Sermon: "Keep the Jean-Paul Sartre in Christmas," Christmas Day, December 25, 2024

Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher and playwright (1905-1980)

Scripture: Isaiah 52:7-10, John 1:1-14
Preacher: Rev. Ryan Slifka

Merry Christmas! Let us pray.

God of light,
you have revealed your very self to us in your son Jesus Christ,
your one Word made flesh, who lived among us, full of grace and truth.
Open us to your revelation once again,
that in the words of your holy scripture
we might know your presence and follow in your light always.

Amen.[i]

Christmas Day is one of my favourite services of the year. I love Christmas Eve, but Christmas Day is for the hardcore. It’s quieter, with lesser known Carols. And no baby Jesus in the manger reading from Luke’s gospel. No top forty radio on Christmas Day. No, on Christmas Day, we’re all about the deep Christmas album cuts. Just “In the beginning was the Word… and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Christmas Day is for the truly devoted fans.

And, considering we’re all truly devoted fans here, I thought I’d share a story about the well-known French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre.

If you’re unfamiliar with Sartre—I don’t blame you in the slightest. But he’s one of the big names in 20th century philosophy.

He’s most famous as an existentialist. Existentialism is a philosophy that focuses on the individual's freedom to choose their own path in life. To make their own meaning in an absurd world. And, as such, he’s also well-known as an ardent atheist. Considering that the world can be such an absurd place, there couldn’t possibly be a God. And since there couldn’t possibly be a God, we humans need to create our own path. Make our own meaning. Atheism was deeply embedded in Sartre’s writing and philosophy. Nearly from beginning to end.

And yet, there was one little hiccup in his atheist convictions. One apparent exception to it all.

Sarte was drafted into the French army in 1939 at the beginning of World War II. In June 1940 he was captured by the German army, and sent to Stalag D, a prisoner of war camp, until he was eventually released due to bad health.

Now, in the camp there was something of a funny divine joke played on him: many of his fellow bunk mates were Catholic priests. Apparently they loved the guy.

To pass the time, and keep his mind fresh, he would give philosophical lectures. But he also wrote a play. A Christmas play, no less! One these priests performed for the camp on Christmas Eve.

I won’t go too deeply into the play, which is actually rather interesting. But the most interesting thing is that if you read it, you’d probably never guess it was written by an atheist.

Listen to the narrator describe that moment where Mary holds Jesus in her arms for the first time:

“No other woman has had God just for herself in that way. A very tiny God whom she can take in her arms and cover with kisses, a warm-bodied God who smiles and breathes, a God she can touch, a God who is alive. And if I were a painter, it is at a moment like this that I would paint Mary. I would try to capture the air of affectionate daring and delicate shyness with which she puts out her finger to touch the soft little skin of this baby God whose warm weight she feels on her lap and who smiles at her.”

She looks at him and thinks: “This God is my child, this divine flesh is my flesh. He is made of me, he has my eyes and the shape of his mouth is the shape of mine . . . He is my God and he looks like me!”

A tiny “warm, blooded God.” One she can touch, ones who is alive. One who is absolutely beautiful, worthy of a renaissance painting. One who looks with eyes of love, and elicits love back.

Really, in this play, Sartre gives imaginative expression to our reading from John’s gospel. That “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth.” What Christians call the “doctrine of the incarnation.” That God, the Creator of the universe, touched down on the earth. Came to us as a human being in Bethlehem at Christmas. Fragile as we are fragile. Suffering as we suffer. Completely one with our human nature. Like us in all ways except sin. Full of a love so beyond our love, unconditional like a newborn baby towards its mother. A love so strong that it could overcome the worst in us, a love so deep, and so profound that it would be moved to die for our sake on a cross.

One contemporary writer says of Sartre that “these are the words of someone who has entered so imaginatively into the faith of the Christians imprisoned with him that it almost seems like he himself shares their faith.”[ii]

Now, I don’t think this probably means that Sartre was a secret Christian. Even for the time he was a prisoner of war. His wife, the feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, apparently said that the play was so out of character for him that she didn’t even think he wrote it.

But somehow it doesn’t surprise me that this exception to his atheism would happen for him when it did: at Christmas. Nor that this out-of-character composition would happen where it did. In a German prisoner of war camp.

It’s been said that there are “no atheists in foxholes.” I’m not sure if that’s true or not. But I do think that we are at our most open to Christmas, to the gospel, to God, when we’re in deep. When the shrapnel flies, or when we’re locked behind barbed wire fences, yes. But also when we’ve been betrayed, or betrayed the ones we love most. When we hold a loved one’s hand for the last time. When we’ve failed, when we’ve lost. When we’ve got our backs against the wall with no way out. One of my friends likes to say “God’s office is at the end of your rope.” We’re most open to God at times where there’s nowhere else to reach, but upward. Because we’ve tried everything else.

So it doesn’t surprise me that Sartre would write this play when he did and where he did. Because the gospel, the good news is that at Christmas the same light that shone forth at the beginning of creation came into the world, and dwelt among us. A light that shines even in all the darkest places of our world, and our own hearts. A light that no darkness can ever overcome. A forgiveness that no sin can overtake. A joy that no sorrow can overthrow. My sense is that such a message was far less urgent to Sartre once he returned to the comfort of the faculty lounge. But at Christmas, in a POW camp, when it was most needed, this light lit his soul, his head and his heart, in such a way that those around him were given a rather surprising hope. One even the staunchest atheist couldn’t resist.

This Christmas, dear friends, I would pray the same for each of us. That, like the skeptical Sartre, we would have our hearts opened if only a crack. And that that light that hung the stars in the sky, the light that came into the world at Christmas. The light that shone from the face of a newborn child into his mother’s eyes with warmth and love. The light that shone most brightly, even when hung naked on a cross, I pray that this same light would shine. That it would shine in the darkest, most dispiriting places of our world. And in the darkest, most dejected places of your own soul. That it would shine on you, and be born in you. And that through it would be reborn. That you would no longer be a child of doubt, or fear, or sin or suffering, but that you would be given the power take your rightful place as  children of the living God.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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[i] Andy James, “Prayer of Illumination for Christmastide,” Liturgy Link https://www.liturgylink.net/2011/12/31/prayer-of-illumination-for-christmastide/

[ii] Thomas Casey, “To the Atheist Sartre: Thank you Sartre for this Vivid Incarnation of Jesus,” The Irish Times, https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/to-the-atheist-sartre-thank-you-for-this-vivid-incarnation-of-jesus-1.4443030?fbclid=IwAR3sdes_zxP2XVwT4oz2W9NfcMX5QTSJQOZiP00uHN-EXz9cKyXm6abrLTo Thanks to this wonderful piece, which inspired the whole sermon.