Lose the Sermon

 

Luke 2:1-20

 

            What you are about to hear is one of those strange paradoxes that we often find when exploring the nature of God. This is a sermon to explain why I’m not giving a sermon this morning.

 

            There is a saying among writers that there is no temptation in the world greater than the urge to rewrite someone else’s work. No one seems immune to the disease. Rudyard Kipling once received a rejection note from a publisher that read, “I’m sorry Mr. Kipling, you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

            Kipling of course went on to gain recognition as one of the British Empire’s foremost authors. Yet the editor was absolutely certain that Kipling’s stuff would be far better if the editor spent some time improving it.  

 

            We seem to have this urge to tinker. Something inside us says that anyone and anything can be improved. The problem is, when you start messing with beauty in the world, the result is usually disappointing.

 

            It’s a good thing that Abraham Lincoln had no speechwriters or editors to improve upon his work. Otherwise, the stirring opening of the Gettysburg Address which goes:

 Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

 

Would probably have been changed to something like:

           

            Approximately 87 years ago, a group of duly elected officials gathered in a hall in Philadelphia to craft together and gain consensus on a constitution that gave a high priority to incorporating principles of self-governance, and provided a framework for an egalitarian-based democratic system.

 

            And no one would ever have remembered that speech. No one would read it today. When we start messing with beauty in the world, the result is usually disappointing. 

 

            The same urge to edit, or to tinker, comes over us when we are dealing with God’s work. You really notice that when you travel to the great wilderness areas of the west, as we did this past summer. You see the breathtaking beauty of the natural world, and you see all the places where people have had to get their fingers in it. There just is no comparison. By far, the greatest beauty and majesty are the places where God’s work is left to stand on its own. 

 

             

 

            You see now the dilemma that a pastor faces at Christmas time. Ask any pastor, and he or she will tell you that the hardest sermon of the year to write is a sermon for Christmas. Because on Christmas, we tell the most wonderful story ever told, a thing of timeless and immeasurable beauty. Once you tell that story, what else is there left to say? What are you supposed to add?

 

            Behind human, we try to tinker with it. Some of us may believe that we can add lot to that story, that we can make it better, or even that our message is what people come to hear on Christmas. That our message is the one that will inspire and inform, the one that people will take home from the service and remember for years to come. But it doesn’t happen. When we start messing with beauty in the world, the result is usually disappointing.

 

            I have told some of you about our trip to the Redwood Forest this past summer. It is truly holy ground. The place is so still and mysterious that you can feel the ancient pulse of the trees, some of which were alive on that night when Jesus came into the world. You look up at those enormous trees and you can actually feel yourself shrinking into insignificance. And it makes you think that if I feel so humble standing among these trees, what must it be like to stand in the presence of God?

 

            There were people who thought they had something to add to that wondrous scene. A little improvement they could make. They figured they could take the hallowed beauty of the forest and put their personal stamp on it. So we saw a couple of spots where people had carved their initials in one of these fallen giants.

 

            Why couldn’t they leave it alone? When we start messing with the beauty of the world, the result is usually disappointing. 

 

            Giving a Christmas sermon is a delicate thing. The beauty is in the story that we read in Luke. On Christmas Eve we are surrounded by that story, awed by it, silenced by it, moved to tears by it, inspired to sing by it. The last thing I want to do is ruin it by trying to carve my initials in it.

 

            I’m not saying that sermons on Christmas are bad. I can see a role for a Christmas sermon, just as I see a role for humans in the Old Redwood Forest. Conservation officials are entrusted with the task of making the forest as accessible to all as possible without disturbing the beauty.

 

            That is what a sermon can do on Christmas, if it is handled right. Most Christmases I will try to do that. I will try tonight to make that story as accessible as possible without destroying the beauty. But it is a delicate task: any pastor that tries should do so only with fear and trembling, and a lot of prayer. 

 

 

            This morning, though, I’m reminded of a story told by a seminary professor. At one service he attended, an elderly gentlemen made his way to the lectern for the Scripture readings. The man opened his Bible and read the passage with such feeling and such honesty and such humility and such conviction, and such sadness and joy combined that the sanctuary was mesmerized. When he finished, there was a long period of silence, and then, as my professor explains it,

            The pastor had the good sense to step up to the pulpit and say: “There will be no sermon this morning. There is nothing I could possibly add to what we have just heard.”

 

            And so there will be no sermon this morning. We’re just going to let the story be told; an old story in a new way. A way that I hope will help the young among us remember it so they can carry it with them always, and pass it on when their time comes.