You Can't Get There from Here

As we stand here on this tenth day of Christmas, gathered to worship God the Father in the Name of Jesus the Redeemer, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we have a choice. 

We can live and move from hope or we can choose and act, vote and respond from fear.

Many people in our world, in our media, those in power and leadership and those who walk with us in our everyday lives---so many would have us move from fear, telling us that in order to achieve our dream---American or otherwise—our dream of personal safety, of personal health, of personal wealth, then we must move from fear.

The fear of not having enough, so we should accumulate, consume and purchase more and more so somebody else doesn’t get what should be ours.

The fear of not being enough so we live a rat race of multi-tasking, going, going, and going 24/7 so we can do more, accomplish more, get more, be more.

The fear of being inconvenienced or uncomfortable so we have every right to close our doors to foreigners and strangers because they don’t understand our ways, speak our language, or hold our beliefs.  And, after all, they might take/get some of what is rightfully ours.

This is the fear of “us versus them.”  The fear that separates and labels peoples and nations, creating borders God doesn’t even see-- all so that we can pretend to know who is us and what is ours and, therefore, that is all with which we need to concern ourselves.

All one has to do is read history, any history of human action in the world, and one will find that every evil act ever enacted, every evil idea ever held, every evil word ever spoken finds its origin in fear.  Fear attached to any dream based on “me and mine” instead of “us and ours.”

But Christmas brings us another option: Hope.  And Christmas, in the form of the human baby named Jesus (which means the One who saves), Christmas gives us another dream to lead us—God’s dream, writ large on the Universal tapestry from the sky-scattered stars to the dust beneath our feet ---God’s dream which would have us choose and act, vote and speak, believe and respond from Us and Ours---one Human family, Genesis 1 reinstated as God has always planned.  Peace on Earth and Good will for and toward all people.

God’s dream delivers to us today’s Good News, the promise of Christmas, that God has restored, is restoring and will continue to restore us, that God drenches us with grace, that God directs, guides, and protects us—leading us home instead of leaving us in the desert to fend for ourselves---this Good news is the Truth of God’s dream that can set us free.

Because God restores us, we need not fear not having enough, not being enough or not accomplishing enough.

Because God directs, guides and protects us, we need no longer believe that our safety relies on borders, weapons, militaristic might and the downfall of others.

Because God drenches us with grace and abundance, we need no longer fear that someone else is going to get what we deserve; we are freed from the fear of stranger and alien----as if humanity could strip us from God’s grace when that is something that can only be lost by our own choosing, no one else’s.

The promise of Christmas, which is the promise of Genesis, the promise of Easter and the promise God has given us ever since we were created: is that God’s storyline is bigger and wider than any other storyline out there----even the one in our darkest fears, our scariest dreams, and the nightmare of the world around us. 

When I was about 4 years old or so, my family spent some time in Maine.  One of the things we brought back was an album called “Bert and I.”  It was a comedy album of jokes and stories recorded by people who had a thick “Maine” accent.  I was a strange child.  I listened to it a lot. 

One of the jokes went something like this:  You hear a car driving up and past, turning around and driving up and past, and turning around one more time and finally coming to a stop.  The driver asks for directions.  A person tells him, “Oh, a-yuh….you have to go up a ways to the county road, take a left, drive a ways…….oh, no, no, no……you need to go straight on, take the next right, travel down to the fork in the road and take a left and…..oh: no, no, no.  Let’s see here, you turn straight around, go ‘bout three, four mile down the road, take a left by the big tree at the cross road…..ah, no, no, no.   Then, there’s a pause and the person giving directions says: Come to think of it, you can’t get there from here.

This punchline is the lie the fearmongers all around us would have us believe.  The fear that we can’t get there from here--- we can’t get to God’s dream from here.  The fearmongers tell us: It’s impossible, it’s implausible, the joke is on you.

But we know what we believe, we disciples, we beloved children of God, we who celebrate and profess the Christmas proclamation: Peace on earth and good will for all people.  We know what we believe.  We gather and profess it every Sunday in the Creed, in the Lord’s Prayer, in our confession, in the absolution, and as we make and pray the Eucharist.  We know what we believe, we apostles, we brothers and sisters of Christ: we make promises and vows, at every baptism, based on our belief that God is God, and we are God’s and God is in control. That God provides for all God’s people---and all shall be well in ways we can not even possibly imagine because God’s narrative is larger than any story humanity can write.

But to get from here to there, from this nightmare we often find ourselves in to God’s dream of peace and good will---we must begin living the dream, the promise of Christmas.  We must participate in God’s Kingdom. The World will call us crazy.  Even our own friends and families might try to talk us out of it, tell us we are taking it too seriously, going just a bit too far in our convictions.  But, even if we are the only ones, I say let’s do this thing.  Let’s live this Gospel Truth—empowering one another, recognizing the gifts of one another, sharing these gifts with outrageous and compassionate generosity.  Let us live Christmas.  Let us choose hope and dream God’s dream. Let us live what we believe and deny the world the punchline of the joke that stems from fear and leads to evil: you can’t get there from here.

The Angels proclaimed: Do not fear.  God has come to bring Peace on earth and Good will for all people.  Beloved,  God is with us, Immanuel, the promise of Christmas, we can get there from here.  Believe.  Live Christmas.