O Come, all ye Faithful

The earliest memory I have that is set inside a church comes from my days at an Episcopal pre-school. We had chapel as a regular part of our routine. I don’t remember if it was daily or weekly, but I remember one day very clearly. I was seated in a pew in the church, and I can visualize my fellow four year olds seated in the pews nearby. The priest was giving a children’s homily on listening to God. He told us that we must listen very, very carefully if we were to hear God. God did not always speak to us in an out-loud voice like our parents or teachers, but if we were very quiet and very still and listened very closely, we would hear God. He earnestly assured us that God would speak personally to each of us.

I remember this day so many years ago, not because of the particular message of the priest, but because, as I strained and strained to hear God’s words to me on that day, I discovered that I could move and wiggle my ears. I like to think that in that discovery God did, in fact, speak to a four year old.

Ever since that day I have tried to listen to God. There were some pretty long stretches in my life when I wasn’t trying very hard, but I like to think that, especially over the last fifteen or twenty years, I have tried to listen closely to God’s words to me. It has been my experience, as the priest suggested so many years ago, that God does not often speak in an out-loud voice, yet if I am very quiet and very still and very attentive, I can hear God’s words to me.

Based upon the years that I have been doing my best to listen to God’s words to me, I would like to share with you one thing that God has never said to me. God has never asked me for money. Never. God doesn’t personally need money, of course. I can imagine, though, a number of reasons that God still might ask for my money. Yet I have never heard or sensed that command in God’s communication with me. God has never asked me for money.

Money is at the heart of this morning’s gospel, the familiar story of the widow’s mite… the story of the widow who offered in the temple what may have been her last two pennies. It’s that time of year, too, when most churches find our attention particularly focused on money, as we seek as individuals and as communities to discern how we might best use money for God’s purposes.

Which is why it struck me that God doesn’t ask for money. Not in my own experience and not, as best I can remember, in the New Testament. God’s people spend a good bit of time talking about money, but not God. Which begs the question: What does God ask of us? Does God tell us what God wants from us? In the transactions of our relationship with God, what are we asked to give? As we seek carefully to listen to God, what request does God make?

God seeks our faithfulness. We are asked to be faithful. Full of faith. We usually think of faith as a body of belief. To be full of faith is to believe or accept a certain set of assertions about God and Jesus Christ. But being faithful also describes a way of behaving with loyalty and commitment. These meanings are both part of being faithful in God’s eyes. But as I think of faithfulness this morning, all I can think is a Christmas carol. I know the church is supposed to stand against the premature celebration of Christmas, but the St. Pat’s holiday fair is coming up. This week we’re going to be filling the undercroft with Christmas gifts and decorations. Maybe it was seeing Jean Cowie on Thursday night taking home a whole bin of Christmas tablecloths to wash for the fair that really got me thinking about Christmas. In any case, this morning when I think of faithfulness, a melody comes into my mind.

"O, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant. O come ye, o come ye, to Bethlehem. Come and behold him, born the King of angels. O come, let us adore him, O come let us adore him, Christ, the Lord."

"Sing, choirs of angels, sing in exultation…"

Joyful and triumphant. Singing in exultation. At least in the carol, these are qualities of faithful people. To be faithful is to be joyful and triumphant. These are qualities that many of us do know and feel at Christmas time--that dark, cold time of year when hope is born anew. "O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant." Full of joy and triumph because somehow when we sing this carol and think of that little baby born in Bethlehem, God speaks to us. Not in an out-loud voice, but in a voice we cannot help but hear. Through the experiences of Christmastime, God speaks to us of light that triumphs over darkness, love that triumphs over estrangement, of joy that overcomes despair, of life that triumphs over death. O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.

Listen also to one of the less familiar verses of this carol. "Child, for us sinners poor and in the manger, we would embrace thee, with love and awe; who would not love thee, loving us so dearly?" Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly… And then the refrain. "O come let us adore him." Love and adoration. These, too, are qualities of faithfulness. It is hard, if not impossible, for us human beings to force ourselves to feel love or adoration. It’s not a matter of the will, not a decision that can be made. Yet love and adoration are undoubtedly the deepest and richest qualities of a faithful life.

Love and adoration for Christ can only grow in our hearts out of the awareness first that we are loved. As the carol says, "Who would not love thee, loving us so dearly?" Everything begins with God’s dear love for us. We are often most aware of that love during the Christmas season when we have the image of the child in the manger constantly before us. In the image, the story, the fact of a tender child born for us out of God’s love… In that story, we hear God’s voice speak to us, speak personally and directly to us… speak words of love.

But it’s a message, of course, that God tries to convey to us at every time of year. We are not always tuned in to hear it; we do not always look and listen as carefully as we could to God’s message. As the priest said in his chapel talk so many years ago, we have to be intentional about listening to God, because God usually doesn’t speak in an out-loud voice. We have to create an awareness, an attentiveness, within ourselves… a space in the midst of all the other communication that barrages us all the time. If we do, we will hear words of love. God’s words, spoken to each of us.

I like to think those are the words the widow in this morning’s gospel heard. Certainly her actions stand in stark contrast to the scribes, who seem to have been way too busy talking to hear anything God might have been saying to them. They were so full of themselves there was no room for the voice of God, the love of God to enter into their hearts. Mark doesn’t tell us what the widow was feeling as she came to the temple. But maybe she came feeling full of love and adoration for the God whom she knew dearly loved her. If she did, her offering makes all sorts of sense. It is no hardship, no sacrifice, to give a gift when it is given in love. It is a privilege and a blessing.

God doesn’t ask much of us really. In fact, I don’t think that God ever really asks, or commands when God speaks to us. God offers. God speaks to us in the deep and quiet places in our hearts, speaking words of deep, unimaginable love. And then God hopes… hopes that we will hear, hopes that we will respond, hopes that we will be faithful.

O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant… O come let us adore him, Christ the Lord.

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