Quiet Christmas

“Have a holly, jolly Christmas. It’s the best time of the year.”

     Maybe. But then again maybe not. It is hard to be the one who must admit to a less than warm heart and glorious good cheer as the whole world seems to be having its customarily wonderful, entire-month-of-December celebration. That’s the holiday where gifts are perfectly wrapped, children are perfectly behaved, and everyone who should be at the table is.

     Sometimes the stress overwhelms us. Sometimes the burden we assume when we seek to make everything perfect does us in. And sometimes – many times – someone who should be at the table isn’t. Death may have invaded in recent weeks or months or even years. A child may have become estranged from a parent. A marriage may have died. And no matter how much time has passed, something will always be not quite right.

     It was years ago during my seminary days that I first heard a pastor reflect on the need to acknowledge pain during the Christmas season. He was a wise man who understood the human heart. In fact, he understood the human heart so well that he left ministry near the end of his career in order to serve as a counselor at a state mental hospital. This wise man said he always devoted one sermon in the Advent season to the Christmas “blues.” Those who experience Christmas with a sense of loss and longing need to know they are not alone.

     It was much later that I learned of the tradition of offering an opportunity for worship that publicly acknowledges those struggles. Some are called a “Longest Night” service, taking place on the evening of the winter solstice just a few days before Christmas, literally the longest night of the year. Others are called “Blue Christmas.”

     The tradition at Seneca Presbyterian Church began just before my arrival. We have modified its format over the years. Now we call it “Quiet Christmas” because loss isn’t just death; it’s a loss of what was – health, security, friendship, relationship, confidence, even hope – trapped in the time before what is to be has been found. That hoping against hope is what Advent longing is all about. So we seek to make this opportunity for worship simply an oasis of quiet and calm amid the world’s chaos.

     We are offering this year’s Quiet Christmas service on Wednesday, December 16 at 5:30 p.m. The service will center on song, scripture, silence, and prayer. We will offer the sacrament of communion. We will also offer a time for personal, private prayer for healing. That portion of the service will be entirely optional. Within that option, three practices are possible for each person who seeks them.

     The first option is simple. It would be to express a personal concern and ask for a spoken prayer addressing that concern.

     The second is an option for the laying on of hands and prayer. Hands are placed on the person’s head or shoulders and these words are spoken: Spirit of the living God, present with us now, enter you body, mind, and spirit, and heal you of all that harms you. Those words are borrowed from the service of healing prayer held each Tuesday evening at the Abbey Church on Iona, Scotland. They affirm our belief that all healing comes from God and takes whatever form God deems best.

     The third option is new for me. It is anointing with oil. It was the practice of early Christians to anoint the sick and pray for healing. Oil was used to clean wounds and was considered to have healing powers. Throughout scripture, oil was also a sign of blessing and God’s favor when used to anoint kings and prophets. Its fragrance reminds us of God’s healing mercy. Yet it is a practice unfamiliar to most Protestants.

     When we gather on Wednesday evening, I do not know if anyone will seek this option. But as a pastor, it is my desire to make available any tangible way for my people to experience the presence of the Spirit and the grace of God. These practices are merely the means of conveying that grace, which is the true source of healing.

     My preaching this Advent season has been more somber, more “shadowy” than usual. The times seem to require it. That mood will change as we approach the Holy Night. It is my prayer that those who join in the service of “Quiet Christmas” will receive a gift of presence, peace, and hope that they can place in reserve for whenever it is needed. For the Christ child was born not only on Christmas Eve. He is born whenever we believe that, despite the longest night, the grace of God is from everlasting to everlasting.

               

Beginning the Conversation

“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.”  

        Our son married his soul mate last Sunday. It was a wonderful event that they had carefully choreographed for months, down to honoring their grandparents by serving their favorite candies. As both mother and minister, I had the “best seat in the house” as they repeated their vows and became husband and wife.

        My son gave his heart and his life to his now-wife long ago. He told me he already felt married. But when that commitment is witnessed publicly and documented legally, it is a momentous moment. As I listened to my son pledge his devotion to “the most important woman in my life,” I must admit that this mother’s heart sank – but just a bit. It was a tangible sign of what Jesus referenced when he said that a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. In today’s context, I’m certain Jesus would have added: a woman shall leave her father and mother and be joined to her husband.  “Leaving” family is how it should be when a new family is created. Even as I lived that transition in my son’s pledge, so too did her parents when they heard their daughter referred to as “Mrs. Morris.”  

        As our son and now daughter-in-law reviewed the language in the traditional wedding ceremony from the Book of Common Worship of the PC (USA), they asked me to modify the phrase “a man and a woman.” In those contexts, I was glad to use instead “two persons.” I do not know if their request came from a general sensitivity to the issue of same-gender relationships or out of specific concern for their friends who gathered to celebrate with them. It doesn’t matter. I still find it intriguing that as heterosexual twenty-somethings in our world, the concern was significant for them.  

        This week, Seneca Presbyterian Church is beginning to talk about same gender relationships in a tangible way. Almost a year ago, I approached our Session with the question: Are we ready to begin an intentional conversation about homosexuality, same gender marriage, and our response as a church?  My request came as a direct result of the district court ruling that legalized same gender marriage in South Carolina, along with the growing movement in the PC (USA) to refine marriage as inclusive of same gender couples. At that time, the amendment to our Book of Order had not yet been approved by a majority of presbyteries. That happened last March.

        My desire for this dialogue is increasingly motivated by a sense of justice for our l/g/b/t brothers and sisters who have for too long been harmed by the Church. I often wonder if it is too late for the Church to atone for the sins of silence and exclusion that fill our past. My confidence is being nurtured by the many personal stories I hear from among our congregation – from gay and lesbian persons as well as those with sons and daughters among that community.

        The Session’s response to my request was affirmative and deliberate. We created a Conversation Team of seven persons to discuss the process of beginning the dialogue. Our desire was to enable respectful discussion that listens rather than divides.

        We are planning a series of Talk/Listen/Learn sessions where members of the congregation can hear of our process and reflect with us their thoughts, concerns, desires, and questions. We intend to model compassionate listening, defined as follows:

Let this be a safe place for conversation…

• Where we can accept all, because God has first accepted us.
• Where the wounds of our lives and the struggles of our souls are safe – where they can be spoken and honored; protected and healed.
• Where one does not have to be wrong in order for another to be right.
• Where diversity of belief and theology and piety are a blessing; where I am nurtured by those who differ from me, as long as I am open to what they have to share and they to me.
• Where we acknowledge that there are core essentials to what we believe, but they are far fewer and far more open than many would contend.
• Where compassion and care are grounded in the mercy of God, a mercy that endures forever.

        Our son believed he was already “married” to his beloved. In the eyes of the law, he now is. This past weekend, they were honored by the presence of friends and family as they publicly proclaimed their vows and were blessed by God. They were roasted and toasted and celebrated. They desire the possibility of nothing less for all God’s children.