CHRISTMAS SERMONS

The old yeare now away is fled,
The new year it is entered.

--Traditional English carol

The old year is over. Christmas is over, also. We're in what the new church calendar calls "ordinary time." Still, my mind is on Christmas, in particular my Christmas sermon. I don't know how many of my dozen or so faithful readers are members of our church, so I should explain a little. Each Christmas Eve I deliver a sermon in the form of some character. This year is was a shepherd. I use minimal props (a staff and my toy lamb Baa-Baa) and costume (a headdress) to just suggest the character, then tell the Christmas story and comment on it from the perspective of that character. I usually know what I am going to do by mid-November, but this year it was couple of weeks before Christmas and I still hadn't got a picture in mind of what to do. (I have been having some trouble with depression lately which makes my creative juices dry up.) Fortunately, an idea came to me. Miss A (God bless) her agreed to portray the old shepherd's granddaughter which set up a scene for an old man remembering what happened many years before when he was a boy in Bethlehem.

I suspect there are people who think I have taken leave of my senses (if I ever had any) to do something like this. It is probably not what visitors expect when they come to a church for Christmas services. I know a colleague years ago who once explained to a person at another church that he was going to tell the Christmas story from the point of view of an alien from another world. He was met with the comment, "We have religious services at our church for Christmas." I suppose some wonder about my approach as well. My choice to do this kind of a sermon once (and only once) a year lies in some things from early in my years of ministry.

I started off doing very normal sermons in my early years. Then one year, I did a little bit of characterization in the first part of the sermon, and then switch to something more appropriately sermonic. After the service Matt said that he liked the first part of the sermon, but didn't follow the second part. Now Matt was not a member of the congregation. His wife and children were members, but he was Jewish. I pondered Matt's comment and when he said something similar the next Christmas, I began to realize the power of storytelling to communicate the message. I never preached a "normal" sermon on Christmas Ever after that.

Storytelling is an amazing way to communicate. Where purely didactic or exhortatory preaching tends to go in one ear and out the other, stories grab people's attention. I think people are able to find themselves in a good story. They can imagine themselves in the situation described. I know that when I drop into a sermon a short story about something that happened to me growing up, people will often say that it was just like something that happened to them. Each time I have done a version of the shepherd, someone has commented on how the presentation helped them understand the story better. My favorite comment was that little Baa-Baa and I made the story come alive.

Over the years, I have done several different characters besides a shepherd: an inn keeper, an angel, a wiseman, a jewel merchant, a tax collector. The most emotional characterization has been a Roman soldier participating in the census who later turns out to be the centurion at the crucifixion of Jesus. The one that has been the most fun for me is telling the Christmas story from the Devil's point of view. I have also done a children's Christmas sermon in which I pretended to translate a mouse's story about the nativity, and I also wrote a short skit where I had a non-speaking role as a waiter and the story was told by two ladies in a café (teenagers in my church) about what had been going on in Bethlehem the last few days. I also have a skit about two angels, but I will never be able to do it because I don't have the ability to remember lines, even when I write them myself.

Although I work myself into a frenzy at Christmas time, I enjoy doing the Christmas sermon–once it is done. Maybe that's what's adding to my depression this year because I realize I have perhaps six more such sermons before I retire. It's a strange feeling. I certainly won't miss the hassle of church life: the long hours and complaints from people who don't get their way about everything, but there are things I'll miss: the young people starting out in life, presiding at the Eucharist, preaching the sermon. Ah, but that is some time in the future, some time when I am farther along in my pilgrimage. No sense thinking about that now. After all, it is the journey that counts, and I'm still on my way.

A blessed New Year to everyone.
May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.
Wayne