Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (12/27/15)

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Galatians4:4-7

On Sunday, December 27th we rededicated the Condron Chapel at First United Presbyterian Church, Houston. Condron Chapel was built in the 1950s as part of an addition to the original church structure. In recent years it became clear that the chapel was in need of restoration. In 2015 the Session authorized the renovation of Condron Chapel, the Property Committee worked diligently to make decisions about the space, and then members of that committee did the bulk of the work to restore the chapel. The congregation was generous in its financial support of the project; the cross that adorns the wall behind the chancel (pictured) is the gracious gift of the family of Frances Wylie. This post includes the sermon that was preached on Sunday, as well as the prayers that were offered for the rededication of the chapel.

Prayer of Rededication

Peace be unto this house and all who worship here. Peace be to those who enter and to those who leave from this place. Peace be to those who love this place, and that love the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord.

The prophet Isaiah reminds us that: “All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (40:6, 8)

Let us pray:

Almighty and merciful God, we know that you are not bound by the heavens nor by the earth; no temples built by human hands can contain you. Yet we gather here today to rededicate this chapel to your glory, that we might use this space again to honor, praise, and worship you, O Lord. May you delight in our worship and praise to you, O God, for we consecrate this space to you.

When your holy Word is preached in this place may it be spoken in demonstration of the Spirit and with power; speak to your people, O God, through the lips of your ambassadors. When your holy sacraments are celebrated here, may the grace of your gifts flow into the hearts of those who are assembled here. Let your glory fill this chapel, O Lord, and may your Holy Spirit descend upon all who gather here. Now let us call ourselves to worship by reciting verses 9-10 of the 24^th Psalm.

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,

    because the Lord has anointed me;

he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,

    to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim liberty to the captives,

    and release to the prisoners;

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor,

    and the day of vengeance of our God;

    to comfort all who mourn;

to provide for those who mourn in Zion—

    to give them a garland instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

    the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

    the planting of the Lord, to display his glory.

They shall build up the ancient ruins,

    they shall raise up the former devastations;

they shall repair the ruined cities,

    the devastations of many generations.

For I the Lord love justice,

    I hate robbery and wrongdoing;[b]

I will faithfully give them their recompense,

    and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

Their descendants shall be known among the nations,

    and their offspring among the peoples;

all who see them shall acknowledge

    that they are a people whom the Lord has blessed.

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

    my whole being shall exult in my God;

for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation,

    he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,

    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the earth brings forth its shoots,

    and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,

so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise

    to spring up before all the nations.

Galatians 4:4-7

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

Sermon

          I was sitting in a coffee shop when the song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” came on the radio. This is one of those secular Christmas songs that I never paid all that much attention to when I was a younger person. Listening to this song as a grownup, I hear a very sentimental song, colored by notes of melancholy. In places, I think this song has a certain mournful quality to it. As it turns out, Frank Sinatra agreed with me.

          The song was originally written for the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. It was released in 1944 and very quickly became a favorite among U.S. servicemen who were serving in Europe and the Pacific, separated from loved ones, not knowing if they would ever make it home or see those loved ever again. No doubt, they identified with the longing and sadness that’s expressed in the song.

          Frank Sinatra is known to have recorded two different versions of this song, first in 1950, with the same lyrics that Judy Garland sang in the movie. Then in 1957, Sinatra recorded an album called A Jolly Christmas. Before recording that album, Sinatra asked the composer, Hugh Martin, to change the last verse. Sinatra didn’t like the line, “Until then, we’ll have to muddle through somehow.” Sinatra asked Martin, “Do you think you could jolly that line up for me?” The revised lyric is, “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.” I imagine that both lyrics are familiar to most of you.

          I first started paying attention to these lyrics when I was in my early thirties. I can’t say for sure when it happened, but when I heard the lines, “Through the years we all will be together / If the fates allow,” I got a little bit choked up. I thought of loved ones who had passed away. I thought of my elderly grandmothers, who probably weren’t going to be around much longer. I was reminded of the Christmases when we had all been together. I knew there wouldn’t be many more of those. So yeah, I got more than a little bit choked up the first time I thought about those lovely Christmases from my childhood and realized that they were gone. The song expresses a wish for joy and happiness; at the same time it acknowledges that something has been lost.

          When I hear that song now, it hits me even harder. Now more than ever, the holidays remind me of all the people who aren’t with me anymore. I think this is also true in many of our congregations in the Presbyterian Church. As you folks know, I did a lot of pulpit supply before I was called to serve here. I preached in lots of churches, sometimes to ten or fifteen people. Those who were there could see the ghosts of what the congregation used to be; they knew who used to sit in the empty pews. In many churches, I could feel their sense of loss.

          I think this same sense of sadness and loss that I hear in “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” underlies this morning’s lesson from the prophet Isaiah. The prophet begins by announcing that the Lord has anointed him, sent him to “bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn.” So on the one hand, we have good news, liberty and the year of the Lord’s favor, but on the other hand, this message is being delivered to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, and the captives. The prophet is speaking to a group of people who are broken; something is very wrong here. Think about it: God doesn’t need to send a prophet to comfort God’s chosen people when things are going well.

          Most biblical scholars believe that the Book of Isaiah is actually the work of more than one author. Chapter 1, verse 1 identifies the author of the text as Isaiah bin Amoz, Isaiah, the son of Amoz, who was active during the middle of the eighth century, BCE. Scholars believe that this Isaiah was responsible for writing the first 39 chapters of what we know as the Book of Isaiah. Chapters 40-55 were likely written by a second author, probably in exile during the Babylonian Captivity. The remaining chapters, 56-66 were compiled by a later author or editor, after the return to Israel.

          Now you might think that the exiles would have been thrilled about returning to Jerusalem, but the return from captivity was not a happy homecoming. Solomon’s Temple had been destroyed and Jerusalem had been abandoned. Neither were the exiles welcomed back. The rest of the people of Israel had moved on in their absence. In fact, the first group of exiles was sent to Babylon in 597 BCE—they had children in Babylon, they died; the children of the exiles had children of their own, and it’s likely that many of the second generation died before the captivity ended in 539. Think about it: two full generations of exiles in captivity. Perhaps a child, exiled in the third wave of deportations in 582 BCE might have survived to return to Israel in 539. Even still, the chances were slim that anyone who lived in Israel in 539 would have remembered any of the exiles who left fifty or sixty years before. What’s more, many of the exiles decided to remain in Babylon—they were perfectly content with their lives as they were. But the peace and order of their lives in Babylon would be upset when some of them took the opportunity to return to their ancestral homeland.

          Think again of the song, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” In particular, the line, “Through the years we all will be together,” seems to fit the exiles very well. During the period of exile, they were all together. But when they returned, that sense of togetherness came to an end. And the exiles didn’t like what they found when they got to Israel. As far as the locals were concerned, these exiles were from Babylon. They could go right on back if they wanted to. Nobody was stopping them.

          Of course, the writer of Third Isaiah was probably one of those exiles. And his exile community wasn’t happy. They felt like prisoners; they were in mourning. They mourned for the Jerusalem that belonged to their grandparents, the Jerusalem that they would never see, the Jerusalem that would welcome them with open arms. That wasn’t the Jerusalem that the exiles found when they returned. It seems to me that the exiles were oppressed by their own expectations; they were captives to their own idea of what Israel would be like when they got home.

          I think that we are also broken, and in many of the same ways that the Jerusalem exiles were broken. We are living in a world that doesn’t look like we imagined our future would look like, say, twenty, or thirty, or forty years ago. We don’t feel safe and secure in our jobs or our relationships. We see a lot more empty spaces in the pews than we used to. Maybe we wonder if God has turned away from us. Or perhaps we just wonder why we’re not living in the future we dreamed that we would. Do we only see what we expect to see, or are we learning to see new things in new places?

          I interviewed for this position five months ago. I guess it turned out okay. During the interview, I was given a tour of this church. When the folks on the interim committee showed me this chapel—right in the middle of all the renovations—I got really excited about the opportunity to serve here. When I saw that this congregation was invested in revitalizing its sacred spaces, I knew that good things were going on here.

          From the outside, this church looks like lots of other Presbyterian churches. It has a beautiful, old sanctuary, built in the 19^th or early 20^th century, and one or more additions that were constructed in the mid-20^th century to accommodate the growth of the congregation. In many of the churches where I’ve preached, those old Sunday school additions—which were overflowing in the 50s and 60s—are now storage rooms, filled with decades of stuff that the congregation had accumulated; stuff that nobody could bear to let go of, either.

          This chapel could easily have turned into one of those junk rooms. It could have remained as a mausoleum to Rev. Condron’s dream. But it didn’t. This congregation still has a vital spirit and a willingness to look forward. Instead of searching for the Jerusalem of your past, you embraced the memory of those who went before, and you made this a vital space again. Through good leadership and good stewardship: the leadership of the Session and the Property Committee to undertake this project; through the generosity of the congregation and a gift from the family of Frances Wylie; and through the faithful service of many—most especially Buddy Jeffers, Bo Lesjak, and Sandy Wallace—this space has been transformed.

          This morning’s reading from Isaiah offers visions of hope, while acknowledging pain at the same time. I’ve given you all the uncomfortable parts about the Scripture and how those parts mirror our lives. But the text from Galatians reminds us of the grace and the joy-filled truth: in the fullness of time, God sent his Son, so that we, too, might be adopted into the covenants that God made with Israel. God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts because we are all God’s children. This chapel also reminds me of that joy-filled truth. When a congregation is fully alive, it doesn’t weep for the past, it looks to the future. Let us live into that joyous, grace-filled reality. Thanks be to God. Amen!

Benediction

          Now, beloved, as you depart from this place, remember that we are called to look to the future and see the world as God wants it to be, not the world as it is, or as it was. Do not look for the Jerusalem of your past. Instead, go forth and be instruments of God’s peace and reconciliation. Do not return evil for evil to any person, but know that we are all loved by God, and that we are called to reflect that love to everyone we meet. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, let all God’s children say, Amen!