2023.12.24 | Christmas Eve | Be the Light
“Be the Light”
Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring, Senior Minister & Executive Director
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Christmas Eve, December 24, 2023
John 1:1-5 (English and Spanish)
Thank you for being here tonight. Your presence means a lot to me. Seriously--what are the chances that any of us would be here tonight?
Our world is SO secular. Churches can’t compete with the pull of the secular world. We’ve lost ground every year since about 1960. Church memberships continue to drop. Doors close. Congregations fold tent. And, the trend continues to worsen and at warp speed since the pandemic unfurled.
I’ve served as the pastor of this church for over 21 years. This is my 22nd Christmas at Eden. In the good old days, we experienced our highest worship attendance during the month of December. Not anymore. People have a lot going on this time of year: shopping, parties, vacations, and more. Church seems to get in the way of Christmas for many celebrants.
This phenomenon has not always brought out the best in me as one who has put a lot of time and effort into trying to ensure that this season is extra special for others. But fortunately, I’ve been influenced by people who are better than me. I remember how the chaplain at my college would always say this time of year, “Isn’t it wonderful that there is something so compelling about the Christmas story that people just can’t stay away?” What is one to say, but a resounding, “Yes!”
Yes, it is wonderful that the Christmas story is so compelling, and it is wonderful that you are all here tonight. Furthermore, it’s a full-on Christmas miracle that we’re all here tonight, because churches like Eden--churches in the Congregational and United Church of Christ tradition--we just don’t “do” evangelism.
Consequently, Eden Church is full of “closet Christians.” When I came to this church a little over 21 years ago, people were scared to use the “e” word--evangelism--and despite my best efforts, we have not made a lot of progress on our use of the term evangelism.
Most people in the pews here 21 years ago were more comfortable telling their friends that their new pastor was lesbian than that they went to church. (“And--oh, by the way, we’d love it if you’d join us this Sunday for worship.” Those words have just never rolled off of the tongues of UCC people.)
If there is another denomination who is better at hiding their light under a bushel than the United Church of Christ, I haven’t encountered it yet. We just don’t do evangelism, because most of us associate it with “scarry Christians.”
Does the phrase “scary Christians” resonate with you? Do you know any? In my family of origin, scary Christians go door to door asking complete strangers whether they know where they’re going to go if they die tonight.
We do not want to be those kinds of Christians. We are not convinced--and we do not want to convince anyone--that Christianity is the only true religion and that Christ is the only way to heaven, and all the rest are going to hell.
A further reason that our meet up tonight is unlikely has to do with the fact that Christians can be our own worst enemy. That’s especially when our talk and our walk are not in alignment.
We talk a good game about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), but 10 o’clock on Sunday morning is still the most racially divided hour of the week. There are understandable reasons for some of this phenomenon. For example, every faith tradition and local faith group is grounded in a particular culture which has its own language, music, rituals, and ways of making meaning. It’s not easy to bridge those gaps.
For example, when I moved into this community 21+ years ago, it was composed primarily of first-generation Spanish-speaking economic migrants from rural Mexico who were members of the Roman Catholic Church. That is not a group likely to attend an historically Euro American English-speaking Protestant congregation. We’ve made some great inroads, but that hasn’t happened overnight. And, we’re not unique in that regard.
When I was preparing for my first sabbatical 15 years ago, I conducted a national search in hopes of finding a multitude of UCC congregations that had been in existence for 40 years or more in the same location, and that had successfully navigated a major cultural change in their neighborhood without selling their property and moving 20 miles further away from their historic location. The list I came up with was not long. In fact, the data showed that most congregations did not survive even one “demographic flip” of their neighborhoods.
Another reason that our churches aren’t packed tonight is that many have lost their sense of purpose, or worse--they’ve lost their way. Pastor Marvin, Pastor Brenda, and I all attended a church conference this past May in which the facilitator for an afternoon seminar asked church leaders to huddle up and share in small groups something that they were really proud of about their respective congregations.
I am disappointed to tell you that a few were quick to raise their hands and those that did more often than not said that they were proud of their congregation’s fellowship hour. I thought, “Wow, I enjoy a good cup of coffee, but I’m pretty sure that Jesus came into this world to do more than provide us with a coffee break.”
We do not do things perfectly here at Eden Church, and I’ve always said that one of our purposes here is to work ourselves out of the business of running a food bank. But I am pretty sure that Jesus thinks that quintupling the number of people with whom we have shared groceries, diapers, PPE, cleaning supplies, and holiday gifts is more important than a nice coffee hour.
Speaking of doing what matters most, I’ll share one last thought with you. I am convinced that the most important thing that Christians can do tonight and for the foreseeable future is to join with other Christians and people from other faith traditions in focussing on the things that we have in common, rather than doctrines about which we may disagree, so that we might be able to light a candle for peace in our little corner of the world.
There are many people in the world today who think that religion is the problem that prevents world peace, rather than an agent capable of contributing to world peace. And I hear that criticism and have more than an inkling of an idea of where it comes from, but I refused to accept it. Because as disciples of Christ, we can do better, and as one of the three great Abrahamic faith traditions--we must do better. The faith values of Jews, Christians, and Muslims come from the same root. We have in our essence the capacity to make a sustaining peace possible.
Another step that we could take toward lasting peace involves plumbing the depths of the complicated grief that fuels the extremism in every strand of the Abrahamic traditions, including our own. This grief is deep and old, like a gaping wound that won’t heal. For healing to come, we have to acknowledge the wound, clean it out, infuse it with medication to stop the infection from growing, and slowly but surely heal the wound from the inside out.
So this is the great challenge and the great opportunity that lies before Christians in this holiday season--to make a commitment to seeking peace and being a peacemaker, like Jesus and the other great prophets of our faith traditions. In Jesus, we Christians find the example of a person who preached and practiced peace in every realm of his life, and who invited us to do the same.
Let our candle lighting tonight be a symbol of our commitment to do the peace seeking and peacemaking work of Jesus, by finding common cause with others whose values are similar but whose beliefs may be different, and by attending to the unresolved complicated grief in our own hearts and homes and hometowns. We won’t solve world peace by ourselves, but this would be an impressive start, and the Prince of Peace will be glorified. Merry Christmas. Amen.