“Something Which Might Happen Again at any Time”
A Sermon for Christmas
December 25, 2007
Rev. Larry Lange
Grace Evangelical Lutheran Congregation
Green Bay, Wisconsin
Carol lives in a public housing project for the elderly not so very far from here. For many years one of the pastors of her church conducted a worship service at the housing project for residents there who were members of Carol’s church. Over the years the worship service attracted people from other churches and people who didn’t belong to a church all of whom the pastor invited to receive Holy Communion, and together, in a little bit of bread and wine they met Jesus, because Jesus promised they would.
After that pastor left Carol’s church, he continued offering the worship service until the public housing authorities discovered that he’d been collecting an offering even though he wasn’t serving a church. The authorities assumed he was keeping the offering for himself, and he was thereby dis-invited.
Not long after that, Carol’s health began to fail, and she called her church to as for a pastor to visit her. When the pastor arrived, Carol’s apartment door was wide open. A frail little woman, who was perpetually wringing her hands, stood in the middle of Carol’s apartment. Carol was sitting at a card table stacked with bills and papers and bottles of pills. A radio was blaring from the kitchen counter that was stacked with dirty dishes. Just as the pastor began to strike up a conversation with the women, a gruff old man strode in with a paper bag in his hand, and he and Carol promptly began to shout at each other over the radio. The old man, it became apparent, had made several, six-block walks to the drugstore to get Carol different medications, because it was too far for her to walk. Apparently, each time he returned, Carol decided he’d bought the wrong medication. Carol grabbed his most recent purchase and lined it up along with all the other medications on the table like toy soldiers assembled for inspection, and then each of the three in turn, proceeded to take up a bottle, read its label, and argue about which would be the best for Carol.
Then, as suddenly as he came, the gruff old man and the woman wringing her hands left. The pastor asked Carol if he could turn down the radio and she nodded and a pleasant silence ensued. Carol and her pastor talked for a while and together, in a little bit of bread and grape juice, they met Jesus, because Jesus had promised they would.
A month later Carol disappeared.
The pastor called her apartment for a week and then went up to visit her finding only the woman wringing her hands, walking up and down the long hall. The pastor asked her where Carol was, but she didn’t reply. She only scowled and scurried away like a mouse surprised by lights. The public housing authorities could not tell the pastor where Carol had gone, because such information is confidential. The pastor asked members of the church and searched the church records and eventually learned that Carol had a daughter, whose name he found in the phone book, whom he called and left a message, but received no reply.
After a week, Carol’s daughter did return the call, but left a cryptic message: “Carol is in Winnebago,” was all she said which, the pastor finally figured out, is a state hospital for the mentally ill.
It was an hour and a half drive to Winnebago for the pastor. As he approached the buildings, he tried to make sense out of the directions he’d been given: “She’s in the red brick building by the flag pole.”
The problem was that there are six red brick buildings gathered in a semi-circle around one flag pole. There are no signs on the buildings. And all the doors are locked. The pastor tried them all, feeling all the while that he was being watched on camera.
Which he was.
The pastor began to feel as if he were Alice in Winnebagoland. As he continued his search for an open door, the only people he saw are milling about behind an eight foot high fence topped with razor wire.
Since this was the time before cell phones, he decided to go find a pay phone and call for help, but a couple employees burst out of a door nearby and directed him to the correct door inside of which a receptionist directed him to the correct floor upon which, behind bullet proof glass, another receptionist arranged to have him escorted in to visit Carol.
Carol was as amazed to see the pastor as the pastor was that he actually found her. In a dark room at a table with a dark walnut-colored contact paper finish curling up at the edges, the pastor learned that Carol’s case was to come before a judge in three days. A judge was going determine if she had to stay at Winnebago or if she could return home. Carol was terrified. A tall, bone-thin man with a scarred face and blue-tatooed arms strode into the room, marched around as if he were looking for something he’d lost and then left. People were creeping up and down the hall outside the room like ghosts, wringing their hands, scowling as they excoriated enemies who were no where to be seen. Together, in a little bit of bread and grape juice, the pastor and Carol met Jesus, because Jesus promised that they would. They asked Jesus if he could help Carol return home.
Three days later the pastor called the pay phone on Carol’s unit exactly as he’d been instructed. “Carol’s not here,” was the reply. The pastor called patient information as the unit personnel recommended. “We have no one here by that name,” was the reply. The pastor called Carol’s apartment. No answer. He called Carol’s daugther’s answering machine. No reply.
The shepherds in the Christmas Gospel are a little like Carol. For six months or more every year, they are forced out of their homes, because they must lead their flocks up into the mountains whose cool shadows prevent the merciless summer sun from scorching the pastures there. The shepherds are forced out of their homes away from their families, are forced to eat off the land, to cook over dried dung fires, to sleep on the ground, to kill wolves with wooden sticks, and to wear the same wool robes the whole sweltering summer long.
And, just as Carol gradually lost all ability to be a part of her religious tradition, so it was with shepherds who could not abandon their sheep to wolves and robbers and make their way down the mountains to attend synagogue on the Sabbath. They could not be nice, perfect religious people like the Pharisees. Shepherds were, in fact, despised, ignored, and feared by practically everyone. Shepherds were despised and suspected in the age-old battle over land between farmers and ranchers. Shepherds were despised, because they left their wives and children unprotected—something it was believed a man could ill afford to do in those days. Just as we cringe about the kind of people like Carol who live in Winnebago so were the shepherds despised, ignored, and feared.
But on the night of the birth of the Messiah an angel of the Lord appears especially for the despised, the ignored, the feared shepherds with an invitation to an audience with the ruler to rival and outlast the mighty Emperor Augustus himself. What kind of people would be allowed such an extraordinary invitation? What kind of people could even hope to secure such an invitation? How people would long for, be grateful for such an audience with a ruler mightier than Emperor Augustus himself!
Yet it was the shepherds, the despised, the ignored, the feared, who were invited to this audience with the king of kings.
And every Sunday, when you are invited to communion here—communion for which Carol so desperately longed—isn’t this really the same invitation? Because every Sunday, in a little bit of bread and wine or grape juice, we too, are invited to an audience with Jesus, because Jesus promised that the bread is his body and the wine is his blood. Do you think you have a right to have this audience with this ruler mightier than Emperor Augustus himself? Are you, like Carol, trembling and desperate for this audience, for this communion with the king of kings? Do you, as did the shepherds, make haste each Sunday to come here to meet Christ the Lord? Do you, as did the shepherds, leave here rejoicing and praising God for what you have seen and heard? Or is this audience with the king of kings just a nice ritual you take for granted whenever it suits you?
There’s a chapel in Carol’s church that frail people use, because it has padded chairs that are more comfortable for them and their various ailments and because it’s closer to the bathrooms. Every Sunday, worship is piped in on a big TV and communion is brought in by one of the pastors. When she had been able to, Carol had worshipped in this chapel, because Carol was embarrassed to worship with the nice people. She didn’t have any nice clothes like they did, and she usually didn’t smell very nice either. Her hair was a mad white tangle from walking the six blocks to church in the winter wind the day Carol came back.
The pastor who had been looking for her happened to be the one delivering communion for the chapel that day, and he just about dropped the tray when he saw her.
“Hey Pastor!” she barks out, startling the worshipers as if they’d all been asleep. “Pastor, I want to wash the communion cups again, like I used to. Tell somebody, please, so I can come and help!”
The pastor was in shock. “Carol,” he stammered, “you’re…you’re home!”
“You bet I am, Pastor. Thank God, hey?”
And so now every Sunday she can, Carol walks six blocks through any kind of wind or weather to attend the banquet hosted by the King of Kings. And at least once a month Carol is there washing the dishes for his banquet—so grateful, so joyful is she, like the shepherds, to be invited to a banquet with the king of kings, so grateful, so joyful is Carol to be his humble servant. So gratefully, so joyfully Carol dreams of a day when she can feast at the banquet of the king of kings forever, when she no longer fears losing her mind and losing her home, something which might happen again at any time.
Amen.