2021 Longest Night

John 1:1 - 13

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life,[a] and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

Tonight we do a solemn and holy thing.  Acknowledging grief and loss before God is an act of faith.  When we do this, we testify to the truth that no part of us is inaccessible to God, and we are loved as whole people.  Offering our pain and disappointment to God can be heavy, but it can also leave us feeling lighter.  It can make us cry, and it can also make us laugh.  It can put us in touch with our lostness, and also make us realize we’ve been found.  It can do all of those things at the same time.  

So, I’d like to tell you about a bad day.  It’s not the worst day, not even close. I don’t want you to worry that there’s a tragedy coming at you during this service.  It’s not the worst day, just a bad one. 

It was about a month ago, and the church staff was having a pot luck to celebrate Thanksgiving.  My dish was a layered salad, called “Pea Toss.”  It’s my mother-in-law’s recipe, and like all good salads from Alabama this one calls for one pound of bacon.   It’s delicious. 

I woke up early that morning to work my plan.  I poured myself a cup of coffee, got the bacon out of the refrigerator, and started the first six pieces of bacon cooking in the air fryer.  I set the cook timer and then, right on schedule, I rushed to take a shower.  Multitasking was an essential part of getting everything done, and thanks to the miracle of air fryers I was cooking bacon and washing my hair at the same time.  I put a deep conditioner on my hair and then got out of the shower and got dressed.  I planned to let the conditioner soak on my hair while I finished putting the Pea Toss together, then I would rinse it out.  I had it all figured out.  

With my hair up in a towel, I walked into the kitchen and something was wrong.  I had left the package of raw bacon on the counter before my shower, and when I came back it wasn’t there.  I looked in the refrigerator and it wasn’t there either.  I was just about to ask my kids if they had done something with the bacon, when I saw a small ripped piece of black plastic on the floor.  I followed it, and found the bacon wrapper nearby.  It was torn up, and all the bacon was gone.  And sprawled out beside it, was Zelda, our 65 pound staffordshire terrier, looking like she was sleeping something off.   

This, was not in my plan.  I needed to keep cooking the bacon while I got ready for work and got the kids ready for school.  There was no time in the schedule for going to get more bacon.  I just stood there staring at the empty bacon packaging, as if I could somehow make the bacon re-appear through the force of my will, but it didn’t work.  And then I realized that decisions had to be made immediately.  I would need to either change plans and make something else, or figure out how to get more bacon.  I decided to double down on pea toss, and go for the bacon.  

I quickly pulled out my phone to message the staff and let them know what had happened.  If I was going to be late, I wanted to warn them, but also this is the kind of thing we sometimes tell each other.  I’m not sure why, but when something crappy happens, we might post a message to the group to let each other know.  Hey, my power is out.  Or there’s a delivery truck broken down in my driveway.  Or, can anyone recommend a plumber?  

So I wrote this:  Bad news: Zelda ate most of the bacon, raw, right off the counter.  I’m headed to the store for more.   

That message elicited 5 emoji responses - four weeping/laughing smiley faces, and one poop emoji.  That was actually really helpful, because I realized I needed to put Zelda in the crate. Whatever digestive response she was going to have to her illicit meal, I wanted it to be contained.  

One of my co-workers responded with this comment: Milo ate some of your cookies for today too.  

Another one said: Bowie didn’t eat any of the cheese biscuits, but I did.  

And then another posted, in all caps: YOU GUYS I AM SO HUNGRY.  

It’s good to have people in your life who help you take yourself less seriously.  I’m glad I have those people.  But I was still feeling very serious about this pea toss.  

I took my conditioner soaked hair down out of the towel, threw it into a ponytail and put on a baseball cap so I could walk through Publix looking a little less like I was halfway through a shower.  I told my 11 year old daughter what was going on and that we needed to leave early for school because I had to go to the store.  She was somehow not as inspired by my bacon crisis as I was, and continued to move along at her normal pace.  When we finally got in the car I was almost frantic.  And my sweet girl said, “Mom, what’s the big deal?  Just pick up a fruit tray or something and take that to lunch.”  

And I started to cry.  Poor Ginny had no idea what she had unleashed.  The thought of eating a store-bought fruit tray instead of bacon-laced Pea Toss literally brought me to tears.  I realized that I was making Pea Toss to share with the staff, but really, I was making it for me.  In 2020 we cancelled both Thanksgiving and Christmas with my in-laws due to the pandemic, so it had been two years since I’d had this delicious bacon salad, and I wanted it.   *I* wanted it.  The bacon was just bacon, but it was the final crack in the damn that was containing my grief, loss and frustration, and Ginny’s perfectly reasonable proposal made me realize the damn was broken.  All the minor inconveniences of the last year, the compromises, the trauma, the losses both tangible and intangible…I was weeping them out as I drove her to school.  

I dropped Ginny off and went to the store.  I bought more bacon, rushed home, cooked the bacon, layered the salad, and somehow got to work in time for my 10am meeting.  It was a good lunch.  Pea toss was eaten, mostly by me, but apparently that was the point anyway.  At the end of the day I took off my baseball cap.  I’d left that conditioner on for 14 hours and I looked like a wet dog.  My eyes were still swollen and weary from crying in the car that morning.  But I’d come face to face with the darkness and was still standing - with a belly full of pea-toss and co-workers who respond to my crises with whole-hearted understanding and poop emojis to lighten the load.  

The Gospel of John tells us that the light shines in the darkness.  It doesn’t say that it isn’t dark.  We are children of the light.  The darkness cannot overtake it, but it can still be dark.  Two different things can be true at the same time.  

God is good, and also life can be hard. 

You can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ, and still have bad days.  

You can love your family, and also be mad at them.  

You can be really scared, and also be brave.  

You can be hopeful and also be worried.  

You can be grateful for all that you have, and also mourn for all that you’ve lost.   

You can trust in God and also ask, “Why is this happening?”  

You can make really good plans, and also be flexible when life throws you a curveball.  

We can need the light that shines in the darkness, and, miraculously, we can also share it.  

Two things can be true at the same time.  This is not news to God, who became perfect love embodied, and that perfect love showed up in a rough, dark, manger.  The angels sang at that birth, and who did they send?  Stinky, lowly shepherds.  Jesus is of the lineage of King David, but his mom was an unmarried teenager.  Christmas is a celebration of two different things being true at the same time - perfect love, that isn’t afraid of rough edges.  

So it’s ok if you are having a merry Christmas, and also, it’s ok if you’re not.  And it’s ok if both of those things are true.  

The light shines in the darkness.  God is with us in that tension, which is where most of life happens, and certainly where most of us are tonight.  Thanks be to God for the light that has come into the world, may we be open to receiving it, and also brave enough to share it.  Amen.