Year A
 Isaiah 9:2-7
 Psalm 96
 Titus 2:11-14
 Luke 2:1-14

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

Every ten years…  our government conducts a census…  the main purpose of which is to count heads…  to know how many people live here…  so it can figure out how many seats each state receives in the House of Representatives…  ] since 1911…  there have been 435 seats in the House…  and each state is guaranteed at least one…  additional seats are apportioned by population…  with the most populous states receiving the most seats…  California is the winner in this category with 53 seats in the House…  while states like Delaware, Alaska and South Dakota only have one…  the first census began on August 2, 1790…  and it took months to collect all of the household data…  this census began more than a year after the inauguration of President Washington and shortly before the end of the second session of the first Congress… Congress assigned responsibility for this census to the U.S. Marshalls of judicial districts under an Act which governed census taking through 1840…  the law required that every household be visited…  and that completed census schedules be posted in “two of the most public places within each jurisdiction and to remain there for inspection of all concerned…” and that “the aggregate amount of each description of persons” for each district be transmitted to the President…

Only the heads of free households appear in these records…  all others…  including slaves…  are noted statistically under the head of household…  the 1790 census was the first federally sponsored count of the American people…  it was one of the most significant undertakings of George Washington’s first term as President…  because it not only fulfilled a constitutional mandate…  but because its primary motive was to document what this new nation’s lavish prosperity had afforded its citizens…  and the progress made since Independence…  but the census itself is old…  it’s older than the Chinese…  Egyptian…  Greek…  and Roman civilizations…  it dates back to the Babylonians in 4,000 B.C. who used their census as an essential guide in determining how much food they needed to find for each member of the community…  and there’s evidence to suggest that they recorded census data on clay tiles…

In this evening’s Gospel…  the Emperor’s motive for decreeing that all the world should be registered…  was not to document the lavish prosperity each citizen was enjoying…  or as a guide to knowing how much food was needed to satisfy each person…  or to ensure adequate representation of the citizenry…  the common belief is that Augustus simply wanted to increase taxes…  nothing more…  a powerful person making decisions to strengthen his resources…  and in the process… burden the power-less… the poorest of the poor…  forcing Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem… to Joseph’s ancestral home…  but how do you make such a trip…  when you don’t really have the needed resources… how would we… 

So the focus of tonight’s Gospel moves politically and geographically… from the Emperor in Rome… to the Governor in Syria… to a man without a title…  and to a town so small…  that the territory of Judea has to be mentioned so we’ll know where to begin looking on a map…  and I don’t know if the regions modern roads follow the same path Mary and Joseph travelled… but on Google Maps… the shortest distance is 96 miles… and tradition has it that Mary rode a donkey while Joseph walked…  now a fit man could walk about 20 miles a day… but since Joseph was older… and because Mary was pregnant… it could have easily taken them a week to make the journey… and for a pregnant woman… so close to term…  to travel that far on the back of a donkey on a bumpy road had to be a real hardship…

But God works in unexpected ways…  and with unexpected people…  in the part of the Gospel we didn’t read tonight…  we’re told that when the angels had left them and gone into heaven…  the shepherds said to each other…  Let’s go and see what this is all about…  now let’s remember… in the ancient world…  children and babies meant nothing…  and nothing was more important to a shepherd than his sheep…  so the shepherds…  by visiting the newborn Christ…  risked all that was important to them… and risked their livelihoods…  because a shepherd’s job is to guard his sheep no matter what…  otherwise they might get picked off by wolves or an occasional mountain lion…  yet the shepherds about whom Luke writes…  abandoned these all-important charges…  especially during lambing season…  to go and look at a baby… but this was a baby who would reign over a new kind of kingdom…  a kind of kingdom which valued everyone… ] and in addition…  for a multitude of the heavenly host…  sharing God’s Glory…  to make an appearance to a bunch of dirty smelly shepherds had to mean two things…  (1) that this news simply couldn’t be contained…  and (2) that even shepherds were worthy of hearing it…  that it wasn’t just for the emperors and governors of the world…  those on the world’s A-Lists…  but even…  no…  especially…  for those who would have no standing with them…  you see…  this baby would become the shepherd who…  when we get lost…  comes after us…  to bring us…  who have walked in darkness…  into a great light…  to bring us into God’s Kingdom…

Presbyterian clergywoman T. Denise Anderson writes…  that Jesus’ “kingdom” challenges the conventions of other kingdoms…  Jesus’ reign rejects elitism and rebuffs elegant robes which indicate social status…  Jesus’ kingdom rejects rote adherence to the law rather than mandating it…  and the seat of power in this kingdom is not in a palace…  but is in the heart of every person in Israel and in the entire world…  even today…  a kingdom built on righteousness and justice would be a new thing for many…  as justice seems in short supply among earthly authorities…  it therefore requires…  as the psalmist says…  a new song…  a new melody of righteousness…  and new lyrics of justice…

Ushering in this new kingdom is difficult…  but God will help us through it…  and as we’ve prepared for this night and for tomorrow…  let’s remember that we’ve been preparing for eternity too… but what we’ve really been waiting for tonight is promise and hope…  we’ve waited for the light of Christ to come into this world and the next…  we’ve waited to be forgiven and to forgive…  we’ve waited to be held in the loving arms of our mother/father God…  and to shake off fear…  despair…  and any sense of emptiness…  we’ve waited to re-experience the unity and one-ness with God…  that we…  for many different kinds of reasons…  just seem to have lost…  but the truth is…  it’s already happened… we’re worth being counted…  we have all of those things and more…  even now…  a child is born to us…  that’s reason enough to say Merry Christmas…