Sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day, January 3, 2010

Solemn Evensong

by the Reverend Stephen Gerth

Daily Office Year 2: Ecclesiasticus 3:3-9,14-17; Colossians 3: 12-17; Hebrews 1:1-12

Today is the tenth day of Christmas in the calendar of the Episcopal Church. I’m very happy about that. Our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in the United States have celebrated the Epiphany today.[1] For about seventeen hundred years Epiphany has been celebrated on January 6[2] and that’s the Prayer Book tradition. But, we shouldn’t take any great pride in that. Sadly, the Church of England allows Epiphany to be celebrated today.[3] For reasons unknown, our own cathedral today is celebrating the Holy Name of Jesus – the feast appointed in our Prayer Book for January 1.[4]

Frankly, God himself is the only one who really knows what is going on around the Church this time of year – and it’s a lot more than Christmas Lessons & Carols in Advent.

When I went south to work after seminary, I discovered that Epiphany was celebrated with something called the “Festival of Lights” – don’t ask. I think it’s mostly for parishes that don’t celebrate Candlemas or the Easter Vigil and who seem to want to do something with a liturgy of light and hand candles.

Until I moved to New York I had never heard of a something called a “festal” Eucharist or a “festal” Evensong. I’m not sure what it means either, although one can find the term in the advertising of quite a few congregations in our diocese.

When I make observations like this, I’m guilty in some part of some sinful pride, some condescension, of making judgments that need not be made. I don’t think the great tradition needs defending as much as it simply needs faithful celebration.

I’m at the point where I really do appreciate something of the breadth of Christian community and experience through the centuries. There was probably even more variation in the past before the advent of the printing press. 

I’m sure there are congregations tonight in this city that are much larger than ours because there’s a Christmas or Epiphany pageant going on – or a festival of some sort or another.

But I’ve heard words tonight in the ordinary lessons appointed for Sunday Evening Prayer that challenge me – lessons that I would not be hearing or reading were it not for the regular worship of the Church. I’m glad it’s still the Second Sunday of Christmas.

“Ecclesiasticus” is the short name for the only book in the Apocrypha whose author’s name we know. The full name is “The Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach.” It was translated by his grandson from Hebrew to Greek about the year 132 B.C.[5] It’s not a book I know well at all. If I were given this passage and asked its origins, I would guess the Proverbs. It is clearly what is called “wisdom” literature, practical, spiritual advice about how to live. This kind of advice is also found in Job and Ecclesiastes.

Few of us have entirely easy relationships with our parents. Conversely, few parents have entirely easy relationships with their children. It’s simply hard to be a human being. And even in cases where parents or children have done great, even cruel harm to one another, the child-parent bond is fundamental to our humanity.

Ecclesiasticus is talking about human relationships. It also invites me to think about the relationship between us and God. I don’t think I buy into the idea that being nice to our earthly mothers and fathers buys us some kind of righteousness credit with God. For me, it bespeaks the deep and often unspoken or sometimes even unborn desire we human beings have to be in right relationship with God and with all people.

The Church has also included a lesson tonight from Paul’s Letter to the Colossians on forgiveness – not a bad thing in pairing it with the lesson from Ecclesiasticus. I’m not sure in my experience love binds everything together in perfect harmony as Paul writes. But it does seem to make more space for me to be in relationship with another, a family member or a friend. There is something for reflection here, I think, probably for all of us.

Finally, it always seems to me that Christmas Eve services, even the Procession & Solemn Mass of Midnight, seem to be over in a flash. Part of the reason I am always happy about Twelve Days of Christmas – and years when we have not just one Sunday but two Sundays after Christmas Day – these days and Sundays give us a chance to extend our celebration, to remind ourselves that every day in Christ is more about the future than the past. I feel keenly that I want to enjoy it all.

+In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.