John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

“Relentless” is the word that kept coming to mind – about these days and as I wondered about tonight. “Relentless” because the list and litany of things that I know are weighing on some of you … and on me … and that I thought might bring us here for worship, just kept piling up and piling on in recent days. Of course there’s the news – the wars and rumors of wars, the natural disasters and pending storms, the politics, the politics, and the politics. I’m going to let that all of that “news” stuff speak for itself.

Mostly it’s been the dying, though. So much dying. People losing parents and friends and family and children, even – sometimes after long, lingering sickness and disease. Sometimes quickly, though not unexpectedly. Sometimes in surprising, shocking, unsettling ways – surrounded by circumstances no one could have seen coming. Of course the grief of death shows up in particularly painful ways at this time of year, whether it happened last week or a lifetime ago.

But it’s not just that dying that’s relentless these days. There is the struggle of parenting that’s overwhelming for some, I know. There are kids struggling with what it means to be a kid – or to become an adult – in this world. There are people whose jobs have been on the line – and some who’ve lost what they were counting on in that regard. There are sick and aging parents and friends. There are failing marriages. There are broken relationships of all kinds that would, could, should be something so much more and better and different than they’ve turned out to be.

There are burdens of anxiety and mental illness too numerous and nebulous to name or itemize but that somehow have a very real weight and heft to them, nonetheless.

There are people carrying secrets too hard and too heavy to carry on their own or to say out loud from here.

And I’m sorry/not sorry for those of you with whom I’ve already shared this little video. It added something to our Bethel Bible Study class a couple of weeks ago where I used it to talk theology … and about the nature of God.

Then it came up again in our Stephen Ministry discussion last week where I used it, thinking clinically, about how we deal with each other in caring relationships.

And when something like this won’t leave my mind – or keeps popping up in relevant, meaningful, surprising ways – I feel like I’m supposed to take notice and pay more attention and maybe keep learning from whatever it might be.

So I want to share it with those of you who haven’t seen it – and again with those of you who have – and wonder about it, together, in light of whatever brings us here, for a service like this, at Christmas.

All you need to know about the video is that it’s Brene Brown’s voice you’re hearing. (If you’ve never heard of Brene Brown, she’s a professor, author, podcaster and social worker.) And someone has taken one of her lectures and turned it into a cartoon for some extra effect and added meaning.

So much of the truth about Christmas – which so often gets lost in the mix of everything we’ve done to the “most wonderful time of the year” – so much of the TRUTH about Christmas is acknowledgement of the fact that life in this world is relentless. And the story of our faith never suggests otherwise. God never suggests otherwise. In fact, a friend of mine once said that the Bible itself – the story of our faith in Scripture – reads like some kind of trauma response narrative when you think about it.

From Adam and Eve, to Cain and Abel, to the Tower of Babel, the Exodus from slavery in Egypt, the exile in Babylon, through to the life, crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus, our faith’s story is one tragedy after another tragedy after another, after another, after another when you think about it – some cosmic in scope and scale, some more personal and close to home.

Whatever the case, even Scripture is a reminder that life in this world is relentless – even for people of faith, maybe especially for people of faith – who have their hearts and minds and lives attuned to the music of someone and of something greater than ourselves.

But the other hard truth is, faith doesn’t and will not take away our grief in one fell swoop – nor should it. Faith can’t reverse our deepest darkest thoughts, all on its own, all of the time. Faith won’t fix your anxiety or ease your depression, if you can muster whatever “enough” of that sort of faith is supposed to look like. Faith won’t keep your problems at bay or make your life easier at every turn.

No matter what some preach, teach or post on social media – or have tried to make you believe in one way or another – loving God and having faith is not a prescription against suffering or struggle.

But the promise of Christmas – and the point of that little video about empathy, for my money – is a reminder about the kind of God we’re dealing with, in Jesus. It’s not a God like so many other false gods (drugs, alcohol, self-reliance, our own boot-straps, our own best intentions, our own busy schedules, or whatever else we use to fix ourselves);

The promise of Christmas is not about a god or gods who stand up there and out there, far and away from what hurts us most…offering us a sandwich or a simple solution or a sweet supplication to fix whatever is the matter…

The promise of Christmas is not of a God who doesn’t – who has not – lived and experienced and felt just exactly what we live and experience and feel as a people…

Ours is a God who shows up in the midst of whatever mess we find ourselves and sits with us there and shows us that it is endurable, doable, and able to be overcome…

Ours is a God who shows up in ways as tangible as one of these prayer shawls you are invited to take and wrap yourself in when you leave here tonight…

Ours is a God who comes down as surely as this bread and wine that we’ll eat, drink, taste, smell and share in a moment…

Ours is a God who is sitting next to you now, in this worship, in the presence of someone who has struggled and suffered, too; who is struggling and suffering, beside you even now…

Ours is a God who is even more relentless – more patient and persistent and vulnerable – than whatever brings us here and that we’ll carry with us even after we leave.

Our is a God who comes down, in Jesus, to remind us that there is grace and love and mercy and hope, embodied and emboldened in the world around us, by faithful, loving, kind people and pastors and parents; friends and family and strangers, even.

So, I hope some of you came here tonight selfishly looking and longing for something … even if you aren’t sure what it could be.

I hope others of you came here tonight – whether you knew it or not – looking and longing to enter into this sacred space, to simply sit with and be alongside the others …

I hope each of us sees our potential to be both of these things at any given moment in the days to come…

And I hope we see it all as a picture of the promise and great hope of Christmas – that wild, miraculous notion of the Word and ways of God, making the vulnerable, loving choice to become flesh and to live among us;

…the love of God putting on skin and bones – not just in the person of Jesus, born in a manger long, long ago – but alive and well in God’s children, people just like you and me;

…the love of God born to give and to receive the kind of grace, mercy and peace that is ours because we are God’s – for each other and for the sake of the world into which he comes...

…sharing love, hope and connection that promises the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting – on this side of heaven and the next.

Amen. Merry Christmas.

John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18

I want to tell you about and show you a piece of art I learned of recently. It was created by two Chinese artists named Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, who first had this particular work installed at the Guggenheim and later at another museum in Venice. This work of art is an “installation,” really, that includes a robotic arm, confined behind glass walls, like a cage, some say, and programmed to contain and clean up a constant flow of fluid that spills out from – and all around – the machine itself. Here. It’s better if you just see it for yourselves…

This robotic arm is “artificially intelligent” enough so that when it senses there are enough spectators around watching, it will take a moment or two to dance for those on-lookers. Like, it knows how to “shake its booty,” “scratch an itch,” and “bow and shake.” (Those are the actual names of the dance moves the artists taught the robot.) And it does all of this in ways that look surprisingly human – for a robotic arm anyway. If I understand correctly, I believe it will also stop and dance – celebrating, perhaps – at times when it senses that the fluid is appropriately under control. But then it has to get back to work, of course. It never stops for long.

Of course, there are many ways to interpret all of this. And like so many artists it’s hard to know exactly what Sun Yuan and Peng Yu are getting at with this particular work. Some have suggested it’s a commentary on authoritarian political rule, managing borders and controlling people. Others have seen it as a comment on the nature of work in some cultures – that there is always more to be done, that we don’t rest, and that when we do take a breath – to dance, for instance – we just find ourselves pressured to catch up, which is impossible to do.

One interpretation that got my attention was the idea that the fluid leaking from and leaving the robot is also its life-source – that it was no mistake that the hydraulic fluid looks like blood – and that the robot needs to keep shoveling it toward itself in order to survive and that, because it stopped too much or too often to rest, or dance, or show-off for the spectators who came to watch, it was slowly dying as more and more of its life-source was lost.

So I wondered about it in light of Blue Christmas and the grief or hardship or struggle – or whatever it is – that draws us together for a service like this one. That the world, at times like Christmas, especially – but most days, really – doesn’t leave much room or give much permission for grieving, hardship, or struggle. And that leaves so many of us behaving like some kind of robotic arm – our emotions and our fear and our sadness and our grief looking to leak and leave and escape from our very selves, while we work so hard – so fast and furiously – so endlessly and tirelessly – to keep it all so close to the vest.

And on top of it, much like the robotic arm, we do our best to dance, to perform, and to pretend for whoever’s watching, that everything is okay, that we’re fine, that all is well – or at least better than it really feels, deep down. And we never let too much of what we’re really thinking, really feeling, really fearing or grieving or whatever, get too far away from us, too close to anyone else, so as not to make too much of a mess for them to worry about.

Does any of that feel familiar or is it just me?

If so, I wonder what all of that fluid represents for any one of us here, or for anyone watching from home. If that fluid was clear and a little salty, like so many tears, perhaps, what would be its source? What are we trying to keep to ourselves? To keep from escaping? To keep from our family and friends? To protect ourselves from having to share too much of with the world?

I imagine that liquid stands for “fear” or “addiction” or “abuse” for some. I wonder if it means “overwhelmed,” or “secrets” or “doubt” about all of this for others. Does it represent an illness or an injustice? Is it a sadness that’s brand new or one that won’t go away? Is it an anger you can’t quench or a forgiveness you can’t extend or a concern for someone else you don’t know how to address? What is it these days that we may not even have words for – so that we just keep keeping it to ourselves, shoveling it in, pulling it back, never letting it get far enough away so that we might actually let it go?

See, what also got my attention about this unsettling work of art – what really connected it to Christmas for me – is its name. The artists call it “Can’t Help Myself.” And I don’t think it was inspired by The Four Tops. (“I can’t help myself…” “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch…”) No. “Can’t Help Myself,” strikes me as something much more meaningfully connected to what God is up to at Christmas.

Because God knows we’re only fooling ourselves. When we stay locked up and locked away in our grief or our fear or our struggle or whatever it may be… when we keep it to ourselves… when we just keep pulling it in, never letting it get too far out of reach. When we keep dancing and performing as though all is well, we are denying the reality – and missing the chance to see – that God showed up, in Jesus, knowing that we can’t help ourselves.

One of the greatest gifts of God, in Jesus, in the flesh, in the end, is that God reminds us God is not some kind of artificial intelligence and that we are more than robots. And not only are we free to be just who and how God created us to be, but we are free and encouraged to feel just exactly how we are feeling at any given moment – afraid and faithful; lonely and well-loved; angry and forgiving; sinful and forgiven; grieving and hopeful. And that we were never meant to help or to save or to redeem ourselves. Because we can’t.

God shows up, in Jesus, to live this life we live with all of its struggle.

God shows up, in Jesus, to teach us that light comes in the morning; that forgiveness is offered for sins; that what is lost can be found; that life follows death, even.

God shows up, in Jesus, so that we can stop pretending and performing; so that we can stop scrambling for what seems elusive and futile; so we can see in ourselves and each other the face of this Jesus: the common ground of our humanity, the forgiveness of our sins, the light in our darkness, our life everlasting.

So I hope tonight is nothing more and nothing less than a chance for us to stop dancing – to remember that our life’s blood isn’t escaping it is on the way, in fact.

God shows up in Jesus, not to end all of our suffering and struggle, but to show us that we can share it… let it go… expose it to the light of God’s love, and to help us to bear it and to forgive it and to have hope in spite of it, that it will all be redeemed – not by our efforts – but always and only by God’s grace, in the end.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Relentless - Blue Christmas

Can't Help Myself - Blue Christmas