” and think of other people “as if they really were fellow
passengers to the grave”.
As we approach Christmas 2024 it really feels like we need that kind of transformation. We’re in a time where wars are raging all around the world, and here at home our politics is more strident and extremist than ever. A tiny number of people have more wealth than has ever been accumulated in human history, while billions of people struggle with extreme poverty. There’s a rebirth of both sexism and racism, and many people who should be role models seem to have a callous disregard for the feelings of others. It seems like if ever we needed peace and good will, it’s now.
There’s also many of us who have struggled with troubles in our own lives in the past year—deaths of loved ones, illnesses, financial struggles, and all manner of other issues. Here in our own church we’re even struggling with the challenges of the future. Personal struggles can make it hard for many people to deal with the joy of Christmas, yet it’s at those low points in our lives when we’re most in need of a Christmas transformation.
It does sometimes seem that our present era is—in the words of another Dickens book—“the worst of times”. Yet, for all the bad news we see, 2024 really isn’t all that much different from any other era. The other day, when I was playing through holiday music in my car, I happened to hear a Christmas song that was released back in 1966, the same year the grinch first aired on TV. It was Simon & Garfunkel’s “7 O’clock News/Silent Night”, which is essentially a “good vs. evil” battle between the old Christmas hymn and the bleak headlines of the mid ‘60s. It was clear Christmas was sorely needed then, too.
I took the title for today’s message from one of the songs
in the play and movie Mame, a show that’s set at the start of the Great
Depression and centered around a formerly wealthy woman who lost everything when
the stock market crashed. Just like today or in the ‘60s, the news was bad in
1929, too, and the joy of Christmas couldn’t come fast enough.
We can go back further and find that 180 years ago, when Charles Dickens wrote
A Christmas Carol, he was reacting to the suffering and exploitation that
was rampant at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Victorian England needed
a transformation, and Dickens is often cited as one of the biggest forces that
led to a positive change.
In the great scheme of things, 180 years ago really isn’t all that far back. As
we near the end of Advent, our Bible readings show that the transformation of
Christmas was also needed in the ancient Middle East. The prophets tell of
victory over oppressors and of drawing water from the wells of salvation. Much
of the Old Testament details all the oppression the Hebrew people went through
and shows their need for that victory and salvation, and the prophets promise it
will come. Then in Philippians Paul urges us not to be anxious, but instead to
rejoice, for the Lord is near.
For pretty much all of recorded history, the world has
needed a little Christmas, and fortunately for more than two millennia Christmas
has regularly changed the world. It’s important to realize, though, that it’s
not just Christmas that makes that transformation, it’s Christ.
Back when I was a kid, the church I went to had an unusual tradition with the
flowers by their altar. At Christmas, they’d always have a couple of white
lilies mixed in with the poinsettias, and then at Easter they’d add some red
poinsettias to the lily display. The mixed-up flowers were there to make a
point. It’s nice to celebrate the little baby in the manger, but the real point
of Christmas was bringing the Son of God who would eventually die on Good Friday
and rise at Easter. It’s Christ, not just Christmas, that brings the victory and
salvation predicted by the prophets, and it’s remembering what Christ did for us
that is the real reason we should rejoice as we get ready for Christmas.
It's that idea that Christmas and Easter are intimately connected that’s the reason I chose our final hymn today. “Lord of the Dance” isn’t a Christmas carol; instead it traces through all the big events of Jesus’ life. I hope it reminds us of Jesus in the manger is just the start of a transformation that’s been going on for thousands of years and still continues today.
I hope Christmas 2024 is a transformative time—for each of us and for our world. I know 2025 will bring bad news as well as good, but I hope that we’ll remember the joy that Christmas brings and remember that Christ is with us all through the year.
(C) 2024 davidmburrow@yahoo.com