A Christmas Story
Christmas is a time to remember. Remember that Christmas
morning years ago when as a child of nine or ten after all the presents are
opened, wrapping paper all over the living room, dad is in the kitchen making
the traditional Christmas breakfast waffles when suddenly it all grinds to a
halt. He had forgotten to put the butter in the batter. The first batch that
Christmas would be the last for that old waffle iron as the batter was now
stuck to it like cement or wall paper paste never to be removed. And we all
laughed. That was my dad, and I cannot remember a thing I got from Santa that
year, but we still laugh in our family at what we still call “The Christmas of
the Goofed-Up Waffles!” The gift we received is the gift of laughter. That will
get you through bad times and good more often and better than any other gift
that may be under the tree.
Then there is the story of this old stole I wear for
Christmas and Easter, the two principal feast days of Church Year. It’s old,
it’s tattered, but it was the stole my first rector and life-time mentor, The
Reverend Frank Mauldin McClain, wore at his ordination, throughout his life in
parish ministry, and was vested with on the day of his funeral, December 18,
2000. When I had heard of Frank’s passing, I got on a train from Baltimore to
Charleston, SC to be with his family, a family that had all in one way or
another contributed so much to the earliest days of my priesthood – and there
was much for me to learn. And still is!
Frank was so gracious as to assign me to celebrate the
Christmas Eve “midnight service,” 1983. I had been ordained just days before.
Now, instead of being the deacon at the side of the celebrant, I was setting
the table to celebrate Christmas Mass! After carefully setting the corporal
out, the chalice and paten, had received the bread from Taylor Stevenson, the
Associate Rector and another mentor and friend, I returned to receive the water
and wine. I walked over to the far side of the altar where he was standing, and
then the most surprising thing happened. As I reached out for the two cruets
the rope cincture that held my cassock-alb in place, and my ordination stole
tucked in it around my waist, fell. Suddenly I could feel that it was on the
floor encircling my feet. The look on Taylor’s face was priceless as he whispered,
“Just go on ahead as if nothing has happened.” Which I did. A few weeks later
Frank invited a member of diocesan staff out to Christ Church to teach me,
among other things, a more secure way to tie the rope around my waist.
Most of us have heard countless Christmas sermons, but the
one I remember most was the one Frank had just preached that evening. I had
asked him for a copy, and I re-read it often. After recalling his most
memorable Christmas morning as a young boy when there was a motion-picture
projector under the tree, and the journey through feeling joy, to almost
embarrassment and unworthiness to get such a magical present, and finally back
to joy and gratitude, he wrapped things up in these words:
“Christmas, we have often emphasized, has
been and is a time of giving. The letters that come in the mail, stack upon
stack of them, tend to underline those words of Jesus, “It is more blessed to
give than to receive.” This is recorded in the Book of Acts and not in the
Gospels. That of course is true – and yet, never forget it, Christmas is also a
time to receive a gift, wonderful truth.
“We will each of us receive some special
gift tomorrow from someone who loves us. More wonderful even, we will each of
us, singly and together, receive a gift from someone who loves us even more,
from God.
“In any of our lives there is a manger, now
doubtless empty, cold, malodorous, surrounded by beasts – the heartbreaks,
tragedies, and disappointments of our lives. But it is there that you will find
the child, new born, if you will look on him and be open to receive God’s gift.
“It can come to you this Christmas, that
gift, that birth within you of the Christ Child, when you become aware of and
touch, perhaps only fleetingly, the whole and complete person God intended you
to be; that God intends you to be. It can happen when you are alone or it can
happen when you are in company. It can happen here, at this present Bethlehem,
this Holy Table, when and where you receive tangible evidence, symbols of bread
and wine, God’s Body and Blood, God’s life.
“As in receiving any real gift, your
response will be astonishment, humility (Why me?), and deep, restorative joy –
to which you can only say Gratia, Thank You, Eucharist, Grace!
“Be open tonight/today to receive that gift,
open-handed, offering nothing but your need, your empty manger. Centuries of
experience assure you that God’s gift is being offered, God’s Son, born within
you. Arise and go out into the world with astonishment with humility, with joy.
Respond in whatever language you may know, Thank you, Eucharisto, Gratia. Your
gratitude will show forth – and – a Merry Christmas.”
When I got off the train, I went straight to the McClain
home in Charleston and shared with the family the whole of Frank’s Christmas
Sermon, which some of them had not heard that late night on Christmas Eve,
1983. Later that day they gifted me this stole which at once surprised, humbled
and filled me with joy – it was just as Frank had said it is when we open our
hearts to receive as well as give.
A Christmas Coda. When I returned home from Charleston, we
were opening Christmas cards, and among them was a note from Frank. It read,
“Bless you all! You can never know how much
your e-mail correspondence has meant to me, particularly over these last
months. Now let us all have a wonderful Christmas. Your Christmas should
certainly be bright with all your little (now not so little) ones. And you have
yourselves. We are now entering a new phase of getting back to the fullness of
life. And doing what we can to do the same for John V-H. [A mutual friend]
“May your coming year be bright and the kind
of world you deserve.
“With love, Frank/Missie”
It was posted December 6, 2000 – nine days before a sudden
heart attack sent Frank to eternal life with his Savior after just finishing a
long period of radiation for cancer. At the funeral, his friend Alanson
Haughton said, “I can almost hear Frank saying to me, ‘Dear boy, its true! It’s
true!’ That inner voice has given me new hope in the promise of Resurrection
and reconfirms that we may have lost a friend for the moment but when our time
to travel comes Frank will be there to welcome us in.”
And that’s why I wear this well-worn old stole on Christmas.
It helps me to remember the gift of the Christ Child that Frank had given to us
Christmas Eve, 1983. Yes, it is blessed to give, but it is just as blessed to
receive – “We will each of us receive some special gift tomorrow from someone
who loves us. More wonderful even, we will each of us, singly and together,
receive a gift from someone who loves us even more, from God.” Merry Christmas
– God bless us every one!
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