IT’S A FAMILY AFFAIR
12 20 09
LUKE 2:1-14
ANTHONY E. ACHESON, M.DIV.
One of the main blessings of Christmas can be the way it brings us together as families. For life-long church-folk who have cycled through many Christmases the words we’ve just heard are familiar indeed: ‘for unto you is born this day in the city of David a savior, who is Christ the Lord.’ Hearing these words can bring tears to me easily. For most of the years of my life, I became used to hearing my mother stand up and read this passage on Christmas Eve, standing next to the same silver candle stick that she herself had celebrated Christmas with beside her own mother and father. That candle stick held an almost identical red candle every year, always bought, and then freshly lit, for just that occasion. For most of the first five and a half decades of my life I became used to hearing this passage read by my mother in the company of at least some of my siblings, and then later my daughter, plus others dear and precious. During all those years, I heard these ancient words after a delicious Christmas feast, and before singing some of these adored Christmas songs, some of which we again sing today or on Christmas Eve.
This account of the nativity we just heard from Luke is a reminder that the Christmas story does not just draw our attention to the birth of a single baby, important as that is. The Christmas story is also a story about a family. It’s a story about a family becoming a family. It’s a story about a family dealing with the challenges and pressures of family life. And just as this Christmas story is a family story, so for many of us, at least, our Christmas gatherings are very much family affairs. Of the many meanings of Christmas none speak more immediately to our hearts than its reminder of the sacredness, the holiness, really, of life in family.
About a month ago I was attending a meeting here in Greensboro and I got into a conversation with a woman who at one point in her professional life had worked with precious stones. When I heard her refer to using a rock-tumbler in that line of work, I asked her to tell me more about that. Do you know what a rock tumbler is? It’s basically a container that you put a bunch of small stones into. Then, after you close the tumbler up, you put it in a device that starts to shake the stones. This tumbler is somewhat similar to the device at a paint store that they put full cans of paint in to shake them up so that the color and consistency of the paint are spread evenly. In the case of the rock tumbler, the device shakes these rough stones, which are initially not very good looking. After some time of being shaken in the tumbler, the rough edges of the stones get rubbed off a little bit, and then a little bit more until, over time, you are increasingly able to see the inner, underlying beauty of the stones. When they start out, they look rough and dirty, brown and gray. But after some time in the rock tumbler, you can see the inner lines and patterns, the colors and striations that allow us to see these as stones that are indeed precious and beautiful, not just ordinary rocks. After their time in the rock tumbler, all these stones need is a little more polishing and shaping and, presto, they are magnificent objects of great beauty, the kind that might well appear under someone’s Christmas tree this Friday morning, or in a stocking, in a beautifully wrapped box.
As we think about the role of families in our lives, there is an analogy to be found between what happens in families and what happens in a rock tumbler. If families are working at all well, like rock tumblers, they are–or at least can be–strong containers that can withstand considerable pressures; strong containers that can hold up when things get rough and when things get hot. Like rock-tumblers, families are strong containers that can handle situations in which those inside the container bump up against each other. They may not always like it. The people involved can become at times abrasive. Their times together can be rough. And over time, some of their rough edges can get worn off, and certain parts of their personalities and egos can get chipped away.
Like rock-tumblers, families are, or at least can be, strong containers where that kind of bumping up and rubbing against can be difficult, and can get hard to take; but where at the end of the day, we’re all still together, we’re all still residing in the same unit, the same container, the same family. It doesn’t always happen that way, I understand. But where we have the courage, and the commitment, and the willingness to stay in the tumbler, to allow ourselves to be shaken together and shaken up; where we remain willing to keep on keeping on in the same family circle; then something wonderful, and life-giving and life-enhancing can happen. This is true because, just like the rock tumbler, if we stay with the shaking, not only can we benefit from having some of those rough edges chipped off, we can often find an increasing awareness of the beauty that really is there in each of us, a beauty that has been there all along, and a beauty that only comes into full display when we are willing to go through the rough and tumble of life in family, and stay with it. This is one of the great truths of the potential power of families and also, if the truth be known, it is one of the great truths of life in any form of committed community, including the spiritual communities we take part in not because we are born into them, but because we are attracted into them by the promises and benefits of spiritual truth and of the spiritual life.
What we experience in our families, then, and by extension in all our close relationships, involves the whole range of human experiences. It involves, of course, the times that are wonderful and happy. But it also involves the many pressures and conflicts and emotional collisions that come our way. Families are the places that we learn the difficult lessons of sharing. As any parent of small children knows, when young kids are enjoying their goodies, whatever those goodies may be, they tend to want them all to themselves, and want them now. But they have to learn to share. It’s like the story of the young mother who was preparing pancakes on Christmas morning for her sons, Kevin, who was 5, and Ryan, who was 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first serving. Their mother saw the opportunity for a good moral lesson there. And she said, ‘Now, now, boys, if Jesus were sitting here, you know what? I have a pretty good feeling He would say, ‘Let my brother have that first pancake. I can wait.’ And after the moral lesson had been duly delivered there was sudden silence between the brothers until finally the older brother, sat up straight in his seat and said, ‘OK, Mom, I see what you’re saying.’ And so he turned to his younger brother and said, ‘Ryan, you be Jesus.’
Stories like that are fun because when we hear them we recognize that we’re hearing stories not just about youngsters but about all of us. And if the bad news is that we haven’t yet learned to fully share the Divine gifts, the good news is that we can stitll learn how to share, and that we humans can learn to resolve our differences and become more loving people. But getting to that point has a price. The price is the willingness to be shaken up, to be tumbled around a little bit, and to have some of our rough edges broken off and worn away so that the beauty that is indeed sitting there inside can be brought to light and brought to sight.
As we approach this sacred week, and as we prepare to spend time with people dear to us, whether it be our families, or whether it by people from other forms of community, my prayer and hope is that this would be a time of deep sharing–not just of the pancakes and treats, not just of the gifts and other material goodies, but most especially of ourselves: our time and attention, our warmth and our sharing, our joys and also our sorrows, our faith as well as our fears and doubts. The greatest thing that we share with other people is ultimately our own selves and lives–and our own presence and aliveness-and through them, of the power of life-itself and the power of the universal sprit.
May this be a season in which this level of self-sharing is real and rich. This we pray in the name of the living Christ. Amen.
