December 24, 2006

"Meeting God in Your Heart"

By Jeanetter Brodersen

Merry Christmas! I'm am delighted...one, to still be awake after this long day, with service this morning, and two, to be part of this rich, beautiful worship tradition, of a last evening Christmas Eve service here at First Congregation of San Rafael.

As a small child - age 3, 4, 5 - I loved to hear stories. Two of my favorite TV shows were PBS's "Reading Rainbow" and "Marian, the Librarian." Everything about storytelling tantalized my imagination - the pictures on the page, the pictures that would appear in my mind's eye, the words, the story, and most especially, having the story read to me...someone else's voice bringing meaning to the story through their tone and vocal inflections. All of these stimulated my young imagination. One of my favorite evening rituals at home was to climb into my dad's lap as he sat in his recliner after dinner and have him read me a story. I remember a few times going to my mom for this evening ritual. She always passed me off to my dad, claiming she couldn't read. I later realized the real reason my mom said no: she had to clean up the kitchen after dinner and get school lunches ready for my older siblings the next day...all while my dad relaxed in his easy chair. So, I would pick out a book and climb in the chair with my dad, and he would give me a big bear hug, squeezing me and gently tickling my face with his day-old whiskers. And then he'd read the story to me.

I can't exactly remember when this ritual ended...probably sometime soon after I learned to read myself. But I, like so many children, and also adults, still love to have a story read to me. Honestly, we're a storytelling people. People like to tell, and people like to hear stories. Storytelling is often a family ritual - grandparents and aunts and uncles are forever holding the attention of young ones with stories of, "When I was your age..." Many of you parents may still be able to name favorite books of your children. You may even be able to still recite thm, especially if you read them night after night at bedtime. We see memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies on the shelves of the bookstore. We even immortalize our stories on the Internet with more and more people keeping blogs - Web logs, live online journals - of their daily lives.

Storytelling becomes a way for us to make sense of our lives and of the lives of those around us - family, friends, neighbors, and strangers. Stories connect us to the past, they shape our present reality, and they provide a framework for our futures. The stories of the Bible certainly attest to the importance of storytelling: just look at the Gospels, the Book of Job, the stories of Naomi and Ruth in the Book of Ruth, and I and II Samuel and the stories of King David and King Solomon. All are stories and have been passed along for centuries in oral and written traditions, giving us glimpsing of life so long ago and bearing witness to so many of the universal truths and characteristics of humanity, of God's creation. These stories also become part of church ritual. Just look at the church year, as year after year we revisit the stories of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost. We're a storytelling people.

And so we come to the Christmas story this evening, as told by the writer of the Gospel of Luke. And it's a rich story: there's an interesting setting, a variety of characters...human and non-human - Mary, Joseph, a child, shepherds, animals, heavenly hosts - and the story tells of the birth of the Messiah, a Savior, Emmanuel has come...God-with-us...the Word incarnate. Amid all this action-travel, finding lodging, a birth, angels appearing to shepherds, shepherds traveling to see the child-amid all this, the writer of Luke lets the listener in on a private, introspective moment for Mary. The story tells us, "When [the shepherds] saw [the child lying in the manger], they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (2:17-19).

She "treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart." The Greek word for ponder is sumballo, which means to throw together or to bring together. Mary takes all the words and action around her and lets them be tossed about and brought together in her heart...in her heart... The Greeks understood, as for many people today, the heart to be the center of life, physically and spiritually...physically as blood pumps through the organ...spiritually as it becomes the seat of the soul...the soul...the place where one can meet God most intimately and personally.

In the story of Luke, Mary is often cited as being a model example of obedience and faith, of accepting on faith the divine call of God, to bear the Christ child, to give birth to the incarnation-Emmanuel, God-with-us. We hear her faith as she praises God, seeing the child as a blessing, and exclaims in the Magnificat, "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior" (1:47). Yet, I see another layer, another nuanced characteristic, to Mary's faith: she not only physically bears Emmanuel, God-with-us, giving birth to the baby Jesus; she also spiritually bears Emmanuel, God-with-us, in her heart. She opens her heart-the spiritual center of her being, her soul-to the indwelling of God's Spirit when she, as the writer of Luke tells us, treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart" (2:19). She models of faith deep within her, deep within her heart, her soul, a faith animated by the incarnation. She models how God invites us to ponder, to bring together the message of the angels and shepherds and to meet God in the very center of our being...in our heart...in our soul...to not only give birth to the Messiah but to treasure and ponder in our hearts what it means to for the incarnation to happen, the indwelling of God's spirit within us.

I'm a big fan of Garrison Keillor's radio show, A Prairie Home Companion. He manages to capture so poignantly the essence of human nature and the many truths about our daily lives as he tells tales of Lake Wobegon, a mythical town in Minnesota. In reporting about the life of Lake Wobegon residents near Christmas with all their pageants and special church services, he questioned why ordinary people, who have no acting training nor much acting or musical ability, why they continue to engage in these Yuletide theatricals? His answer: "Because it's a great story and we just want to be part of it." Because it's a great story and we just want to be part of it.

Tonight, on Christmas Eve, we gather together as a community of faith to hear the Christmas story once again, to engage in the yearly ritual of remembering the birth of Jesus, the indwelling of God's Spirit in creation, not only 2000 years ago but still today, moment by moment, in the hearts of all of us as we ponder God's Word, as we meet God in our hearts and in the hearts of others. One of my favorite contemplative writers is Wendy Wright, a Catholic lay person. She identifies this intersection of hearts-of our hearts with God and with each other-seeing it as physically and spiritually foundational for our lives. She writes, "We know [life] primarily through the yearning of our hearts, through our desire to be touched and touch one another at the level of the heart where we intersect with God." And we often create this intersection of hearts through stories-our stories and God's story.

As I said earlier, we're a storytelling people. Stories help us make meaning out of our lives and the lives of others as well. Stories capture our minds and hearts. Stories have power. And in worship, in a service like this evening's, as we remember the Christmas story, we yearn for a communion of sorts...we yearn to connect our stories-as individual, families, friends, strangers, enemies, a community-we yearn to connect all these stories with the divine story.

We know it's a great story, like Garrison Keillor says, and we yearn to be a part of it. We yearn for our hearts to intersect with each other, with God, and tonight with the Christ child-the indwelling of God's spirit in our world.

May it be so for you and for me. Amen.