Page |1
CHRISTMAS DAY 2016
Did you notice that the gospel1 lesson the church gives us for this Christmas Morning
Mass is not exactly that story with which we are so familiar . . . sort of?!
Familiar “sort of” because the story most, if not all, of us associate with Christmas is
actually a blend of the different stories told by Matthew and Luke, together with maybe
a few Christmas-y movies, contemporary short stories, and—if you are really high
brow—maybe even a ballet, all connected to that event which occurred just a little over
2000 years ago.
Our Christmas story takes all these related but different stories and places them happily
together in a crib in the front yard, with a star and stable, with Mary, Joseph and a baby,
with angels, shepherds, and wise men, and maybe even Santa Claus and a nutcracker, all
right there under the colorful lights.
You may recall that it is with a faint echo of Genesis’ “in the beginning” that Mark, in his
gospel account, jumps over the birth altogether and goes right to an adult Jesus coming
to John to be baptized in the River Jordan, something for which we church-goers will
just have to wait very patiently until we celebrate the baptism of Jesus two weeks from
today!
But in John, with these first 18 verses—what is commonly called “the prologue” of his
gospel—we have something altogether different that Matthew, Luke, and Mark.
In John we have none of those fascinating details of that birth two thousand years ago,
but neither does he just leap over them to tell us of Jesus’ baptism and the beginning of
his public ministry at the age in his 30s.
Instead, with John we soar like an eagle—way, way up to the height of heaven from
whence we can catch a vision of the “whole of it” from “the beginning”—that is, from all
eternity—when the Word was with God and the Word was God and through the
moment that that eternal Word becomes human flesh to dwell among us in time and
space.
Page |2
But that’s not all, not all we see with John, for we are given insight not only to what
happened but what it all means, not just on a night long ago in a Bethlehem stable but
how God is still becoming flesh, still dwelling among us, now!
For this Word of God through whom all things are made continues to be present in that
very creation which comes into being through him and is sustained by him.
And in this Word-made-flesh is life, life that overcomes death, life and light, light that
shines in the darkness and the darkness can do nothing about it.
But John doesn’t stop with that, amazing and wondrous as it is, but goes on to tell us
that all who hear, who hear and receive, God gives power to be born anew as children
of God, so that the life of God becomes our life, his light shining in the darkness, our
light.
God not only born of Mary but born of you and of me in Abbeville, for it is through all
who receive him, who believe in his name, light shines in the darkness.
And that’s just the way it was with the man who used to come to fix our washer/dryer
combo.2
While that troubled unit was not quite as old as the 1850s gingerbread house we
rented, I had begun to have a sneaking suspicion that it just might have been one of the
earlier units Landon Worsham sold when he opened his appliance store there in
Chatham, Virginia, after being wounded in the South Pacific during the Second World
War.
At almost 90, Mr. Worsham still worked six days a week at that same store, making
regular house calls as needed together with his much younger sidekick, his 70-year-old
nephew. (Not sure exact relation!)
One time during what had become an almost monthly visitation, Mr. Worsham
reconnected a series of wires on the dryer that then immediately sparked to an open
flame.
Page |3
Good thing Mr. Worsham was not only an appliance store owner and repairman but also
a volunteer fire fighter, and one with 60 years of experience, the last 50 as the fire chief,
still attending over 80 percent of some 250 annual calls.
And if that wasn’t enough to keep him out of trouble Landon also an elder at Chatham
Presbyterian. With numerous terms on the session (their vestry) he has served the past
50 years as the church school superintendent, a remarkable feat, except only perhaps
when compared to his wife.
I remember the day I met her. I was giving a review at the local library on a book about
the challenges of peacemaking. I mentioned the unsurprising fact that statistically
church conflict is primarily centered around the pastor, secondarily usually on the
church music program.
This spry lady piped up with, “Well, yes, that’s true enough, but sometimes the conflict
is when the pastor runs off with the organist.”
Later I asked one of my parishioners about this rather surprising comment and was told,
“Oh, that’s just Mildred Jane, Landon Worsham’s wife. She’s been the organist at
Chatham Presbyterian for the past 70 years, having begun at sixteen.”
It was then that I was able to make the connection: Mildred Jane was the one who, just
a few weeks after I arrived to serve the Episcopal church in Chatham, had been
overcome by carbon monoxide while practicing the organ. (Do you really still need
practice after 70 years?!)
But as you might have guessed, Mildred Jane was rescued and just in the nick of time by
her fire chief husband Landon. When she hadn’t come home as expected he came
looking for her and found her passed out at the organ bench. With medical attention
and the prayers of the community’s Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists, along with
those Presbyterians, Mildred Jane made a quick and full recovery and has returned to
the organ bench.
I suspect that you and I in our lives have been blessed to meet a goodly number of
Landons and Mildred Janes—people in our own community, perhaps in our own family,
or through chance meetings in café or with strangers on a plane—people who give
Page |4
generously of themselves, people through whom we can see the light of God shining in
the darkness.
And while we know it doesn’t always happen this way, I am pleased to tell you that both
Landon and Mildred Jane Worsham have been honored for their lengthy and noble
service to their community and church, most recently last year on the floor of the
United States House in a motion by a former neighbor, the Honorable Robert Hurt of
Virginia’s Fifth District.3
Not to veer too far into things political, I am proud I was able to be present when
Landon was declared to be a “Daily Point of Light” by the organization founded by
George Herbert Walker Bush soon after his 1989 inaugural address in which he said, “I
have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are
spread like stars throughout the Nation, doing good.”4
In fact it seemed like the whole community gathered in front of the courthouse that day
Mr. Landon Worsham at 89 was officially declared to be the 5000th-and-something such
point of light, still spreading like stars, doing good.
But don’t you think that it was long, long before 89, when Landon and Mildred Jane
heard, heard and received, that vision of which John gives to us this morning?—that the
Word who was with God and is God from all eternity is ever becoming flesh in all who
receive him, all who believe in his name, for to them, to us, he gives power to become
the children of God, to receive life, to be God’s light shining in the darkness?
So this Christmas morning not only Landon and Mildred Jane but you and I—whoever
we are, whatever age we may be—can still hear, still believe, can perhaps yet again for
the umpteenth time still receive God’s life to shine light in the darkness, so that long
after the Christmas displays are taken down and those lights put away, God will still be
here, taking flesh and giving light day by day, spreading like stars through the world,
doing good.
1
John 1.1-18
http://wset.com/archive/chatham-fire-chief-recieves-national-award-for-service
3 https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2016/04/19/extensions-ofremarks-section/article/E519-2
4 http://www.pointsoflight.org/people/board-members/president-george-h-w-bush
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Points_of_Light
2