On January 2nd at 3:30 in the morning the burglar alarm in the church went off. Unfortunately for the curates and their families, the alarm sound right outside of our apartments. Its like the end of the world. Being woken up isn’t the worst part, its knowing that you are the one who has to go down and deal with the problem. Its an adventure going into the church in the middle of the night, armed with my pajamas and a pair of slippers. When I turned the lights on I saw a man standing in the middle of the church. When he saw me, he waved to me.
It was like something out of a movie when an airplane flies over a deserted island and the pilot sees an unexpected castaway waving up in desperation.
I could only think of one thing to say: “Why are you in here?”
“I’m locked in. I fell asleep on the bench and when I woke up I tried to get out and I was locked in. Can you let me out?”
“I’ll let you out. Come with me.”
As I was letting him out he asked one last question: “Does this happen a lot?”
“No. This does not happen very often” Then I opened the door and let him out.
“Happy new year!” he said.
More than a bit surprised, I replied “Happy New Year!” And then he disappeared into the night.
In the four and a half years that I’ve lived here, the burglar alarm has gone off dozens of times in the middle of the night. There are motion sensors all over the church so it could be a person just as easily as it could be a lost pigeon or a gust of wind blowing on the outside doors. Usually its nothing, just a loud alarm waking me up in the middle of the night… but you never know.
I used to bring a baseball bat down with me in case someone was actually in the church. I stopped doing that because I’m not sure if coming down armed and dangerous would help or hinder getting someone outside as quickly and painlessly as possible.
Life is full of surprises. In my experience most people are prepared for very few of those surprises. “Does this happen often?” “No. This doesn’t happen very often.”
You don’t have to live inside a church in Times Square to encounter an unexpected surprise. Is getting up in the middle of the night to let someone out of the church any more shocking than losing your job? Is it any more shocking than the sudden and unexpected death of a family member or a friend.
You might wonder how someone can fall asleep in the church and not be woken up and ushered out before the building closes for the night? I too wondered that as I reset the alarm and struggled to get back to sleep.
A few hours before the church opened on New Year’s Day the father-in-law of the sexton who was to be on duty died very suddenly and unexpectedly of a brain aneurism. He was at the hospital with his family, that’s why he didn’t make it to work. We were scrambling all day to fill in for him and when the church closed, it closed with someone still inside, asleep under a pew. It doesn’t happen very often. But it happened that day.
Which situation is more shocking or sudden? What I went through in the first hours of January 2nd or what our sexton went through twenty four hours earlier? Happy New Year, indeed.
Today’s Gospel passage rips us out of the pleasant Crèche and angel scenes that so many people associate with Christmas and casts Jesus, Joseph and Mary suddenly into a very hard and difficult place, full of unpleasant and unexpected surprises that nobody is ever prepared for.
This place is commonly referred to as the real world. It’s a place where phrases like “happy new year” or “happy birthday” carry as much worry and uncertainty of what is to come as they do joy over things that have been and things that might be.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived in the real world and so do all of us. They fled to a foreign land in the face of insane persecution only to find out when they returned that they were no longer welcome in their own home.
It’s a storyline that continues to develop throughout Jesus’ ministry and life. It’s a story that only has a happy ending because the love of God overcomes everything, including fear, including death.
The story of Jesus is the story of God recreating the real world into the new Jerusalem.
For me, it means a great deal to be able to call my self a Christian at all times.
I give thanks to God for the good days, the good moments, and the many blessings that each day brings. I put my trust in the love of God, in this world and the next, whenever I encounter an unexpected and difficult situation.
When I let a man out of the church in the dead of the night, I pray that he won’t decide to stab me on the way out. I pray that he will be an unexpected friend and not an unexpected enemy. When I hear that a someone is suffering from a recent loss, I pray that God will reveal his eternal love to those who mourn and to those who have died. I pray that what God has revealed to me will also be revealed to them.
The Second Sunday after Christmas is often called the Feast of the Holy Family. I think its very important that the Holy Family stuck together. Its very hard to go through anything alone.
Sometimes being alone can be downright scary – I know I was scarred when I was here the other night.
But it turned out that I wasn’t alone. The man wished me happy new year because on some very deep level all of us are children of God and brothers and sisters in Christ and that should and sometimes does make us unexpected friends.
Would he have done that if I had come down with a baseball bat? Would he have done that if my first instinct was to react to fear with aggression and anger? I don’t know, but I don’t think so.
My new year’s resolution is to pray that I may be there when someone needs me. To pray that I will respond to the unexpected with courage and also with love. To pray that I will be able to call on God in those times when I am in distress and be comforted by one of you – one of my brothers or sisters in Christ – whether I know you or whether you are a stranger to me.
It’s a good new year’s resolution, I think, and its one I offer to you as well.
May God bless you and show his face to all of you and may you have happy and blessed New Year.
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