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"Do You Hear What I Hear?"
January 15, 2006
An Incomplete Feast
December 25, 2005
The
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December 24, 2005
Nothing will be impossible with God
December 18, 2005
Redeeming Holiday Cheer
December 11, 2005
Comfort, comfort my people …
December 4, 2005
Advent begins in the dark…
November 27, 2005
Thanksgiving Day
November 24, 2005
It's All About Respect
November 20, 2005
The world is a better place because ...
November 13, 2005
Holy Baptism and Festal Eucharist
November 6, 2005
Promise and Presence
October 30, 2005
This is Only A Test
October 23, 2005
Made in the Image
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October 16, 2005
Finding Our Way
October 9, 2005
Our Lives Are
Based On A True Story
October 2, 2005
It
Is God Working
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September 23, 2005
Whatever Happened to our Security?
September 11, 2005
Put on the Armor of Light
September 4, 2005
Giftedness and Identity
August 21, 2005
What about Respect?
August 14, 2005
Dean Lane's Final Sermon
July 31, 2005
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Sermon
An Incomplete Feast
The Venerable Richard I. Cluett
Isaiah 62:6-12; Titus 3:4-7; Luke 2:1-20
Christmas 2005
December 25, 2005
Light has sprung up for the righteous, and joyful gladness for those who are truehearted
Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks to his holy Name. Amen (Psalm 97:11-12)
I hope and pray that this Incarnation we celebrate today is moving in you in ways powerful, joy-filled, and satisfying.
My own experience, low these many decades and dozens of Christmas celebrations, is that Christmas is a mixed bag; it brings both joy and melancholy, times of excitement and times of quiet reflection; it brings hope and it can also bring a sense of futility.
There is such a build up in expectation (for some a build up in trepidation), and when Christmas does come there is joy and thanksgiving and there is also flatness. Is this what the Incarnation is all about?
I think Christmas is an Incomplete Feast. It is a beginning after all. It would be foolish to expect it to be the end-all, to be the be-all, to be a perfect ending or completion of all the preparations.
As wonderful as the birth of the Christ is, we know that what God began in Jesus is still not, on this day, complete. There is much that falls short, much that denies, much that is in powerful opposition to what God intended in the Incarnation, and especially in opposition to what God intends today for His creation. Christmas is an Incomplete Feast.
I am not talking here about the plum pudding that didn’t turn out just right, or the sweater that is too small and the wrong color, or that Aunt Sue got tipsy and said things better left unsaid, or even the feeling that something is missing this year because someone is missing this year.
No, the incompleteness has to do with other things. Christmas is an incomplete feast because it celebrates God’s love for humankind in the midst of darkness. We celebrate light, life, revelation, salvation, and the abundance of God’s creation, knowing at the same time that there is much of the world that experiences none of these wonders, even individual people we know who experience none of these wonders.
My prayer is, however, that we not allow the powers of this world to take away from us the Good News God began in this Christ Child, to take away from us the truth that God’s intentions are powerfully at work in situations and in people even in this day and time; not let them take away the opportunity to hold close and dear the people in whom we see this light shine and who warm our hearts with love. All this, too, is part of God’s intention and it is to be celebrated, even in its incompleteness. Blessing given and received.
I am a new grandpa, thanks to the wedding a couple of weeks ago of our Son Tyler and Altrisha, who has 2 wonderful boys – amazingly and happily for me, the six year old already calls me grandpa. Another man who was a grandpa wrote a Christmas story I read – a bit of memoir.
He wrote of visiting his son and his family at Christmas time. At the dinner table, his grandson who was about six years old offered the grace. He said, “Thank you God for this food. Thank you God for our gifts. Thank you God for sending us Jesus. Amen. – P.S. Thank you for sending us Grandpa.” The grandpa wrote, “That grace will carry me the rest of my days.”
This is Christmas when we celebrate God’s inconceivable and incomprehensible gift of love – the gift of the Christ child who bears the Grace and God that can carry us the rest of our days.
Christmas is the incomplete feast because it is about God’s coming as a child with all the unknown life ahead, and with all the inconceivable love to carry us all the rest of our days.
The ideal of Christmas is not yet achieved in your experience or in mine, in your person or in my person, in this part of the world or in the world across the seas – but all the resources of God are at work bringing all to completion.
We are all, what someone called, incomplete misfits, but God has come even unto us. May we always remember that in coming to this cathedral we have intentionally – even if incompletely – placed ourselves so that we can receive this child anew in our hearts and in our lives. We place ourselves on the side that declares, “Thy will be done – on earth as it is in heaven.” We commit ourselves to share this love, to be this blessing that will help carry others all the days of their lives in works of mercy, in acts of justice, in ministering compassion, and in receiving the broken bread and the blessed cup.
Christ the savior is born. Remember that his grace can carry you all the days of your life. Let earth and all its inhabitants receive this child and rejoice. Joy to the world – and to you and all whom you love and care about.
Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks to his holy Name. Amen
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