Christmas Night 2018

Isaiah 62:6-12 and Titus 3:4-7 and Luke 2:1-20

Earlier this year I had the privilege of spending twelve days living at St George’s House within Windsor Castle. We were taking part in a series of conversations around how we speak of God in our contemporary context, engaging issues facing us as a society and making a positive contribution from a Christian perspective. Our days were structured around prayer, and worship; Bible study, and book review; lectures from, and questions asked of, expert witnesses; papers presented, and debate engaged, and an endless round of food and drinks. But each day we timed our mid-morning coffee-break so as to allow us to go and watch the changing of the guard.

The Windsor Castle Guard is normally provided by one of the five regiments of Foot Guards from the Household Division, who take turn being on duty for 24 or 48 hours. The New Guard march from Victoria Barracks through Windsor to the Castle, led by a Regimental Band, arriving at 11.00. Following a ceremonial handover of responsibility, the Old Guard march back to the barracks. Over the 24- or 48-hour period that their regiment is on duty, each guardsman will have two hours on sentry duty and then four hours off, repeated. While on sentry duty, the guardsman stands perfectly still. To the casual observer, he or she is doing nothing. But they are a highly-skilled infantry soldier, and should the need arise will spring into action. This is not a historical re-enactment by actors: it is a ritualised activity that guards the deep psychological need for order and meaning and identity and creative expression in the pragmatic activity of protection against terror.

Our reading from Isaiah began with a commanding officer posting sentinels on the city walls, all day and all night. A sentinel is a soldier or guard whose job is to stand and keep watch. To serve their two-hour sentry duty. And here we are, on the shift that crosses over midnight. Don’t nod off: you’re on duty.

We heard in our Gospel reading that ‘In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night.’ The shepherds, then, are sentinels, alert to any predators approaching under the cover of darkness, taking turns to rest and to keep watch. And the angels who usher them to parade into Bethlehem are heaven’s Regimental band.

Isaiah tells us that, along with looking out for enemies, the purpose of the sentinels is to ‘remind the Lord’ of his promises to save his people. That is also, I think, why the shepherds are sentinels: their presence reminding the Lord of his promises to David, the shepherd-boy of Bethlehem. Why are we to remind the Lord? Has he forgotten his promises? Or is he in danger of forgetting? Is he stressed by too many other things on his mind? Or perhaps he is experiencing the ravages of dementia?

No, God has not forgotten us. But from our perspective, our brief human lives, it can certainly feel that way. Reminding God is the way given us to partner with God. In reminding God, we remind ourselves, and pass God’s promises on to the next generation. In calling the past into the present—as opposed to seeking to retreat to the past—we keep hope alive until what we hope for is manifest in our lives. In calling the past into the present, the salvation we long for may be born to us this day. In eating grain and wine, as Isaiah spoke of, we share in communion with the promise of God-with-us. We remind the Lord that we have not forgotten him; and are reminded that he has not forgotten us.

And when we are dismissed from our sentry duty, how will we use our hours off? During the night watch, sleep is perfectly appropriate. But when the morning comes, who will you tell? See, your salvation comes! Happy Christmas!

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2018

Luke 1:39-56

Today is the fourth Sunday of Advent. As we have journeyed towards Christmas, we have tracked God’s preparations through the patriarchs and matriarchs of the faith; through the prophets; through the fore-runner John known as the Baptiser; and now at last we come to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of our Lord.

Luke begins his account of the Good News with the miraculous birth stories of John and Jesus. We are introduced to Zechariah and Elizabeth, and to Joseph and Mary. Joseph is ‘of the house of David’ and to the child Mary shall bear ‘the Lord God will give…the throne of his ancestor David.’ But Joseph is not the child’s father; and one of the questions I am often asked at this time of year is, how, then, is Jesus to be considered a descendant of David? The first thing to say is that an adopted son is fully a son, and therefore Jesus is indeed a descendant or son of David through Joseph. But I want to argue, I think with Luke, that Jesus is doubly son of David, through his mother also. Let me explain why.

The story recounting Mary’s visit to Elizabeth is more than a factual record. Luke crafts it to resonate with the story of David bringing the ark of the Lord to Jerusalem (2 Samuel 6). Church tradition tells us that Mary was Luke’s direct source, and, judging by her song the Magnificat, I would suggest that Mary herself intentionally crafted the telling of her story to resonate with that old story.

In 2 Samuel 6, we hear that David sets out for the hill country of Judea (2); there is a celebration to honour the ark (5); and the Lord bursts forth against Uzzah (8). This occurs because they had not treated the ark with due respect; with the result that David is afraid to bring the ark of the Lord into his care (9). The ark therefore spends three months in the house of Obed-Edom, during which time the Lord blessed him and all his household (10-12). David then returns to carry out his intention to bring the ark to Jerusalem. This time, as well as rejoicing, he humbles himself (14). David then distributes food among all the people and sends them away full (18-19). However, he argues with his wife Michal, claiming that he will be held in honour, and sending her away empty, or, childless (20-23).

Compare this, then, with our Gospel reading. Mary sets out to a town in the Judean hill country (39), where there is a celebration (41: even the unborn child John joins in). The Lord bursts forth, not in anger this time but filling Elizabeth with the Holy Spirit (41). Elizabeth welcomes Mary into her home and recognises that this is a sharing in blessing; and Mary stays there for three months (39-56). Interestingly, this episode, mirroring David’s reluctance to bring the ark into his care, parallels Matthew’s explicit account of Joseph’s dilemma regarding whether to divorce Mary quietly or take her into his house.

And then there is Mary’s song. Mary humbles herself (41) even as she rejoices (46-47). She predicts that she will be honoured by all generations (48). She declares that God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts (51) and brought the powerful down from their thrones (52)—compare Michal—and has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away (53)—compare David.

At the start of our Gospel reading, Mary is the new ark of the Lord; the created container that carries the uncontainable Creator. By the end of our reading, while remaining the new ark, Mary has also become the new David. Or David has become Mary. By taking upon herself the identity of David, Mary’s son will be the son of David through his mother, in addition to son of David through adoption by Joseph. And the new thing God is doing is revealed to be deeply and lovingly rooted in what has come before, the centuries-long careful building to this moment.

Now, there is a sense in which Mary is not only blessed among women but unique among human beings. She is the Mother of God, who bore the incarnate Son. But there is also a sense in which Mary is a model for the Church, for all Christian women and men. If we forget the former, we lose the latter; if we ignore the latter, we devalue the former.

Mary is the new ark of the Lord: and we are called to carry the presence of Christ into the world. With reverence, but also with haste, and with expectancy.

Mary is the new David: and we are called to respond to God’s call on our lives with joy and humility. With singing and serving.

Each year as Christmas draws near, we return to the story, to hear again, as for the first time, our heritage and our calling. And as we hear these well-worn words, at once so familiar and so strange, so comforting and disturbing, where do you find yourself in the story? Are you bursting with praise like Mary? Leaping for joy with John? Will you be filled with the Holy Spirit, like Elizabeth? Or perhaps you feel more like Joseph and Zechariah, troubled, mute, off to the side looking on from a distance? Brought down, or lifted up? Filled, or empty?

More than likely, where we find ourselves in the story varies from year to year. But like a womb, the story is elastic. There is room for us all. The Lord has spoken, and has, and will, fulfil his word. Blessed are we who have believed.

Third Sunday of Advent 2018

Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Philippians 4:4-7 and Luke 3:7-18

‘Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! … The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.’ Zeph. 3:14, 17-18a

‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.’ Phil. 4:4

Today is the Third Sunday of Advent. The moment of light relief in the season of aching and longing for Jesus to return. The week when, if we are using three purple and one pink candle in our Advent wreath, we light the pink candle: the lighter, brighter hue. Gaudete Sunday: the Sunday when our readings from the Old Testament and from the New Testament Epistles exhort us Rejoice, Rejoice, Rejoice! [Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus ex Maria virgine, gaudete: Rejoice, rejoice, Christ is born of the Virgin Mary, rejoice] And the Sunday when we hear, again, the good news as proclaimed by John the Baptist.

Our reading from the prophet Zephaniah is an incredible piece of poetry, that speaks of great and glorious reversal. The Lord has taken away the judgements against his people; their enemies have been turned away; the fear of disaster, ended; actual disaster, removed; reproach, spared; oppressors, dealt with; the lame saved; the outcast gathered-in; shame changed into praise and renown; exiles brought home; fortunes restored. Why would a community not rejoice at such a proclamation? And yet, at the very heart of it all, something even greater: that God’s people are invited to rejoice because to do so is to join in with the Lord who rejoices over them.

These words have an original historical context, but they have survived, passed down to us, because they still speak to us. In the context of Advent, they remind us that, at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in his sight—not through any merit of our own, but because God’s righteous and justified judgements against us have been taken away by the same Lord, through the victory over death of Christ who opened wide his arms for us on the cross. Who sings over us on a day of festival.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice” writes Paul to his sisters and brothers in Philippi. Writing from prison. Writing, hoping to be released and reunited with them on this occasion, but understanding that sooner or later faithfulness to the Lord Jesus will mean that he, Paul, will die in a similar manner. Rejoice, in the face of trials, because the Lord is near. If you listen closely, we might even catch the strains of his singing.

“You brood of vipers!” said John to the crowds that came out to be baptised by him, “Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” Strong words. Can’t we just have Zephaniah? Well, if we take Zephaniah as a whole, there are plenty of words as strong and stronger there. His message begins, ‘I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord,’ as he proclaims the coming judgement on Judah, first, followed by judgement on all the surrounding nations; on Jerusalem, and all of the peoples. This is a process of judgement, of purification and restoration. A process of separating the wheat from the chaff.

John doesn’t speak to exclude the crowds. He would spare them ruin. And the crowds understand, and respond, “What then should we do?” There is a necessary outworking of repentance, of this great reversal. As the Dutch priest Henri Nouwen put it, “You don’t think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking.” There is a new dawn, a new day, to be lived into.

Today is a moment to raise our heads. A moment for the weary to find our strength renewed by the joy of the Lord. For those whose love has run out to find ourselves renewed in his love. For those who have been brought low to find ourselves raised up by his singing.

Why is this moment given? Because tomorrow we must return to the upheaval of the new thing the Lord is doing in our midst. We must attend once more to marking the fears of imagined disaster we need ended for us. We must attend to making room for the outcasts being gathered-in, and the exiles being brought home. We must attend to the removal of our mantles of shame—and we have a wardrobe full—and the putting-on of garments of praise. There are things to be done, in response, in order to live our way into a new kind of thinking. So today, we rejoice at the resources given us. Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus ex Maria virgine, Gaudete.

The work of the people, in response to these texts:

What reasons do we have to be joyful?

How do (or, how might) we as a community express joy?

As a society, we live with well-rehearsed and regularly renewed fear of disaster in relation to Brexit. How might we speak of the Lord’s declared intent to end fear of disaster?

What oppresses us today?

Who are the outcasts in our context, and how might we as a church live out the prophetic action of gathering them in?

Guilt refers to a sense that we have done something wrong. Shame refers to a sense that who we are is somehow wrong, that there is something fundamentally wrong with our identity. Where do we experience shame? And where have we experienced shame changed into praise?

First Sunday of Advent 2018

Jeremiah 33:14-16 and 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13 and Luke 21:25-36

I love stories. My favourite stories are detective fiction. And my favourite detective fiction stories are Louise Penny’s series of Chief Inspector Gamache mysteries, about the head of homicide in Quebec, his team, his family, and his friends. And about me, the reader; my complex humanity, in all its frailty and strength, its hopes and fears, its shabbiness and its glory.

We navigate life by telling stories. This is universal, among humans; and, as far as we can tell, it is not limited to humans but found more widely in the animal kingdom. Even bees tell one another stories, through the medium of dance.

We tell stories to reach out to one another. If you ask me where my accent comes from, I can only answer with a story: My parents are both English; but I was born and spent my early childhood in the Philippines. So, my formative years were in an Americano-English context, not a British-English context. Then, I did most of my schooling in Glasgow. The result is a mid-Atlantic accent that some place as Canadian, and others as Irish; while others still detect a Scandinavian lilt.

On the other hand, if you make me wary, if I do not know if I trust you, my answer will simply be, “It’s complicated”.

We tell stories to reach out to one another, but also to conceal ourselves, to hide. If you ask me a question, and I think that you will think less of me if I reply truthfully, I will construct a web of lies; stir-up a smokescreen between us, on the far side of which I am desperately seeking a doorway out of the conversation. That confession, from a priest, might shock you. But I am human through-and-through. I am written and re-written in complex stories, of which I am a co-author.

The Bible is a story of stories. Stories people co-authored with God in order to navigate life. Stories written and re-written, in times of weeping and of laughing, times of scattering and of gathering, times of keeping and of discarding, in times of silence and times to give voice, in times of war and time for peace. Words carefully chosen, skilfully woven. Stories to enter-into, at times cautiously and at other times, jumping feet first. And this morning I want to reflect on two particular and incredibly powerful genres of story that we find in the Bible: myth, and parable.

In the study of narrative, myth is a technical term. It doesn’t refer to a story that is ‘made up’ (all stories are made up) or a story about gods or heroes (though it might feature those) but to a story that is concerned with reconciliation. With opposites being united. Think of fairy-tales. Think Beauty & the Beast: wealth and poverty, innocence and monstrosity, love and malice, all resolved into happily-ever-after. Myths paint a picture in big, bold, recurring contrasts. Myths dare us to believe that the seemingly entrenched divisions we experience—the gross injustices of life—will be resolved, one day. Myths comfort us when the world is a frightening place.

A parable, on the other hand, is a story that disrupts us, that lures us in with the familiar only to discomfort us. A parable presents us with a tension that is unresolvable, and asks us to simply live with it, because maintaining the polarity is important, just as it is essential for the life of a battery to maintain the polarity between anode and cathode. The Book of Jonah is a parable. It ends with Jonah in an unresolved stand-off with both God and the people of Nineveh (Jonah 4:9-11). To this day, the tale rudely reminds us of our own prejudices. Whereas myths settle us, parables unsettle us, agitate us. Whereas myths empower us to rest in God, parables empower us to repent where we have wandered far from home.

We need both myth and parable—which is why the Bible gives us both. And in our gospel passage on this first Sunday of Advent, Jesus tells us a myth (Luke 21:25-28 and 21:34-36), with a parable inserted within it (Luke 21:29-33).

Speaking to people living under the rule of an occupying superpower, Jesus retells an earlier myth of God’s redemption—of God’s reclaiming what is his and restoring the fortunes of his people. This is a vision of opposites being united, or re-united: the bringing-together of the heavens and the earth, of God and humanity, of Israel and Judah, of the Jews and the gentile nations and peoples. Only myth can convey a vision expansive enough to keep hope alive in the darkest hours, when all around are overwhelmed by dismay or lose their heads in the chaos. And this is not a sop to placate those who hunger for justice, but a subversive feast for the soul, to strengthen us on our journey, in our struggle. Not wishful thinking, but hope-full thinking.

But into this vision of redemption, Jesus adds an element of discomfort for us, the parable of the fig tree coming into leaf. Why a fig tree? Well, you may remember that when our first parents, having disobeyed the Lord God, realised what they had done, ‘they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves’ (Genesis 3:7). When God came looking for his own, they were afraid and hid. As the collection of stories grew, the fig tree came to be a symbol of the Jewish people. And in a deeply important touchstone we read that ‘During Solomon’s lifetime Judah and Israel lived in safety, from Dan even to Beer-sheba, all of them under their vines and fig trees’ (1 Kings 4:25). This is a parable that speaks of God’s coming being something we want to hide from…but also something we long for—an unresolvable tension we are asked to live with.

The vision of redemption has, within it, an element of discomfort for us because at the heart of the fulfilling of God’s promise is justice; and so, we need to name and confess and repent of the ways in which we have chosen, or settled-for, injustice instead. We are not sole authors of our stories (they simply wouldn’t be robust enough if we were), but we are co-authors, not least in the plot-twists of the next chapter.

Today is the start of Advent, the season of preparing our hearts for the coming of the Lord. It is a season of myth and of parable: of rejoicing that light shines in our darkness and of facing up to whatever that light might expose. It is a season of paying close attention to the tension between our being comforted where we long for God’s coming, where we cry out for justice; and our being discomforted where we need to repent, where we need to be shaken out of our unrighteous self-interest. Because that place of tension is where God and our fellow human beings (neighbours and strangers), as co-authors, are calling us to write what comes next.

This Advent, may we step deeper than ever before into the fulfilment of the Lord’s promise, given to us in Jesus. Amen.

Notes:

To be clear, I believe that Christ ‘will come again to judge the living and the dead’—I just believe that myth is the genre we need to speak of such a thing.

If you want to read more about myth and parable, I recommend Mighty Stories, Dangerous Rituals: Weaving Together the Human and the Divine, by Herbert Anderson and Edward Foley.

Louise Penny’s novels are so tightly constructed in terms of unfolding character development and narrative arc that, if you want to read them, it is absolutely essential to read them in order. And stick with them.

I think one of the reasons I so enjoy Louise Penny’s novels is because she brings together myth and parable: the comforting, healing, hidden village of Three Pines; and the hidden recesses of the human heart brought to light—unlocked by the four key confessions Gamache lives by: “I’m sorry” “I don’t know” “I need help” “I was wrong”.

In his letter to the church in Thessalonica, Paul also draws on both myth and parable. In our reading today, he weaves together night and day, being kept apart and being face-to-face, lack and restoration. These verses sit within the context of parable: these people are experiencing persecution that will not be resolved—at least not in the foreseeable future—and, moreover, and most disconcertingly, some of their number have died, and the Lord has not yet returned.