"Naughty or Nice"

                              Dualism requires us to think: "We or Them"  "Bad or Good"

                              Unconditional love requires us to think "Everything & Everyone Belongs"  

Dec 18 2016     Matthew 1: 18 -25

One of the great theologians and renowned author of our time, Karl Barth, was asked to be a guest lecturer at the University of Chicago Divinity School.   Dr. Barth being quite elderly, not well and quite tired, sat quietly after his arrival.  The organizers for the lecture thought after speaking Dr. Barth shouldn't be expected to handle the strain of the many question that were expected from students.  It was decided that the Presider would ask one general question for all.  He turned to the renowned theologian and asked, "Of all the theological insights you have ever had, what would you consider to be the greatest of them all?    It seemed the perfect question for a man who had written literally tens of thousands of pages of some of the most sophisticated theology ever put into print.  The students held pencils right up against their writing pads, ready to note down the great insights of one of the greatest theologian of their time.  Dr. Barth closed his tired eyes, and he thought for a minute, and then he half smiled, opened his eyes, and said to those young theology students, "The greatest theological insight that I have ever had is this: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the bible tells me so”

Karl is right folks, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest love story ever written!  If it weren't for Christmas we might never have known the intensity of the love that God has for each and every one of us.

Mary and Joseph, far from home because of imperial rule, a peasant mother giving birth in unsanitary substandard conditions... There was no fanfare, no religious delegation and no royalty in attendance only a few shepherds who were apparently attending their flock that night, but some might say what about the wise men Sim, they were there weren’t they?   Well the truth be known, and I hope I don’t shock to many of you but there is no gospel account of the wise men from the east showing up at the manger screen.  Here is some homework for you: There is only one gospel account of wise men visiting Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and it can be found in the gospel of Matthew 2:   1-12.  The account speaks of wise men from the east showing up much later when Jesus was a child not an infant.  Check it out folks.  If you attend our worship service on Christmas day I will explain this in more detail when we talk about the season of “Epiphany” or the 12 days of Christmas. 

So, in the original telling of the story, we have only the Shepherds vising Mary, Joseph and their newborn in the manger. They, amazed at the miracle of new birth, gauze in joyful celebration as they looked upon the face of their newborn, just like every new parent would do.   But this child would be different for He was to be the sign of God’s true unconditional love for the world to see and to know personally. 

Unconditional love accepts us for who we really are; God chooses to love us precisely because we are all His and because we are all subjected to the human condition... Let us set aside the myth that we are loved only if we are good, for if that were true, none would be loved.  Let us also set aside the myth that if we are bad we are not loved, for if that were true none would be loved.  How come the same? Bad or Good we are loved folks.  We all know that good stuff and the bad stuff make their home within all of humanity no one escapes these two natures.    Mary and Joseph had nothing to offer but their obedience to a calling beyond themselves and that is precisely all we have to offer, a calling beyond ourselves.  It is an invitation to trust and surrender our lives over to the care and control of something greater than ourselves. 

Jesus was to be the Son, the true Son of God so patiently waited for, and now to be born into our world.  This child would be the ONE, the one who was willing to finally embody God’s unconditional love for all to see and experience.  Not just some of the time, not when it was convenient, but in every waking, breathing minute of every single day... It is the birth of that love into our world that we celebrate at Christmas.    It’s not about making list and checking it twice, and it’s not about being naughty or nice folks.  It’s about a love so great and unconditional that its power transcends naughty and nice, good and bad.   Who would have ever guessed that this crossing of paths, this intersection of the divine and the human, would take place in a remote village in the Middle East?  That a child would be born into our world, who would fill His life so much with the love of God, that in Him , thousands upon thousands would be moved to make the incredible claim that they had actually met their God in person.   On Christmas night God would sent out a love letter of cosmic proportions as Jesus was to embody the incarnate Christ.  You can read about the Christ being there in the beginning, Genesis 1: 26.  This birth was the moment that all were waiting for, when God and humanity were offically joined as a bride and groom on their wedding day.  As Jesus grew and went out into the world, so our understanding of just how much God loves us also grew.   We find in Jesus that God's love doesn't demand perfection - that forgiveness isn't given away sparingly but recklessly and indiscriminately - that unconditional really means unconditional, and that God's love is completely and thoroughly inclusive no label, sign or promoting necessary. My hope is that our UCC can take that in.    In and through this love there is no them and us folks, all are accepted.   We find that even the likes of us gathered here today including me, fall within the embrace of that love, and that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God found in Christ Jesus.   But I also know this folks; that without this trans-formative Christmas birth my life would be positively unbearable!  ---  that for me the baby in the manger is the light of my world, even when my world is in shambles...For in that baby the Divine and the human miraculously cross paths.   The infant Jesus is our living, breathing sign of the immeasurable love that God has had for all of us from the very beginning and gives us reassurance that we too contain within our genetic makeup that divine love.  For it is within the ingenious gen of the true “Atom”, from which we all were created, which some might believe is the true image of God.  

Christmas is the living promise that we are never ever alone.  No matter where we are in life, no matter in what condition we find ourselves, no matter how far we might stray or how unfaithful we are, God, the supreme lover, will pursue us in love for eternity!    It's a love that never stops shining.

May God bless each of you and those you love this Christmas