10th Day of Christmas & The Parable of the Bird

Today is the 10th day of Christmas.  I’m keeping my eyes peeled for ten lords a-leaping, as told by the 18th century English counting song, The Twelve Days of Christmas.  If you want an interesting read on this cold and rainy day, I suggest you have a look at the fascinating and comprehensive article on Wikipedia about the history of this familiar carol. 

Here is the link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(song)

Tomorrow is the 2nd Sunday after Christmas, and we’ll sing a few more carols at our 10 A.M. Eucharist.  As the Feast of The Epiphany is Tuesday, Fr. Morris has selected Matthew 2:1-12 for the Gospel lesson, giving us the chance to hear of the wise men and sing about the star. 

With the Christmas season ending, I’ve been reflecting on all that has transpired over the past six weeks or so.  With my combined work and family responsibilities, the weeks between Halloween and Christmas Day are the busiest of the year for me.  As the expression goes, yes, I did meet myself coming and going.

Yet so many wonderful moments and blessings were experienced in the hustle and bustle of the season.  On Christmas Eve, in particular, I experienced the wonders of holiness and joy with this community called Emmanuel. 

After Christmas in Pinehurst, my family spent a few days in Hanceville, Alabama, with my wife Amanda’s family.  Her parents, brother and sister and their families, and us gathered in the homeplace that has anchored the Burkart family since 1903.  It is a home that has raised four generations of Burkarts.  Every time I see the red-bricked house, complete with the Corinthian columns required for any stately Southern home, I am thankful, as a boy from St. Louis, to be part of this incredible family tradition.  

Like most homes, the kitchen is the natural gathering place.  One evening, while gathered around the island drinking wine, eating Christmas cookies, and telling tales, my father-in-law Eddie related a story of his most recent visit with his older brother Charles, who lives just up the road in a nursing home.  On most visits, Charles, who is an aficionado of popular music from the 1950s and 1960s, requests that Eddie find music by certain artists to listen to together.  It always ignites good conversation, and Charles is a fount of incredible knowledge of the artists.  During this visit together, however, Charles asked Eddie to find a recording of Paul Harvey telling the parable of the birds.  He did, and they listened together.  Standing around the kitchen, my father-in-law then told the story to all of us.  It was one I had never heard, but as my father-in-law told it to all of us, his voice quivered in those closing words.   

The parable of the birds is a story first broadcast by Harvey in 1965.  Harvey, who then broadcast this parable subsequently for decades, said this about the story: “the story was originally published by United Press International by Louis Cassels, a longtime friend of mine and colleague. He and I tried for many years to trace the author of these words. We never could and it occurs to me that maybe some things are supposed to be written without credit to any particular individual ...”

Since hearing this story, I find it coming back into my mind repeatedly.  As I thought about my E-mmanuel message for this week, with the 12th day of Christmas on Monday, I thought that sharing it here would be appropriate.  Whether you’ve heard it for decades, or are reading it for the first time, may it remind us why the hustle and bustle of the season, was worth it all. 

If you prefer to hear Harvey telling this story, here is a link to his 1965 recoding:

https://youtu.be/gY2pTAAn9pc?si=LveGW1vq3vZswk3i

The Parable of the Birds

The man I’m going to tell you about was not a scrooge, he was a kind decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family and upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn’t believe in all of that incarnation stuff that the churches proclaim at Christmas time. It just didn’t make sense, and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn’t swallow the Jesus story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

He told his wife I’m truly sorry to distress you, but I’m not going with you to church this Christmas Eve. He said he would feel like a hypocrite and that he would much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. So, he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then he went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper.

Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another ... and then another. At first, he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against the living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate, he found a flock of birds huddled outside miserably in the snow. They’d been caught in the storm and in a desperate search for shelter they had tried to fly through his large landscape window. That is what had been making the sound.

Well, he couldn’t let the poor creatures just lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter. All he would have to do is to direct the birds into the shelter.

Quickly, he put on a coat and galoshes, and he tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light so the birds would know the way in. But the birds did not come in.

So, he figured that food would entice them. He hurried back to the house and fetched some breadcrumbs. He sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail of breadcrumbs to the yellow-lighted wide-open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the breadcrumbs.

The birds continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them but could not. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around and waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction ... every direction except into the warm, lighted barn.

And that’s when he realized they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Any move he made tended to frighten them and confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

He thought to himself, if only I could be a bird and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to the safe warm ... to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see ... and hear ... and understand.

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind.

He stood there listening to the bells, Adeste Fidelis, listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas.

And he sank to his knees in the snow ...