Midnight Eucharist for Christmas Eve

John 1:1-14

Let me begin by asking you a question. According to the song ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas,’ how many partridges in a pear tree did my true love send to me? One? Any advance on one? The answer is twelve: one on each of the twelve days of Christmas. My true love sent to me 12 partridges and drummers drumming, 22 turtle doves and pipers piping, 30 French hens and lords-a-leaping, 36 calling birds and ladies dancing, 40 gold rings and maids-a-milking, and 42 geese-a-laying and swans-a-swimming: 364 gifts in all. Thank god for eBay…

Now let me ask you another question. According to the Gospels, how many children of God are born at Christmas? One? Jesus, laid in a manger? Well, yes…and no. Listen again to what John wrote:

‘He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.’

How many children of God are born at Christmas? We don’t know the exact number, but it was many, perhaps a whole town full.

We have misunderstood the Gospel story. We all know that there was no room in the inn – as John says, ‘He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.’ But we have misunderstood. There is a word in Greek for a commercial inn – Luke uses it in recounting Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan. But the word we have translated as ‘inn’ at the nativity is another word, the word for a guest room, for lodging provided free-of-charge as hospitality to travellers. It is the word Luke will use later to describe the upper room Jesus and his disciples borrow to eat a meal on the night he will be arrested and tried and condemned to death: certainly, his own people, represented by the rulers and authorities, did not accept him. But John wants to tell us about all who did receive him, and though he does not tell us about Jesus’ birth in any detail, he is writing about his coming into the world.

The typical home in Bethlehem was essentially a one-room house, shared by the family, day and night. Almost every family kept a few animals, and these were brought into the house and penned-in at one end at night. This kept the animals safe, and their body-heat provided warmth for the humans. At the other end from the animals, or sometimes on the flat roof, there was a smaller room, provision for guests or travellers. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary are staying in such a room, but it is too small - there was no room – for a woman to give birth, attended to by the women and girls of the house, and most likely a couple more women who acted as midwives to the entire community. So Mary gives birth to Jesus in the main room, the family room, and her baby is wrapped tightly and laid in a manger: in a confined space for comfort – the baby has been used to the womb – filled with straw, which is both an insulator and hypoallergenic: in other words, warm and clean. The manger is not making do with what is to hand; it is the best possible place there is.

And to all who received him – Mary, and Joseph, and their hosts (most likely relatives of Joseph, and quite possibly his immediate family), and the midwives, and the population of the City of David who had welcomed home this son of David and his wife and soon-to-be-born child – received power to become children of God, born of God.

To all who received him. And surely that includes you, who have come here this night precisely in order to welcome the birth of Jesus, to travel back through time and space to be present, to make sure that he is received. But what we find is not what we expected to find, for instead of a baby in the manger there is a whole nursery full of cribs, and one for us, newly born – again – in God’s house, room made for our birth, to receive us. We have been welcomed by God this night.

This is a story of being received. A true story, the truest story of all. So come, and receive Jesus in bread and wine on this most holy night, and find yourself received by God, through and with him. Welcome, honoured guest. Welcome home.

Second Sunday of Advent 2016

Isaiah 11:1-10 (and Romans 15:4-13 and Matthew 3:1-12)

Take a look around this place, where we have gathered today. We are surrounded by symbols. Our East Window is full of symbolism, including imagery from the Book of Revelation and images representing our city and region. On the pulpit, we have the symbols of the four evangelists: Matthew, the human: Mark, the lion; Luke, the ox; and John, the eagle. In the Bede Chapel, a miner’s lamp, that only ever goes out between Good Friday and Easter morning. Last week, we baptised thirteen new believers, using oil and water and candle-light. Every week, we bring and share bread and wine, asking that, by God’s Spirit, it would be for us the body and blood of Christ.

All around us, there are plants and animals and other objects: symbols that not only represent something, but invite us to imagine or understand that thing in a particular way. The lion and the unicorn on the tower, for example, make the claim that the English are brave without equal and the Scottish are fiercely proud and free. The people are embodied by their monarchs, and the coat-of-arms proclaims the Union of the two nations in the person of one king.

Our reading from Isaiah is also full of symbolism. Isaiah’s great symbol of the people of Israel was a vine, a giant grapevine planted by God, that spread out from the Tigris and Euphrates to the east to the Mediterranean Sea to the west, embodied in the descendants of David and their rule from Jerusalem. This particular symbol was so vivid that it became the national symbol of Israel, much as the oak tree is the symbol of England. Jesus lived some 800 years after this vision was first proclaimed. In his day, there was a great vine made of gold on the outside wall of the temple, visible to all the pilgrims as they approached their goal. Jesus himself used the symbol of the vineyard in several of his parables; and even described himself as the true vine, and his disciples as the branches.

As Isaiah’s use of the vine symbol unfolds, God, who planted the vineyard, is depicted as breaking down its walls and returning it to wilderness. The vine is cut down, and other trees grow great and tall, providing shelter for wildlife. It is a symbolic way of speaking of God bringing judgement on the kings in Jerusalem for their unfaithfulness, raising up another nation, whom God will eventually also judge.

Isaiah tells his story at a time when most of the territory once ruled from Jerusalem has been lost. First, the kingdom had been divided, with a line of separatist-kings establishing the northern kingdom of Israel, ruled from Samaria. Then, the Assyrians had swallowed-up Israel, and threatened to capture Jerusalem and swallow-up the southern kingdom of Judah. But, facing a new threat of their own – the rising powerhouse of Babylon – the Assyrians withdrew.

Now was a moment. A moment when history could go one way or another. And into this moment, Isaiah calls on the people to imagine a fresh shoot growing out from the cut-back vine-stock. A new king, in whom there is legitimising continuity with the past but also a new departure: the spirit of the Lord will anoint this king, and this king will revere God, and represent God’s reign on the earth.

This king will be a judge, to arbitrate for the community, to enable the whole community to flourish. In particular, his rule will be characterised by justice for the most vulnerable – which will necessarily include judgement exercised against the mighty. And here the symbolism changes from national plants to national animals. Echoing David’s origins as a shepherd of his father’s flock, this king will pass judgement on the surrounding predatory nations, the wolf, leopard, lion, bear, and asp, who pose a danger to God’s people, represented as lamb, kid, calf, and nursing child. And what might it look like, to imagine ourselves as such defenceless, dependent creatures, under the care of such a king?

More symbolism: this king will put on righteousness and faithfulness like a belt, as the things that hold everything together. Right relationship, defined by loving God, and our neighbour – especially the widow, orphan, and alien – just as much as ourselves. And faithfulness: enduring commitment to a community, whether it is reciprocated or not.

Our reading ended with the observation that such a place, such a kingdom, would be glorious. But no such king was found. In our Gospel reading, John the forerunner of Jesus proclaimed that Jesus would show the world what such a king and such a judge would look like. And in our reading from Paul’s letter to the Church in Rome, Paul takes up Isaiah’s prophecy, declaring it fulfilled in Jesus. His key words are steadfastness and encouragement, welcome, hope, joy, and peace.

What might all this mean for us? We live in a world that is in as much turmoil as the world Isaiah knew, with nations rising and falling, a complex web of wars and proxy wars, populations displaced and others fearing that they might be next. How are we to imagine ourselves in such a world as this?

Firstly, we are invited to understand this vision as speaking before all else of Jesus. We are invited to look on him, and see what true wisdom and understanding, counsel and (subversive) mightiness look like; what a true knowledge of God is like – which is an awesome thing.

Secondly, the world that we help create and perpetuate by our words and actions is not to be the world that is created and perpetuated by what we see and hear in the media, or social media: outpourings of hate and fear. Instead, we are to attend to those marginalised and demonised by the world – and we are to do so for the long-term, whatever is going on around us.

You see, we are called to become more like Jesus by embodying his message, in intentional, habitual ways – as habitual as putting on a belt, or getting dressed, each morning.

The Minster has been described as a spiritual heart-beat for the city of Sunderland, and a place of meeting, learning, belonging, and celebrating – these are simple practices – for all her people, of all faiths and none. In the Bible, the heart symbolises the will, or, our ability to choose to do right or wrong. If we are a spiritual heart-beat for the city, by our communal life we are to pose the questions: who are we willing to meet with? who are we willing to learn with, and from? who is welcome to belong here? and what will we celebrate? How we answer those questions is to be radically different from how the world around us answers those questions.

For me, the welcome that Mackems and Iranians share in this place is the clearest example – though by no means the only example – of how we are answering those questions at this moment in our history. And the wonderful thing about symbols is the way in which they transcend language barriers, and embrace cultural diversity.

Jesus is in our midst, as a signal to the peoples. The nations shall enquire of him, and his dwelling shall be glorious. Amen.