Christmas 2C RCL

3 January 2010

The Rev’d Lloyd Prator

New York City

Christmas is the season of the Incarnation, that time of year when we celebrate one particular idea above all others: The idea that God loved the world so much that he took our human nature and lived among us. God did this in order to convey to us anew meaning of the relationship between himself and us. And this he did by making himself known to us as the Father, and making it clear to us that Jesus was his son.

The incarnation makes it clear to us that god intends to deal with us in a new way, and explains the process of our salvation in a new way, as well. You get an idea of what this new way might be in the second reading, from the letter to the Ephesians, one of the most interesting and provocative letters in the New Testament. The idea is this: That god has destines us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will.

Adoption.

Into a family.

Taking us as his children.

There are two kinds of children. Natural born ones, and adopted ones. Some of us here in church today were born by the loving and procreative act of our father with our mother. Others were adopted by parents, who, for one reason or another, did not have children the first way, and therefore adopted children from some other source.

The writer of Ephesians, brilliantly and eloquently, tells us that this is the way that God works with us, as well. There is one child, naturally born of God—and that is Jesus the Son of God. This child is, by god’s reproductive act, THE child of God, the Son, and therefore God himself. Then there are the adopted children, chosen by love, but not part of the family in the normal course of things. The adopted children are you and me, taken into the family by an act of loving choice.

In this adoptive process, the love of god is primarily evident. It is the love of God which chooses us, lovingly judges us and shows up our faults, and nurtures along into the image he has in mind for us.

That is the way that a good family operates. Not every one here had such a family, characterized by that kind of embracing and encouraging love. But even if you did not have a loving family, you know what one looks like. If you did not have some standard to judge by, you would not be able to know what a good family looks and acts like. So, what I ask you today is to consider the standard of the good family by which you judge your own family, even if that judgment ends up showing more faults and failures in your own family.

So the incarnation is that dramatic dynamic which is characterized by our being adopted as sons and daughters of God. It is a free gift, so we call it a relationship by adoption and grace.
The other thing we see going on here today is the inversion of two trips that appear in the gospels. We are reading from Luke’s gospel today. And Luke does not have a story of the coming of the Wise Men to the Christ-Child. Instead, today, he has a story of the Christ child going to see the old men at the temple, there joining them in rabbinic discussions, both listening, asking questions, and responding to their inquiries.

The two stories: the wise men coming to Jesus, and Jesus going to the sages of his own Jewish tradition is vitally important: They, together, paint the picture of the universal claim of the Christian faith. In the story of the Magi, Jesus appears to gentiles, to non-Jewish sages. In this story, Jesus engages the elders of his own Jewish tradition.

This is a reminder that our faith is for all, whatever your background or your philosophy, whatever your faith or your lack of faith, if you would like to come to this temple and ask a few questions, do so. Most of us here have one thing in common: that we do not know all the answers. But we are willing, at least tentatively, to put our trust in one relationship. History seems to say, that Jesus is the one who offers that kind of place where we can share our struggles and our pains.

That is the image and the icon of a good family, strengthened and loved by an adoptive father, who chose us and gave himself for us that our love with him might be perfected.