So when my 9 year old son is watching TV or playing a video game, and I need to ask him a question, I might as well be talking to a brick wall. We have had his hearing checked on a regular basis. His hearing is just fine. But when he is focused on electronics, he cannot hear me talking.
(move lips but don’t make sound): It’s as if I am speaking but no sound is coming out of my mouth. (REPEAT quietly): It’s as if I am speaking but no sound is coming out of my mouth. (SHOUT):IT’S AS IF I AM SPEAKING BUT NO SOUND IS COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH. Any other parents experiencing this?
Sometimes I will walk over to him and get between him and the TV or the video game and say, “Are you listening to me?” And then I will give him whatever message I want to convey. Now, this can be somewhat amusing if I’m trying to say, “It’s time to empty the trash.” We can laugh that he’s just trying to get out of doing his chores.
Sometimes it still gets old. This happens in much more serious conversations all the time. You need to talk with your significant other, about some concerns you are having in your relationship. You are not happy. Perhaps you have a problem, for example, about the different values you have about spending money and you think it’s time to have a serious talk. Your partner just brushes you off, in much the same way a 9 year old brushes off Mom saying it’s time to do your chores. We don’t want to have the “money talk.” It’s too stressful. And it will point to other underlying values clashes in our relationship.
And gradually, we just shut down, and stop communicating about just about everything. They just don’t deal with things. This breakdown in communication is what happens between God and human beings every day. Did you hear me? Can you hear me now?
Think about it. God is our creator, our parent, our loving Mom or Dad. God wants to be right in there, in the thick of our lives. Yes God is like a nosey parent who wants to know our business. It’s because God really does know what’s best; because God made the world and everything in it. God gives us life. God give us opportunities, and God gives us free will to make choices: good ones and bad ones.
Then God watches as we do what we will do.
And we make mistakes. We make some dooo-zies! But We do some good things with the skills and the resources God gives us too. Some incredible wonderful things that transform our world for the better. But this is what often happens in our life cycle. We get cut off from God.
In the days of Mary and Joseph, lots of the people had lost their way. I imagine God feeling like a frazzled Mom at the end of the worst day, when a child won’t pull his attention away from the electronics for ANYTHING – NOT EVEN his favorite dinner and a big old hug from the mama he loves. (And most 9 year old boys really do still love hugs from their mom, don’t let them tell you they don’t.) I imagine God feeling like that with a whole planet full of children.
In the days of Mary and Joseph, I imagine God being like someone who is living in the house with a partner but they have not felt joy together in years. They are just sharing space. They are not communicating; they are not growing old together. They are just getting old. And God is living like that in a house with a billion people.
So about 2000 plus years ago, in the time of Mary and Joseph, and King Herod, and all those folks, God said, “Enough!” “I have got to do something.” “I love these people. These are my children. When they listen to me, I can guide them. I can help them find peace and joy. I am their Creator; I gave them life. They are so unhappy, so lost. How did this happen? How did this happen? You have been in a relationship before and asked that.
“When I was working through Moses and led the people into the Promised Land those were good times. My people were finally listening to me after all those years in the wilderness. I thought we were on the right track. I felt such a connection. But now look at them. Leaders have taken over that have lost their way.” They just don’t get it.
And so God formed a plan. “I will start over again with them. God specializes in new starts. I will send my own child down there – my Son. I’ll send a baby – no one can resist loving a baby! At least not until they need a diaper change, get cranky, etc. And in time, He will show them. He will be so gentle and wise, and so radical in His love and so clear in His call for justice that they will see me – they will remember me.” And so that is just what God did. God sent Jesus.
Today, we gather, and light the “Christ Candle” to give thanks to God, for sending Jesus to our world. We give thanks that God Jesus to Mary and Joseph and to the shepherds and the Wise Men. Because God sent Jesus to those first disciples, to those fishermen who were not always that smart: Peter, James and John, to Mary and Martha and their brother Lazarus, God’s message got passed through to them, and filtered down through the ages to us. From that part of the world to ours.
Now it’s up to us. So on this Christmas, we pause and marvel at this amazing gift of God’s child, born in the midst of humanity. Can we pause, before we go open the gifts and eat too much food and watch sports, and just let this gift soak in to us?
You see this gift proves that God really wants to love us and be the guiding force in our lives. God wants to cut through the noise, and the distractions. God wants to cut through our fears and our resistance and be in relationship with us.
Will we listen? Will we turn down whatever video games and TV’s, or other material distractions we hold onto? Will we let go of whatever bad choices we know we make that keep us from saying “yes” to God’s path for us? You see, today, is the day. God gives us Jesus, to change our lives. Jesus is the only gift that matters.
All the rest is just icing on the Christmas cake.
Will you pray with me now? And open your heart to receive God’s gift of Jesus?
God, you did your part to come to us. And now God, we are going to do our part. We are here, ready, ready to receive your gift of Jesus. You love made flesh in the world. We open our hearts to receive your love in the world.
Amen.
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