“Labor of Love”
Rev. Dr. Steven Jungkeit
Texts: Luke 1: 26-38; Luke 2: 1-7
A Labor of Love
It is the custom of most churches to hold off on reading Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus until Christmas Eve, or perhaps until the fourth Sunday of Advent. This morning, I have chosen to take us right to the heart of the Christmas story in order to direct our attention to two very simple themes of that story, themes that tend to be overlooked in all the holiday preparations. The first operates at a symbolic level – just as Mary went into labor in order to birth Jesus into the world, so too the story of Christmas calls us to labor, that we might birth some aspect of goodness into the world in our own lives and in our own community. But then second, I think we often tend to miss the most material element of the Christmas story – that it is, at root, about a family in search of shelter. It’s a story about human beings on the move, who are in search of a place of warmth, a place of care – a place simply to be. I’ll run both of these themes together in what I offer this morning.
First, Mary’s labor, and ours. In the story of Christmas, Mary is asked to carry something, to bear something, something that will challenge and stretch her to the utmost as a human being. She might have said no, but she says yes. But the story is not only about Mary – it also has to do with what we carry, and what we give birth to in our lives. I don’t know that any among us will be asked to bear God incarnate within our bodies, but in a way, that is exactly what the story is about. We are each of us cast in the role of Mary, and we are each of us tasked across our lives with a mother’s labor. Our role is to bear, as best we can, some form of goodness into the world. To put a still finer point on it, our role too is to bring forth the Divine, to give it birth in our own lives.
Denise Levertov captures the heart of Mary’s story in her poem “The Annunciation.” Here is a part of it:
We are told of meek obedience.
No one mentions courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited. She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.
Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride, uncomprehending.
More often those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from in dread,
in a wave of weakness, in despair and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.
The gates close and the pathway vanishes. That is the price of saying no to the angel’s offer. But sometimes the gate stays open, and human beings heed the words of the angel. Such things are more common than we might imagine. I think here of those in the creative realm who risk themselves by saying yes to their gifts. I think of writers who labor to bring a particular vision to birth – of Emily Dickinson in her room up in Amherst, or of Melville in his study in Pittsfield, or Virginia Woolf in Richmond, fending off madness as she creates Clarissa Dalloway; I think of architects like Frank Gehry, who died just a few days ago, and who transformed what we thought possible in the design of space; I think of painters and filmmakers – Rothko painting his deep crimson Seagrams Murals or Fellini laboring to bring 8 ½ into being. These are works that risk much, and to have failed in their labor might have been catastrophic. Thanks to such labor, we have works that help us better to know what it is to be alive, works that orient us, while providing us a kind of existential shelter in which we can find ourselves.
But I also think of our day to day existence as infused with this pattern, when roads of light and storm open from darkness within us – will we say yes to our angel, or will the gate close? Will we say yes to the children entrusted to our care, or will we close ourselves off? Will we say yes to the hard labor of caring for an ailing spouse, or will we shrink from the task? Will we follow our heart’s deepest desire, or will we hide behind conventions and propriety? Sometimes the yes we are invited to make toward some good lives in conflict with another good that we must say no to. This is part of the burden of the angel’s visit. Choice is integral to our own humanity. And yet, one way or another, through whatever choices we make, we are called into a form of labor, delivering, as best we are able, some form of goodness into the world.
That leads me toward the second of our themes this morning, which is the material reality of the Christmas story – a family in search of shelter. And yet so often we tend to spiritualize the story, pushing those material elements away. How many people who say they are devoted to this story actively work to prevent people from obtaining shelter of one form or another? How many of those who say they love Jesus and wear crosses around their necks or tattooed somewhere on their bodies now enforce immigration policies that pluck people from their homes and put them in prisons? How many of those who feel moved on Christmas Eve actively work to prevent affordable housing from being built in their communities? These too are roads of light and storm opening from the darkness, opportunities to say yes to the angel’s proffered hand. And yet so often, those familiar with this story close the gates, while the pathway vanishes.
Let me get very concrete now, as I tell you about a time when the gates remained open, and when a community chose to walk through it in order to bear and to deliver love into the world. I have with me today a box that I discovered some years back in our church archives. It contains photographs, letters, emails, lists of businesses – all sorts of things. What it is is a record, from about 1999 through 2002, of this church’s labor to build two homes with Habitat for Humanity – one in East Lyme and one in Salem. As I’m sure you know, Habitat addresses affordable housing needs by encouraging future homeowners and community volunteers to build homes together, through donations of time, money, and sometimes land. One property was donated by Phil and Judy Simmons, both of whom are now gone, though they are greatly missed around here. Another was donated by Rachel Robinson, wife of Jackie Robinson, who, of course, integrated Major League Baseball. If you open the files and begin reading, you will find letters signed by Faye Richardson, Ginni Speirs and Louise Lynch, who organized our efforts here, and it’s an impressive and somewhat intimidating set of documents, showing the degree of community support for these Habitat Builds. Indeed, it was a project undertaken not only by FCCOL, but with our friends at the Madry Temple in New London. The tendrils of community outreach evidenced in this box are many and vast.
Now, that organizational labor is impressive enough, but then you can imagine the hours of volunteer labor that went into actually building those two homes. One of them, I understand, was built entirely by women who volunteered from this congregation and from the Madry Temple. Today the houses still stand, and they still provide shelter for families who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to afford a home. Though some 25 years have now passed, they continue to demonstrate this congregation’s labor of love – a time when the angel proffered a hand, and this community said yes.
But our partnership with Habitat for Humanity didn’t begin in 1998, and it didn’t end in 2002. Nor did it remain local. During that time, a delegation from FCCOL and our many mission partners traveled to South Africa to join in a Habitat group build, led by Jimmy Carter, where 1000 houses were constructed in the span of a week. Our clergy have served on Habitat’s Board, and volunteers from this church have continued to work from time to time on builds in Norwich. Over the years, we have learned, FCCOL has given our local Habitat affiliate $276,000 to help support the work of building affordable homes, far surpassing other faith based institutions. I say that not to boast, but merely to underscore the long and faithful history we have had with Habitat for Humanity.
We now have an opportunity to renew and to strengthen our relationship with Habitat, and to help bring something good into our own community. More than five years ago now, land was donated to the town of Old Lyme for the purpose of constructing affordable homes. A task force got to work clearing all the necessary hurdles to develop that land, and the hurdles were, it turns out, many. I attended a meeting back in 2020 hoping the way would soon be clear, and I promised the support of our congregation as soon as the sites were ready. I imagined it might be a few months. Well, every year thereafter I would receive a phone call assuring me that the task force was making progress, but that some issues remained, but wondering if we were still supportive. Of course, I always said yes, though I also wondered if the bureaucratic details would finally overwhelm the good intentions of those involved in the planning.
I’m happy to say that they have prevailed. The way is now clear. With some work and a little luck, it may be possible to break ground on two affordable homes by autumn of next year. Right now, though, the work begins by building a coalition of partners, inside FCCOL and beyond it, who will help to bring these projects to fruition – birthing them through a labor of love. Representatives from Habitat are here this morning to begin that process with us, sharing what it takes, from start to finish, to build affordable homes. My hope is that FCCOL will anchor these projects, much in the same way we did 25 years ago, with volunteers who will organize and then help to pound nails, install drywall, paint, and all the other tasks that come with construction. We have done it before, and it is time to do it again. At the adult forum after the service, we’ll all have a chance to learn more about the opportunity that is now before us.
And so our two Christmas themes converge: an opening, a pathway that asks of us as a community to labor, that we might bring something good into the community. With that comes the chance to take the material realities of the Christmas story seriously, providing actual shelter to those who need it. May we have the courage to walk through this particular gate, lest it shut behind us. May we be those who labor, once again, to bring something of the Divine into the world. Amen.