I often go to the website of an Anglican priest Suzanne Guthrie who lives with her husband as resident companion of The Community of the Holy Spirit, Melrose Convent in Brewster, New York. The sisters of this community work at Bluestone Farm and Learning Center and live a balanced life reflecting sustainable living, social justice and spiritual fulfilment. I'm indebted to Suzanne for these thoughts tonight.
One of the spiritual disciplines that I've cultivated over the years is the discipline of striving for a new beginning, of letting go, of not letting the past dictate how I live today or how I might live in to tomorrow. Christmas is one of the festivals of the year that helps in this discipline. Every year we retell the story, sing the same beloved carols, celebrate meaningful traditions, sometimes learn new carols and engage new traditions. We know the story and yet we come this night to hear it again with new ears, with an open heart, with new eyes. We begin over and walk the path of life with Christ, newly born in the world and in each of us.
Gerard Manly Hopkins was a Victoria poet and Jesuit priest who was wracked by his own self-doubt; this is partly why I like his poetry. It speaks of humanity and realness. Hopkins wrote a poem about starting over, about not looking back and pressing on into the beginning. It goes like this:
Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, O past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem star may lead me
To the sight of him who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and always:
Now begin, on Christmas Day.
The Bethlehem star leads us to see the world with different eyes; the star casts its rays upon the places where there is sorrow, where there is fear, where there is despair, where there is war and violence, where women are raped as an aspect of war and children are turned into soldiers. The Bethlehem star casts its light into the lives of the poor who struggle to make ends meet.
Dorothy Soelle, a German theologian, reminds us that the Bethlehem star appeared to shepherds, considered to be one of the lowliest of trades in the Israel of Jesus' day. Soelle said, "The frightened shepherds became God's messengers. They organize, make haste, find others, and speak with them. Do we not all want to become shepherds and catch sight of the angel?" Soelleinvites us to see Mary among us, poor and in need of shelter to give birth to hope and love in the world. She also invites us to see in every child, especially the children dying of hunger and violence, the face of the Christ Child.
What Christmas invites us all to do is to set aside our fears; or perhaps more importantly, not so much to set aside our fears, but to live in spite of them—for we all have fears. The Bethlehem star appears for each of us—wherever our Bethlehem might be—and the angel proclaims God's intention for a new beginning in the world, and we are invited to live this new gift in spite of our fears. We gather others around us, make a new community and seek to make real in the world this new beginning.
And God is with us every step of the way. Here is the Bethlehem. Here is the Christ Child. Here this very night... Let us live in spite of our fear... let us choose a life of fullness and joy for all in this world. Let us choose a life of peace and sustainable living ourselves, a new community of star-light and love.
A blessed Christmas to you all.
Amen.
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