Our world gives great honor and recognition to those who have achieved power or wealth.

Let me give you a few examples. This past year or 18 months we have been immersed in a political campaign whose top prize was the Presidency of the United States – a position most people would still agree is the most important and powerful office in the world. I don't recall a political campaign that engendered as much interest and participation going as far back as, perhaps, JFK. Regardless of which side you were on, this was a campaign that captured your interest. The prize was great, but so are the problems which next president will have to deal with.

Beyond the specifics of who won, who lost, what needs to be done to fix the economy, get people employed again, get people who've lost their mortgages back in houses, fix healthcare, beyond all that, there is the power that comes with the Presidency. It's an attractive prize for the candidates, and it's a position we all look up to. It is perhaps the ultimate example of power that exists in the world.

We all pray that our new president will be able to accomplish some or most of the things he promised us during the campaign. The potential is there for him to do great things.

God can use the hearts and minds of politicians to accomplish great good in the world. We give honor and recognition to our political leaders.

Another example. I don't know how many of you noticed, but NYU Hospital in NYC has a new name. It is now called the Langone Medical Center. For those who don't know, Kenneth Langone is an investment banker and the founder of Home Depot. The reason the hospital changed its name in his honor is that this year he and his wife donated $200 million to the hospital. Wow. That kind of money will get most anything you can think of named after you.

Here's the thing: NYU Hospital is one of the premier treatment and teaching hospitals in the world. There is no way to quantify how many lives have been improved or saved as a result of the medicine they practice there. Mr and Mrs Langone's tremendous donation will, through the coming years enable that hospital to do good for people's health beyond measure.

We are impressed by power and wealth. And rightly, we honor and recognize that sort of contribution to the betterment of the world.

But we are now in a season of the church year when we recall and recommit to a differing set of values. Because God's priorities are different than ours. When God decided to come into the world in human form, God could have chosen simply to appear, riding a chariot, today perhaps a Rolls-Royce. God could have chosen to blow us away with pomp and circumstance, show us how powerful God is. But what did God choose instead? God chose to be born in lowly circumstances in a stable, to a mother who, in her own words said "God has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant." Clearly honor and recognition can to go people other than the rich and powerful. God not only works out God's purposes through the mighty, but also through the lowly.

Early in my ministry I was the Director of the Bowery Mission in the lower East Side of Manhattan. I used to ride in on the train from upscale Westchester, get on the subway and get off on Spring Street near the Bowery. As I walked to the Mission I would unfailingly encounter people you would not feel comfortable talking with or perhaps even being on the same sidewalk with. These folks were the dregs of society. Homeless, moneyless. Uncontrolled alcoholics or drug abusers. Undesirable in every sense of the word. There was a time or two when, in the bleak midwinter, I would actually have to move to another part of the sidewalk to avoid the body of an unfortunate person who had frozen to death during the night. (Yes, I called the police.) The mission of the Mission, was to witness to the life-changing power of God's love and to turn lives around. And we did it successfully. I cannot tell you how affirming it was to hear from one of our "graduates" a year or several years later and be told about how their life had been changed from one of desperation and hopelessness into one of productivity and 'thanks be to God.'

The Mission had more volunteers than I could count. Humble Mennonites who drove into the City with food for the residents of the Mission every Saturday, year in and year out, without fail. A leading and famous tenor from the Metropolitan Opera who regularly would come to the Mission to sing for the homeless, for free. Our donor base consisted mostly of people who would from time to time donate five or ten dollars. But those little dollars were equally as powerful as that $200million, in terms of the good that they enabled in the world.

When a patient is admitted and treated in the Langone Medical Center, or closer to home in the Riverview Medical Center, and the treatment is successful, and the patient goes home – who do you think that patient is going to remember? The chief operating officer of the hospital? Or the nurse who was there to offer a calming word or a cool drink at 3:00 in the morning? God's values tend to be different than ours.

The Bible is brim full of stories of people who gave of themselves to help others. The Good Samaritan, who apparently was not hurting too much for money. But he showed compassion to someone whom everyone else was trying to ignore. The widow who gave her last two cents to the poor box in the synagogue.

Jesus own words: inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to me.

God's values tend to be different than ours.

God doesn't value power – God has more of it than any president on earth. God doesn't value money – God could have more of it than any philanthropist who lives. God values us.

One of the most significant worship experiences of my life happened quite a few years ago when I was vacationing in England. We were touring Canterbury Cathedral and being absolutely typical tourists. Wandering around, camera in hand, "oh look Madge, come look at this." Let's go over there for a picture. Wow, that's great. Caught up in all the wonderful things to see, we became more and more oblivious to the "where" and focused on the "now."

Until I heard a voice coming from the sky. Actually I realized after a second that it was someone speaking on a public address system. And he was saying "We want to welcome you here today on your visit to Canterbury Cathedral. We hope you are enjoying your visit, and so on, with directions to ask questions of the attendants. Then he said, 'we would like to remind you that this building is, above everything else, a house of worship.' And so we ask that, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, please stop for a minute and focus your thoughts inward, and join us in prayer." And then the voice led the entire cathedral in a collect for the day perhaps, and the Lord's Prayer, and a moment of absolute silence. It was a beautiful, moving, momentary reminder that – like we always are but tend to forget – we were in the presence of God. And being in God's presence is more important than being in one of God's buildings.

One of the characteristics of this season we are now in, one which we frequently lament, is that it is too busy, too hectic, too frenetic. We rush about madly shopping, partying, sending greetings to people with whom that is our only annual contact. We spend money, we sing carols, we go to church – many times – and we just get so caught up and so busy that the momentum carries us along and we have a tendency to forget to stop and pay attention to what this season is all about.

God's values tend to be different than ours.

Some of us who preach have a tendency to say that the humble are more important in the sight of God than the powerful or rich. I'm not going to say that today. Presidents and philanthropists are important to this world, and to God as well. But bus drivers, and nurse's aides, and mothers who give birth in stables are equally important to God.

At a very fundamental level, this season is about a quiet still night when a baby was born, simply, in a stable. And all of a sudden the night was overwhelmed with angels singing praise, magi bringing gifts, the light of a star illuminating an entire portion of the world – all in praise to God for this miraculous thing that has happened.

Remember to stop and pay attention to what this season is really about. Remember, God's values tend to be different than ours.