God in the Crowded Village

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

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sermon. God Bless. We're going to consider some

of that passage, that gospel passage from Luke,

so if you want to turn your bulletin there. Actually,

no. First, turn your bulletin to the front cover,

okay? I'm going to give you three seconds to

find Mary and Joseph. Starting, are you all there?

Now. Wow. Okay, Gordon got them. Maybe some of

you found them. We've had about three seconds.

That's probably enough time. I don't know. Maybe

you found them, maybe you didn't. Maybe like

many, you don't see the Lord in this season.

I mean, we are swallowed up in busyness. I brought

some of my children even today to find presents

for each other. And it's Christmas even if you

don't know it's a day that pastors tend to have

a little more going on and just a little more

in our heads and stuff. Anyway, we get caught

up in the shopping lists and the deadlines and

all of the wonderful baking is taking place.

And sometimes we get caught up in the worry of

family meals. Is the uncle gonna ask that question

like he did last year? It's a real question for

some of us. Sometimes we're overwhelmed with

the sadness of the season because there are emptier

chairs, chairs that were once filled. There's

a song that Jess has sung for us in years past

for communion in this season that I love by a

group out of Seattle called The Sing Team. It's

called Make Room. The first verse is like this.

I always feel such a struggle as some of you

know. I so want to sing it, I'm not going to.

It's like this, blinded by lights, burdened with

choice. That's one of the great. burdens of our

day, you know, we go down the chip aisle and

we're frozen. Burdened with choice and distracted

by the shiniest toys, the traditional chaos and

the ritual noise drown out the wonder of the

still small voice. So if you look back with me

at this beautiful painting by Peter Bruegel,

the Elder, what you see is just everybody seemingly

going about a normal winter day in 16th century

Holland. It's a Dutch scene, the 16th century.

Some guy, maybe you see that actually sort of

right in front of Joseph, is tapping an enormous

keg. An enormous keg that's carried by these

huge wheels. There's another person slaughtering

a pig, it looks like. There's sledding and skating

taking place on the pond. people are carrying

their burdens. A lot of people are carrying burdens.

There's a lot of people gathered together at

what is probably a store. Maybe it's an inn of

sorts. There's about 200 people actually in this

painting. I was reading about it this week and

it's just a busy normal kind of life. It just

depicts the mundane Dutch winter life in the

16th century. And of course it's a deliberate

anachronism. Bruegel never thought Mary and Joseph

appeared into a 16th century Dutch town. He had

read what we read tonight that they made their

way from Nazareth up in Galilee down to Bethlehem

in Judea. But what Bruegel is doing is what I

want to suggest to you is that we must do today.

He's inviting us to see Jesus, and in some ways

the ordinary, mundane reality of our life. What

he's saying is that Jesus doesn't just come 2

,000 years ago in a way, but the reality of Christmas

is the gift of God, not just for them long ago,

but for us, the reality of Christ dwelling now,

today. So he depicts them in his time. And I

want to suggest to you in a way that that is

also what Luke does. He points us to Jesus coming

into the ordinary of our lives. And so I want

to do that this evening by highlighting for us

a few details that if you have been to a Christmas

Eve service, or if you have heard of the Christmas

story from the Bible, you likely know these details,

but I want us to highlight some of them, okay?

So verse one. Verse one, if you have it open

there, the Luke passage, it begins this way.

I'm gonna read one to three. In those days, a

decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all

the world should be registered. This was the

first registration when Quirinius was governor

of Syria, and all went to be registered, each

to his own town. If you know Luke, he's the doctor

and he's very specific and he's wanting to tell

you this happens in real time, in real space.

There's a date, there's a specific event into

which Jesus comes into the world. But what I

want you to see in some ways this morning is

what we have right at the beginning, is that

some of the ordinariness into which Jesus comes

is the ordinariness which we don't choose. These

are faithful Jews. Rome is in charge. Rome says,

we're having a census. You need to be registered.

And you got to do it now. So they went. You had

to do it. You had to go to your own hometown.

And this is just the fact of life. Much of your

life, much of the ordinariness of your life is

the stuff in which you don't choose. It's forced

upon you. I read the other day that many Many

adults actually love contemplation, the contemplative,

to contemplate and to have some stillness. But

children on the other hand, love action, they

love play, they love movement. If you are with

children tomorrow morning, observe how they unwrap.

They probably won't do it the same way you do.

I remember watching my dad, now he was an architect,

he's a pretty meticulous person, but he would

so carefully undo the wrapping and we would just

go for it. And in some of our best moments as

Christians, we wanna sit and be with the Lord

in prayer and in His word and contemplating His

ways. And in many of those best moments is just

when... There are fight breaks out upstairs,

and we are called into parental action, breaking

the peaceful contemplation which we were cherishing.

I read a lovely little book a couple years back

by the Catholic writer, Ronald Rollheiser. Maybe

some of you have read him. It's a little book

titled, Domestic Monastery. And the point of

the book is very simple. He's suggesting that

the mother's life, the mother's work mirrors

in many ways the work and the life in the monastery.

The monks give themselves, give up their power

over their time and over their life. And so when

the bell tolls, they wake up. When the bell tolls,

they go to prayer. When the bell tolls, they

eat. When the bell tolls, they pray. Their life

is kind of put upon them. They do the work that

they're told to do by the abbot. And when the

baby wakes, You wake. And when the baby's hungry,

you feed the baby. And your life is now in some

ways not your own. It's sort of this life that's

forced upon you. But here's the truth is that

in both of those times and in those places is

when sort of the value and the gift of powerlessness

is learned. Oftentimes we actually meet God in

the times that are forced upon us. Places where

we say, I'm powerless. and God is present. God

often shows up when we aren't in charge in the

ordinariness in which we don't choose. Look with

me at another detail that you will know, verse

six. Maybe you have this memorized. And while

they were there, the time came for her to give

birth. Remember that part? Why? Why? Why this

timing? Christians believe that God is over all

things. He speaks and the world comes into being.

Certainly he can choose to be born when they're

at home. When Mary and Joseph had not had to

make the long journey, as I mentioned on Sunday,

the journey being about 90 miles from Nazareth

down to Bethlehem. Why did they have to meet

the promise to Messiah when all the others who

are of the house and lineage of David happened

to be in Bethlehem at the same time? And why

did Bruegel depict a holy family coming into

town when it was winter and snow? And if you

noticed, if you found Mary, what you found was

that she was bundled up. What an inconvenient

time for a mother. Did Bruegel do this because

Christmas happens in winter? Maybe. Maybe he's

teaching us something. He took so many other

liberties in the painting. I wonder if what he's

saying is that God meets us in the inconvenience

of it all. And I want to suggest this too, that

it's true that sometimes we are more ready to

receive God when things seem a bit off, when

our life just doesn't seem to be going as we

had planned it out to. to go. When we're thrown

a little bit off kilter, when there isn't room

in our calendar for Him, maybe we actually meet

God when we've had another fight with our spouse

or when our child angrily left the house and

we come face to face with our life is not quite

what we thought. The inconvenience of life. But

there are more details here, more details that

you know. Think of the shepherds. Sometimes,

again, I think maybe often, God shows up when

there's just the tapping of the keg and the normal

slaughter of the pig and putting on the ice skates

or dinner. Maybe you have these planned dinners

tonight or tomorrow or festive time with friends

or coffee down at Little Amps. doing life, right?

I mean, the shepherds, verse eight, and in the

same region, there were shepherds out in the

field keeping watch over their flock by night.

And if you were living at that time, you would

have been like, yep, that's what they do, right?

I mean, this is the most ordinary statement about

shepherds. It's nothing like flashy. they were

doing something crazy and an angel appeared to

them nope not at all they're just doing normal

shepherd life watching their flocks so that some

other animal predator won't come and snack that

snap them away eat them up but again i want to

suggest to you that this is again the way of

god we love the mountaintop experiences the camp

high is real The experience when you're out in

the woods with friends and you're having to do

something you don't think you can do, and you

do create some bonds in those experiences, that's

true. But so often, God is present in the folding

of diapers, in the normal friendships that are

made over time spent playing pickleball together,

hopefully not twisting your ankle. The long slug

of just doing the same job day in and day out,

sometimes going, I love this, sometimes going,

I don't really like this so much, maybe I should

do something else. And God just ends up appearing

in those just normal shepherds in the field watching

over their flocks by night, moments. Let me give

you another detail, one that you will be familiar

with yet again. There's no room in the inn. So

verse seven tells us this, and she gave birth

to her first born son, and wrapped him in swaddling

clothes and laid him in a manger, because there

was no place for them in the inn." Which is to

say in some ways that they were alone, Mary and

Joseph. More or less they're alone. I mean, it

is likely that they were around donkeys and sheep.

What is the manger for? For a feeding trough,

right? But they're alone. There is no room. And

think about this in some ways. I want you to

think about the details of this little verse

because I think it also connects with how often

is the case that God meets us in this kind of

place, in the aloneness or in the feeling of,

man, I wish I'd planned this better. Why did

this happen? How had this happened to me being

cast away? The town was full. for the mandated

registration, the census that was commanded by

the Romans. And yet it seems like they relate

to the game. There was an in. Can you imagine

Joseph? I can imagine being Joseph and thinking,

why didn't I leave earlier? I knew that this

drive was going to take me this long. And now

my wife, who's nine months pregnant, might not

have a place to rest her head. And just feeling

like nobody else does this kind of thing. Why

am I doing this? This is a lone dejected kind

of, why can't I get my stuff together place?

How do we know there wasn't room left in the

inn? Well, what we get at the end of the text

is that Mary treasured all these things up in

her heart. It's almost certain that Mary was

the one that was sharing these stories about

what had happened. And you can imagine. You know,

she's sharing the story of how, of all people,

they, nine months pregnant, I'm nine months pregnant,

and I go and they won't let me in. There's all

these other people, you know, it's like getting

on the Metro in New York and you're like, all

the seats are taken. There's a pregnant lady,

you're supposed to get up and let her in. Let

her sit down. A normal, crazy aloneness. And

of course, what mother wouldn't want the best

for her child? Do you think she was thinking

like, well, this will do. I don't mind giving

birth to the long promised Messiah who is conceived

by the Holy Spirit next to some animals. That's

totally fine. But again, I just want to suggest

to you that in these details, we're learning

something deeply important. It's the same lesson

that we're getting from Bruegel that so often

God meets us in these sort of ordinary places

and so often our ordinary lives are our lives

where we feel so alone and so incapable and so

wondering what is happening in my life right

now. The places we least desire. He meets us

when we come to the end of our abilities and

the roadblocks, the plans. God comes to us in

crowded places. He comes to us in busy places

where we don't really want Him. At times when

we don't expect Him. When we're just going about

our normal business when we're alone. And my

guess is that as I list some of these, maybe

you don't associate with all of them, but my

guess is all of us associate with something.

Maybe this is where you find yourself. Maybe

you aren't so sure about Him. Like I said at

the beginning of our service, maybe you have

more doubt than faith. Maybe you're so frazzled

with all that we have going on in this season.

Maybe your heart really is aching because there

actually is an empty chair. I know, if you're

part of this congregation, you know that there

are empty, there are places in our pews where

there were people that sat there last year that

aren't sitting there now. Maybe because they

had gone on to glory, maybe because they had

left, moved away. They're no longer a part of

our community. Maybe you're dreading some of

the demands upon your time and emotions that

others are putting on you. Maybe you are just

so busy and so excited inside of yourself, children,

more likely you than the adults, about what is

going to be under the tree tomorrow. But what

I'm suggesting to you is that this is the good

news. The ordinary life is where God meets us.

He comes to us so often in the mundane. At the

place where there's no room in the inn, where

the shepherds are just doing their stuff, our

normal lives. Sometimes it's not when we want

Him. Sometimes it's when we absolutely need Him.

Sometimes it's just when we're busy with other

things. Sometimes it's when we're deeply alone.

In some ways, this is just the whole good news

of it all, that God comes to us. It's not just

some other life. That's not really good news

if God only shows up to you when you're at camp

with your friends. That's not really good news.

We'll hear in our final reading that he takes

on flesh and he dwells among us, makes his habitation

in our neighborhood, pitched his tent around

us, just moved in. Not far off, but close. Not

to some mountain high, but into the normal life

that you live, God comes. And part of the beauty

of Bruegel's painting is how sort of inconspicuous

Mary and Joseph were. Gordon did find them quickly.

Maybe some of you did. Some of you are really

smart. I get it. But in some ways, they're just

there. They're just there. They look so normal.

Jesus arriving into town, They're all just doing

their thing. And I think that's part of the beauty

of it. God is coming to us. That's the message

of Christmas, that God actually takes on flesh,

this real life flesh, and he does it for us in

our normal, real lives. It's into your life that

the angels are declaring there's glad tidings

and great joy. Okay. So we've considered one

of these great classic paintings of the Christmas

season. Now, to close, though, it's going to

take me a little bit of time. So don't think

like, sweet, it's all done. To close, I want

us to consider together a modern Christmas masterpiece.

And that masterpiece is the movie, Home Alone.

That's right. Right, buddy? Yeah, you know what

I'm talking about. It's a favorite in our house.

So I saw this video last week, and I remember

hearing about this a couple years back. And I

want to tell you, or kind of read to you some

of what I watched. But I hope you know the story.

I mean, it really is a favorite in the Rowan

household. And if you know the story, Kevin's

family leaves, and he's there at their home.

They're on their way to Paris for Christmas,

because that's what people do. And he does all

this crazy stuff. He's watching movies, and he's

ordering pizza, and he's just vegging out. And

he has to go buy a toothbrush, and he ends up

at a church, and all this kind of stuff. And

then, of course, the big thing that happens is

the wet bandits are coming. They're gonna rob.

And he puts together this elaborate booby trap

scenario, and it's awesome. And I don't feel

like I'm gonna give any of it away, because I

would guess that 98 % of you have watched it,

and the other 2 % should. If you haven't by now,

you know, get on the bandwagon. But here's what

I want to suggest to you, is that old man Marley,

you know the neighbor, the old grouchy kind of

neighbor, is actually, he's a Jesus figure. So

the first time you see old man Marley, he is

salting, throwing out salt. He's serving his

neighbors, he's salting. He's salting the earth.

He's out serving people. The second time he shows

up, Kevin's kind of talking to himself. It's

almost though Kevin, it's praying in a way. And

there's Marley in the scene, old man Marley's

in the scene. And he says, I'm not afraid anymore.

And then Kevin of course runs off because he's

actually scared. So he sort of rejects this presence

of somebody, right? The third time, and this

is when it gets really good. And I remember hearing

this a few years back. The third time is when

Kevin's in the convenience store. He has to buy

the toothbrush. And in walks old man Marley and

a bell tolls. What happens when a bell tolls?

An angel gets its wings. Y 'all have watched

other Christmas movies, good job. But also bells

are places where like the monastery is calling

you into the presence of God. Oftentimes churches

have bells, right? This is a religious symbol

oftentimes. And so in walks old man Marley and

he puts his hand down on the convenience store.

And actually there's, if you watch this, there's

a little shot from below looking up through the

glass of the convenience store counter. And you

notice that his hand is bandaged and it's bloody,

right? It's bloody in the middle. And Kevin leaves,

rejected again. Rejects old man Marley there

again. So next time we see him, Kevin is in church,

that beautiful church scene. and he sees old

man marley and this is kind of amazing too because

the choir is singing oh holy night and y 'all

know that song hopefully we're singing that song

tonight right first i don't know where jess is

i think we're singing that song i feel like i

should know what songs we're singing but i don't

um so they're singing that song right and the

one of the great parts of that song is fall on

your knees you know and what what does old man

marley do He stands up at that point. But you

say he's not the worshiper, he's the one who's

worshipped. He's not falling on his knees, which

is the posture of worship. And then there's that

scene, the choir says, oh, hear the angel voices.

And it's that time when Marley finally speaks.

And what does he say? He says, Merry Christmas.

And then they have that conversation. Remember

the conversation he talks about his son who's

estranged and how he longs to see him and be

with him. But in that scene again, actually,

he shakes Kevin's hand and we see the back of

Old Man Marley's hand, and it's bandaged and

it's bloody on the back. And what is clear is

that Old Man Marley has been pierced through.

His hands, his palms are pierced through. Now,

if you fast forward to the end of the movie,

which don't do when you're watching because the

next scene is the great scene with all the booby

traps, don't fast forward that. It's fantastic.

But Kevin calls the cops and he runs into the

neighbor's house, old man's Marley's house, and

he goes down to the basement. And in some ways

you could say that's when Kevin is reborn. He

actually runs through waters like the waters

of baptism. He rises up and the bad guys catch

him, right? Which is another symbol actually

when you're following the way of the Lord, they're

still after you. But who saves him? Right? Who

saves him? It's old man Marley. Old Man Marley

there saves Kevin. Now if you go to the end of

the movie, actually Kevin is looking through

the window, right? Maybe this is a detail you

should never miss watching that. This beautiful

music and he looks out and he sees Old Man Marley

hugging his son. Somehow through this work, there's

this reunion of this family that's been brought

back together. If you remember the conversation

they had in the church earlier in the evening,

it was that he wasn't united with his son and

that was his sorrow. But now you have this reconciliation

of God with his children. I mean, it's the Christmas

story. Now here's the thing, you're probably

saying, Peter, you're talking about how God comes

into the ordinary of our life through this text

in Luke. There's not a lot of ordinary stuff

in home alone. People don't often fly to Paris

with like all their cousins and all that. Rarely

are children left home alone. Rarely are bandits

breaking into big large houses when a child is

home alone. And we don't know of any news story

where that many booby traps worked that well.

So you're like, this is not normal. Here's the

thing. I was reading about this because I thought

this was also intriguing. The impetus for Home

Alone was actually a deeply normal life. So the

producer for Home Alone was John Hugh, and he

had this sort of ongoing fear of leaving his

kids, of leaving his kids. And I've had that

fear. He said, this is a story that needs to

be told. And that idea of leaving their children,

that fear of it, that in some ways is right at

the heart of what's happening at Christmas. God

says, I'm not going to leave you. I'm never going

to forsake you. You cannot wander so far. You

can't just be so distracted by all the shining

toys and the busyness. But I'm going to come

into that because I need to be reunited with

you. That is the glad tidings of great joy. That

the fear of being estranged from God cannot be

the final end of the story. That is not the end

of the story. Because God comes for us. He comes

into our life. And I want you to see him. Grab

a hold of him. I mean, please, if you don't know

Jesus, please consider again, afresh tonight,

the Christian story. God coming for you. God

giving his life for you. God desiring you. This

is the glad tidings of great joy that we announce

this season. Let me pray for us. Lord, we're

thankful for this common story that we have heard

time and time again. A full inn, a manger where

Mary can lay the Christ child swaddled in clothes.

Shepherds doing their business. God I pray that

in our lives that you would come Maybe in just

buying the toothbrush that you would show up

maybe in the place of deep fear Where we are

being chased you would show up We got to pray

that again We would all give ourselves over to

you the God who moves into the neighborhood takes

on flesh and dwells among us God change our lives

again by the wonder of this story, God for us,

humbled for us, birthed into this world for us,

crucified, risen for us. Please do this Lord.

We ask in your name. Amen. Thank you for listening

to Second City Sermons podcast. We hope this

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God bless.