I wonder how many of you remember Art Linkletter. He originated this program called Kids say the Darndest Things. He would get a child or two or even a small group and ask them questions and the responses (at least the ones we saw) were truly hilarious. I remember two interviews in particular. The first was a little girl about five or six with a heavy Brooklyn accent:
Mr Linkletter: How do you feel about being in school?
Girl: I LOOOOVE School!
What do you think of your teacher?
I LOOOOVE my teacher!
Well what do you think of your mommy and Daddy?
I LOOOOOOOOVE my Mommy and Daddy!
Do you like ice cream?
I LOOOOOOOOVE ice cream!
You seem to love everything I ask you about.
Well, I’m a very loving person!
I love that story because it’s really true, isn’t it? Deep down we’re very loving people. There are things that we love, people that we love, animals that we love, places that we love, foods that we love, seasons that we love, books that we love, movies that we love music that we love- and the list goes on and on.
We love what speaks to us.
The other interview was with a group of kids and Art Linkletter asks them:
Have you ever been in love?
And this boy, who’s probably again five or six says “Oh Yes!”
Mr Linkletter asks “With whom are you in love?” He was very correct in his grammar.
And the little boy, without missing a beat, says pointing to a girl in the group “I’m in love with her!”
The little girl memorably shrieks and starts crying.
Whereupon Mr Linkletter says to the little boy “I’m not really sure, but that little girl doesn’t seem to share your love.”
The little boy says “Well, I’m In love with her, I don’t just love her. And I don’t suppose she can do anything about that.”
Out of the mouths of babes….
Today we celebrate Christmas- The feast of the birth of Christ. The Christ Mass.
The celebration that God’s love for us became manifest in a baby born in a barn. Not a palace or the suburbs or a gated community or a hospital or even a house.
He was born in a barn.
In a country occupied by a foreign power.
To poor parents who probably didn’t really know what they were doing- as most parents of their firstborn will attest.
Born also to a people who yearned for God’s light. And to the whole world as well.
I love the Christmas story because it’s so simple.
And because it’s so filled with complicated richness.
For centuries the Jewish people had walked in anticipation of Isaiah’s words “you who walk in darkness shall see a great light”.
I’ve known a few Rabbis in my life and one of the things they have taught me is this:
For hundreds of years The Jewish people had cultivated a relationship with this God who delivered them from oppressors and violence and injustice and who asked them to wrestle with theology- to get down and dirty with questions and curiosity- because if anyone can take a question God can.
Being an Episcopalian means using our heads as well as our hearts. We get to question things. We get to wrestle with things, just like Jacob wrestled with the angel.
Today, I’m going to ask you to wrestle with this: God is in love with you.
God is in love with you.
And there’s nothing you can do about it.
Who’s been in love?
When a person falls in love, the world changes, does it not?
And if that love is returned- well, we might even say that we’ve experienced the Divine.
Being in love is not about doing the right things, saying the right things, wearing the right clothes, showing up at the right place, ordering the right food…. Love is much simpler than that.
True love is delighting in the presence of the Other- and knowing that they delight in the presence of me.
This is the essence of Christmas: God delights in us.
I’ll say it again- God delights in us.
Yeah, I know we don’t always get it right, but we’re trying.
And when someone is in love with you, they forgive when you apologize, right?
So does God forgive us.
God delights in us so much that that delight became a person.
It became Jesus.
He is the manifestation of God being in love with us.
Which is pretty amazing if you stop to think about it.
God is in love with you. God is in love with me. Are you wrestling?
We celebrate it in the words of scripture we hear and in the Eucharist- the ultimate sacrifice of someone in love.
Listen to the words “This is my body broken for you- this is my blood shed for you”-
Words of love from a parent to a child. “I give my life for you.”
Words of the lover to the beloved “All that is mine is yours.”
I also want you to remember something else:
God is in love with the people we find it hardest to love- that’s the most important thing to remember.
When you find a person hard to love remember this: God not only loves them, God is in love with them.
God is in love with some “miserable people”.
And sometimes those “miserable people” is us.
And when you have a bad day and feel unloved and find it hard to believe that anybody loves you, remember this: God not only loves you but God is in love with you.
And I don’t suppose there is anything you can do about that.
Except to try and love back.
Like Jesus did.
Amen
Filed under: Christianity, sermons Tagged: Art Linkletter, being in love, Catholic church, Christmas, God is in love with you, Jesus, kids, love, Sermon
