Rosy Kandathil’s Homily – Christmas Eve: December 24, 2015

“Home” for Christmas
Isaiah 9:2-7; Titus 2:11-14; 3:4-7; Luke 2:1-20

It is good to be home.

Home. It’s the place our hearts inevitably turn as we approach this time of year: I’ll be home for Christmas. And on this Christmas Eve, so many have set out (or will set out) for that familiar place called home, surrounded by friends and family. But the meaning of “home” changes as we grow from children into adults.

• My earliest memories of home conjure up images of a place: my room, my toys, my Christmas tree and presents, my parents and siblings around a table.
• But as I have grown, the notion of what “home” means has shifted. I have less an image of a particular place, as I do particular people, significant relationships where I experience nurture and challenge.
• Home has multivalent meanings now. It has enlarged, expanded, stretched to take in so much more than what it meant earlier in my life. It has come to mean being “at home” in many different places with different people, who don’t so much look like me, but look like you.
• How strange, this notion of home that evolves so much in our lives and yet remains strongly anchored in the love and comfort we receive in relationships with one another.

When I first began thinking about what I would share with you tonight, I was far away.  As many of you know, I have been away at school in Minnesota.  With a couple of weeks to go before finals, I started looking at today’s scripture readings.  And do you know what happened?  As I finished our Gospel reading, I just started crying.  Perhaps I was simply overwrought from a long semester and the prospect of final exams, but I couldn’t ignore the sadness that bubbled up inside of me when I thought of Mary and Joseph trudging toward Bethlehem, heavily pregnant, just days from giving birth. Luke tells us that a decree had gone out that all should be registered, so that when the time came for Mary to give birth – she wasn’t near her mother or father, her sisters or brothers, friends or relatives who might support her in that hour of need.  She was alone with Joseph, a good man to whom she was engaged but barely knew, giving birth in a cave to her firstborn son whom she laid in a feeding trough, because there was no room for them in that city.  They were far from home.

This Christmas story was touching another memory too. One I had not considered for a long time, the story of another Mary who came to this country 40 years ago with her husband, a man she too barely knew because her marriage had been arranged in India.  With green cards in hand, Mary and her husband made their way to this country.  They made their home here and worked among people who did not look like them, did not speak the same language or eat the same food.  They too were far from home. When the time came for her to deliver her firstborn child, Mary and her husband drove to the hospital.  As she began to feel her labor pains, she longed for her mother’s comfort, her father’s support, her sister and brothers. When the contractions came fast and heavy, she was wheeled into a delivery room and began to push, with the encouragement of strangers: nurses and doctors.  The whole time during labor, she told me, she thought of her family, she thought of home, she thought of the future—and she pushed until she heard that baby’s cry.  There would be no grinning cousins in the waiting room, no aunts and uncles to congratulate this young couple, no fanfare: except in their hearts, where the delight of this healthy newborn child brought them fresh courage, joy and hope for the future.

My mother, Mary, tells me that when I was born, it was like all the lights had suddenly been turned on in their lives.  Much like our reading from Isaiah today, she was painting a picture.  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness – on them light has shone.  You have multiplied the nation, you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as people exult when dividing plunder.”

Although my heart is easily overwhelmed with darkness when I think of the story of Mary and Joseph in that cave alone with their newborn, or my immigrant mother pushing in a hospital delivery room alone without the comfort and support of her family, I cannot ignore the spectacular light and joy which a baby brings.  Although I might want to return to a notion of “home” where all is cozy and warm, full of the familiar toys and spectacle of Christmas, the story this year is much more real.

The story of Mary and Joseph and their newborn child, is not just a story about a family far, far away in a town long ago, but it is a story about our day. Mary’s story is my story.  It is our story.  Not just then, but now.  It is the story of so many people in our world today who are forced out of their homes by circumstance or decree, driven from their families by war, violence and persecution.  Here, at the end of 2015, 60 million people around the globe have been displaced – more than at any other point in human history.  These are the real world circumstances that surround our Christmas story this year and lend it an immediacy, a poignancy, that I have not felt in some time.  How many of you, like me, are wondering – so what now? How do we respond to the Christmas message this year and welcome new life in our midst?  For Jesus is indeed here, Christmas is upon us, robed in the tender flesh of a needy baby who cries out from Paul’s letter to Titus: “For when the goodness and loving-kindness of God our Savior appeared, God saved us….according to mercy…The Spirit was poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior.”  Yes, that glorious, merciful Spirit is upon us: God as Emmanuel.  Jesus.  God with us.

I love that Luke does not end this story with Mary and Joseph alone in a cave with their newborn. Instead of Matthew’s three kings, Luke gives us a common band of shepherds upon whom the glory of God has shone.  Despite their terror (the Greek reads “and they feared with great fear”) they go with haste to confirm the message of the angelic hosts: “good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah.”  The birth announcement is personal: “to YOU is born this day.”  Awakened by God’s angelic host, this motley blue-collar night-shift crew take the news seriously and set their feet in the direction of a new home, to encircle a vulnerable young family with their good words.  Because of this baby, these shepherds are no longer strangers.  By welcoming Christ’s life, they join hands in the new family of God.  Luke’s version of the Christmas story ends with the shepherds returning to the fields in a new way “glorifying God for all they had seen,” leaving all who heard their tale amazed at what the shepherds told them.

What message of hope brought you here tonight?  What brings you here to this gathering but the love, support and encouragement of an extended family – the strange and motley family of God?  Isn’t this the “good news of great joy for all the people” that we celebrate? Together we invoke a new reality made possible by the coming of this Child – more fragile and tender and simultaneously resilient and strong – than we dared hope or imagine.

I am reminded this Christmas of the prayer Jesus taught us, which we pray each time we gather here.  It begins with these precious words:  “Holy One, our only Home.”  The phrase strikes me in a new way this year as I learn to let go of displaced notions of “home” and embrace a new definition of home as a network of relationships bound by Love to Love.  This is a “family” more broad and multi-colored than my mother could have ever dreamed, and a future more glorious than any of us could have imagined alone.  This is our faith.  This is our hope.

When we circle this altar, hands clasped, tender flesh to tender flesh, we say “yes” to being amazed by this God of love who prayed that we might all be one.  We say “yes” to being a people of hope, to seeing the Christ-child alive in our midst, among us – in the hands that we hold.  We say “yes” to a new notion of “home” and “family” in this Christmas:

For a child has been born for us.
A son given to us;
authority rests on his shoulders;
and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
His authority shall grow,
and there shall be endless peace…
with justice and righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
Amen.

PRAYERS OF THE FAITHFUL

As we enter into the Christmas season, let us turn to God in prayer:

• For all those who, in different ways, struggle to find home and family this Christmas season, we pray:  God among us, hear our prayer.

• For all those 60 million in the world who have been displaced by war, violence and persecution and for all those that work on their behalf, we pray:  God among us, hear our prayer.

• For this worshiping assembly, may our care and respect for one another grow in the light of your grace and peace, we pray:  God among us, hear our prayer.

• For those members of this assembly who are grieving, those facing serious illness, and those listed in our book of intentions, we pray:  God among us, hear our prayer.

O God, on this holy night you reveal the infant Jesus to us,
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
Join our prayers tonight with Christians around the world.
Help us to see the light of your salvation among us,
that we may give birth to Christ again
In lives of faith, hope and love.
We pray this through Jesus the Christ.
AMEN.