Luke 2:1-20 New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

2 In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: 11 to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah,[a] the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host,[b] praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!”[c]

15 When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. 17 When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; 18 and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. 19 But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

I warned everyone last week that today’s scripture and sermon were going to be out of the box, and so here we are reading about Christmas in June! The nativity stories of the birth of Jesus are so rich and powerful, but on Christmas Eve, even Christmas Eve here at Stratham Church where I preach three different sermons for our three services, there isn’t the opportunity to go deep, to explore the complexities. On Christmas Eve, we are so wrapped up in the excitement and stress of Christmas that it isn’t the right time for sermons that radically challenge us to think. This passage from the Gospel of Luke is so loaded with memories that is hard to hear them with fresh ears.[i] As soon as I hear, “in those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone went to their own town to register,” I hear my grandfather’s voice reading those awe-inspiring words and remember so much. So, these are loaded with special meaning for me just as they are for many of you. But if we return to this story of Jesus’ birth when we are a little less busy, a little bit less stressed, and are not surrounded by the memories of Christmas, this story can come alive in powerful and radical ways as we ponder one of the most important aspects of this passage: the Incarnation.

As I explained last week, over the next seven sermons here at Stratham Church, I feel called to take us off the Revised Common Lectionary Scripture readings to explore seven scriptures that Francis of Assisi was lead to by God to transform a church that was stuck in inaction, that was in decline, that had lost its vision. While Stratham Church is healthy, the wider church across North America is mired in a harsh decline that we need to allow God to help us address. Francis was a medieval wisdom preacher who used everyday life, sayings, stories, and scripture to show us how we can allow God to transform our lives and our congregations by changing how we live. As theologian Murray Bodo explains, “Francis’s teaching, then, becomes both a theology and a way of living. They are a theology that emerges from the concrete, practical choices he made in the effect to follow the footsteps of Jesus, who is the teacher and the embodiment of what it means to live and love in God.”[ii] I have always loved Francis; he is a practical prophet. Many of our Christian theologians and thinkers are so pie in the sky and in the sweet by and by, but not Francis. He is rooted in everyday life, the nitty-gritty, where life hits the road. Francis did a better job than nearly anyone else over the last thousand years at pointing us towards the ways of the transforming love that is our God. I pray that through these seven lessons, we will be empowered, inspired, and equipped for the way of life that is the discipleship of following Jesus Christ.

Once upon a time, my wife told a parable during one her sermons that has always stuck in my mind that illustrates this so perfectly. In this parable, a great teacher was standing next to a lake with his students. As he was teaching, the moon was rising in the east. It was a full moon like no other; it filled the sky with its golden light and its reflection in the lake was beyond breathtaking. Awed by the beauty, the great teacher was struck speechless. There weren’t any words that could describe what he was seeing, so he raised his hand and with one finger he pointed toward the moon. The students looked at his pointing finger and started questioning what it signified. The first student argued that the teacher wanted them to study the wonder of the human finger. But immediately another student started arguing that the first was wrong, she argued that what their teacher meant was that they should go in that direction. Enlightenment would be found in that direction east. And soon everyone was arguing. As teacher stood there in silence, admiring the moon, the students were so lost in their debate about what their teacher’s pointing finger stood for and they completely missed what that finger was pointing at.

So, the first lesson that that Francis points us toward on a journey of transformation is the birth of Jesus: Jesus as the full Incarnation of God. Jesus as God’s presence with us, here on Earth. The concept of Incarnation is the belief that Jesus Christ is God made flesh and that Jesus is fully human and fully divine. It is a complex and sometimes paradoxical theological idea. But what our reading from the Gospel of Luke and what Francis points out to us is that Incarnation is much more than an idea; it is a way of life. We don’t need to sit around confessing that we believe in the Incarnation; rather, we need to live out the reality of the Incarnation not only at church on Sunday mornings, but also in our lives, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Theologian Barbara Brown Taylor explains it so well when she writes, “to embrace the daily practice of Incarnation is to walk the way of life that God opened up to us in Jesus Christ, by showing us how to inhabit our own flesh as fully and faithfully as he did his. When we are by God’s grace able to follow the leader—even for an hour—then we too become God’s Easter people, the latest bodily resurrections of God’s word made flesh.”[iii]

This week I want us to consider two critical takeaways that will empower us to live out the Incarnation. First, we need to consider the humility of God in becoming human as a call for us to embrace humility as a way of life. The humility of being born by choice in a stable. The humility of being born fully human to poor parents. The humility of enduring all the let downs and problems that come with being human from family issues to relationship problems. The most powerful reality in any Universe is humble enough to embrace becoming fully human. Think of the most powerful CEO at the largest corporation in the world asking for a new job in housekeeping and then multiply that humility by ten billion and that starts to get us to the humility of Jesus being born in that stable as fully human. As we struggle with the idea of God’s humility, I want us to examine our own pride, our human egos. God’s humility through the Incarnation calls us to examine our own humility. What so often gets in the way of our ability to love others is our own selfish needs to put ourselves first. When we are able to live out this way of life, when we understand that it isn’t all about us that we aren’t the center of the world, what I like, what I need. Me…me…me, then we are starting on this path of transformative humility as Jesus modeled for us. How are we called to live in relationship with this world? The answer is by trying to attain even a small fraction of the humility that Jesus shows in this passage. If we can do this, we are holding our small mirrors up so that we can reflect a small portion of the divine love that is the Incarnation.[iv]

The second takeaway that I want us to consider this week is our gratitude for the gift. We need to engage the Incarnation as the greatest gift of all time. The gift that was given to us. This is the gift that had the angels singing and the shepherds yelling praises and sharing all that they had seen with everyone they met. And the miracle of this gift continues right into Holy Week and that first Easter Sunday. The great miracle of Holy Week is not self-sacrifice; it is not the suffering and death on Good Friday; the great miracle of Easter is the regifting of the Incarnation through the resurrection. It is the triumph of love over death. Love is the miracle that Jesus would come back to us after what, we, humanity did to God. This is the great miracle of Easter is not atonement, the unbelievable miracle is that the greatest gift ever given would be regifted, would willingly regift himself to us after we not only rejected and denied him, but utterly destroyed and tortured him. This goes beyond unconditional love. This is unimaginable love. Jesus came back to us after, the resurrected Incarnation, our gratitude for that gift that was regiven should change everything.

I want us to listen to this amazing quote from theologians Jovian Weigel and Leonard Foley, “Jesus is no longer visible, audible, touchable, but he left another sacrament like himself. Not just one body, but a body formed by many bodies, many persons—the followers of Christ. Until the end of time, the Church is the sign or sacrament or visibility of Christ. The Church bears the burden and the glory of saying to the world: ‘If you want to see and hear the love and forgiveness of Jesus, look at us, listen to us.’”[v]

My friends, we need to practice the Incarnation. It is not just a doctrine that we need to believe. The Incarnation is a way of life that needs to embody our faith in action. This is why we need to take those sweet, beautiful Christmas stories of Jesus’ birth so seriously. This is why need Christmas in June! We live in age when so many are blind to God’s presence among us and this world needs us to make them aware of the realness of the Incarnation through humility and gratitude for the gift that can and will transform everything. We can forgive freely, we can welcome extravagantly, we can be love and grace in action. We can get our hands dirty, we can sweat, we can cry, we can comfort, we can plant seeds that will feed and nourish generations who we will never know.[vi] Through God, we can make the Incarnation real; we can allow the Christmas / Easter miracle to happen 365 days a year by allowing God the freedom to work through us. We are the church! The gift and the responsibility of the Incarnation lies with us!

I know these are challenging ideas, and I invite everyone to our afternoon book group to discuss and reflect upon these insights. And next week, we will continue to explore the scriptures that Francis points us towards with the theme of paradoxical evangelical poverty from the words of Jesus found in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.

[i] “Luke 2:1-14 (15-20),” Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, Louisville, KY: WJK Press, 2008, pp. 116-121.

[ii] Murray Bodo, “Surrounded by Love: Seven Teachings from Saint Francis,” Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2018, p. xv.

[iii] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Practicing Incarnation” Christian Century, April 5, 2005, Available at: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/2005-04/practicing-incarnation.

[iv] Ilia Delio, “The Humility of God,” Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2005.

[v] Jovian Weigel and Leonard Foley, “Live like Francis,” Cincinnati, OH: Franciscan Media, 2016, p. 33.

[vi] Kristin Berkey-Abbot, “Known to Us in Dirt an Spit” Christian Century, March 23, 2017, Available at: https://www.christiancentury.org/blog-post/known-us-dirt-and-spit.