The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
1 Samuel 2: 18-20, 26 Psalm 148 Colossians 3: 12-17 Luke 2: 41-52
Into this holy season of your birth, you come among us still. Open our ears, quiet our minds, and ready our hearts to receive your Word, enfleshed as Emmanuel, God with us. Amen.
Earlier this month I was looking at a nativity scene with one of the middle school students from this congregation. It was a beauty….with great attention to detail and with many more characters than most. There were lots of animals, many angels, astonished shepherds, magi laden with gifts, and of course, Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus.
As we admired the setting, this mature beyond his years disciple said to me “I think Mary looks sad.” And when I asked why he thought she would be sad, he said “Because her work was done.”
This conversation stayed with me throughout Advent. In fact, you will read about it in the January issue of The Messenger. Some days, as I reflected on the work of Mary being finished, it was because I was wondering if the various kinds of extraneous ‘work’ I had created around Christmas would ever be complete. Would the right gifts be found for each person? Would they get wrapped? Would the cards get sent out before or after Christmas Day this year? Would cookies be baked in time for the arrival of family?
Other days, though, I thought that his conclusion that Mary’s work was over was fitting for someone who had not yet been a parent. For anyone who has added a baby to their family knows that the work does not end with the birth. The work is only beginning then. And it is joyous work, to be sure, but exhausting work. It takes great physical, mental, and emotional stamina to raise a child. And we have no reason to believe that it would have been any different to raise the Son of God.
When I read the texts for today, my first thought as a preacher of the Gospel was “I wish these were the assigned lectionary texts for the second Sunday in May, which is, of course, Mother’s Day.” Because when I read these texts: the Old Testament reading from 1 Samuel, and the letter to the Colossians, and the Gospel story from Luke, I hear stories about mothers. It is entirely likely that when you read them you do too, or perhaps you hear stories about boys as they are growing up. Either way, the stories that are told here today are stories of relationship and of the hard work that is always involved in relationships.
The reading from 1 Samuel only gives us a glimpse into the remarkable story of Samuel and his mother, Hannah. You see, Hannah bore the great sorrow and weight of barrenness. Unable to conceive a child, her husband’s other wives tormented her with their prolific fertility. Hannah prayed fervently, even without ceasing, and finally vowed to God that if she were granted a son, she would give him over to the service of the Lord in the temple as soon as she had weaned him. And that is what she did. After her son Samuel was born and weaned, she left him at the temple in the care of the old priest Eli. Every year she visited Samuel, who grew in wisdom and in favor with God. And in today’s text we get this very poignant story of Hannah and Elkanah, her husband, going on those annual visits to the temple. Every year, we are told, Hannah made a little robe for her much longed for first born child, and took it to him at the temple. All of us who are mothers know that the reason Hannah made him a new robe every year is because he had outgrown his old one. But the robe and the ephod were signs of something more than a growing boy…they were clothing that would be designate him as someone chosen to work for the Lord in the temple, as a priest or someone who would be a priest. And what we know from Samuel’s story is that he served an important and critical role in history….Samuel is the child of transition, transition from the time of judges to the time of kings. This powerless child signifies a radical shift in power and political structure in Israel.
The Gospel offers us the story of Jesus as a boy of twelve. And here again, every parent who has ever lost track of their child in a store or even at church, knows the way Mary and Joseph felt. The frantic searching, asking from person to person…have you seen him? Have you seen our son? There is the odd exchange between Jesus and Mary once he is found…and there is Mary’s persistent presence with her son, even as she did not fully grasp what was meant by his father’s work and even as she pondered the events of his life in her heart.
I wish it were Mother’s Day today….that our weather was warm with the promise of spring and that I could address these texts in light of the work of mothers, which truly is not complete once the pain of childbirth has passed. Because the willingness of Hannah to give her much longed for firstborn child over to the work of God and the willingness of Mary to continue in her role as bearer of God long after that night in the manger cries out for a Mother’s Day sermon.
But it is not Mother’s Day. It’s Christmas…still. The Christmas season is not over, despite what the stores are telling us and despite the presence already of cast aside Christmas trees on the curb. Today is the sixth day of Christmas…we have six more to go.
So, how do we hear these stories of faithful mothers who bring their children clothes that fit and who treasure the words of their adolescent sons in their hearts because they might sustain them at the foot of the cross….and make them fit into the Christmas season?
I think we go back to the conversation there at the manger scene and the understanding that Mary’s work…the work of Christmas… is not finished at Christmas, and neither is ours.
Think about it….Christmas is arguably the most public display of the Christian faith in our culture today. People celebrate Christmas whether or not they believe in Christ. They exchange gifts, decorate trees, hang lights, and wish one another a merry Christmas….a merry Christ…mass. And on December 26th they start taking down their trees and moving on. But the task ahead of us is to continue doing the work of Christmas. To continue to speak love to hate. To continue to share the news with shepherds. To continue to search for the Christ child in a world deterred by unjust leaders and unimaginable violence.
The work of Christmas, it could be argued, is outlined in the reading from Colossians today….that we clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. That we bear with one another and forgive wone another. That we clothe ourselves with love and let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts. That the word of Christ dwells in us and that we teach one another and live lives of gratitude. That we sing and give thanks.
On this Sunday after Christmas, I share with you this poem by Jim Strathdee, entitled simply, “Christmas Poem.”
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the magi and the shepherds
Have found their way home,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost and lonely one,
To heal the broken soul with love,
To feed the hungry children
with warmth and good food,
To feel the earth below,
the sky above!
To free the prisoner from all chains,
To make the powerful care,
To rebuild the nations
With strength of good will,
To see God’s children everywhere!
To bring hope to every task you do,
To dance at a baby’s new birth,
To make music in an old person’s heart,
And sing to the colors of the earth!
Friends in Christ, the work of Christmas was begun in that manger, continued at the temple where Jesus taught, and continues anew each day. Let us not keep Christmas only in our hearts, but share it with our lives.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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