A few days ago I was on BART (if you’re visiting, BART is the name of our trains, subways) and there were a couple of guys sitting in front of me and they were congenial, they were amiable, they were getting along.  I was sitting alone snoopervising on them and one of the guys kept saying to the other guy in an amiable tone, “You gotta problem with that, you gotta problem with that?”  And the other guy would respond invariably “no problem, no problem.”  I remember the third time he said no problem (with a Spanish accent).  Well, I’ve got a problem.
         
For several years we have had here on Christmas Day a young, ebullient, effervescent priest and he has conducted something I loved – the Twelve Days of Christmas.  Well, I don’t have the Twelve Days of Christmas.  What I’ve got are Seven Dwarfs.  You know the famous movie, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.  Okay, I want you to pretend that we have got the Seven Dwarfs scattered among you and the reason I have dwarfs is when I was a young priest in upstate New York, a little tiny parish, way upstate New York, a few days before Christmas I was brand new, I was green and scared and a man who was the pillar of the Parish, i.e., a big donor, saw me on the street and he said in terious tone, it really was, “Hey, kid, (you gotta use your imagination to imagine me being called kid), hey, kid you gonna give the Christmas talk?”  I said, “Yes.”  “Yeah, well you know Christmas is for kids, little children, so concentrate on the little children and a little doctrine and keep it short.”  A mandate that’s mentioned regularly to me.  Okay, so if there are any little kids and there are, I want you to pretend with them (adults) that we got the Seven Dwarfs and they’re scattered around the Mass and they’re all believers.  Okay, they’re all believers, basically, and they’re here because it’s Christmas and we can see what they’re thinking because they are cartoons and there are balloons over their heads.  We can read what they are thinking.  And I’m remembering what the guy said on the street in that little town, you know, some substance.

          The first is Doc.  Doc of the dwarfs is the oldest and the wisest.  He really is.  And Doc is sitting over there and we can read the balloon over his bald dome and Doc is saying, “O.K. gives us a little doctrine.”  Doctrine for Doc, and the doctrine is incarnation.  And I know a little glaze is already settling over some of your eyes.  Uh Ho, theological terminology, time to go into coma.  Noooo.  Very simply the incarnation is from two Latin words “incarnate” into flesh and all it means is that we believe that the Creator of the Universe, God, became a fetus in a young woman’s body, a young Jewish woman named Mary.  He became the second person, the son of the God became a fetus in a woman’s body and he was born and he grew up and he lived and he said some of the most incredibly revolutionary wonderful things about how to live on this planet of pain and then he died in pain and then he rose from the dead and he said if you believe in me I will raise you up on the last day.  Okay.  Has anybody you loved died?  My mother died when I was six.  I studied this stuff; I had to teach in college.  Smart, cynical, smart kids and I had to study this stuff and study this stuff and evidently the historicity of the Gospels is true, the validity of Jesus is true, the physical evidence, the documentary evidence, the psychological evidence that he rose from the dead is true.  And he said, “If you believe in me I will raise you up on the last day.”  Not some vague memory of some grandchildren.  Raise you up.  We will see each other.  I won’t go on much longer cause I know that’s what we believe.  He said I’ll raise you up on the last day.  You, you, you.  Face to face with the risen body and the people you love you’re going to see them again.  That’s not just the baby at Christmas, its Christ risen.  And even if you can’t believe it at the moment you think, okay just for a little while just act as if it might be true.

          The second is Grumpy.  He’s over there.  Grumpy.  You want to say anything Grumpy?  “Yeah, I want to say something.  I got big doubts.  I got a big brain, I went to Harvard, I got big doubts.  If you got a cerebral cortex you think.  If you think, you got doubts.  There’s am awful lot of mysterious stuff going on in the teaching of Christ.  You know the Sacraments, Heaven and all that, I got my doubts because I’m a thinker.”  Oh good, that means your not a cow chewing a cud in Kansas, you’re a human being with an intellect, your thinking, you got doubts.  Fine.  It just means you got a brain.  Now, I just want to tell you about one guy.  I know some of you who are regular parishioners have heard this but bear with me.  A couple of years ago before I was sent here, I taught in New York and I spent my summers in Palo Alto, Menlo Park.  And I went to see this group and a Stanford professor was there.  Brilliant, brilliant profit Stanford.  And he talked about the fact he had studied his way – this first-rate brain – he had studied his way into believing in Christ.  He lived, he died, the historicity of the Gospels, the validity of the Gospels, the documentation, all the stuff.  He said what he was suppose to have said the evidence that he rose from the dead is irreputible.  And I listened to this guy and I said, because I taught, how come if everybody studied the stuff you studied and you became a Catholic, why doesn’t everybody become a Catholic.  And he leaned over the lectern this Stanford genius and he is, and he said “cause it seems too good to be true.”  It just seems too good to be true and after all the suffering and pain on this planet that there is an answer that we will rise from the dead.  Then he went on to tell me about Nobel Prize winning scientists who became converts to the Catholic Church.  Some of the best brains in 2000 years.  He reeled them off in Western civilization, all believers.  Even many cynics who became believers because they studied.  Okay, now if there are anybody here who still like Grumpy, and I don’t blame you, would you give yourself a Christmas gift?  Buy one book.  They’re all in paperback.  None of them is expensive.  By C.S. Lewis.  L-E-W-I-S.  Your kids love C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia.  Well, C.S. Lewis is one of the best brains of Western Civilization.  He was an atheist.  He studied, he got the evidence, and he believed.  And he wrote a lot of books about your not a dope for believing.  Did you hear that Grumpy?  Still grouchy.  Hey Grumpy, I got one more thing to tell you that C.S. Lewis said.  He said, “A thousand doubts does not equal one denial.”  Doesn’t mean your denying anything, you just got a healthy brain and if you got doubts it means your thinking.  But at least pick up one book by C.S. Lewis.  Their all in paperback.

          Okay, the next one is Sneezy.  Could somebody please give Sneezy some Kleenex, or maybe a bath towel?  Sneezy are you okay?  “No, I’m not okay, I’ve never been okay.  I got every allergy on the planet.  I sneeze, I have aches and pains.  Everything is wrong on this earth, I don’t like it.  I can’t concentrate, I can’t pray, I certainly can’t believe because I ache.  I am what is called a melancholy personality.  Everything bugs me.  I’m a nervous wreck.  I don’t know how I can sit here listening to you babble much longer.”  Okay, Sneezy, I know you’ve got a lot of allergies.  That’s not your fault and that the fact that your sensitive to suffering on this planet means you’ve got a heart and the fact you find it hard to pray merely thinks that your DNA is all complex.  Your not a bad guy.  Your very sick, your sick with worries and tension.  Your probably very sensitive and very good.  Could I make a quick suggestion – Sneezy will you just use the handkerchief. Sneezy, could I just make a suggestion?  You’re here at a Mass on Christmas even if your sneezing on route come down the aisle and receive the Eucharist.  It’s not just a cracker.  We believe in some mysterious way Jesus is in that little piece of bread.  For a few minutes talk to him, act as if, say, I’m a wreck, keep me calm just for the rest of the Mass and then I’ll say the prayer again tomorrow.  If there is a God and you can help me would you just calm me down, would you do that, please Sneezy, in between nose blowing.

          The next is Happy.  Happy is way over there and he’s grinning.  He’s very happy because he has watched little kids last week come to confession here.  A lot of priests were scattered all around here hearing confessions of little kids and over there in the box.  I’m happy too because I was one of the priests.  Its amazing to watch – if some of you remember going to confession as little kids trembling, the day is over.  These kids came tromping up these stairs grinning.  In fact, I wanted a little more intimidation.  I wanted a little more awe of my august presence.  Coming up they had been trained, you know.  And some of them came up with this big big grin, happy and grinning.  Others came up with a grimace.  Not a grimace of apprehension, a grimace of totaling up the number of mortal sins that they had committed.  Some of them as they were leaving, these little kids, I was over there, patted me on the shoulder and two of them said, “you’ll be okay”, “you’ll be okay”, i.e., we don’t know how much longer you’ll last, but you’ll be okay.  That’s the way the Sacrament of Reconciliation, that’s the new jargon, its refreshment, its unloading the baggage.  And the little kids pick it up without fear.  They went back to their seats and I understood after so many years as a priest that’s what forgiveness does.

          And the last one is Sleepy.  Would someone please shake Sleepy?  He’s always in a semi-coma.  He’s yawning but he’s good hearted and he’s at Mass.  He came to Mass.  He’s counting up how many more dwarfs there are.  Hang on, not too many.  However, Sleepy is quite a scholar.  He went to NYU, New York University, Sleepy did.  When he was there in the 60’s he remembers a Time magazine article.  Some of you may remember it.  I think it was the Christmas article, I’m not sure.  But it was a big cover article Time Magazine in the 60’s.  “Is God Dead?”  It was a very profound intellectually astute article and they invoke Frederic Nietzsche, the German philosopher, who said “God is dead.”  And Sleepy remembers reading the article.  He also remembers, and this is true because I saw it also, in one of the men’s room at New York University scrawled on the wall as you walked in was this following graffiti written in thick paint – “God is dead, go to bed.  Signed, Frederic Nietzsche.”  Now the next summer Sleepy and I went back to NYU to more studies and in the same gentleman’s restroom was written – “Nietzsche is dead, wake up.  Signed, God.”  Is that right Sleepy?  Sleepy says that’s what he remembers.  He’s drowsy but he remembers.  And he remembers that in that rather fassle bit of humor there is profound thought.  Profound thought.  Basically optimistic.

          And the very last guy is Bashful.  Would somebody pull Bashful out from under that pew?  He’s so shy; he’s so diffident he’s hiding.  Come on Bashful, I told them you’d be here.  Okay, now Bashful tell us what you want to tell us.  And Bashful says, “I love art, I love art.”  A lot of artistic types are just as shy as I am so I’m drawn to art and paintings and my favorite painter is Matisse, who along with Picasso is regarded by most critics as one of the two greatest, you know, modern painters.  Now Matisse was very shy in real life.  He was.  Hard working and very reticent.  Very loveable guy.  Now, this is true.  When Matisse was 80 he was confined to a wheelchair in France and he decided he didn’t have the energy for any major league painting so Matisse decided to do collages, that is to say, Matisse got pieces of colored paper and a pair of scissors.  Its very famous now.  And Matisse cut out these little pieces of paper, colored paper, and put on sketches with paper, crayon, ink and he made one collage after another.  Dozens and dozens of these tiny collages on cut out pieces of paper with his own little scissors and he put them to the side.  One day several months after he had been sick and quite tired a nephew came and took him out and the nephew said, “Uncle Matisse, we are going to the new gallery.”  I think it was Provence in France.  And they went to this little new art gallery and the nephew flung open the doors and Matisse looked up from his wheelchair and he said to the kid who wheeled him in, “they’re framed, they’re in frames.”  He was like a delighted and totally astonished little kid.  These art critics had taken his little cut-out collages, little bits of paint and color and put them in frames all around the gallery.  And today they are, of course, considered masterpieces.  But Matisse was startled and bashful and delighted.  They framed them.

          Okay, and this is the end.  If you read the New Testament in a spanking new translation, and more translation has been done of what Jesus said in the past 30 years than 2000 years ahead of time.  Really, the best translation.  What gospels Jesus taught the letters in the New Testament, you read it, it’s a big revelation.  Delicious.  Heartening.  When I was a little kid I use to think that when we died God had this big ledger of all my crimes.  Uh Ha, mortal sins, venial sins, nepotisms and imperfections.  Get over there.  No, no.  If you read the New Testament, what Jesus said, what St. Paul wrote, what the other guys wrote in the Epistles, it seems that when we die we shall see Christ in the face and he will say all the good things you said and all the good things you did, all those stinky little things that you’ve long since forgotten our Lord has put them in frames.  You know what I mean?  Their framed, their ready, their waiting.  He’ll say come on in your celestial condominium is waiting.  This isn’t wishful thinking.  This is based on scripture.  Most of us carry around so much baggage from the past.  What I did.  What I said.  What I didn’t do.  What I didn’t say.  All that baggage weighing down your heart and your faith.  Read the Gospels.  Read a good Catholic translation.  I did some good stuff and its all framed and waiting for me.

          Oh, I know, I know, I forgot Dopey.  But if you remember the old movie, Dopey doesn’t say a word.  So I am not going to say one more word.  Do you have a problem with that?  Noooooo.  Anyhow, Happy Birthday of Jesus.  Amen.

rjs