Stories, not numbers, on this Christmas Eve

Scripture: Luke 2:1-20

After our Christmas concert at Grace last Sunday afternoon one of the high-schoolers said something to me that has been on my mind this week, and since I have a pulpit and a congregation I’m going to think through it with all of you. She said, “There must be a lot of pressure on you to say something on Christmas Eve that will make all those people come back to church during the rest of the year.”

You can tell a young person said that because she still believes that I have actual power and influence and stuff. It’s cute.

The reason I’m beginning tonight’s sermon with that quote is not to make some of you uncomfortable—well, maybe it’s partially to make some of you uncomfortable—but primarily I want to address it because this attitude that our success or failure as a church is determined by butts in the seats just doesn’t work. Numbers tell a story, just not a very deep one. It’s not data but people that matter, and I worry about some of you not because of the percentage of Sundays you show up in church but because, if I don’t see you very often, I don’t know your story. And I don’t know who does. Do your families? Do you? And I don’t know how the Christmas story matters within the story that is your life. Does it?

Now, you’re probably all wondering where I get to the part about Christmas. Using tonight as an excuse to pontificate on church attendance seems, mmm… maybe not so faithful, but actually, if you think about, this is exactly how the Christmas story begins. “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered” (Lk 2:1-3). Why does the emperor care to go to the difficult (and expensive) task of numbering his subjects? The same reasons we are still numbered: taxes, the draft, and for other very practical, data-driven reasons. This is why Mary and Joseph end up in Bethlehem, the city of David, because, as you probably remember from a million Christmas pageants, “Joseph was descended from the house and family of David” (Lk 2:4).

There’s this story in 2 Samuel, chapter 24*, involving this King David who is the ancestor of Joseph (Usually when I quote from the Old Testament I say that “there’s this great story” but in this case it’s not really a great story. In fact, nobody reads it. It’s in that part of the Bible that you flip through and think “I wonder what’s in the other 1900 pages of this thing.”). Anyway, in 2 Samuel 24 David also decided to have a census. He feels the same need to number his people for the same logistical and practical reasons that Emperor Augustus would have, but when he does this he quickly finds himself troubled. The moment he begins to quantify people by statistics it becomes easy to forget that they are children of God. Data-collecting robbed people of their humanity by making their stories less important than their vitals. This act of census-taking quickly leads to a curse of the entire nation. Meanwhile, in the midst of Caesar’s census, while the government is busy counting beans and checking boxes, the most amazingly human thing is happening right under their noses.

A baby is being born. To the census a baby is just a baby. Lucky for Mary and Joseph he came before the end of the year to give them that tax break, don’t ya know? But numbers betray the incredibly new thing that is happening. To God, what matters is not your stats but your story. So the most incredible moment in human history is this moment of God entering personally and physically into human creation. People are embodied so God became embodied. God became a part of the human story in a new way.

So let me return for a moment to that young person’s thought from a couple days ago, “There must be a lot of pressure to say something on Christmas Eve that will make all those people come back to church during the rest of the year.” I can honestly say: No, there’s not. BUT there is a lot of pressure to make the image of God-embodied real for you; that tonight isn’t about recruiting you to change your habits on Sunday mornings but instead that every part of you might be changed by a God who knows you so well because he took on flesh and was born. The reason Christmas Eve is special is because it’s one of those rare opportunities when we have a chance to share what a community of faith really is. It’s not the bank accounts, or average worship attendance statistics. Numbers tend to tell a story of fear and scarcity, even when there is plenty. The big story is within you. How does Christ enter into you? How does the baby in the manger change you?

Does it?

This is not an easy question—not like the question of how many Sundays you attend church or how many dependents are in your household—and it’s also far more open-ended. Most of us struggle with open-ended questions, especially about our faith. They make us feel unsettled. They remind us of how little we know. And so the temptation is to think that our faith is weak, that we aren’t very good Christians after all, and that others know more than we do. So when we read the same stories of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the wise men, year after year, we do it out of a sense of comfort. This is home. This is safe. I can practically hear you thinking, Please, please don’t break that. Don’t ask me to go deeper; don’t make me uncomfortable. Not here. Not tonight.

But the great irony here is that the story we are reading—the same story we read every year—is a story about leaving the comfort of home. Mary and Joseph didn’t want the birth of Jesus to go as it did. They only end up in the manger because they have no other options. Joseph didn’t want to go to Bethlehem. Mary didn’t want to carry the Son of God. The reason that we remember Mary and Joseph was not because they stood up and volunteered, but because God chose them and they responded. That’s a faith statement. How you respond to life is the story that we need to hear.

See, the deepest questions of faith are not theoretical. They’re not the kind of thing that requires moving to a monastery to consider. They are practical, lived questions. How are you going to live your life? That’s a question you answer every day. Don’t pretend that you don’t have a choice just because there are outside factors working against you. Things aren’t equal in this world and they never will be—not until the real end of things—but that doesn’t minimize your worth—not to God. Every day you have the opportunity to live as if the end of all things is census-taking—your bank account, the number of Facebook friends you have, your points per game, the size of your house, your ACT scores—or you can live as if your life story is more than any of that. It’s beautiful and sometimes tragic, but it’s yours and it’s bigger than what the numbers will tell.
         

Which is ultimately why Jesus came in the first place—because the accounting of our lives is not going so well. And this is where we depart forever from the land of self-help. You are beyond help. Be honest. When you look at yourself in the mirror closely you always spot the blemishes. The baby Jesus came into the world so that you need not ever count the ways you fall short. Never again. All that’s left to is to discover how to live your story in response to what God has already given you. That’s Mary and Joseph. They’re given a gift that feels like a burden. It is. Both. But what they do in response is the story we remember. What we do in response is all we ever have. So feel convicted tonight, or feel freed, but most of all do something, be something; not because that’s what will save you—that’s done; it’s done tonight—but because 99% of your lives are spent in a world trying to sell you something and to make you a better person. Tonight you get to hear that 1% message that you can’t be a better person, but you are a redeemed person. It’s the only Christmas gift that will outlast all of us—that you are claimed by God, chosen people. Go and live in response.

*This idea, along with several others from this sermon, are indebted to Rolf Jacobson's ideas on the WorkingPreacher podcast