Second Sunday of Christmas
January 2, 2000
Year B
Theme: The birth and gift of Christ is God speaking in this world—and
what God is saying is that “I am here.”
I don’t know how many of you have been in a heated discussion, maybe
even an argument with someone, and you find yourself not really
listening anymore—you find yourself simply waiting for the other person
to finish what they are saying so that you can begin or continue to say
what you think is important. Its almost as if the conversation or the
argument has ended because everyone involved stopped listening 10
minutes ago and the participants are simply talking AT each other,
not TO each other. Its almost as if you’re not actually present anymore
because you’ve simply stopped listening to what the other person is or
has been saying. Have you ever seen this kind of argument—or,
perhaps, you’re like me and you’ve been an actual participants in this
little dance—a dance that doesn’t involve another partner because you
given up on their ability to dance.
Sound familiar? I wish it didn’t sound so familiar, but witnessing
something like that points out one of the hardest things to learn—and I
do think its something you have to learn—which is the ability to listen and
be present with someone else, to really listen and be present even when
it is difficult. Its hard to stop your brain, which is already in the process
of formulating what you are going to say next, and just listen and be
present with that person sitting across from you. Well, the ability to listen
to the one speaking, the ability to hear when what you want to do is
speak is hard thing to learn—it is for me, at least. But learning to do just
that is something we all have to learn—listening well to those we care
about—and even to those whom we are not close to—is important
because it is the gift of our presence, our entire presence that we must
offer to each other in the end. The passage we have from the Gospel of
John today is also about being present, but present in a way that we
have only a hint of in our human relationships. It is about God’s
presence with us, with us human beings, but a presence that is simply
like no other—a presence in which the divine, the holy, speaks to us in a
startling and new way. The passage we have before us is about God
speaking into the world, but what God is saying to us comes to us in a
strange, new way. Instead of words, we get a Word, and that Word is a
human being, this Jesus of Nazareth. Instead of God simply saying, “I
am here,” God comes here to be with us, to make those words truer than
they have ever been. Love itself, holy presence, comes to us as one of
us, as this Jesus of Nazareth.
But what is God saying to us in this moment? Here we have God
speaking into the world, here we have God’s saying something deeply
intimate to us—something that is both deafening as an airplane engine
and quiet as a whisper. The Gospel of John says that what God is
saying to us is something that God has always been saying to us: “In the
beginning the Word already was,“ says writer of John in the first verse.
The Word comes now, during the Christmas season, not as words strung
together, not as a sentence in a book, or words uttered from a prophet—
no, the writer says that what God is saying to us comes to us as a human
being, as this Jesus of Nazareth, as this child born in a manger. God
has spoken to the world, not by sending another prophet or simply
another leader—God has spoken to the world by giving us God’s very
own self—“so the Word became flesh; the Word made a home among
us, and we saw the glory of the Word, as befits the Mother’s, the Fathers
only Child, full of grace and truth.” What is God saying? God is saying
to us “Here I am” through this Jesus of Nazareth. “I am here. I have
always been here, from the beginning of the world, I have been here.”
This is an amazing moment, a moment in which the distance between
heaven and earth collapse, and where it collapses is in a manger in
Bethlehem. It is a moment when the words “I am here” have a meaning
that is startling—no longer are they simply words but they become
written into the tiny face of this child born in Bethlehem, the words have a
home in this world and that home is found in Jesus. “I am here, I am
present with you”—these words become real, so very real at this
moment. So what does it mean, this moment when the divine and the
human become one, when all the old categories get erased and what we
see is a God who is present among us in ways that we never expected?
It means this, I think, perhaps among many other things: it means that
God has spoken in this moment, this moment when Jesus becomes what
God is saying to the world, and our job, our job, is to be present with this
God who pursues by meeting us where we are at—in this world, in flesh
and blood. It means listening and being present and straining to hear
God speaking to us in the coming year…and not forgetting that God is
here, that God is present, and that God has gone so far as to collapse
heaven and earth to be here with you. God is so committed to you and
to me that nothing, nothing, not even those things which separate the
divine from the earthly, will stand in the way of God’s love for you and
me, will stand in the way of God being present with you in your pain and
in your joy. This is a God who wants so much to be present with all of
creation—you and me—that nothing will stand in the way of that desire to
be here with us. What we are asked to do is to be present with our
pursuer—we are asked to be present and to listen to the one whose love
stretches from eternity into time. So many things will meet us in this
millennium, so many moments when we will be distracted from the one
who is speaking to us in this startling way, in this Jesus of Nazareth. I
don’t know about you, but sometimes I am not the greatest listener in the
world—especially when it comes to listening to God—like I said before, I’
m working on an answer while I am being spoken to. I suspect most of us
would do well to stop the wheels in our minds from cranking in our head,
to stop speaking so that we can actually listen to God. I need to listen
more—God knows I’ve got a lot to say—the challenge is certainly not
being at a loss for words—the challenge is listening to God, isn’t it? How
about you? The God of the universe has come among us to be present
with us in ways that we will never fully understand—indeed, the church
has never fully understood, even on the eve of this third millennium.
A Word is being spoken, a Word given to us in this Jesus, and our
challenge is to listen to what is being said. I mentioned earlier that
sometimes we dance as if we don’t have a partner—as if there wasn’t
someone else dancing with us because we’ve ceased being present with
our dance partner. I don’t want to do that anymore—I want to dance with
God, I want to listen to what is being said, and I want to be present with
this One who has passionately pursued me so that we could have this
dance. I wonder, too, if you would join me in this, this chance to be
present with God, this chance to listen to God, this chance to dance with
the divine one, who, despite our best refusals, never seems to take “No”
for an answer? Amen.
