Each Night a Child is Born
Rev. L. Annie Foerster
December 24, 2001

READING:  Another Santa Story    
William L. Barne

There he sat, red suit, conical hat, fur-trimmed and all, on that chilly park bench, glancing skyward as though assessing the chance of snow. I sat beside him, "How come you're not out there on the corner with your iron pot and bell?"

"I am not one of them," he replied. "I happen to be Santa Claus."

I smiled, pleasantly enough, but my doubt must have showed. "I really am," he said.

"But how can you tell if you are the real Santa Claus?"

 "That is the question," said he. "How tell the true prophet from the false?"

"But do you really live at the North Pole?" "Legend," he replied. "Fact is, I'm everywhere."

"Are you also omniscient and omnipotent?" "You mistake me for a friend of mine."

A little embarrassed, I yet persisted. "Perhaps you only think you are Santa Claus."

"That would be my problem, not yours. But I might point out that there are no children around."  "That is odd," I conceded.

"The reason," he said, "is that I cannot be seen." “Like a chess player crying ‘checkmate',” I said, "I see you!"  "And that is your problem, not mine."

We both looked up at the sky. "It might snow," he said. "Its better when it snows. But snow or not, I must be going."  "Going where?"

"To distribute toys, of course."  "One last question.  What is the spirit of Christmas?"

"Well, if you want to sound scholarly you might call it the ultimate potential. It's the moment when the best that is human surmounts all the stumbling blocks on the path to becoming. You care, so you help. You love, so you give. And you dream . . . you dream of the time when this brief season will be extended to the whole year."

"Don't you sometimes get discouraged?" "Dear me, I've only been at this for a few centuries. Give me time."

Then he called out: "Blitzen, Blitzen! Where is that dratted deer?"

Suddenly there came a whole cloudful of snow right upon us and by the time I had wiped my eyes clear, I was alone on the bench. But there were hoofmarks in the snow and one dry spot on the bench, a very broad spot, where
he had sat.

Reading: Christmas in the Bathroom   
        Robert Fulgham

When Sam was three years old he attended the Little School of Seattle, which met in the basement of a church and kept its general supplies in the foyer of the women's restroom. Sam discovered this treasure trove one morning late in November. Therein was a king-sized canister full of red glitter. Yes.  Upside down over his head; all over the restroom; and down the hall and round the corner and into the Director's office. But before anyone could mutter oh-my-god-what-a-mess, Sam, three, sang out "hands in the air, laughter on his face, "You know what? YOU KNOW WHAT!  There's CHRISTMAS in the BATHROOM!"

There's Christmas in the bathroom. And therein lies the message.  Beauty, so said the ancients, is in the eye of the beholder. And Christmas is and ever will be found where it's looked for. Most often close by, most always very underfoot; hidden away in the cupboards of our lives waiting to be rediscovered in a rebirth of wonder…waiting to be dumped over our hard heads like blessing oil; waiting to be scattered like red glitter on the walls and hallways of dark December.

Christmas will be found in closeted memories, visions, hopes, fears, half-forgotten songs and muddled stories of a child of long ago and in the story of a child named Sam.  Christmas will be found “even in bathrooms" by those who know how to see.

HOMILY

Here we are, once again, just hours before the day of Christmas, wondering why and how Unitarian Universalist celebrate Christmas.  But wondering aside, celebrate we do. From giant trees in our parlors to lusty song in our throats, from last-minutes shopping to this evening-before worship. With poetry and melody, we celebrate.

Each year since I became a minister, I have taken on another piece of Christmas.  Each year I try to understand a little more what it's all about.  It isn't just one thing. You understand that, don't you? Even if Christmas hadn't been created over the centuries—from an assembly of traditions, from an anthology of stories, from an assortment of ethnicities—this season, this accumulation of feelings, of hopes, of expectations, would have to be celebrated, and we would have had to invent other traditions and other stories and other celebrations. This season, this night, this holy day, is the funnel of our year's living…living well, living badly, trying harder, understanding glimmers of truths, finding love, misplacing all the human things we do unceasingly, unthinkingly, intentionally, all year long, is being squeezed of its essence, celebrated and tucked away with smiles and dreams for another year. And next year we will ask again, "Why am I doing this?" and then we will do it.  We will celebrate whatever we choose to call it—solstice, Kwanza, Christmas, Hanukkah—and we will be glad we did.  We will understand holiness just a bit better than we did before, and, hearing the old familiar stories, we will see their wisdom just a bit more clearly.

Take the story of the child…take whatever version you are comfortable with.  Each night a child is born is a holy night.  That would be every night of the year, and every day, if we but believed it. And sometimes, when we remember, we act as if we do.

Ysaye Barnwell wrote a song that goes, “For each child that's born, a morning star rises and sings to the universe who we are. We are the breath of our ancestors. . . That would make for a very crowded sky if we but believed it. And it is…the sky is crowded, if you know how to look at it, and ablaze with the songs of the universe; with the life of the universe.”

 And here is a song for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes . . . That would give us an enormous number of signs, if we but believed it. And enormous numbers of signs is what we need in order to maintain a faith in this puzzling, troubling world.

So, is that what Christmas is all about…about babies?  Babies as signs; babies as portent; babies as credentials?  Is it that easy?…we're born, life is sacred, we are holy?  Almost, but not quite.  That alone would not be worth celebration, Is it that we must learn to be child-like again, learn to find Christmas in the bathroom, believe in Santa Claus? No, I think innocence alone isn't enough either.

Then why babies? Why children? What do they represent? I'll tell you what I think it is. They represent beginnings. Innocence? Yes. Helplessness? I think that's closer. The very helplessness of babes to care for themselves means that for them to survive there must be a relationship, preferably a relationship that includes love. This, I think is the essence of the season—this funneling of long nights and short days, of all the year's accumulated living, of the questions unanswered and the dreams unspoken—that’s Christmas…and life isn't, can't be, a celebration except in relationship.

Think about it. You don't celebrate alone. Oh, you can toss the confetti up in the air and down a toast of champagne in self-congratulation; you can spill the whole canister of red glitter over your head, but it isn't a celebration until you run out and tell some, "I found Christmas in the bathroom," or "I am the breath of my ancestors and we are one."

We could argue theology here. We could speak of virgin births, but, come on, at one time every birth was a virgin birth…a magical mystery, until men figured out what women probably knew before them, how life was created.  The story says that Mary wasn't in a relationship with Joseph, but with the spirit of the universe.  This is a story, to me, about connecting to something larger than yourself, a story about relationships that span more than a couple or a family, a tribe or a nation, not about literal miraculous conception.

We could speak of immanent godhood, the sacred spark within each of us.  But without interrelatedness, without interaction, the spark is merely existence. It isn't life, isn't the spirit of the holy, until we give to one
another the acknowledgment that you, too, are sacred. This is where the stories of gifts come in. Acknowledgment of another's holiness is the greatest gift we can give. The ones wrapped in paper are merely symbolic, celebrator and reminders of that other.

This is what we have to learn over and over and over. This is why this holy season comes every year, so that we can renew the lesson; so that we can celebrate the lesson; so that we can keep on going, even when we forget, until we see the magic once again: on a park bench, in a candle's flame, in a child's face, in a song's sweetness, in a caress, in a gift, in a dark room lit only with love.

Each night a child is born is a holy night.  For each child that's born a morning star does rise and sing to the universe.  We are those children and sometimes we forget it, but not tonight.  There are too many reminder, too many lights, too many songs, too much celebration, too many questions, that sooner or later we have to remember who we are and why we celebrate together, in relationship and love.