First UCC Tucson

December 24, 2009
Luke 2:1-7, 16-20

We build walls.  We build walls to help compartmentalize our world.  We’ve got people who are from the north and people who are from the south.  It means something when you claim to be from one or the other.  You are making statements when you say you are from one or the other.  We draw lines in the north and south so we can say we’re from Arizona or Wisconsin…Both mean different things, cheese head or cowboy, we’ve got walls.  We build walls to determine who is rich or poor, who has power and who doesn’t, who is cool and who isn’t.  We build walls to keep people out when we are supposed to be cool but inside we feel afraid, and weak and anxious.  We build walls to protect ourselves when we live with people who are viscious and greedy and violent.  We build walls to protect us from our enemies.  WE build walls in the name of making things easier, compartmentalized, black and white.  It starts pretty young, this wall building and some go up, others come down, it’s as if we’re continually remodeling our interior compartments, but there they are, the walls.  But, tonight…Tonight we gather together in the evening, in the night, that we might understand here under the cover of darkness that something new is breaking into our lives, something new is growing with our central room, a fire that is glowing, in hopes of consuming our walls.

God gathers us around the stable tonight.  God gathers all of us, have you noticed?  Here they are, in the stable…They are in a make shift dwelling that the animals live in…The animals are here.  God is being born in the midst of the home of the animals.  God is bigger than human beings, God cares about all of the creatures and stages this big event outside of the walls of a hospital, a home, a church or a government building…God stages this new beginning in the midst of the animal smells, the straw, the wind, the dirt, the life of the animals.  God gathers all of us.  He gathers Joseph, a man promised to a woman because of his family’s choice.  A man who is not the father of the baby she bears tonight.  A man who brings her into his life anyway.  A man who is willing to choose to begin a new kind of family in a whole new way, a man who is willing to allow God to bless his life even though it’s happening outside of the walls of the norm.  God gathers all of us.  God gathers Mary, a young girl pregnant outside of marriage.  A young girl who talks to angels and is willing to bear God in this world, smuggling God into the midst of the Holy Roman Empire.  A young girl who chooses to answer God’s request in spite of her fear.  God gathers all of us, Mary and Joseph are homeless in Bethlehem, they have little which lands them in the stable in the first place, they have no connections there, God gathers all of us.  The shepherds are there the migrants.  They wander and roam the land not part of any of it but part of all of it.  Crossing boundaries thinking only of their flocks.  God gathers all of us.  The Kings are men of means and bring expensive gifts to a new born king.  They are nobility.  God gathers all of us.  God’s messenger, the angel is here.  And little baby Jesus is here.  God’s self, presented in a newborn, weak, innocent, vulnerable baby.  God, in the center of the light and love.  We are all gathered together in this crazy story of the stable, that we all might see in ourselves and one another, the refugee, the migrant, the nobility, the invisible kept breaking down walls.  Migrants, refugees, nobility, the outcast, the invisible…human, animal, other worldly beings are all represented in this story tonight.  Every one is represented.  Everyone is represented, God has created a place for all of us, to come, no matter who, no matter where from, come to the stable and see, God is with us.

No IDs are required.  There is no bouncer at the door.  There is no term expiration on your ticket, there is no ticket.  No matter who, no matter where from, everyone is gathered here in the stable, here in this story, believer, non believer, Christian and Jew, Roman and Pagan, all are gathered here, looking into the face of God, that we might begin again in the light.  

And as they began to gather, they all sang together.  Peace.  There were no turf wars.  There were no animals complaining they had been displaced.  There were no fights between the factions. Everyone had turned off their hatreds, had lowered their walls, had come, open and willing and ready to see the face of God in whatever they would find under that star.  Even when it was this unmarried couple.  Even when it was this young girl.  Even when it was in a stable, with a baby lying in a manger.  Everyone, came together, looked into the eyes of one another and felt peace.  Said peace.  Breathed peace.  Visioned peace.  Sang peace.  Peace.  Peace.

We too will be better off when we work to break down the walls.  Even when we are afraid, like the Shepherds.  Even when we are confused like Mary.   Even when we think we are too old like Liz.  Even when we think we are in charge like Zech.  Even when we think we’re too progressive to believe in angels, babies, and stables.  No matter how we feel, what we think or how we are, we are better off this story reminds us, when we are breaking down the walls.  This living is hard but it’s not the walls that will make it easier…it’s not the compartmentalizing.  It’s those things that draw us together in spite of the walls…like a newborn baby in a stable.  Let it be so!

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