Sermon for Solemn Mass of the Nativity

Giotto di Bondone, 1304-1306

Saturday 24 December 2016

From early childhood, many of us grew up to associate Christmas with the giving and receiving of presents. In my parents’ secular household, the miracle of Christmas was the nocturnal visit of Santa Claus to leave all sorts of delightful toys and games under the tree to be discovered and unwrapped, opened and assembled, in the first light of morning.

It wasn’t until I started attending church as a young adult that I came to think of Christmas primarily in religious terms as the occasion of Midnight Mass to celebrate the Lord’s Nativity. But that’s another story.

From my childhood, well into my teenage years, the question, “What would you like for Christmas?” was of momentous importance. In school, my classmates and I would excitedly tell one another what we were hoping to get for Christmas this year. In high school, this topic of conversation prompted one of my friends, who was a semi-competent artist, to submit to the student newspaper a cartoon showing a child sitting under the Christmas tree ripping the wrappings off a mountain of presents, with the caption, “Tis the season to be greedy!”

This cartoon caused indignation among the more literal-minded types in the student body who, not realizing that it was satire, thought my friend was purposely overthrowing the religious and spiritual meaning of Christmas. The truth was the opposite; he was in fact a practicing Episcopalian who wanted to lambast the day’s commercialism and materialism.

But the giving and receiving of material gifts in no way contradicts the Christian understanding and observance of Christmas. In 1923, the noted writer and Catholic apologist G.K. Chesterton published an essay on Christmas presents. He began by saying that he’d recently seen a statement by Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, that while she had no objection to Christmas presents per se, she herself didn’t give presents in any “gross, sensuous, terrestrial sense, but sat still and thought about Truth and Purity until all her friends were much better for it.”

This plan, Chesterton commented, was not necessarily impossible or superstitious, and it had a certain economic charm. But, he continued, it was definitely un-Christian. “I do not know,” he wrote, “if there is any Scriptural text or Church Council that condemns Mrs. Eddy’s theory of Christmas presents, but Christianity [itself] condemns it, [just] as soldiering condemns running away.”

He went on: “The idea of embodying goodwill—that is, of putting it into a body—is the huge and primal idea of the Incarnation. A gift of God that can be seen and touched is the whole point of the … Creed. Christ himself was a Christmas present.”

It occurred to me as I read these words that Chesterton effectively demolishes the proverbial adage that it doesn’t matter what you give someone because “it’s the thought that counts.” No, says Chesterton, the thought by itself doesn’t count, and cannot count, until it somehow becomes embodied and tangible, because we are embodied creatures living in a material creation that God saw was very good.

It’s true that material presents fall short when given as substitutes for loving care and attention, or as attempted compensation for neglect or worse. But, conversely, the act of thinking good thoughts about those dear to us also falls short unless those thoughts become incarnate in gifts that effectively let the recipients know that we’re thinking of them.

I recall reading somewhere that if you’re invited to dinner at someone’s home in France, it’s customary to take along some such gift as a bottle of wine or a box of chocolates, much as here in the United States. But one needs to be careful to choose a gift of high quality and good taste because, unlike in this country, the idea that “it’s the thought that counts” just doesn’t fly over there. More precisely, the quality of the gift given communicates more than we might realize the extent of our respect, esteem, and affection for the recipient.

In any case, Chesterton’s main point is that even among those for whom Christmas has become a secular cultural holiday rather than a solemn religious observance, the practice of giving gifts preserves a vestigial memory of the Christian teaching that Jesus Christ is God’s greatest gift of all: a Christmas present of infinite quality expressing infinite love because it’s the gift of God himself present among us.

About a month ago, in my capacity as Superior of the American Region of the Society of Mary, I was pondering what to do about the situation in one of our Wards in Texas. The Ward Secretary was retiring after 24 years of dedicated service, and her last meeting in that capacity would be on the first Saturday in December. I wondered whether I should phone, write a letter, send a gift, or some combination of all three.

Finally, I realized that whatever else I did, the best gift I could offer by far would be to fly down there, attend the meeting, and greet her in person. And so I did—taking along a letter of commendation and the gift of a little statue as well. As every priest learns in the exercise of the pastoral ministry, sometimes on critical occasions there’s just no substitute for showing up in the flesh. But that is the incarnational principle of Christianity.

God himself sets the pattern. Contrary to Mrs. Eddy’s theory, when the human race had fallen and become subject to sin and death, God did not just sit in heaven thinking thoughts of Truth and Purity until we were all the better for it. On the contrary, God came down from heaven in person—in the Person of his Son—to share in our created human life so that we in turn might share in his uncreated divine life. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. That’s the good news that the Church proclaims and celebrates every year on the Feast of the Lord’s Nativity.

So there we have what we might call the Catholic doctrine of Christmas presents. By cheerfully giving them, we grow in the virtues of generosity and unselfishness. And by gratefully receiving them, we remind ourselves that all the truly valuable and worthwhile things that we have in this life are not those that we can take or earn for ourselves, but those that come to us from God as gifts freely given, beginning with our very existence, and ending with heaven itself. The practice of giving and receiving gifts, not only at Christmas but also throughout the year, thus becomes a spiritual discipline, a means of growth in grace and holiness.

And when we kneel at the crèche and gaze at the infant Christ, we behold the first and best Christmas present of all: the gift of God himself in the flesh. The wrapping is swaddling clothes, and the box is a manger. So we give thanks to God for such a wondrous gift, and adore.

Acknowedgments

Some key ideas for this sermon came from Aidan Nichols, OP, Year of the Lord's Favour: A Homilary for the Roman Liturgy, Volume 2, pp. 60-61. Excerpts from the Chesterton essay are here.

Sermon for Proper 18, Year C

The Apostle Onesimus
St. Petka Chapel, Belgrade

Philemon 1-21

Over the past several years, the historical issue of slavery has regained currency as a topic of discussion in American society in general and in Rhode Island in particular. The film Traces of the Trade documents how the fortunes of many prominent Rhode Islanders depended on the slave trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Mindful of this painful legacy, the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island has undertaken the project of establishing a Center of Reconciliation to be housed at the now disused Cathedral, including exhibits on the state’s historic connections with slavery.

In light of this conversation in our wider community, it seems appropriate to comment today on our Epistle reading, Saint Paul’s Letter to Philemon. It’s one of the few places in the New Testament where the Apostle Paul explicitly engages with the practice of slavery in the Roman Empire of his day. So it may have something to teach us about the implications of the Christian Gospel for this still sensitive and sometimes contentious issue.

In his letters, Paul’s attitude to slavery is somewhat ambiguous. On one hand, he writes in Ephesians 6:5, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your earthly masters …”; in Colossians 4:1, “Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters …”; in I Timothy 6:1, “Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor …”; and in Titus 2:9 “Bid slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to be refractory.”

On the other hand, writing of the Church Paul says in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus”; and again in Colossians 3:11, “Here there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all, and in all.”

In the nineteenth century, both slaveholders and abolitionists quoted these various passages, as well as the Letter to Philemon, to bolster their positions. More recently, some critics have faulted Paul for not having taken a clearer stand against slavery, suggesting that his apparent acceptance of the institution led to its persistence many centuries longer than it might otherwise have survived. Others rightly point out, however, that opponents of slavery and the slave trade were almost all Christians – such as the Anglican Evangelicals William Wilberforce and John Newton – who derived their abolitionist principles from Scripture. (John Newton, by the way, was the captain of a slave ship who was converted to Christian faith and became a leader in the movement to abolish the slave trade; we know him today primarily as the author of the text of the hymn “Amazing Grace.”)

With that background in mind, then, we turn to Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Just 25 verses long, Philemon is the shortest of all Paul’s letters preserved in the New Testament. Unlike most of his other letters, which he wrote for entire church communities, or for even wider circulation, it has the form of a personal note to an individual.

The letter is addressed to Philemon, whom we know from some of Paul’s other letters as a leader in the Church at Colossae, which Paul founded. At the time of writing, Paul is in prison, but we don’t know where, since he suffered several imprisonments in his missionary journeys. The subject of the letter is Onesimus, a slave of Philemon, who’s been with Paul for a time, but whom Paul is now sending back to Philemon, possibly as the bearer of the letter.

Two theories offer competing interpretations of why Onesimus has been with Paul. The majority interpretation, which goes back to some of the early Church fathers, is that Onesimus has run away from Philemon and has taken refuge with Paul. The minority interpretation suggests instead that Philemon has sent Onesimus to serve Paul in his imprisonment for a certain period of time, which is now coming to an end—perhaps because Philemon has requested him back—so that Paul is returning him to his owner. (It seems to me that the text can bear either interpretation.)

Either way, something remarkable has happened. Paul writes that in his imprisonment he has become Onesimus’s father. In early Christian language this almost certainly means that Onesimus has become a Christian and that Paul has baptized him. Therefore, Paul writes, he is sending Onesimus back to Philemon “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, as a beloved brother.” And he exhorts Philemon, “if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.”

The letter is a masterpiece of rhetorical understatement, calling for a good deal of reading between the lines. Paul writes that while he’s bold enough to command Philemon to do what’s required, yet for love’s sake he prefers to appeal to him. (But he does not say what it is that is required.) Instead of keeping Onesimus with him, Paul is sending him back so that Philemon’s goodness might not be from compulsion but of his own free will. (But he does not say what this goodness is to consist of.) And he concludes, “Confident of your obedience, I write to you knowing that you will do even more than I say.” (But he does not say that this “something more” is.) Here Paul is clearly hinting at some good deed that he wants from Philemon—and it’s not too much of a stretch to suppose that this is granting Onesimus his freedom so that he can return to Paul and assist him in his work.

(Incidentally, one tradition holds that Philemon did emancipate Onesimus who went on to become a bishop in the Church. About a half-century later, in the year 110, Saint Ignatius of Antioch addressed a letter to the Church at Ephesus in the person of Onesimus, their bishop. We don’t know if it’s the same Onesimus, but it very well could be.)

As I mentioned, some contemporary writers criticize Paul for his failure to condemn slavery outright. Others suggest that since Paul expected Christ’s return and the end of the world any day now, he probably regarded slavery as just another corrupt social institution that was soon to pass away, so there was no point in opposing it in the present age.

My own hunch is that the question of whether slavery should be perpetuated or abolished simply never occurred to Paul, and it’s anachronistic to suppose that it could have. Slavery was simply there, a given, an integral component of the world in which Paul lived, and neither he nor his contemporaries could imagine that world without it. (The world to come would be another matter.)

However that may be, in his Letter to Philemon, whether he knows it or not, Paul articulates a principle that spells the ultimate doom of slavery and all other forms of social oppression and exploitation. In Christ Onesimus is no longer a slave but a beloved brother; Philemon is to receive him as he would receive Paul himself. The Gospel sets before us this ideal of the equal worth and dignity of all human beings in God’s eyes; and it remains no less relevant and compelling in our own day than it was in Paul’s.