Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

All Sermons are © Copyrighted and may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the express permission of the author.

For thirty-three years Albert Wildberger was a family physician in Georgetown, Delaware, just over on the Eastern Shore.  He was a good and compassionate doctor, but he was more even than that.  He gave himself to the people of that little town in a hundred ways: belonged to the Lion's Club, helped the volunteer fire company, organized clean-up details along the highway, served on the town council, and on and on.  He died a few years ago, and this is what they carved on his tombstone:

Albert J. Wildberger, M.D.
November 11, 1926 - May 26, 1987
THE SECRET OF LIVING IS GIVING

    Christ came to rescue us from slavery to sin and death, and to save us for a kingdom which, he said, God had already prepared.  Since the coming of that Kingdom had already begun (with the preaching of John the Baptist and the coming of Jesus' himself), Jesus' teachings about what kingdom-life should be, applied both here and hereafter.  In other words, if we want to be citizens of God's Kingdom, we will live by its rules, and we will start now.  And there is no better summary of those rules than the simple epitaph they gave Dr. Wildberger: THE SECRET OF LIVING IS GIVING.

    The giving began in that stable rude, when God gave his only begotten Son, continued when the magi gave their gifts,  was seen plainly when Jesus gave himself to the needy multitudes, healing their ills and raising them from all kinds of graves, continued as the disciples and early martyrs gave their very lives, has manifested itself  down through the ages with countless acts of Christian charity (giving), and will be symbolized tonight and tomorrow by our giving gifts to each other.  Christians have known from the very first that the secret of living is giving.
 That basic truth rubs against much that is in us.  The world says, and our instincts say, the secret of living is getting.  The more you have, the better off you are.  And we can go that way, doin' what come naturally, looking out for number one, getting while the getting is good.  What separates us from the animals, however, (sometimes) is this counter-intuitive behavior: giving.  Animals don't give gifts to each other, and (in my experience, at least) they're not very good at sharing.  But we do that, and when we do it we are never better, never closer to the Kingdom of God.  The secret of living is giving.

    How might we give?  Let us cut right to the quick, and talk about the hardest first.  We might even -- if God is with us -- we might even give our hearts, our whole selves.  That's the scariest giving.  That's what takes the most courage.  For when we open up our hearts and take the risks of caring, when we let the world (or even one other person) see our deepest desires and dreams,  when our hearts are right up there on our sleeves, that's when we are most vulnerable.  But, dearly beloved, the world desperately needs people who will do just that, who will give and not count the cost.

    Two American soldiers just after World War II, at Christmas time, walking through an orphanage in England, where children whose parents had been killed in the battles and the bombing were housed, the soldiers laughing, talking loudly, giving out whatever they could find in their pockets: a stick of gum, a nickel, the stub of a pencil.  "Well little guy," said one of the soldiers, as he approached a shy boy, "what do you want for Christmas?"  "Will you hold me?"  Will you give me what is so rare?  Will you take a chance with your emotions?  Will you give me love, even just for a moment?

    "We've become hardened shells, "hollow men" as T.S. Elliot put it.  Hardened and hollow because we won't (can't) give ourselves, won't (can't) risk love.  We don't mean to be that way.  It's just that life has taught us to guard our feelings, taught us not to open up, at least not to strangers.  Taught us to measure ourselves not by what we give but by what we keep, until (sometimes too late) we expose that lie and discover the awful truth that the self-absorbed life ends up absorbing life.  As one Christian said, we give what we cannot keep in order to gain what we cannot lose.  But we're a long way from living by those rules!

We can change.  Or, more accurately, God can change us.  D. H. Lawrence, writing about Christmas, said, "God himself is born!  And so we see God not until he is born.  And also we see there is no end to the birth of God."  No end to the birth of God.

O holy child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
Be born in us today.

    In Luke's account of Jesus' birth, the most intriguing words are these: "There was no room for them in the inn."  No room for the poor people, the common people, the not-classy people; no room for children, nor for the sick, nor for the naively faithful, nor for those who make good living giving.  Still true: no room in the world for such as these.  But, you know, there was also no room in the stable that night: no room for Herod, no room for Governor Quirinius, no room even for the Roman emperor, Agustus, no room for anyone who measured life in power and wealth.  Still no room in Bethlehem's stable for people like that.  We live either in the hotel or in the garage, either in the inn or in the stable.  And wherever we choose to live, there will be no room for us in the other place.  Would we sleep in  the inn, on a feather bed, while our Lord sleeps in the stable, on a bed of straw?  Is the pupil better than his teacher?  Should we not emulate his lowliness?

    Athanasius, one of the early church fathers, writing in the fourth century about Christ's birth in a stable, said: "…the Lord did not come to make a display…(God) came to put himself at the disposal of those who needed him, and to be manifested according as they could bear it."  He got off to a good start with that, being born so poor, so contrary to expectations, and he continued in lowliness through his life and death.  He lived by different rules, the rules of a different kingdom.  What can we say?  He wants us to live by those rules, too.  God put himself at our disposal.  We discover truth in him.

    And, in that, in his giving himself, and in his living by different rules, this beautiful baby whom we adore, is lovely to us and dangerous, too.  Herod was right to be afraid of this new king, but for reasons he could never have imagined.  This baby would steal Herod's throne, but not as Herod feared.  He would become king, but not with armies, not with power, not with taking but with giving.  No room in the stable for people like Herod.  Herod would have the royal suite -- but not for long.