“HOME FOR CHRISTMAS”

ZEPHANIAH 3:14-20

3:14 Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem!

3:15 The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more.

3:16 On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak.

3:17 The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing

3:18 as on a day of festival. I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it.

3:19 I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth.

3:20 At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the LORD.

“You have pancreatic cancer.”  That was the word that Sam Rayburn got from his doctors back in 1961. At the time Sam Rayburn was the Speaker of the House of Representatives. As much as the news must have shocked him, Sam Rayburn shocked his colleagues even more when he told them he was going to resign. He said he was going to resign so he could go home.  Home for him was the little town of Bonham, Texas. People thought he was crazy.  They asked him, “Why go back to that little town when some of the best hospitals in the world are right there in Washington D.C.?”   “Because,” Rayburn said, “In Bonham, Texas they know when you’re sick and they care when you die.”

Sam Rayburn didn’t care about the hospitals.  He just wanted to go home.  Where is home for you?  My guess is that it’s a place where you feel safe and secure and loved.  Home is especially important at this time of year.  After all, no one wants to be  away from home when it’s time to celebrate Christmas.

I say that even though home can also be a little stressful at times.  That’s because the people you love the most can also be the people who, at times, frustrate you the most.  That was certainly true for the mother who had nine children.  One day the mother found herself at an airport in Germany with all nine children.  By the time they got to customs with all of their suitcases the mother was at wits end.  “Ma’am,” the customs agent said, “are all these children yours?”  “Yes,” the mother replied.  “They’re all mine.”  The customs agent shook his head in disbelief.  He then proceeded to his list of standard questions.  “Ma’am” he said, “Do you have any weapons, contraband or illegal drugs in your possession?”  The mother laughed.  “Sir,” she said, “If I had any of those things, don’t you think I would have used them by now.”

Even with all of its drawbacks, it’s important to have a place that you can call home. That’s why the Jewish people were probably shocked when the prophet Zephaniah came to them with that message from God.  Before you can fully appreciate that powerful message you need to understand what was going on at the time.  At the time the Jewish people were in exile.  Their nation had been defeated and decimated by the Babylonians.  It was a time of sorrow and sadness.  The people were convinced that God had abandoned them.  Finally though, after years of gut wrenching anguish Zephaniah came to them and told them that it was time to go home.  That message wasn’t from Zephaniah.  That message was from God. “I will bring you home,” says the LORD.  “I restore your fortunes before your eyes…”

With those words God was calling the people home.  God wasn’t just calling them home though to the fig trees and hills of Judah.  God was also calling them home to be with Him.

In the same way Christmas is an invitation for you and me to come home; not to the address that you put on your Christmas card or the home where you grew up. If you’ve forgotten what that home is like just take a look at everyone who traveled to Bethlehem for that first Christmas.  Take a close look at the stable in your Christmas cards and you’ll see two legged and four legged creatures who were very different and had very little in common.

You had lofty wise men standing next to simple uneducated shepherds.  You had powerful kings who brought riches of gold, frankincense and myrrh standing next to a carpenter who was so poor he had to watch his wife give birth in a stable.  You had a human mother who was surrounded by all kinds of animals; camels, sheep and cows, donkeys and doves. You had Jews and foreigners from a distant land. Then most of all, in that stable, the human and the holy came together in the birth of that tiny child.  You can’t get any more different than that.  All of those differences melted away though in that grace filled moment when Christ the Savior was born.  All of those difference melted away in that grace filled moment of “peace on earth and goodwill to all.”

In these next few weeks I guarantee that God is going to call you home to that stable in Bethlehem.  You’ll find yourself standing in that stable when you reach out to love someone who is different, someone you don’t understand, someone who makes you a little uncomfortable, but still needs to be loved.  God is calling you home to see the real person behind the illegal immigrant. God is calling you home to see the real person behind the Bible thumping evangelical Christian, the real person behind the liberal activist, the real person behind the deadbeat dad, the real person behind the cocaine addict, the real people behind the gay man who has been rejected by his family.

God is calling you home and challenging you to look beyond the differences and the labels. There’s one label that makes a lot of people’s blood boil these days.  It’s a label that can be spelled with just three letters and those letters are CEO.  Ask people what they think about the CEO’s on Wall Street and they’ll tell you, “They’re crooks.”  “They’re criminals.”  “They’re money grubbing self-serving Scrooges.”  Just look at Lloyd Blankfein.  He’s the CEO of Goldman Sachs.  Last year he made $53,965,418.  He also owns a half a billion dollars in Goldman Sachs stock.  Despite all of those riches Lloyd Blankfein is still a very humble man.  In an interview he said that he still considers himself a “blue collar guy.” He also said that Goldman Sachs is doing God’s work.

All of this is why I want to share with you Mike Fesler’s story.  Mike Fesler is the CEO for a company called C4 Worldwide.  The company’s website says that it’s venture capital company that is working “to solve healthcare and other quality of life issues in Africa, India and the United States.”

Mike Fesler tells a story about his mother.  It’s a story that took place 50 years ago. He grew up in the deep south in a small house at the end of a dirt road.  By his own admission his family was dirt poor. One morning he was playing outside when he saw some strange men dressed in striped black and white striped pajamas.  They were chained together and hanging from the end of each chain was a big black iron ball.  There were two white guards watching every move they made.  One of the guards walked up to their house and knocked on the door.  When Fesler’s mother answered the door the guard asked her if he could use their pump so his “men” could have a drink of water.  Mrs. Fesler agreed but her son could see a look of concern on her face.  She called him to come inside.  Then while he was watching them through the living room window she called him into the kitchen.  Mike Fesler goes on to write, “I entered to see her bustling around with tins of tuna fish, mayonnaise, our last loaf of bread, and two big pitchers of lemonade. In what seemed like ‘a blink of an eye,’ she had made a tray of sandwiches using all the tuna we were going to have for that night's supper.”  They then went outside and shared the sandwiches with the guards and the prisoners.   According to Mike Fesler, “The last prisoner was a big man, his dark skin pouring with sweat, and streaked with dust. Suddenly, his face broke into a wonderful smile as he looked up into my mother's eyes and said, ‘Ma'am, I've wondered all my life if I'd ever see an angel, and now I have. Thank you!’ Again, my mother's smile took in the whole group. ‘You're all welcome!’ she said. ‘God bless you.’ …I don't remember what we ate for supper that night, but I know it was served by an angel.”

Isn’t it amazing how you can be standing on a dirt road in Georgia or Mississippi surrounded by people with a different colored skin; people who have gone to prison for doing things that you would never do in a million years and in spite of all those differences you suddenly find yourself standing in that Bethlehem stable. So, with that in mind, the question that God is asking you is simple.  Are you coming home for Christmas this year?  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

December 13, 2009