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Last week's
mail brought a Christmas letter from friends, the first line
of which reads: "Well, another year under our belts ...
and I mean that literally." And most of us can identify
with that, since we will be saying pretty much the same thing,
come the middle of January. For whatever else Christmas may
be, it is an unbridled adventure of tasting and feasting,
nibbling and snacking, that commences around the time the
Thanksgiving Day Parade rolls down Woodward Avenue and concludes
shortly after half time of the Orange Bowl. People talk to
each other about "eating their way through the holidays,"
with such conversations taking place as they are standing
in a buffet line, or attempting to balance one snack plate,
one punch cup, one napkin, three pieces of silverware, and
several small-speared-things dangling from the ends of toothpicks.
Christmas is a time of going out ... having people in ...
shipping cookies from house to house ... and taking goodies
to the work place for munching over coffee. And we love it
... right down the last finger-licking morsel. Besides, what
else would you expect from a culture that uses refrigerator
doors to serve as everything from "message central"
to a children's art gallery?
Much of
this can be explained by the fact that Christmas is a season
of re-discovered fellowship. From Old Testament times to the
present, fellowship has not only been enhanced, but literally
cemented, by a willingness to eat together. In fact, a refusal
to eat is taken, in some quarters, as a refusal to bond. The
root of the Hebrew verb "to covenant" is said to
be a derivative of the Hebrew verb "to eat." To
the degree that when Jonathan broke covenant with Saul (I
Samuel 20:34), "he rose from the table and ate no food."
Keep that in mind the next time you are inclined to refuse
a plate of cookies that someone passes your way.
But Christmas
is more than fellowshipping over food-in-general. Christmas
involves the bonding of family and friends over some very
special foods-in-particular. For at Christmas, food becomes
a link to places one has been before and to people who have
gone before. Every family will serve something during the
course of this holiday season which will connect them in memory
to some other country or some previous generation. Some things
will be eaten simply because grandma made them or because
grandmas' ancestors (in the old country) enjoyed them. And
grandma's death (when it comes) will occasion the question
(most often asked by the youngest child) as to "who will
make the angel wings this year?" Inevitably, someone
else in the family who doesn't have the faintest idea how
to make angel wings ... and who may not even enjoy them all
that much ... quietly says: "I will."
In my
family, it was "flanceta" (angel wings) and "poteca"
(Slovenian nut roll). Lori Lachowicz's mother makes "nut
roll" ... only she calls it "kolach" rather
than "poteca." That's because Lori's mother is Hungarian
rather than Slovenian, giving further evidence of the fact
that Slovenians and Hungarians have never been able to get
together on much of anything, including a common name for
"nut roll."
Meanwhile,
Kris' family was big into pickled herring, scalloped oysters,
plum pudding, and real mince pie (made from beef cooked over
a low flame for a minimum of eight and a half years). All
of the above were acquired tastes for me. But I learned ...
because the desire to bond with the people one loves is stronger
than the desire to turn up one's nose at what is deemed unfamiliar
and strange.
Some Christmas
foods, of course, become legendary ... thus surpassing all
family traditions and countries of origin. Take fruitcake.
For years, I have heard the rumor that there are only 75-100
fruitcakes in the entire Western world ... and that nobody
has ever actually eaten one. Upon receiving them as gifts,
people promptly freeze them and begin figuring out who in
the world they can give them to next year. But Mary Jane Russell
gave me one this year. She actually made it. And with a most
mischievous twinkle in her eye, said: "Try it, you'll
like it." So I tried it. And you know what? I liked it.
And what
is so special about figgy pudding, so as to cause millions
of carolers to demand it in return for wishing us a merry
Christmas? That demand is voiced, even to the point of absurdity:
We
won't go until we get some,
We won't go until we get some,
We won't go until we get some,
So bring it right here.
I don't
know which is less appealing, the song or the dish. But I'm
sure that before the week is out, I will have heard from lovers
of figgy pudding everywhere.
But strange
as all this may seem, many genuine Christmas carols have linked
feasting with faith. In my college years, I sang tenor in
a madrigal group. Our specialty was the Oxford Book of Carols,
many of which openly combined praise for the birth of our
Savior with delight taken in the sharing of good food. In
fact, "The Boar's Head Carol" was not only my favorite,
but something of my signature song.
And who
can forget that incredible moment in the beautiful story,
"The Greatest Christmas Pageant Ever," when a kid
(very much from the wrong side of the tracks) manages to crash
a very proper Presbyterian children's pageant and claim a
part as one of the three kings. After marching down the aisle
to the quiet gasps of the deacons and elders, he slips over
to the manger and lays a Polish ham at the feet of Baby Jesus.
And while his gift was far from historical or theological,
it was eminently practical, and certainly edible, assuming
that allowances are made for the fact that the original Jesus-Baby
was a good little Jewish boy.
All of
which may have been what prompted Roger Wittrup to show up
yesterday ... promptly at noon ... with my Christmas present.
It was a huge ham sandwich from a place on Michigan Avenue
(near Tiger Stadium) called Mike's Ham Heaven. It was not
so much a sandwich, really. What it was was half a hog, slaughtered
and stacked (albeit precariously) between two slices of bread.
One day,
in the earthly ministry of Jesus, some friends of John the
Baptist came to our Lord and raised a thorny question. "Why
is it (they wanted to know) that we fast and the Pharisees
fast, but your disciples do not fast?" To which Jesus
answered: "Do people fast at a wedding when the bridegroom
is among them?"
Well,
my friends, Christmas Eve is (at the very least) the equivalent
of a wedding. Jesus is here tonight, so very few of us will
... fast, that is. Which is not really a commentary on how
much we ought to eat on Christmas Eve, or how much we ought
to drink on Christmas Eve, but how much sheer joy and delight
we ought to take at his coming on Christmas Eve.
And then
there is the sharing that accompanies the delight. For the
true "Jesus people" of the world are not simply
those who greet and eat, but those who also greet and feed.
"Where do we see Jesus," asks the gospel, if not
in the hungry who receive our food. Which is why (whatever
one's position on welfare reform) nobody decries a soup kitchen.
And which is why, appearances to the contrary, any money we
spend (as a church) on poinsettias is a pittance ... a miniscule
pittance, I tell you ... to the money we spend on bread.
So we
feast. And we feed. Even though some of us are still hungry
for that which bread (or figgy pudding) cannot satisfy. For
every worshiper with a stomach that rumbles in this sanctuary
tonight, there is someone else with a spirit that rumbles
... someone who is hurt and needs healing ... someone who
is empty and needs filling ... someone who is lonely and needs
loving ... someone for whom the winter is already too cold,
and the night is already too dark ... and who is visibly "bent
beneath life's crushing load," and slipped into the pew
dragging "the fears of all the years" behind them.
Not everybody came tonight just to sing an old familiar song
and hear an old familiar story. Some came looking for a whole
lot more.
To you
I would say, take nourishment from this place. Trust that
God can feed your heart this night. For where weak souls will
receive him still, our Christ still enters in. He never refuses,
no matter how shabby he may find the stable to which he is
invited as a guest (and some of the lives into which we invite
him are pretty shabby). He always accepts. He always answers.
He is not too proud for you. Are you too proud for him? Think
carefully before you answer. For if you answer correctly,
this could be your birthday, every bit as much as his.
*
* * * *
Christmas
Eve, 1999. The last one of the millennium. I guess I always
thought I'd live to see it. But it never occurred to me that
I'd be "pushing sixty" when it came.
But Leah
Kropf is "pushing 99." She's one of our homebound
members (I hate the words "shut in"). Leah was my
last poinsettia stop, late yesterday afternoon. She lives
... on her own. Manages ... on her own. Gets by ... with a
little help from family and friends.
We'd never
met, she and I. For which I feel badly. Dr. Thomas is the
last minister she really remembers. But, after putting two
and two together, she said: "I know ... you are the fellow
who writes me those wonderful letters each week." And
just as I was about to confess that I'd never done any such
thing, I realized I was. That guy, I mean.
But now
we were sitting in her living room ... meaning that our "connection"
was personal, not printed. Which, too, will preach ... if
you let it. But don't stop there. Move with me, deeper into
the conversation ... past the point where she told me about
seven decades with her husband, Alvin (dead, six years) ...
past the point where she told me about holding her first great-great-grandchild,
Justin (born last September) ... all the way to where she
shared her philosophy of living. Said she:
I don't
see very well. I need a really bright light to read. But
I celebrate the fact that I can still see the possibilities
through the disabilities.
And to
think, I almost didn't get there in time to hear that.
As for
me and mine, this Christmas, there are no disabilities worth
speaking of. And a plethora of possibilities. Life is as promising
as it is precious. Which says a lot about life. And even more
about faith.
In a matter
of hours, I will go home with two of the most incredible women
God has ever given one man to share. Where it will be time
for a hot fire ... cold shrimp ... a bowl of bisque ... a
present or two ... along with the cherished memory of one
who (from our sight) is gone for awhile, but (in another sense)
never left ... coupled with this picture of you ... here ...
and the night we are sharing together.
There
is so much to this night. And there is so much to this place.
So my very dear friends, don't go until you get some.
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