Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church
12-24-2006
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Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church12-24-2006 |
Welcome, guest! |
Christmas is a time for doing things the “way we’ve always done it.” At my house when I was growing up, my 2 sisters, my brother and I would wake up, then we would go wake up our parents (or my mom after my parents divorced). Then we would have bacon sandwiches while we sat on the floor in mom’s room.
Bacon, in between two pieces of white bread, on a plate – with a glass of milk or orange juice.
We would eat our bacon sandwiches fast, but mom would always take her time. Next, she would make a big dramatic deal out of going to get our stockings so she could see if Santa had been to our house or not. Then, she would return to her room with the filled stockings, and we would look through that fun stuff for about 2 minutes – and then we would be ready, ready, ready to “go downstairs.”
Well, going downstairs was a huge deal at my house. Mom would always get the movie camera and take a movie of us coming down the stairs one at a time. We had to go slowly, and we had to stop about 1/3 of the way from the bottom and sit down in a row for the final shot. As we got older, we thought up funny things to do (at least we thought they were funny) while we went down the stairs (wearing strange hats or wigs, making funny faces, or one time I remember we all pretended to fall about half way down. (We thought it might get us into the room where the presents were a little faster.) It didn’t. Then, when mom was satisfied she had gotten all the film she wanted, then, and only then, were we allowed to go around the corner into the living room. There, you could see the toys that weren’t wrapped up like bikes, or dollhouses, or mini kitchens, but most of the presents were wrapped. Then, we had to find our own little spot, and we would then take turns watching each family member open a present so everyone could appreciate what everyone else had given or received. It took forever. We said to ourselves, we’ll never make our kids go through all this when we get big.
On the way home from Christmas caroling last Sunday evening, I asked John, “Did we get the bacon yet?”
There are parts to our Christmas morning traditions that resemble what John and I experienced as children in our homes. There’s something comforting in doing some of it the “same way.” It takes us back. It connects us with where we’ve been, and it connects our children, and now our grandchildren with long-held family routines. Holy routines, I’m calling them, because the word holy means to be set apart. And these routines we do, set each of our families apart from other families, because they are unique for each of us. I mean, is there any other family here that has to have bacon on white bread on Christmas morning before opening your stockings? It’s our holy routine. And you probably have yours, too.
Singing Christmas carols can be routine. We know the words, we’ve been singing them, some of us, for many, many years. Lighting the candles on Christmas Eve – even though it’s only once a year, can be routine. Listening to, or reading the Christmas story in the Bible can be routine. We may say, “I’ve heard it so many times,” and not hardly hear it this time. It’s easy for the routine to stop being holy, and just be routine.
There’s a wonderful Christmas novel written by Barbara Robinson entitled, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Probably many of you read it in elementary or middle school. It is a story of people who allow Christmas, the real meaning of Christmas, to become only routine – and it is the story of how God brought a new family, the Herdmans, to their routine-infested church, to help them put the holy back in the traditional Christmas routine.
I want to read from the opening narrative of the book, told from the perspective of one of the “good church kids,” Beth Bradley:
The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken-down tool shed…. It was no good trying to keep secrets on the Herdmans. Everybody already knew about the awful things they did. You couldn't even tease them about their parents and holler 'Your father's in jail!' because they didn't care. Actually, they didn't know what their father was or where he was or anything about him, because when Gladys was two years old he climbed on a railroad train and disappeared. Nobody blamed him… We figured they all were headed straight to hell, by way of the state penitentiary …until they got themselves mixed up with the church and my mother and our Christmas pageant…
[In the story, the Herdmans hear about the pageant and the food served and they show up for the first rehearsal. The Narrator describes the scene:]
"Mother started to separate everyone into angels and shepherds and guests at the inn, but right away she ran into trouble.
'Who were the shepherds?' Leroy Herdman wanted to know.
Ollie Herdman didn't even know what a shepherd was…
'What was the inn?' Claude Herdman asked. 'What's an inn?'
'It's like a motel,' somebody told him, 'where people go to spend the night.'
The thing was, the Herdmans didn't know anything about the Christmas story. They knew that Christmas was Jesus' birthday but everything else was news to them - the shepherds, the Wise Men, the star, the stable, the inn.
It was hard to believe. At least, it was hard for me to believe…
Mother said she had better begin by reading the Christmas story from the Bible. This was a pain in the neck to most of us because we knew the whole thing backward and forward and never had to be told anything except who we were supposed to be and where we were supposed to stand…
The Herdmans were famous for never sitting still and never paying attention to anyone - teachers, parents, the truant officer, the police - yet here they were, eyes glued on my mother and taking in every word…
When Mother read about there being no room in the inn, Imogene Herdman's jaw dropped. 'My God!' she said, 'not even for Jesus?'
'Well, now, after all,' Mother explained, 'nobody knew the baby was going to be Jesus.' 'You said Mary knew,' Ralph Herdman said. 'Why didn't she tell them?'
'I would have told them!' Imogene put in. 'Boy, I would have told them! What was the matter with Joseph that he didn't tell them? Her pregnant and everything.'
'What was that they laid the baby in?' Leroy asked. 'That manger? Is that like a bed?
Why would they have a bed in a barn?'
'What were the waddled up clothes?' Claude wanted to know. 'The what?' asked Mother. 'You read about it - she wrapped him up in waddled up clothes.' 'Swaddling cloths,' Mother sighed. 'Long ago, people used to wrap up their babies very tightly in big pieces of material so they couldn't move around. It made the babies feel cozy and comfortable.'
'You mean they tied him up and put him in a feedbox?' Imogene said. 'Where was the Child Welfare Officer?'
I couldn't understand the Herdmans. You would have thought the Christmas story came right out of the FBI files, they got so involved with it - wanted a bloody end to Herod, worried about Mary having her baby in a barn, and called the Wise Men a bunch of dirty spies. And they left the first rehearsal arguing about whether Joseph should have set fire to the inn or just chased the innkeeper into the next country…”
God doesn’t want us just going into auto pilot when he comes to our relationship with him. God isn’t satisfied when all we do is show up on Christmas Eve (he’s glad), but he isn’t satisfied unless we make this routine holy (in other words, if we “set it apart”) from all the other routine things we do throughout our days. The God who came to us in Jesus the Christ, went way beyond the routine to get our attention. And he still does that for us today. All we have to do is open our hearts to Him, open our ears to His voice, and say, “Lord, I need you,” and something not so routine can happen in our lives.
Let me take you back to The Best Christmas Pageant Ever:
When we got home [from the first rehearsal] my father wanted to hear all about it.
'Well,' Mother said, 'just suppose you had never heard the Christmas story and didn't know anything about it, and then somebody told it to you. What would you think?' My father looked at her for a moment then said, 'Well, I guess I would think it was pretty disgraceful that they couldn't find any room for a pregnant woman except in a stable.'
I was amazed. It didn't seem natural for my father to be on the same side as the Herdmans.
'Exactly,' said Mother. 'It was perfectly disgraceful. And I never thought much about it. You hear all about the nice warm stable but that doesn't change the fact that they put Mary in a barn…deep down those [Herdman] children have some good instincts after all.'
[It’s important you know that since all of the other church kids were bored with the Christmas pageant, the Herdmans all volunteered for parts.]
Imogene was Mary; Ralph was Joseph; Leroy, Claude and Ollie were the Wise Men; and Gladys was the Angel of the Lord. The rehearsals continued as the pageant day approached. Due to bad language by all the Herdmans and smoking cigars in the Ladies Room by Imogene-soon-to-be-Mary, the minister had a talk with Beth's mom.]
'The whole church is in an uproar. Do you think we should call off the pageant?' asked Reverend Hopkins.
'Certainly not!' Mother said. 'Why, this is going to be the best Christmas pageant we've ever had!"
You had to admire her. It was like General Custer saying, 'Bring on the Indians!'
'Maybe so,' Reverend Hopkins said. 'I'm just afraid that no one will come to see it.'
But he was wrong. Everyone came… to see what the Herdmans would do.
[The pageant had already begun when Imogene and Ralph, Mary and Joseph, arrived at the church late.]
Only for once they didn't come through the door pushing each other out of the way. They just stood there for a minute as if they weren't sure they were in the right place - because of the candles, I guess, and the church being full of people. They looked like the people you see on the news - refugees sent to wait in some strange ugly place. It suddenly occurred to me that this was just the way it must have been for the real Holy Family, stuck away in a barn by people who didn't much care what happened to them.
[The choirs sang and the angel announced the birth and the shepherds and Wise Men were all on stage.]
Everyone had been waiting all this time for the Herdmans to do something absolutely unexpected. And sure enough, that was what happened. Imogene Herdman was crying!
In the candlelight her face was all shiney with tears and she didn't even bother to wipe them away. She just sat there - awful old Imogene - in her crooked veil, crying and crying.