First Sunday of Christmas 2024

 

Luke 2.41-52

Back when I was at theological college, Susie and Noah were in primary school and Elijah was a baby. Once, when Jo was away, I put Elijah in the pushchair and went to collect the other two from school, along with two of their friends, whose dad was also at the college. By the time we got home, it had started to rain. The house we rented had a covered car port that sheltered the side door, so we went in that way. I sorted out drinks for the kids. They disappeared upstairs to play. Some time later, I realised that I didn’t know where Elijah was. I searched the house, every room, without finding him. I went through the house again, even looking in places that, logically, I knew it was impossible that he would be. I asked the others if they knew where Elijah was, and they said “No.” Frustrated, I said, sarcastically, “Well, thanks a lot for helping me look for him.” It was later reported back to the other college family that Susie’s dad had thanked them all for helping look, but that they didn’t think I really meant it. After I had searched the house from top to bottom three times over, I heard a sound from outside the door to the car port. And there I found Elijah, still strapped in the pushchair, exactly where I had left him.

The biographer Luke records a story of Jesus accompanying his parents, Mary and Joseph, on pilgrimage from Nazareth to Jerusalem to take part in the festival of the Passover at the temple, when he was twelve years old. It is a journey that might take three days, possibly more, followed by the seven days of the festival itself. Then everyone sets off for home. At the end of the first day walking home, Mary and Joseph can’t find Jesus. They ask among their relatives, who have made the pilgrimage with them, but no one has seen him: “No, sorry, I thought he was with you.” They ask among the wider group of pilgrims. No one has seen him. No one can recall seeing him all day. By now, mum and dad are more than a little anxious.

There is probably nothing they can do until morning – which doesn’t help – but then they head back to Jerusalem. And then, for three more days they search the city, high and low. They do not find Jesus anywhere. By now, they are besides themselves with worry.

They say the thing you are looking for is always in the last place you look. At one level, that is obvious: once you have found the thing, you stop looking. But there is a sense in which the thing is found in the one place you are most anxious about looking, the place you do not want to go. This is especially true for a missing person.

Eventually, Mary and Joseph find Jesus. He is in the temple. He has been there all along. And Luke tells us:

‘When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them.’

But here is the thing. The Greek text does not say “in my Father’s house.” The word ‘house’ is not there. The Greek says, ‘in the of the Father of me.’ Duplicating the ‘the’ is how they highlight something – we might use bold or italics or underline – and the thing being highlighted is determined by the context. The translators have decided that the context is where Jesus is – the temple – and have given us “my Father’s house.” Because “my Father’s house” is what Jesus calls the temple.

Except that this is a very odd choice. The phrase “my father’s house” is found many times in what we call the Old Testament, and a couple of times in the Apocrypha, and it always means ‘my immediate family or relatives’ and/or what we would call ‘my family tree.’ That is what the phrase means. It would be very strange for Jesus to use it in an entirely different way. In John’s account of the life of Jesus, Jesus is recorded using the phrase on two occasions. Once, he says, “in my Father’s house there are many mansions.” Now, whatever he is speaking of – whether the life to come, or the family of God – he certainly isn’t speaking about the temple here. The other occasion is when he says, “Stop making my Father’s house [or family] a house [or family] of commerce.” This could possibly be the one place where “my Father’s house” could refer to the temple; but even here Jesus could be referring to his family tree, the people of God, and how they were supposed to relate to one another and the surrounding nations.

In any case, ‘house’ is an odd choice to supply as context. There is another word that makes more sense, in context. Mary has just told Jesus, “your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.” That is the context. Surely Jesus’ response should be read, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father’s anxiety?” In the anxiety of my father. Or, in other words, didn’t you realise that I would be found in the place where my father was most anxious about finding me?

I don’t know why the temple was the place where Joseph was most anxious about finding Jesus. Perhaps he was worried that he would lose his son, that the apprentice builder of Nazareth would follow a different calling. Perhaps he was worried about where that might lead, where it might end up. Perhaps he was right to worry. Perhaps he couldn’t help it – after all, isn’t that what parents do, even after their children have grown up?

What I do know is that Jesus is to be found in the place where we are most anxious. Wherever that place might be. Whatever those circumstances may be. That is where Jesus is, already, waiting for us to face the fear. For in that place, he is a non-anxious presence. In that place he is listening attentively and asking pertinent questions, desiring to know peace and to draw others into that peace.

So, what are you most anxious about today, right now, in this threshold between 2024 and 2025? Be honest with yourself, as honest as you dare. For that is where Jesus is to be found. In the last place you are prepared to look.

 

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2024

Lectionary readings: Hebrews 10.5-10 and Luke 1.39-55

Christmas is the Season of the Incarnation. The season of learning how to inhabit a body. The season of coming home to your body.

Perhaps you are uncomfortable at the prospect. Perhaps you feel that your body is too tall, too fat, too frail, too plain, too awkwardly clumsy to be loved. At puberty, our bodies can run ahead of us, demanding that we expand, to lofty elevation or ample bosom, before our peers, leaving us exposed to cruel name-calling. Whoever said ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me’ was deluded or misguided at best. And in old age, our bodies demure to do the things we have been so long used to doing together, call on us to downsize our lives – but how can you downsize, when your body has accumulated so much baggage over the years?

This Sunday, Advent 4, the Church reflects on the visit of Mary, in her first trimester, to Elizabeth, in her third trimester. When their bodies were experiencing changes and where two new bodies are first formed.

In their world, children were seen as the fruit of the womb, a woman’s fruitfulness in life determined by her ability to bear sons and daughters. Elizabeth is barren, ground from which no tree has sprung. And this is a source of great shame, the belief that you are not worthy of love, not worthy of connection. That awareness (distorted, but no less real for that) that you are not enough, not good enough. ‘Poor Elizabeth,’ her fruitful neighbours say, ‘She has always followed God’s laws so diligently and yet he does not reward her’ (have they forgotten how many childless women have played such key parts in their people’s past?) and their condescending pity adds to the slick of shame.

When Elizabeth realises that she is pregnant, she keeps it a secret for five long months. The only people in her community who possibly understand her existence are other barren women, and she cannot risk losing them also, to envy. Not to mention the very real risk of miscarriage. And so, for five months, Elizabeth is hyper-vigilant, not to let slip her condition. Do nothing out of the ordinary.

For five months, she is utterly alone in the world. Unable to converse with anyone (even her husband has lost his voice). This is enforced solitude, even in the midst of everyday life. Perhaps the solitude is not much different from how she felt before, alone among the other women drawing water from the village well. But the need for hyper-vigilance is new.

First trimester: hiding morning sickness, back ache, stomach cramps. Second trimester: don’t respond to the joy of feeling that first flutter of your unborn child moving within; don’t respond to the discomfort when, bigger, stronger, they kick against the womb. No one can know.

As Elizabeth reaches the third trimester, as it becomes too hard to keep her changing body hidden, news of her pregnancy breaks. Now, at last, she can breathe. Now, at last, the community holds space for her, to focus on her coming child, and once she has delivered her son, to bond with him. Now someone else will go to the well. Now her relative Mary comes, quickly and purposefully, to be with Elizabeth. Now she has company, for solitude – so essential to the driven life – is dangerous for the soul that is in recovery from shame.

And even now, Elizabeth wrestles with the shame that God has moved to remove. ‘Who am I,’ she asks, ‘that the mother of my Lord should come to me?’ I am not worthy.

Even so, Mary comes; and with her, joy. With her, deep connection, woman to woman, womb-to-womb, unborn-son-to-son. This is the antidote to shame.

And Mary sings a song of revolution. A song of God raising up and honouring those who are nobody in their own eyes, honouring them and establishing them in community, with others like them. Connection, with shared experience. You are not alone. You are worthy of love and connection, you and those like you who have known shame, who have felt yourself unworthy. And those who have looked down on you, they will be humbled. Brought low, sent away empty.

Elizabeth is the first person who Mary sings her song over.

But her song has echoed down the centuries. And Mary sings her song today, over all who live with shame – as all live with shame. Sings over you, and over me. Over the emptiness inside, the belief that we are not and cannot be worthy of being filled, with love.

Sing, Mother of God. Sing over your relatives. Sing, and may your song be poison to our shame, burning it away.

 

First Sunday of Christmas 2023

 

Lectionary readings: Galatians 4.4-7 and Luke 2.15-21

I wonder what kind of gifts you received at Christmas—and whether you could tell what they were from the way in which they were wrapped? Some gifts are easy to wrap—books, for example—while others call for more creativity. Some gifts come in gift bags, you might set aside to use again, to give a gift to someone else. Some gifts come in boxes, which may have already been flattened and put out with the recycling. One gift I ordered for Jo didn’t arrive until yesterday, and didn’t get wrapped at all, other than the parcel it came in. But however it comes, unless you are a small child or a cat the packaging is likely less important than the content.

I wonder, also, what the strangest gift you received was? My sister gave me a little figure of Jesus, an-inch-and-a-half tall. If you submerge it in water, over three days it will grow up to 600% its original size.

In our readings this morning we are presented with five containers, each filled to overflowing, by God, with his Son: namely: time, Mary’s womb, the law, our hearts (these all recorded in our first reading, from Paul’s letter to the Galatians) and a manger (recorded in our Gospel reading, which also mentions Mary’s heart and womb).

Time, Mary’s womb, the law, our hearts, and a manger. All things that once contained Jesus; all things that could only contain him for so long before he filled them to overflowing.

That is the Christmas mystery, and the Christmas joy. That Jesus comes to fill our lives—our given days and hours and minutes (time); our potential to be life-giving to others (womb); our relationships with others (law); our desires and our free will (heart); our homes and livelihoods (manger)—he comes to bring fulfilment and fullness of life to all these aspects of our being. The infinite, pouring into the finite, that we who are finite might be drawn into the very Life and Love of God, and that the world might know that this gift is for them too, for all who will receive it. Not just for Christmas, but forever.

 

Christmas Night 2023

 

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 52:7-10 and John 1:1-14

Here is the news, news of great joy: Your God reigns!

What does that reign look like? It looks like life, breaking out, all over the place, in every place that had become a wasteland. New life, come into being.

Come into being, in the deserted places of our lives. Yours, and mine. For here is the Christmas miracle: just as the Son of God came into the world not by the will of man but by the will of God, so we are born anew, children of God—sisters and brothers—not by biological means but by the will of God.

Now, I said that the Son of God did not come into the world by the will of man, and I meant man specifically, not human. For human will was involved, in cooperation, in partnership, with God’s will: and that was the will of his mother, Mary. Mary said ‘yes’ to God, believed that God could transform her empty womb into a cradle of life—into the Cradle of Life. That Life which gives life to me, to you.

This Christmas Night, I wonder, what is the new life that God desires to bring to birth in me, in you? What deserted place does God want to fill, to bursting, life that will grow until it cannot be contained, but breaks out for the blessing of the world? Perhaps in this very moment, you have felt this Life kick you, from inside, as if to say, “I’m here and I am on the way!”

Impossible, you say? But wait: Your God reigns!

 

Second Sunday of Christmas 2023

 

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 63:7-9 and Hebrews 2:10-18 and Matthew 2:13-23

How did you sleep? Did you sleep well; or were you disturbed by fireworks ushering in the New Year? Perhaps, like me, your bladder bids you rise in the small hours. Perhaps sleep eludes you, from time to time, and you take up a book to help you drift off again.

Sleep is a fascinating part of being human, an act of faith, surrendering ourselves to unconsciousness, that we might be born again, made new. Sleep returns us to Eden, and to the Lord God causing the creature fashioned from the soil to fall into a deep sleep, before taking it and breaking it in two, creating male and female from one common human being. But whereas in that first sleep we were broken, for the benefit of many, in our subsequent sleep the broken fragments of our days are taken up and made whole again, our dreams being a process of sifting and sorting, in search of patterns, from which we piece together sense, meaning, understanding, that, on waking, propels us into action.

Until the advent of the electric light bulb, people took two sleeps at night. This pattern appears to be a stable one, across cultures and through the ages. Families slept together on a shared mattress, retiring to bed by 9.00 p.m., rising again between 11.00 p.m. and 1.00 a.m. before sleeping again until around 6.00 a.m. This first sleep took the edge off the tiredness of the day, while the nighttime waking hours provided for slower activities. This was time for moving around the house doing simple, largely automatic tasks. Time for meditation on Scriptures, ‘of recounting the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord’ to your children or neighbours. Time to send existing children off on household chores and procreate sisters and brothers for them.

It is fascinating to note those things that take place at night in the Gospels. Nicodemus visits Jesus at night. Yes, this is advantageous, in that it minimizes the chances of being seen, of report reaching unsympathetic ears; but it is not an odd action. Nicodemus would quite reasonably expect that Jesus would be awake and that engaging in theological reflection was an acceptable, even normal, activity to undertake between the first and second sleep.

Jesus himself sets parables at night. The story of a man whose guest, having been delayed, turns up at midnight, causing him to knock on his neighbour’s door in hope of bread. The shocking element here is not that one should visit your neighbour at midnight, but that the neighbour has returned to bed for their second sleep so soon, right in the middle of a time of activity. As the neighbour is a cipher for God, Jesus speaks of a God who sleeps, unafraid, with his children, and who rises to break bread with friends and strangers.

Another parable, of a woman lighting a lamp and sweeping her home by night. The search for a lost coin adds drama to an everyday—or every night—scene.

Three times in our Gospel reading this morning we observe the holy family asleep, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, lying together. This is the first sleep of the night, the surrender of the conscious self at the end of the day. And as Joseph sleeps, he is visited in his dreams by an angel. Not once, but on three different nights. The first of these isn’t even the first time this Joseph, this dreamer, has experienced such an encounter, a messenger sent from God, to help him put together the broken pieces of his waking hours.

The angel warns him that Herd is seeking to kill the infant Jesus and instructs him to take his family and flee to Egypt, to seek asylum among the Jewish community there. They rise, and spend the waking hours pulling their things together, putting their affairs in order, undoubtedly conferring with, and giving instruction to members of Joseph’s extended family. And when the household returns to bed for the second, longer sleep, Joseph takes his wife and the child and they slip away, on the road heading south of the border.

Sometime later, during another first sleep, the angel returns, instructing Joseph that it is safe to return home, those seeking the child’s life are dead. No need to travel with such urgency this time. Arriving home in due course, Joseph hears that one of Herod’s sons is on the throne. Despite the angel’s words, it doesn’t feel quite safe enough. The angel returns, again by night, and on further advice the holy family journey on, to Nazareth in the north, Mary’s hometown.

Into these dreams, Matthew inserts a fragment of the words of the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:15) about the matriarch of Bethlehem lamenting over her lost children. In the original text, the children have been carried off into exile, but God promises to bring them home. Though it is ambiguous in Matthew’s recounting, the lament (and promise) here is as much over Jesus’ sojourn in (and return from) Egypt as for the lost boys of Bethlehem. But what is fascinating is that the context of the words Matthew cites is God speaking peace into the fretful dream of someone in search of rest (‘Thus says the Lord: The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away.’ … ‘Thereupon I awoke and looked, and my sleep was pleasant to me.’ … ‘Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: If this fixed order were ever to cease from my presence, says the Lord, then also the offspring of Israel would cease to be a nation before me for ever.’ (Jeremiah 31:2, 3a, 26, 35-36) The night is ordained by God, as a meeting place between earth and heaven, between humanity and divinity, forever.

Whether you have fallen asleep yet or not, angels break into all our readings set for today. The Old Testament reading from Isaiah speaks of the Lord becoming the saviour of his people in distress, acting directly and not through the intermediary of an angel. The New Testament reading from Hebrews reminds us that God did not come to save angels, but human flesh and blood, doing so by becoming one of us, becoming like us in every respect. ‘Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.’ Suffered, here, means to be acted upon, whether for good or evil. Tested, here, means character being tried by such means, to determine whether it is trustworthy or not.

In coming into the world that was created through him, one of the things that Jesus suffers is being acted upon by sleep. When the Lord comes in person as saviour, he does so surrendering to sleep. This is remarkable. In this way we see the humanity of God, having delegated authority throughout creation, honouring the ordained purposes of the night for rest, for reflection, for recreation, not needing to be constantly active in agency. Sleeping, without fear; rising, without terror, even in the face of evil. For the writer to the scattered Hebrews this finds its fullest expression in the death and resurrection that every sleep rehearses, freeing us from our enslavement to the fear of death.

The advent of the light bulb changed our experience of sleep. The digital revolution has done so yet again, a more sedentary lifestyle and the ubiquity of digital screens conspiring against us. Under-worked limbs and an over-stimulated brain do not easily surrender to sleep. Hard though it may prove, given where we are as a society, the wisdom of the hours between a first and second sleep may prove a (Christmas) gift worth reclaiming.

In 2023, may we encounter angels, and even Jesus himself, in the night. By candlelight or the soft glow of kindle light. In the pages of a book. In prayer and praise. In gentle rhythmic tasks. In making love. In dreams. May Jesus gather up the fragments of your days and make you whole again; then take you up, bless you, break and give you, your life for the life of the world. And on the day when he comes to take you home to glory, may he come by night, with the moon and the stars. Refreshed by the first sleep, may you awake to life within his house, according to the abundance of his steadfast love. Until then, may the nights you must flee for your life be few, may the nights of weeping be met with consolation, may your guardian angel watch over your bed, and may the Lord grant you the rest you seek. Amen.

 

Midnight Mass, Christmas Eve 2022

 

Christmas Night: Hebrews 1:1-12 and John 1:1-14

Almost always, when I prepare a sermon, I look to engage with one or more of the readings we have just heard. But tonight, Christmas Night, is a little bit different, from other nights, other days. We have heard the readings, the opening lines from the Letter to the Hebrews and from the Gospel According to John, for their own sake, their beauty of form, as the writers of old reflected on the beauty of Jesus, come into the world. In the dark days of a Winter of Discontent, beauty matters, and most of all the beauty of Jesus.

I do want to draw your attention to the way the writer of Hebrews speaks of when God brings the firstborn into the world, not as a prophet, passing through, but as the rightful possessor of a throne that is for ever and ever, over and beyond the heavens and the earth the Lord founded. I want to draw your attention to the way in which John takes us back to the very beginning, to the creation of the world, and to the one through whom it was created coming to it, coming into it, coming to his people. But then I want to set those readings not quite aside and focus on a different part of the Christmas story. I want to read to you another verse, just one verse, from the Gospel according to Luke:

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7

There was no place for them in the inn.

The (Greek) word for place is topos, from where we get the word topography. A place, or region, or terrain, with its own unique features. Within the biblical imagination, a topos is the place assigned by God to every living creature. The great oceans, with their mountains thrusting islands above the surface of the waves, and their deep, dark canyons, the playground of migrating whales and turtles, and giant squid. The vast, flat grasslands, home to herds of bison and zebra, wildebeest, and gazelle. The rainforests, for tigers and tree frogs, lemurs, and little elephants. The mountains, for lynx and yak and snow leopards. The tundra, for the Arctic fox and Artic hare; and the polar ice caps for polar bears and penguins. We hear, in the first chapter of Genesis, how God made each topos and brought forth the firstborn of every form of life. We hear the echo of that momentous Word in the first chapter of John, and again in the first chapter of Hebrews.

And when Mary brought forth her firstborn son, there was no place for them in the inn.

The word translated ‘inn’ does not refer to a commercial inn, but to a room in any home in the time and place when Jesus was born. Families lived in one shared common room, with their animals corralled at one end at night, perhaps a little cow, or donkey, or a small family of goats, the animals’ body heat keeping the humans warm until the sun returned. The night-manger was a bowl, a feeding trough, carved from a stone slab. But any home had room to offer hospitality to a stranger passing through on their journey, in need of a bed for the night. It was said that some had entertained prophets, or even angels, in this way. The prophets through whom God spoke, the angels called to worship the Son, there in our reading from Hebrews. The ‘inn’ might be a second room, or as simple as a curtain that could be pulled across the far end of the common room, offering some privacy, rolled up like a cloak during the day. It could be a hut, or even a canopy on poles, up on the flat roof, accessed by steps on the outside of the house. A canopy that wears out, like clothing, and gets changed, replaced. But when Mary brought forth her firstborn son, there was no place for them in the inn.

There was no place assigned for them by God in the space set aside for travellers passing through for just one night. The place God assigned for Mary and her son was in the house of David, the shepherd and songwriter, renowned general, sometime outlaw, king. The topos was a kingdom (that threatened Herod). A throne for ever and ever.

Jesus is not the guest, passing through. But perhaps you are. Perhaps you are here because you happen to be visiting family, for a night or two. Perhaps your journey through life doesn’t bring you to the door of a church that often. Whatever has led you here today, and whether the path has been joyful or sorrowful, easy, or arduous, we’re glad you came, you are welcome. There is always room for travellers, in need of rest, of hospitality, before you journey on, whatever the road, whatever the destination. Whether you return this way on a frequent basis, or this will be the only time. There is a place for you in the inn. We welcome you, aware that you might be a prophet or an angel, sent by God.

Or perhaps you are lost and afraid and need to be found, by the shepherd-king? Or angry or sad or depressed and in need of a song to give voice to your emotions, a gift from the songwriter-king? Perhaps you are fighting inner demons and need a brother-in-arms who can give you the breakthrough, a renowned general-king who can slay your giants? Then again, could it be that you find yourself disillusioned and searching for a true cause, in the company of the outlaw-king? Perhaps you are wondering, could this babe in a manger really be a king? Could he really be my king? Perhaps it is not a place in the inn that you come looking for, but a place nearer the night-manger, in the heart of the family. A place with the mother and her son. If so, there is a place for you here, too.

Many years later, this Jesus gathered with his closest friends to eat the Passover meal in such an ‘inn,’ the upper room of a home in Jerusalem. That night, he was betrayed, arrested, tried, and in the morning taken out to die on a cross. His mother took her son, wrapped him once again in strips of linen, and laid him down on a stone slab to sleep, the sleep of death. But on the morning of the third day, he rose again, and reigns, exalted, over every terrain where life finds its place. All this, we celebrate, moments from now, friends and strangers welcome at the family table. Happy Christmas! God is with us. Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end, who was in the beginning and shall be beyond the end. Let all creation rejoice! Let all God’s angels worship him! Happy Christmas! Amen!

 

Second Sunday of Christmas 2022

 

Second Sunday of Christmas 2022

Lectionary readings: Jeremiah 31:7-14 and Ephesians 1:3-14 and John 1:10-18

We are still in the Season of Christmas, and Christmas is a time for the telling of wonderful stories. On the last day of 2021, my family and I made a trip to the cinema to see Steven Spielberg’s new version of West Side Story. Given that it was first staged on Broadway in 1957, and first adapted for the big screen in 1961, I am going to assume at least an awareness of this classic tale, based on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, translating the action to the mid-1950s turf wars between White and Puerto Rican gangs in New York’s Upper West Side. Theirs is not only a contested territory, but also a condemned one, the working-class slum housing being cleared to make way for gentrification. Everything about West Side Story is wonderful, from Leonard Bernstein’s music to Stephen Sondheim’s words to Jerome Robbins’ choreography, and Spielberg’s retelling successfully walks the line between knowing irony and adoring tribute in pinpointing the location to the very blocks demolished to create the Lincoln Centre, home to the New York Philharmonic, Metropolitan Opera, and New York City Ballet, among other resident arts organizations.

The Jets are the last remaining working-class Whites in the neighborhood, and they feel abandoned by their own community, those who have upped and left for a better life elsewhere and by the city authorities who, in the 1950s, were carving up established-but-poor neighborhoods to create landscaped parks and parkways for automobiles. These are the demonized poor, and they know it.

The Sharks are the latest in a long line of immigrants, arrived from Puerto Rico. The Free Associated State—or, Commonwealth—of Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Her people have been US citizens since 1917, but that doesn’t make them equal in the eyes of the Jets. The Sharks represent yet another community who have upped and left in hope of a better life elsewhere, only to find life hard in different ways, and salt in the wounds of the Jets who refuse to leave their native island behind but who feel it being taken from them. Scapegoats, to be sacrificed.

Within and around the Jets we meet Riff, trying to hold his world together as it falls apart; his best friend and former-Jet Tony, trying to move on from a life that was heading in the wrong direction, but still tied to his community; and Anybody’s, born a girl, identifying as a boy, rejected by her family, desperately wanting to be accepted and find a new home, a new family, within the Jets. When you’re a Jet, | You’re a Jet all the way | From your first cigarette | To your last dyin’ day. | When you’re a Jet, | If the spit hits the fan, | You got brothers around, | You’re a family man. | You’re never alone, | You’re never disconnected. | You’re home with your own— | When company’s expected, | You’re well protected!

Within and around the Sharks we meet Bernardo, a hard-scrabble fighter with a fearsome reputation; his lover Anita, longing for a better life in America and worried that Bernardo will jeopardise that; and Maria, Bernardo’s little sister, stifled by his over-protection and dreaming of her future. When Maria and Tony meet, sparks will fly. And all around them, everything is set up for there to be only losers, and no victors, in a fight for life that cannot be won. And yet, the dream remains. There’s a place for us, | Somewhere a place for us. | Peace and quiet and open air | Wait for us, somewhere. | There’s a time for us, | Some day a time for us, | Time together with time to spare, | Time to learn, time to care. | Some day, | Somewhere, | We’ll find a new way of living, | We’ll find a way of forgiving. | Somewhere, | Somewhere…

The themes and issues explored in West Side Story are timeless. Writing from the rubble of a Jerusalem that had been swallowed up by the Neo-Babylonian Empire, most of its prominent citizens having been relocated to Babylon, the prophet Jeremiah helps his community imagine a world in which their identity and future are secured, not through their own efforts but through the covenant-loyalty of the Lord. On his account, their mourning will turn to joy: he will comfort them and exchange their deep and complex sorrow for gladness.

Or think of Paul of Tarsus, a first-century Roman citizen of Jewish heritage, writing to a Christian community made up of two distinct ethnic and cultural communities living alongside one another in the city of Ephesus (where ‘Gentile’ is as umbrella a term as ‘White,’ and ‘Jew’ as un/welcome as ‘Puerto Rican’). Paul reframes Jeremiah’s themes of identity and a future in terms of adoption and an inheritance, and adds a new theme, that this is achieved through the shed blood of Jesus, the one caught in the crossfire of our enmity and striving for what we cannot hold on to.

And in our Gospel reading, John pushes the boundaries in his overture to the Life of Jesus, foreshadowing questions of whether this Jesus will be received into community or not accepted; and whether community is formed and sustained by rules (spoken and unspoken) or by grace and truth found in seeing the invisible God made visible in the face of this ‘Other’ whose coming into our world changes everything. Today, the world was just an address, | A place for me to live in, | No better than all right, | But here you are | And what was just a world is a star | Tonight!

It isn’t hard to see the appeal of the Jets. To believe our community to be let down by those in authority, in the Church and in wider society. Even the face of the Church, here in Sunderland, is increasingly Brown or Black, not White. Increasingly immigrant, not native-born. And if the future is presented as shiny, it may be hard to see where we fit in to that picture—even as those whom we imagine we are being moved aside in favour of wonder how long they must wait until they are seen as equals. It is easy to think that we must do whatever it takes to hold on to what is left to us, however far it may have fallen from glory. And yet, as Jesus put it, those who strive to save their lives always end up losing their lives—and not only their own lives, but the lives of those they love. Then, of course, there are those who see their only hope in establishing a rival gang of their own: the Church or the neighbourhood might go down, but we won’t go down with it! And then there are those who long to be a Jet, or a Shark, and are denied…

We are still in the Season of Christmas, and Christmas is a time for the telling of wonderful stories. Stories in which communities struggle with questions of identity—what makes them who they are—and the impossible possibility of a future—what that could look like and how it might be secured. Stories in which these things are, ultimately, given, received, experienced through grace. Stories in which those who find themselves on the margins, pushed out, unwelcome, come to discover family, a place of belonging. (That one is being written all the time and remains to be written.) Stories of tragedy transformed into Somewhere for the Anybody’s. Stories of grace and truth, and the invisible God made visible in the face of Jesus and in the eyes of his sisters and brothers. Stories that point us back to him, again and again, the light that shines in the darkness—of the world, and the Church, and of our hearts—and is not overwhelmed by it but shines all the brighter. Stories that never grow old, and that we never outgrow needing to hear. In God’s mercy, may they help us to walk in Christ’s light and dwell in his love that we may know the fullness of his joy throughout the year ahead. Amen.

 

Christmas Day

 

A few years ago, my parents very sensibly downsized, from the family home in the West End of Glasgow to a ground floor apartment in Milngavie. When we visit, there is not room for us to stay with them, and so we make use of the Premier Inn a five-minute’s walk away. This is a popular Premier Inn, the starting point for tourists from all over the world who come to walk the West Highland Way from Milngavie to Fort William.

My mother-in-law is a widow. She lives in a two-bedroom ground-floor barn conversion. When we visit her, some of us might get to sleep in the guest bedroom, but if we all go at the same time, some combination must sleep on the living room floor.

Contrary to popular belief, Jesus was not born in a stable round the back of a fully booked inn, Premier or otherwise. Jesus was born in a family home, almost certainly the home of relatives of Joseph, quite possibly his parents’ home. Families in Bethlehem lived in what was essentially a one-room dwelling. Plenty of people lived in just that way here in the UK, even post- the Second World War, though we, in our comfortable houses, have largely forgotten such a world. Families in Bethlehem slept on the floor of the communal room, with their small herd of goats corralled at one end or on a slightly lower level at night, providing safety for the animals and warmth for the people, just as families have lived in crofts in the Scottish Isles or chalets in the Swiss Alps. But these homes also had a room or place for guests: the ‘katalyma,’ inaccurately rendered the ‘inn’ in several English translations. The lodging for guests might be on the flat roof, no more than a canopy on wooden poles; or else a small room directly off the family room, at the opposite end from where the animals were kept. In an urban home in nearby Jerusalem, a home that might welcome pilgrims several times each year, Jesus would eat a meal with his disciples on the night of his arrest in just such a katalyma, or upper room; but in Bethlehem, guest rooms were smaller.

Joseph is from Bethlehem, but he has been away in Nazareth, working his dowry to marry Mary, whose relatives are from around Bethlehem but whose immediate family had moved north. So, Joseph, who is a builder by trade, has not had time to complete the home in which he and Mary will start out in their married life. And like many couples since, they begin their married life living with his parents. Probably.

Now, they are family, but they would be offered the guest room, for space and a little privacy. But when Mary comes to give birth, while they are there, there is not a secure space for her in the guest room. Perhaps it is on the roof, and in the later stages of pregnancy she could no longer get up and down the ladder. Perhaps it is simply a room that is too small for a woman to give birth in, attended to by the women of the home and the village midwives. In any event, there is not the necessary space, and Jesus—like both of my sons, as it happens—was born in the main room of the house, in the heart of the home. And laid in the manger, probably a bowl carved out of the stone floor, just the right size to cradle a baby.

The theme chosen by the Church of England for Christmas this year is ‘the heart of Christmas.’ And at the heart of the Christmas story is the birth of Jesus, at the heart of a home, into the heart of a family, in the heart of Bethlehem, in the heart of God’s people in the heart of their history. Jesus is at the heart.

Perhaps you have family living with you this Christmas. Or perhaps you hope, Covid restrictions permitting, to travel to stay with relatives. And it may be that room must be found, or made, psychologically as well as physically, internally as well as externally. For others, this time of year is one spent painfully aware of being alone, estranged from fellow humans, not least by bereavement, perhaps estranged from God. For others still, it is a time of demanding work to serve the stranger, with heart and mind and soul and strength, for love—embodied love—of God and neighbour. Room must be found, for forgiveness, or compassion, for ourselves as well as for others. One way or another, there always seems to be so much riding on this time of year, and our resources and our imagination are flexible, but only to a point.

And it is into the actual circumstances of our lives that Jesus is born, again. Not some nostalgic Nativity play where we pretend to be an innkeeper or a donkey, an angel or shepherd, or want to be Mary. But in the very heart of your life, and mine. Whether it feel too empty a room without him or impossibly full of other things, he comes, in his good time, not ours. This Christmas, may you know the joy that he brings, at the heart, to the heart. Joy that washes away our tears of pain and sweat of exhaustion, our fears, and our sense of inadequacy or of not being ready (you’ll never be ready). And may his felt presence come in time to transform every part of your life, from the heart out. Not as guest but as kin. Happy Christmas!

 

Christmas Eve

 

On the twenty-first of July 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong placed a two-foot-wide array of 100 retroreflectors on the surface of the Sea of Tranquillity. A mirror on the moon. The crews of Apollo 14 and 15 also left mirrors at locations on the moon, and in addition to these three there are two further sets of mirrors on Soviet Union unmanned Luna mission robotic rovers parked on the moon’s surface. By firing lasers at these mirrors, scientists have been able to trace the moon’s orbit with remarkable accuracy.

We might imagine the opening move of John’s Gospel as firing a laser at mirrors left on the surface of Genesis chapter 1—‘In the beginning…’—and counting how long it takes for the light to be received back.

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

‘And 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.’

(John 1:1-5, 14)

Our home planet is one of eight that orbit our home sun, flung out on the Orion Arm of a spiral galaxy, the Milky Way. Our home sun is one of some 40 billion suns in our home galaxy, which is in turn one of 100,000 galaxies in our home Supercluster, the Laniakea (“immense heaven”) Supercluster. These, in turn, are just some of the trillions of galaxies in the universe.

For all the vast, awe-inspiring grandeur of the universe, it is local place where we find meaningful personal connection to God. Often, when I meet with a family to plan a funeral, I am told that dad, or mum, was christened at ‘my’ church, they were married there, that they were always proud of the place and their connection to it mattered deeply to them. They may not have connected with organised religion week by week, but through their whole life long they knew that they could connect with God while this building stood open.

It is a given in the Bible that God created the world and everything in it. But I do not believe that Genesis 1 is concerned with this. Rather, I believe this to be a text, from the time of the Babylonian exile and the return from exile, that is concerned with the Temple in Jerusalem—for the Jewish people, the very centre of the cosmos—and which describes its catastrophic destruction, and God’s initiative to restore Jerusalem and have the Temple rebuilt.

By the time John writes, that second Temple has been desecrated by the Greeks, retaken and reconsecrated, massively extended by Herod the Great, and—between the Jesus event and the time of John’s writing, and, therefore, being read aloud to congregations—destroyed again by the Romans.

John’s Gospel begins with a statement of intent, that God is, once again, about to restore the meeting-place between God and God’s people. But this will not be a Temple of stone, that, impressive though it may be, will be thrown down. When John writes, of Jesus, that he lived among us, the word he chooses is ‘tabernacled,’ recalling the tent of meeting, the place where God was present in the very midst of the people while they lived in the wilderness, between the exodus from Egypt and their entering the promised land. A touchstone for the displaced.

This, then, is the account of the cosmos being restored, from its very centre. *

Those scientists with their lasers discovered that the moon is spiralling away from us at a rate of 3.8 cm per year. Imperceptible to the human eye. In Jesus, on the other hand, God is moving towards us. At times, this too may be invisible to the naked eye. But over the years, mirrors have been left that reflect the light—our holy places are such mirrors, as are moments such as the ‘Midnight Mass’ on Christmas Eve. As are our lives, even when our buildings are closed, temporarily, by pandemic, or when, for whatever reason, we feel unable to come. The light and the mirror and the time between pointing to Jesus, God-with-us, full of grace and truth, in the dark dying days of the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twenty-one. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. May you rest confident in that and may your sense of wonder be renewed.

 

*As John would later record Jesus as saying, “For God so loved the cosmos that he sent his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish away but have enduring life.” (John 3:16). See also the death and resurrection of Jesus, alluded to by Jesus himself as a destruction and rebuilding of the Temple.

 

Second Sunday of Christmas 2021

 Second Sunday of Christmas 2021

Lectionary readings: Jeremiah 31:7-14 and Ephesians 1:3-14 and John 1:10-18

One of the ways that I find it helpful to approach scripture is through lectio divina, or ‘divine reading’. This way of reading comes from the western monastic tradition:

we begin by stilling ourselves and reading through the passage slowly (lectio), perhaps more than once, open to whatever God’s Holy Spirit might want to bring to the attention of our spirit;

then we take time to reflect on any phrase that captures our attention (meditatio), asking the Holy Spirit to lead us into an understanding of this word for us today—a process that might involve others through a corporate sharing;

we then turn what we have heard from God back to God in prayer (oratio), in repentance or praise;

and finally we end in spending time with God in companionable silence (contemplatio), resisting rushing away.

As I sat with the passages set for today, my attention was drawn to these words from the Old Testament reading:

‘…their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.’ Jeremiah 31:12c

Their life shall become like a watered garden. Whose life? That of the remnant community, those who had been scattered by God and would be gathered—brought home—by God. It will help us to reflect on the context. Jeremiah was a prophet who spoke for God to the people of Judah during the reigns of Josiah, Jehoiakim, and Zedekiah until the captivity of Jerusalem. We read of his call to this task, God saying, “See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant” (Jeremiah 1:10). The book that bears his name is a collection of speeches that point out to the people of Judah that, like Israel to the north, they have been unfaithful in their covenant relationship with God; that their corporate actions will result in judgement and exile, unless they repent, and, eventually, unavoidably; but that God’s faithfulness will be seen in and through their exile, and in their eventual return from exile.

Now, some time before Jeremiah, the northern kingdom of Israel essentially disappears from history, during the reign of the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 BCE). To the south, the king in Jerusalem rebelled, withholding tribute to Sennacherib, who besieged them, and, despite divine intervention to protect Jerusalem from destruction, reimposed even greater tribute payment. I mention this because Sennacherib had a world-famous garden constructed in his capital, Nineveh.

To return to Jeremiah, by now Assyria has been swallowed-up by Babylon, and Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BCE) [the book of Jeremiah refers to him as Nebuchadrezzar] turns his attention to Jerusalem. He defeats Jehoiakim, carrying him and his officials off to Babylon, and making Zedekiah king in Jerusalem in his place. But when Zedekiah rebels, Jerusalem is besieged once more, and destroyed; Zedekiah’s sons are killed in from of him, and then his eyes are put out. Another wave of exile to Babylon follows, and also a wider dispersal, including down to Egypt.

It is on the far side of this exile that Jeremiah foresees that ‘their life shall become like a watered garden.’

And this is where it gets interesting. You see, according to five writers of classical antiquity, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the wonders of the world. They were, according to all, a wonder of engineering, a series of tiers, to recreate the sense of being in the mountains despite actually being on the plain. They were, according to one source, constructed by Nebuchadnezzar II; according to another, they were irrigated from the Euphrates by means of Archimedes’ screw. And the thing is, we don’t know whether the Hanging Gardens of Babylon actually existed (there is no archaeological evidence, and no Babylonian record), or whether they were a poetic construction—a way of boasting about the grandeur of the capital of the greatest empire on earth—or, perhaps, if they were a misattribution of Sennacherib’s (well-attested) gardens in Nineveh. But we do know that they were a powerful symbol, with a life of its own. Whether the gardens literally towered over the exiles in Babylon, or only over the imagination of those left behind in a ruined Jerusalem (whose Temple—another wonder of the world—would be destroyed), the image of God constructing a well-watered garden in and for his own capital city was also a powerful one. Here is an image of hope, of a reversal of fortune. Unlike Babylon, Jerusalem had no river from which to draw water. But perhaps Ezekiel, carried off into exile and building on Jeremiah, adds another tier with his vision of a river flowing from the (rebuilt) Temple (Ezekiel 47)—the River of Life.

In our Gospel reading we hear that in Jesus, the invisible God has been made known. Not simply a poetic construction, nor a misidentification, but a manifestation of grace and truth. We are not called to be a people who make empty power-claims, nor bask in glories from another age, another place. We are those being gathered into Jesus, to know the God who is grace and truth, who calls us to live lives that are generous and authentic.

And here we are, at the start of a new year, hoping to move beyond the disaster that Covid-19 has wrought over the past year, needing to build an uncertain future now that we have finally left the EU. Knowing that it will take time, but looking to the future. Is our hope in our national exceptionalism, or in God’s lavish goodness? Will our future be one of levelling-up our communities through pioneering infrastructure, or white elephants for the pleasure of the super-rich?

And so, we turn to God in prayer. We give thanks for the hope that You have put in our hearts, a hope of communities—of our community—restored and renewed, made fruitful. Lord, help us to embrace that hope, when we are tempted to despair. Lord, help us to hold on to that hope of a watered garden, in the depths of winter when the water is frozen-over and the ground is hard, and the plants have been cut back and allowed to rest. Soften our hearts where they have grown cold and hard. Lord, may we rest in You; and, in Your time, may we experience new growth, and bear fruit, fruit that will last, as Your Spirit flows with life and power. Lord, would you rebuild Your Church in this land, that we might be mighty trees in whose branches there is shelter for all. Lord, may our roots go deeper this year, deeper into Your faithful loving-kindness. This past year has been hard for us, in so many ways. We thank you that You are with us in our exiles, working for our good even when we find ourselves far from home; and we thank you that, in time You lead us back, you gather us together. Lord, we look forward to the day when we will be able to sing for joy again, and hug and shake hands and sit and eat together when we come together in your presence. May other people be brought into that place. Bless the city where you have placed us, in the plans to regenerate the riverside, with new housing and places of work, bridges across the Wear, public gardens along the river. Bless our families, the young and the old, and those who care for them. And bless this word to us in 2021: ‘…their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.’ To the glory of Your name, amen.

And, having prayed, we sit in silence with God, enjoying one another’s company, not rushing on with our service…

 

Christmas Day 2020

Christmas Day 2020

Set III readings: Isaiah 52:7-10 and John 1:1-14

 

The theme chosen by the Church of England for Christmas this year has been Comfort and Joy. It has been the message we have held out, to one another and to our neighbours, because comfort and joy have been so very necessary this year, for so many reasons, and because they are something that the Church, of all people, can offer. And if you were listening attentively, you will have heard both words appear in our reading from Isaiah:

‘Listen! Your sentinels lift up their voices, together they sing for joy…

Break forth together into singing, you ruins of Jerusalem; for the Lord has comforted his people…’

Because we have experienced God’s comfort, we can sing for joy.

And of course, we have not been able to sing for almost the whole of the year now; or, at least, not to sing together, not to lift our voices with others. I know that many of you have really missed singing; and that this has been especially hard at this time of year, when, ordinarily, we would have held our carol service and sung familiar carols whenever we came together. But we are allowed to sing outside. To fasten our coats against the wind and the rain, and sing. Is that what it might sound like, for the ruins of Jerusalem to break out into singing? Not the splendour of days past, but the welling-up of faith, of hope, of love, in response to the glory we have seen in the face of Jesus, whose birth we celebrate this day, the One who was and is full of grace and truth?

And so, we shall end our service today by going outside and singing together; and then, we shall go back to our homes and, perhaps, our families; and no, it will not be all that we might have hoped for; and yet, we shall know that there is a light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

Christmas Eve 2020

Christmas Eve 2020

Set I readings: Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20

 

‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness—on them light has shined.’ Well, it has undoubtedly been a dark year, and there is nothing good to be gained by pretending otherwise. The joy Isaiah points us to is not one that denies the demanding work of gathering-in the harvest or the tragedy of war, nor how draining our own days have been. And yet, we proclaim good news: of One who comes bringing counsel to those in desperate need of wisdom; rescue for those in need of freedom; enduring, loving presence with those in need of comfort; and wellbeing for those who are sore pressed by circumstance. There is hope worth holding on to.

Maybe it is because this year we have had to book our place to come to church on Christmas Eve, but this year I have been struck by the recurring word ‘registered’ or ‘registration’ in our reading from Luke’s Gospel. I do not recall being so struck by them in quite the same way before. But the root of the word means to write one’s name, or enrol; in this case, to enrol on a census for the purposes of taxation by the Roman empire, whose emperor claimed to be the son of a god whose advent brought peace to the whole world. Hardly a voluntary enrolment, or an equitably shared peace.

But enrolment itself is something we do on a regular basis. There has been much made of voting enrolment, and disenfranchisement, in the United States this year. Closer to home, many of you will have voluntarily signed your name to enrol on the Electoral Roll of St Nicholas’ Church. We sign up for something we believe in, want to be part of. We sign up to change the world, to play our part in making it a better place. And, of course, census records are also used to trace our family trees, to discover our roots, to discover something about our ancestors that we might weave into our own story.

And then I am struck by the shepherds, who hear the herald proclamation of peace on earth for those who are blessed by the favour of the God, not in Rome but, in the highest heaven. And who, in response to the announcement, go, from where they are to Bethlehem, not far, but in order to enrol themselves. To sign themselves up.

And then, because the backdrop is one of an enrolment to pay taxes, I am struck by Mary, who treasured all the words that the shepherds spoke. As if their joy was a tax, voluntarily given in order to make the world a better place (isn’t that what paying taxes should be?) and Mary were the tax-collector, on behalf of the King of heaven and earth.

And I wonder what we have signed ourselves up for—if, indeed, we have—and how our glorifying and praising God for all we have seen and heard might play a small part in how Jesus will establish and uphold the kingdom God has conferred upon him, in the place where we are registered, in the coming Year of Our Lord Two-thousand-and-Twenty-one?

 

Harvest Thanksgiving 2020

 

Harvest Thanksgiving 2020

Lectionary readings: Deuteronomy 8:7-18, 2 Corinthians 9:6-15 and Luke 12:16-30

Today is our Harvest Thanksgiving. Our Old Testament reading from the Law of Moses, and our New Testament reading from the letters of Paul, both remind us of God’s goodness. Both stand as an invitation to participate fully in divine generosity. Both stand in contrast to the fool, who, in the parable Jesus told in our Gospel reading, sought to keep abundance for himself instead of sharing it with others. I am struck by the words God said to him: This very night your life is being demanded of you. These are, I would suggest, the words that God says to every one of us, not only at the hour of our death but every day of our lives: your life is being demanded of you. By God, by our neighbours and all creation, by our own deepest being. Not to be consumed by many demands, but set free by this sole demand: that we turn up, not as spectators, and give our lives away in love, in response to Love. As Isaac Watts put it, were the whole realm of nature mine, that were an offering far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.

Although today we are celebrating Harvest, I want to talk about Christmas. This has been a hard year, not only for those for whom we are stocking up the food bank shelves ahead of winter, but for all of us. This Christmas will be a strange one, in which Covid-19 restrictions will prevent us from gathering as extended families, prevent us from joining together with neighbours at carol services, nativities and Christingles as in previous years. This Christmas, we will live with the strange mix of the numbness of loss and the longing for the sort of celebration that strengthens our bones to get through the cold, dark months. And this year, with this tension in mind, the Church of England’s Christmas theme is Comfort and Joy.

Jo and I decided that we would try something, to share some comfort and joy. Jo had the original idea of putting a Christmas decoration through every letterbox in the parish, to create a community-wide Christmas tree; and to invite people to take a photo of their bauble, on their tree or hanging in their window, and post them on the church Facebook page, to curate a record. I asked around, and approached a local business, who made up some samples, and on Friday we placed an order for 7,000 laser-cut baubles that each say Comfort and Joy.

The cost is underwritten. But the idea does not stop there. We wanted to find ways in which we might invite other people into the fun of spreading hope, bringing good news, proclaiming tidings of comfort and joy. We started to tell our friends the story of what we hoped to do, and how they could get involved.

Could they donate towards the production costs (£1,750, for 7,000 baubles at 25p each), through the Just Giving page I had set up? The link is:

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/comfort-and-joy

Did they have any ribbon in their craft boxes, for which they had no use? Our baubles would need ribbon to hang them from: 7,000 strips, 15-20cm long and 3mm-(max.)10mm wide; of any colour.

And, nearer the time, could any local friends help us deliver these gifts across the parish?

Straight away, people started responding. Within one day, they had already donated almost £300; while others had let us know that they would go through their craft or sewing boxes in search of ribbon we could have, which they would either drop round or post to us. Simply in response to telling a story and asking for help to tell it wider.

Writing to the church in Corinth, Paul observed that God loves a cheerful giver. The Greek is the word from which we derive our word hilarious: it is the joyful giving of one who is already persuaded, won over. God loves to see a joyful giver, because God is a joyful giver, and we are created to bear God’s image. A joyful giver is someone who is living and moving in the love of God, a person fully alive. And, being made in God’s likeness, people love to give, generously; and do so whenever they are won over, whenever a cause sparks joy. They sow the seed of joy, and it bears a plentiful harvest of joy. Out there, across our parish, and far beyond. Indeed, right around the world.

God knows the needs of our souls and bodies, what is needful for our comfort in mourning and in order to share in the joy that revives us, spiritual and material provision. The fool said to his soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God, alone, is the Giver of true rest and re-creation; of true food and drink, for our earthly pilgrimage and our heavenly banquet; of true victory over the trials of life. Everything that the fool looked for elsewhere: which, of course, is what made him a fool. That is not to say that life is easy, but that, whatever comes, God is so, so good.

Christmas and Harvest might look different this year, but perhaps this is because God is at work to pull down our barns, in order to build bigger ones, not for ourselves alone but to share an abundance with more of our neighbours? And the things we have prepared, whose will they be? Might we dare to imagine?

 

Christmas 2019 [Set I]

Lectionary readings: Isaiah 9:2-7 and Luke 2:1-20

And so, here we are. We have made it to Christmas. And I wonder, how are you? Really, how are you? Exhausted is a valid option.

The Church of England’s Christmas theme for last year, this year, and next year is ‘Follow the Star.’ It is taken, of course, from the journey of the Magi. And that journey was calculated, was navigated, was at least in part undertaken, by night. A learning to walk towards Jesus, wrong turns included, in the dark. Starlight falls on the earth continually, but we only see it in darkness.

I know almost nothing about the heavens, other than that they are beautiful. Earlier this year, Stuart and Angela lent their cottage in a dark sky forest to my family for a week’s holiday. Far away from city light pollution, the forest park promises the stars. But in the event, clouds blew in every evening, and in the whole of the time we were there, I did not see a solitary star. It was good to get away for a break, but I came home a little disappointed.

The prophet Isaiah declared, ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined.’ And in that light, joy takes the place of a burden. Joy like that of the harvesters. Harvest, of course, was a time of hard work, the whole community working together with common purpose. Joy, and hope: for in this light, something has not been completed but begun. The boots of the tramping warriors and all the garments rolled in blood shall be burned as fuel for the fire; but, for now, what we see is a baby, whose authority shall grow continually, extending well-being from that smallest of beginnings.

How are you, this Christmas? Chances are, for at least some of us this year, and all of us over time, that you are living in deep darkness. I’m thinking of the parents who have shared with me their concern for their children, because their children suffer from anxiety or anger, or have chosen to reject their family. I’m thinking of those young people, too, just as much in need of light to shine on them.

I’m thinking of those who in recent days have confided in me that they are nursing cancer or dementia, a deepening darkness within, as the light of this life slowly sets. And those who journey through life with them.

I’m wondering, what cruel warriors tramp their boots over your life in these days, splattering their garments with your blood?

Not every one of us will identify with that first-hand this Christmas, but we know darkness to be at the very centre of both our experience of life and also the Christmas story.

Yet also at the heart of the Christmas story is a homecoming. The child, descendant of David and heir to his throne, is found in the tiny village that proudly proclaims itself the city of David. Joseph has recently brought his wife Mary from her father’s home in Nazareth to his father’s home in Bethlehem — and incidentally, by cultural tradition the final stage of the journey in which a groom accompanied his bride from her parents’ home to his, was conducted at night [see Jesus’ parable of the wise and foolish virgins]. The shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night — heirs of David’s childhood task — see the glory of the Lord shining around them, and are sent into Bethlehem, to find a child in a manger.

These journeys by night are a homecoming, to the promises made by God. A homecoming to joy that gives us strength to face warriors in the present; and to a sign of hope for the future, a sign of God’s peace, that though it be not so right now, all shall be well.

The gift of Jesus, the one in whom God-is-with-us in the darkness, is given just when we needed it. That is why you are here. You have followed the star and found the Christ-child. His story, the story of the Magi, your story, our story does not end here. Like the Magi, the shepherds, the holy family, you do not need to walk alone. It takes a community to carry one another’s burdens, and to share the weightiness of star-lit wonder.

This Christmas, welcome home. Come in. We’re glad you made it.