Stories of Christman Presence
Given by James Covington on December 17th, 2006
In his Christmas Oratorio, For the Time Being, W. H. Auden puts these words in the mouths of the three wise men:
The First Wise Man: To discover how to be truthful now is the reason I follow this star.
The Second Wise Man: To discover how to be living now is the reason I follow this star.
The Third Wise Man: To discover how to be loving now is the reason I follow this star.
The Three together: To discover how to be human now, is the reason we follow this star.
This is a story of Christmas presence–being alive to the values that matter. Being truly human, is Christmas presence. Auden presents the wise men as he depicts them in the form of an oratorio, but it is a story nevertheless. Human values are often best explained through good stories.
God knows, we need good stories, even if they are not true. We live in a time when many of the real stories in our day press down on the soul and chill us to the bone and break our hearts. That human beings can slaughter one another without any apparent mindfulness is horrifying.
This is especially true in the matter of genocide. Granted, the Iraqi carnage is heinous enough. And four million people have died in the Congo since 1998 as a result of violent conflict. But genocide, such as the Rwandan genocide in the 1990’s and the genocide in Darfur today, reveal the monstrous depths of evil and depravity to which humans can descend. In a recent edition of UU World, you may have read a most challenging article by Bill Schultz, former President of the UUA and former Executive Director of Amnesty USA in which he writes about humans who torture other humans. For him, the belief in the “inherent worth and dignity of every person” is a myth. His experience with torture and rape and death has taught him that worth and dignity are not inherent. “There are too many malevolent human hearts and too many god-forsaken places, where worth and dignity have no presence.”
And yet the human heart time and again impels us to do good things. Sometimes we take longer than we should which I believe is disturbingly true in regard to our response both in Rwanda and now in Darfur. Daniel Goleman in his recent book Social Intelligence writes that while human beings have the capacity to do mean and violent acts, they “inherit an even stronger biological basis for kindness, compassion, love and nurture.” So while the current world events seem dire and threatening indeed, when you look around, you will see that the vast majority of human beings on any given day are committing no acts of malice whatsoever.
But Christmas is a time when we would like to forget about the malevolence and embrace the good; to retire to the comfort of hearth and home, far from the madding crowd, the embattled politicians, the bursting bombs. And we do need respite - to reassert that faith, hope and love we share with those near and dear to us in family, church and community.
Of course, the first Christmas – the birth of Jesus–whether it be in the year four Before the Common Era or not - whether it be in the mythical manger of Bethlehem or the more likely straw bed in Nazareth, it came at a time when the despotic Herod the Great was on the throne, in connivance with imperial Rome. The Jews looked for the Messiah to liberate them. That, too, was a tumultuous time.
When we think seriously, we know that neither human history, nor life itself promises us a rose garden. We must live our lives in an inordinately messy world, and no rational person might give us a chance. It is then that those traditional values of faith, hope and love sustain us. Christmas transcends our reasoning faculties. And it does so through a story.
Some of you may be thinking “All right, this is a church and it’s Christmas time, so tell me a story, take me in, make me believe things that I know aren’t so. Do the Christmas thing - if you pretend it could be true, I’ll pretend I believe you, and we’ll fake it through another holiday season. Just tell me a story and take me in.” Even if you wouldn’t say it that way, you recognize the sentiment, and many of you may identify with it.
But others may be thinking: “Jim, you’re not going to do what all the other preachers do? This is that season when all preachers lie because they think they can get away with it. But don’t lie to me. Don’t insult my mind or my spirit by feeding me hokum. Now more than at any other time of the year, I need the one thing churches and politicians almost never offer: I need truth. So don’t you dare lie to me!”
And others are in between, wondering and hoping that there could be truth that’s still magical, and magic that’s true.
Really, this is the range of expectations people bring to religion all the time, everywhere. We know religions always teach by using stories, and a lot of people think you only use stories when you don’t have facts, the way Plato defined myths as lies 2400 years ago - though Plato was one of the great mythmakers of Western history.
But you can’t escape stories. You can just hope to tell the difference between stories that serve us and stories that deceive us. Even sciences give their facts a human meaning by embedding them in stories. We might doze off in a talk about Chlorofluorocarbon emissions, but we understand the story of global warming, and the picture of melting ice caps that can raise the sea level and flood some of the world’s major cities.
All stories are trying to take us in. But with good stories, we want to be taken in. We love fiction that feeds our spirits, and don’t care a bit whether it’s true, which is exactly how I felt when I read Gilead by Marilyn Robinson. In fact, we prefer stories to facts. This is a religious lesson, but I first learned it from a diaper commercial.
Some years ago, when Pampers came on the market, they were the first good disposable diaper. The advertisers could truthfully say they were the best in the world, because - well, they were the only disposable diaper in the world. So they decided to try an advertising campaign grounded in truth rather than the kinds of images and stories that advertisers prefer. They chose Texas as the test market for this campaign, and just told people the facts, and that Pampers were the best diapers you could buy. Nobody bought them. Apparently that wasn’t what parents were looking for.
So the ad agency decided, well, we’ll just do it the old way. And they came up with the second ad. This ad said that a Pampers baby is a happy baby. And the rest is history. A happy baby - there’s a whole story tucked in those two words. A happy baby means a happy marriage, a happy family, and young parents who must be doing a good job of parenting. And those are things parents do want to hear: it’s worth the price of a box of diapers any day. And if the diapers are good - well, that’s a bonus.
We prefer stories to facts. We don’t like to admit it, but it’s true. But maybe there is a good reason we prefer stories to facts. There is the story about a wise old African woman, whose job it was to instruct the children of her village in the tribe's guiding myths. She gathered them around her in a circle and told them, solemnly and with utmost seriousness, "The stories that I am about to tell you are not true, but they are the most important stories that you will ever hear."
If you doubt this, just remember the last time you watched “The Nutcracker,” and were perfectly happy seeing dancing mice and a wooden nutcracker who came to life? Not a bit of it actually, historically, happened, you know. But you don’t care a bit, because it’s such a wonderful story.
If you haven’t seen The Nutcracker and still think we prefer truth to fiction, I have one word for you: movies. The documentaries seldom move us. But show us a story that we can imagine ourselves in or connected to, and the tears will flow, our hearts will be touched, and our spirits will be opened and fed.
The best religious stories can do this, too. Some are educational, like the Good Samaritan, or a lot of Buddhist stories. Some are challenging stories, like the stories of the prophets saying God doesn’t care what we believe, only how we behave toward the weakest among us.
And the best of them, those that come from a deep love of life that makes us fall in love with some of the deeper parts of life - those are love stories about human presence.
This is the kind of love story that’s the best thing about religions: stories that can make us fall in love with life at deeper levels. They’re everywhere, and I’ve brought you three short ones, from three different religions today.
The first story has a story of its own attending it. A minister noted an Indian woman who often attended his congregation. But she always came late and left early. But one Sunday she came a little early and the minister saw her, so he went up to her, welcomed her, and asked why she usually came late and left early.
She explained that she had to drive her teen-aged son to the Hindu temple south of town, then had to drive here, and then had to drive the 30 minutes south again to pick her son up. The minister said that was two hours of driving, and asked why she didn’t just bring her son to church.
“Ah no,” she said, “because you have no good stories!” She said her son needed stories that stirred his mind and his heart, stories he would want to discuss at home during the week. Hinduism, she informed the minister, had many good stories. “Tell me one,” the minister asked. “Ah!” she said, “I could tell you a hundred!” “Just one.” “Very well, I’ll tell you the story he learned last week, and which our family has discussed over dinner all this week.”
It was a story about Krishna, probably Hinduism’s favorite picture of God. Krishna was a wonderful god, but as a boy he misbehaved - you could even call him a brat at times. So naturally, kids love him.
Krishna was chewing something in school, and the teacher saw him. He knew he was not supposed to chew gum. “Krishna,” she said, “What are you chewing?” “Nothing,” he replied, still chewing. “Krishna!” she said louder, “that is not true! You are chewing gum, aren’t you?” “No,” he said. She walked over to his desk, told him to stand up, and said “Now open your mouth. I want to look inside!”
So Krishna opened his mouth. The teacher bent down, looked inside his mouth, and saw - a hundred million galaxies. Inside that child were eternity and infinity, just as they are inside all children. That’s a love story! It’s a Christmas story. And this woman’s son spent a whole week discussing this story with his parents, and what it might mean to have an infinite and eternal identity inside of him: what it might mean for who he was and how he should live.
A second story isn’t so much a story as it is one sentence that, like Krishna’s mouth, contains a wonderful infinity of possibilities. It comes from Judaism, and is the simple statement where the writer has God say to the Hebrew people “I will be your father, and you will be my people.” God’s people: children of God: everyone! That’s pretty close to containing something infinite and eternal, like the Krishna story, isn’t it? It’s another love story.
And then there is the Christian story, the birth of the baby Jesus. The story is good, both for what it says and for what it does not say. Jesus wasn’t born in a castle, not even in a Holiday Inn, or the story would be saying that only the wealthy have that capacity for bearing the sacred. He wasn’t born to royalty, or it would be saying that only the powerful are really significant. Like every great story, the Christmas story has a twist. This unwed, socially ostracized family, their widow's mite purloined by an uncaring government to underwrite the empire's military adventures and its leaders' lavish lifestyles, in short, the poorest of the poor do what? That's right. They give birth to the Son of God!
No, in this story, the incarnation of God was born to common people, not rich ones. When God walked among us, he walked as one of us. And we could be incarnations of that spirit rightfully called Holy. For we are children of God and the hope of the world, if only we will be. Now don’t get sidetracked by the god language I am using here. I am merely telling an old, old story. Interpret it literally and it will lose its true meaning. But pay attention to the story’s message and you can be transformed.
Because, told as history, it isn’t true. It didn’t happen. Told as science, it isn’t true. Humans aren’t conceived without chromosomes from two parents, and that’s done by actual sex, not just an idea. But as a love story, it’s wonderful. If you think about it, it is the Christian version of the story the Hindus tell in that wonderful story of Krishna containing the whole universe in him, or the Jews tell simply by having their God say “I will be your father and you will be my people.” If you’re looking for a story that comes from the depths - not of gods but of humans - then this season has some wonderful love stories for you.
And these love stories aren’t just about giving us a cradle, a manger to make us feel loved, though they can do that. They’re also about nurturing us, empowering us to be present for the common good. They’re stories saying “You, you there: you have within you infinite possibilities. You’re a child of God. You are even, if you will be, an incarnation of God. Now. Go act like it!” Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Care for the sick. Feed the hungry. Love your enemies. Save the people of Darfur.
The best love stories awaken the deepest and most natural pulses of the human heart. That’s part of the meaning of reminding ourselves during this season that “ it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Because when we give, we are becoming the incarnation of those forces in the world, in the universe, that are only happy when they are giving unto others: giving life, love, hope, a healing touch, a caring presence. Presence. Spelled with a “c” rather than a “t” - a healing presence, a loving presence. Those are the greatest presents we can give one another, at Christmas or any other time.
The pure gift of just being here - what’s that worth? Giving birth—what’s that worth? And being with people we love, and who love us - what’s that selling for on the Dow or the Nasdaq? And our health - whatever degree of health we have, it’s better than having a lot less health. It makes a big difference. What’s that worth?
So many gifts and so many of us who have not learned how to see them. Let us become aware of those simple gifts of being here, loving and being loved, touching and being touched, protected and being protected. Those gifts are the real treasures of this holiday season, and we don’t have to wait until Christmas to open them. In fact, it’s best that we don’t wait. Let us open our gifts of life, love and spirit, and spread them all around our lives, sitting there right in the middle of them. That will help us prepare for Christmas by reminding ourselves that we already have the really important gifts.
So, during this season, let us remember that love is not so much an idea whose time has come, as it is a commitment of presence to one another and our neighbors - near and far. In many ways it is an irrational commitment because love can get us into trouble. Those who love will ultimately lose the beloved or they will lose us. Love can prompt us to give of ourselves in ways that may seem foolish - perhaps are foolish.
And so, faith, hope, love, these three
I offer you this season.
Faith that living affirms,
Hope that caring illumines,
Love that matters more than anything.
Faith, hope, love, these three
Not as gifts I offer them
For they are not mine to give
They are yours and mine to share,
Humbly, with one another.
Fumbling, we hold their promise in our hands,
Faintly, we speak the trembling words.
Faith, hope, love, these three
We offer to one another this season–
Our Christmas Presence.