Seeing God’s goodness in everything
Luke 2: 7-14
Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields
and keeping the night watch over their flock. The angel of the Lord appeared to
them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with
great fear. The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim
to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the
city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord. And this
will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host
with the angel, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest and on
earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
One of
Shakespeare’s lesser known plays is called “As You Like It.” Have you heard of it? Even though it gets little publicity, it
contains one of my favorite lines in all Shakespeare. Duke Senior, exiled by his jealous brother,
finds refuge in a deep forest. The Duke,
however, is not bitter or resentful as you might expect. Instead, he’s actually optimistic and even
joyful in his new home. He explains why
to one of his attendants: “And this our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds
tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones and good in
everything” (As You Like It, II, i).
That’s my favorite line: “Sermons in stones and good in
everything.” Now, to tell the truth,
I’ve heard some sermons that sounded more like the preacher was throwing
stones. Haven’t you? That always reminds me of the joke about the
woman caught in adultery. Jesus says
sternly to the crowds: “Let the person who is without sin cast the first
stone.” Then, suddenly from the back of
the crowd, a lady throws a rock that barely misses the woman. Jesus says, “Mom, stop it! I was trying to make a point.” (If you didn’t get that, you must not be
Catholic.) But the duke somehow heard
God’s voice in trees and brooks and stones, and he saw God guiding his life
even though he himself was in exile, that is, he saw something “good in
everything.”
Many years
ago, when Pope John Paul was a young priest, he traveled to Paris with a
friend. Standing in a crowded subway,
Karol Woytila (the pope’s original name), spontaneously stretched out his arms
and declared, “What a great place for contemplation!” His friend looked at him bewildered and said,
“What?? People are rushing back and
forth, some people are shouting, children are crying, trains are screeching and
you fell like contemplating??” The pope
perceived the same thing that the duke discovered: when you look carefully at
creation, you glimpse God’s grace and goodness in everything. Stones can preach sermons, and crowded metros
are monasteries of contemplation.
In the
gospel today, an angel invites shepherds to gaze closely at creation – really
to contemplate – in order to see something marvelous and miraculous. The angel announces: “And this will be a sign
for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a
manger.” The swaddling Baby was a sign
of God’s grace and goodness in something ordinary, just like God’s goodness is
swaddled in stones and subways. But the
angel wanted them to see more than that.
What was that? Well, at
Christmas, God becomes a man, and in a sense, eternity enters into time, heaven
enters into earth, the Creator becomes part of his creation, Shakespeare
becomes an actor in one of his plays, just like Alfred Hitchcock used to make a
cameo in all his movies. And when God
did that, he touched everything with grace, and in the words of Gerard Manley
Hopkins’ famous poem: “The world became charged with the grandeur of God.” In other words, the angel invites the
shepherds to a kind of “Christmas contemplation” not only to see how the Baby
of Bethlehem begins a new creation, where there are “sermons in stones and good
in everything,” but also to see that God is with us, he is one of the actors on
the stage of our lives and we are never alone.
You see, when Jesus stands beside you, he helps you hear those sermons
in stones and you feel like contemplating in a crowded metro. You see good in everything.
Now,
here’s an unexpected place to find the goodness of Christmas. On Christmas Eve a young man thought it would
be nice to buy his wife a little gift for the next day. Always short of money, he thought long and
hard about what the present might be.
Unable to decide, he entered Bloomingdale’s cosmetic section and asked
the girl, “How about some perfume?” She
showed him a bottle costing $150. He
muttered, “Too expensive.” The young
lady returned with a smaller bottle for $75.
“Oh, man,” he said, “still far too much!” Growing rather annoyed, the sales girl
brought him a tiny $25 bottle and offered it to him. The young man said, “What I mean is that I
would like to see something really cheap.”
So the sales girl handed him a mirror.
Some of you men may want to stop by the store on the way home and buy a
bigger bottle of perfume. That man heard
a sermon in a mirror that day. Christmas
means Jesus is always beside us and speaking to us.
Folks, I
know it can be hard to contemplate God’s goodness sometimes, especially at
Christmas time. The commercialism has
all but suffocated the spiritual meaning of the season. Those who have lost loved ones through death
feel their absence acutely at the holidays.
Families broken by divorce and deep divisions feel Christmas gatherings
are for
ced and phony and can’t wait to leave.
Nonetheless, I am convinced there is “good in everything.” Let me illustrate this Christmas
contemplation with an email I recently received. It’s a list of things to be thankful
for. It read: “I am thankful for the
wife who says it’s hot dogs tonight, because she’s home with me and not out
with someone else. I’m thankful for the
husband who’s on the sofa being a couch potato because he’s home with me and
not at the bars. I’m thankful for the
teenager who’s complaining about doing the dishes because it means she’s at
home and not on the streets. I’m
thankful for the taxes I pay because it means I’m employed. I’m thankful for the mess to clean up after a
party because it means I’ve been surrounded by friends (keep that in mind
tomorrow). I’m thankful for the clothes
that fit too snug because it means I have enough to eat. I’m thankful for the lawn that needs mowing,
the windows that need cleaning, and the gutters that need fixing because it
means I have a home. I’m thankful for
the huge heating bill because it means I am warm. (Here’s my favorite.) I’m thankful for the lady behind me in church
that sings off key because it means I can hear.” My friends, the mystery of Christmas means
you begin to see and hear and feel everything differently because Jesus is at
your side speaking to you through all these things. You will never stand alone on the stage of
your life and delivery a soliloquy like Hamlet.
Christmas means you will never be alone.
“And this
our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the
running brooks, sermons in stones and good in everything.” Why?
Because Christmas has changed all creation into a monastery for
contemplation.
Praised be Jesus Christ!
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