Christmas Eve – December 24, 2016 – Luke 2:1-20
Luke 2:1-20
Strength to Love
Nativity of our Lord – Christmas Eve
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
This summer my fourteen year old Theo and I went to New York City.
We went with our friend Anthony who lives in Japan.
We went for a few days in order to watch a soccer match.
We arrived in the afternoon, went and got a bite to eat, then got settled into our hotel room.
Quite late at night, Theo and I were kind of tired and just wanted to hang out in our room.
But Anthony was restless – the big city was beckoning him.
He wanted to go out and explore.
He was on a quest – the quest to find a mythical delicacy –
the best pizza New York City had to offer.
Now, travelling with Anthony is a bit like travelling with a small child – and
as we said goodbye to him I’m not sure
either Theo or I thought we would ever see him again.
Nevertheless we sent him off, albeit with a little trepidation.
The next morning, it was with more than a little relief that I saw Anthony sleeping next to me.
Thank you, God, I thought.
When he woke up, he couldn’t wait to tell us all about his adventures –
yes, he is one of those people to whom stuff just happens.
He’d gone out and found a pub and asked some locals
where the best pizza in New York City was to be found.
They said, “Oh! You need to go to Angelo’s. But first sit down and have a drink with us!”
They asked him where he was from. They bought him a beer. They started talking.
They were all from Brooklyn and worked for a construction company one of them owned.
They were very good to Anthony, standing him many rounds of drinks,
including him in the conversation, and spending hours regaling him with stories.
At the end of the evening, long into the night, one of them said to him,
“Everyone thinks New Yorkers are not friendly. But we are.
I want you to tell everyone that New Yorkers are friendly.
Just don’t mistake our hospitality for weakness. Don’t mistake our kindness for weakness.”
I don’t think Anthony would ever have mistaken their hospitality for weakness.
Their hospitality was an expression of strength, of being comfortable in themselves,
in the ability to invite a stranger to sit with them and entertain him and host him.
On Christmas Eve, in the middle of a dark night,
we celebrate a child who is born into our dark world.
We often sentimentalize Christmas and dwell on the weakness of the child in the manger.
It’s true that God is born as a child and becomes vulnerable.
But the vulnerability is not borne of weakness.
The vulnerability was borne of tremendous strength.
To love is to make yourself vulnerable to another.
It means opening yourself to wondrous things, to relationship and joy.
But it also means opening yourself to pain and difficulty and heartache.
It is a brave thing to love – it takes tremendous strength.
It takes strength to be kind, it takes strength to be hospitable, it takes strength to love.
When Luke proclaims that the person who is born on this night is the Saviour,
it does make you stop and think.
The person that would save us from all that would harm us comes as very vulnerable child.
This, somehow, is how saving comes:
not from brute force from a tremendous love that makes itself vulnerable.
The way Jesus will save is one relationship at a time.
One healing at a time. One forgiving at a time. One hosting a meal at a time.
It’s a lot of work – and it takes a lot of strength.
We sometimes think we are hosting Jesus when he is born into the world –
but really he is the one hosting us: this world is his,
and he hosts us with a gentle strength that heals and feeds and
forgives and includes – changing the world in the process.
So don’t mistake his kindness for weakness. Don’t mistake his hospitality for weakness.
It takes tremendous strength.
It takes a resoluteness that will refuse not to love.
It will take a steadfastness that will heal and feed and forgive until all are well.
Don’t mistake this God’s hospitality for weakness.
Don’t mistake this God’s kindness for weakness.
There is so much strength in loving – in loving the weak, the sick, the dying.
In loving one another – in loving friends and family, and in loving strangers.
There is so much strength in loving – and in love’s strange alchemy,
love strengthens the loved to love in turn:
to welcome one another unconditionally,
to love one another without limits and without conditions,
to care for the vulnerable and feed the hungry and
forgive those who have wronged us.
The loving strength to do these things is born this night again.
This loving strength is borne to you – so that you might be strong to bear it to others.
Jesus hosts this meal where you are welcome to be fed and to be forgiven.
So that you too might have the strength of a hospitable kindness.
So that you too might be strong in loving.
So that you too might say, “Don’t mistake our hospitality for weakness.”
“Don’t mistake our kindness for weakness.”
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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