Where has Christmas gone?

Today’s lectionary Gospel  in church was the slaughter of the innocents by King Herod. It isn’t easy to read on into Matthew’s Gospel after the promise of Immanuel and the visit of wise men, as the story becomes dark with themes of unstable leaders, threat, murder, genocide, and innocents becoming refugees. I feel for Joseph. Another angel comes and tells him again not to be afraid, but, um, Herod is out to kill your child so you had better take him and Mum to Egypt and stay there until I come and tell you it is safe. 

We didn’t sing about murder and genocide in our Christmas carols! 

Herod was a thoroughly unpleasant King. He inaugurated his rule by wiping out the entire Sanhedrin, the supreme spiritual Jewish Court. For afters, he slaughtered three hundred court officers, and for good measure killed his wife, his mother in law, two of his sons, and of course his eldest son also. From this I think it’s safe to say that Herod was slightly adverse to competition of any kind. So when he hears of another child who might be a threat to his rule, it is in character for him to try to eliminate this new threat. And they say there is nothing in the Bible about today! 

There is a wonderful fable, one of many which surround the early and unknown years of Jesus. 

As the Holy Family escaped into the hills on the way down to Egypt, they spent the night in a cave. A spider saw that the Son of Man was resting in the cave and wishing to do something to please and honour his king, wove an enchanting and complex web across the mouth of the cave. At early dawn, the Roman soldiers seeking for the child in order to kill him as instructed, passed the cave.

Their leader noticing the cave was about to search it, when he saw the spider’s web glistening in the morning hoar frost, and decided that no one could have entered the cave, since the web was unbroken and had clearly taken many hours to construct.

So the soldiers passed by and the family remained safe. And this is the reason given apparently for the way we decorate our Christmas trees with tinsel and sparkling decorations at Christmas time.

It was common for Jewish families to escape down into Egypt every time some bloodthirsty ruler made their lives unbearable. They escaped over the border into just about every major Egyptian town, all of which had their Jewish quarters. So Mary and Joseph would have had friends there already who would understand their plight and help them settle in on their arrival.

Matthew is of course using this passage to demonstrate that Jesus not only fulfils the Old Testament, but that he has endured and shared in the sufferings of his people, who were also driven into exile in Egypt, and who only returned home later after receiving a message from God.

In later centuries modern theologians would use this to remind us that our God does not stand aloof from our sufferings, but shares them, and has been down into them on our behalf, and describes us as His own people. And we need to know that I think more than ever as 2019 ends and 2020 arrives. 

The innocent are still slaughtered. We still have war, unstable leaders who throw their weight around getting people to submit to them, we have seen parents bereaved through bombings on bridges even in this country this past year. 

There are people even now forced to flee to preserve life. There are people suffering through circumstances beyond their control. We should not need food banks in the second decade of the 21st century. We should not have people scared of the future because they face benefit reassessment. We should not have people with mental illness waiting months for any attention because there isn’t the provision to get them the help they need because we have cut the resources. We can name innocents who just find themselves in another world because suddenly dark things have engulfed them. 

Where has Christmas gone? 

Maybe we need to make sure this bit of the story is always included! I need a God who is in the dark things of life. Nowhere does my faith say that bad things don’t happen. Nowhere does Christian experience say I’m suddenly cocooned from crappy stuff if I believe. Maybe I need a Jesus who is born in poverty, who is a refugee while still a toddler, whose future for a while was uncertain. Maybe the cross is in Christmas earlier than we would like it to be. 

These Christmas blogs have been written on Holy Island where we’ve been for the last week or so. It’s been a gift to receive Christmas here, not just in worship but in the reminder of the presence of God in creation. Our favourite spot in all the world has spoken again to us over the last few days but most powerfully today.

Here’s a picture of Lis on “our bench”...

I proposed to her in front of it three years ago. Since then we’ve been through some tough stuff. We go back tomorrow and are needing some stability after a lot of moves. We need to know there is light in the darkness. We are enjoying the Fens and the involvement as I’m much better than everyone imagined i would be, in the churches of the local Circuit. Then we have a new beginning in Ripon in August to look forward to. We have also been given the opportunity to return here in February and for Easter. Someone sent me a picture the other day about if you are still here at the end of a difficult year, well done, you’ve held on. Faith is about holding on to that glimmer of light when everything else feels extremely dark. 

As the famous concentration camp prayer found on a wall says “I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when I feel it not. I believe in God even when I feel him not.”

I’m wondering what the Church’s task is as we enter 2020 and so much is slaughtered around us? Surely it is to point people to the light, however dim it feels and however far away it feels. Surely it is to remind us all of the good news of God that while today it feels like Herod and others like him will win so there is no point, there is every point. We know the end of the story: the light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not put it out. How do we do that? Well, I think we need an attitude shake up. We need to behave differently. We need to be kinder. We need to be more prepared to enter people’s darkness. We need to shout when dark forces appear to have the upper hand, by protest and making ourselves a nuisance, we need to believe the message ourselves! If we really know the light shines in the darkness, shouldn’t our worship and our life together as God’s people be more positive? And can we embrace the innocents into our life who are being battered about and life slaughtered all around us? 

Answers on a postcard or in comments welcome! 

Almighty God,

who wonderfully created us in your own image

and yet more wonderfully restored us

through your Son Jesus Christ:

grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,

so we may share the life of his divinity;

who is alive and reigns with you,

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, now and for ever.

Blue sky Christmas

It’s been a glorious Christmas Day here on Holy Island. You will see from my pictures that this morning the sky was bright blue and that tonight there was a glorious sunset. In over ten years of coming here, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sea round St Cuthbert’s Isle look so calm. I said to a couple on the beach tonight “this is the best spot in the world.” “We know!” they replied. 

Today has left me thinking about Christmas making a difference. If only the blue sky moments and the calm sea at sunset could come with us to sustain us in the dark skies and in the storms that will inevitably come. 

But can’t they? We’ve heard over the last weeks that Christmas is an abiding gift, not just for one day a year that is soon gone. We’ve all opened our gifts and have had I hope, things we can use well into 2020. Here’s my best gift! The Christmas Countdown by Frank Kelly is a classic and I’ve never owned it on CD before! 

The vicar reminded us in worship this morning of this well known story: 

Three sons left home, went out on their own and prospered. Getting back together, they discussed the gifts that they were able to give their elderly mother for Christmas. 

The first said, “ I built a big house for our mother.”

The second said, “ I sent her a Mercedes with a driver.”

The third smiled and said. “ I’ve got you both beat. You remember how Mum enjoyed reading the Bible? And you know she can’t see very well. So, I sent her a remarkable parrot that recites the entire Bible. It took elders in the church twelve years to teach him. He’s one of a kind. She just has to name the  chapter and verse and the parrot recites it. 

After Christmas, the mother sent out her letters of thanks.

“Milton,” she wrote to her first son, “the house you built is so large, I live in only one room but I have to clean the whole house.”

“Gerald,” she wrote to another, “ I am too old to travel. I stay at home most of the time so rarely use the Mercedes, and the driver is so rude!”

“Dearest Donald,” she wrote to their third son, “ you have the good sense to know what your mother likes. The chicken was delicious.”

We use the gift we most find precious to make life better. But my CD will eventually wear out, the cheese footballs will have all been eaten, the wine consumed, and we will not be satisfied really. Why can’t we enjoy the gifts we have been given and not yearn for more? I love this picture:

How do we make God’s gift to us which is just what we need, last? How do we take the gratitude we feel about what we have received today into next year? How can we feast as heartily as we do today on pigs in blankets and sprouts when it is tough out there in a few weeks? 

It’s all to do with what we put in our hearts I think.

Mary pondered all these things and treasured them in her heart. She never left Jesus. Her heart seeing him die would be broken but she remains a disciple and ends up we think with John in Ephesus.

Joseph is told not to be afraid. He’s the practical one i this story. He leads Mary to Bethlehem, he finds the stable, he enables the safe passage to Egypt to escape genocide, he teaches Jesus in his early years to be a good, faithful follower of God.

The shepherds return glorifying and praising God for all they have heard and seen.

The wise men return by another road.

Simeon has peace now he has seen the child.

Herod goes into a rage. A rival with an alternative way always threatens a bully who thinks shouting is the way to lead a people. 

No one in this story is unaffected by it. Life is different afterwards. 

Tonight I walked on the beach and saw the sun set. The calm of the water is for me a parable of what Christmas should be. I need to take this calm, the blue sky, the peace, the joy, the gifts, with me. Sadly I can’t stay here for ever. Christmas will soon be over. I know of people who take down their decorations tomorrow! January can be a hard month. We all face challenges as 2020 opens before us. We leave the European Union at  the end of January. People face illness, benefit reassessment, many don’t know how they can survive mentally long term. For me, I continue building myself up doing more as I feel stronger before another move into a full time appointment in September. I’m really excited where the Church is sending me this time: a place I never expected. For those of you who want a clue, it has this cathedral in it! 

I picked a carol two Sundays running in the Fens Circuit and got grief as some people said they didn’t know it and one lady described it as “that dreadful carol!” But for me, the writer has sussed out how we make the Christmas gifts we have received, the blue skies and calm seas last... 

Cradled in a manger, meanly,
Laid the Son of Man His head;
Sleeping His first earthly slumber
Where the oxen had been fed.
Happy were those shepherds listening
To the holy angel’s word;
Happy they within that stable
Worshipping their infant Lord.

Happy all who hear the message
Of His coming from above;
Happier still who hail His coming,
And with praises greet His love.
Blessèd Savior, Christ most holy,
In a manger Thou didst rest;
Canst Thou stoop again, yet lower,
And abide within my breast?

Evil things are there before Thee;
In the heart, where they have fed,
Wilt Thou pitifully enter,
Son of Man, and lay Thy head?
Enter, then, O Christ most holy;
Make a Christmas in my heart;
Make a heaven of my manger:
It is heaven where Thou art.

And to those who never listened
To the message of Thy birth,
Who have winter, but no Christmas
Bringing them Thy peace on earth,
Send to these the joyful tidings;
By all people, in each home,
Be there heard the Christmas anthem;
Praise to God, the Christ has come!

I don’t expect any of you will be reading this on Christmas Day, but I hope you emerge with a Christmas in your heart that will sustain you and bless you when 2020 throws you surprises. 

Happy Christmas everyone! 

It’s not a bad story, is it?

Today’s blog is very short and to the point. I got a Christmas missive from a Supernumerary minister in Rutland last night and he has nailed it really... 

“If the Christmas story is about hope being born into circumstances where every physical, social and political reality seemed to mitigate against hope - then it's not a bad story for today, is it?   !”

Then I discovered the lectionary for my next service in my current Circuit I’m taking on Sunday 5 January is the awesome prologue to John’s Gospel. I rarely have had the opportunity to preach on what is surely the greatest passage of scripture. Sometimes a few words say it all. So tonight, I encourage my readers, to reflect on the commentary of the times from a wise minister, and then read slowly the beauty and power in John, the Gospel writer’s introduction inviting us to work out who the Jesus who comes really is...

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God.

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Engaging with the story

We are spending Christmas on Holy Island as we did last year. I’m going to post some blogs while here as I listen for God in this special place. 

Tonight has been the nine lessons and carols service in the Church. It’s good, once a year, to listen to the story of how God works in the Christ event from start to finish. I love the fact the service had the scripture read in the King James Version, its beauty at its best in the prologue to John’s Gospel. I’m still sorting through some of my Mum’s stuff at home, and last week came upon my great Auntie Ede’s Bible, probably given to her as a child, so it might date from about 1890. They obviously had better eyesight then! 

What has the word made flesh meant through the years? What does it mean now? What did it mean tonight for those who just go to a carol service and no other service in the year?

I think as I receive the story again, and have another Christmas to receive it before I return to work full time next year and will be giving out again, that I notice two huge theological things. 

First, in this story God surprises us. The huge surprise is that he comes down to us. The huge God gives part of himself to us. Very God, begotten not created. I remember learning it in college: homoousios! Jesus, the same in being, same in essence as God the Father. There was a dear man at Trinity Storrington I used to try and take on about this in every bible study. He just believed Jesus was a good man. No wonder recipients in the story are taken aback. I used this poem in an informal carol service last week:

She was five,
sure of the facts,
and recited them
with slow solemnity
convinced every word
was revelation.
She said
they were so poor
they had only peanut butter and jelly
sandwiches to eat
and they went a long way from home
without getting lost. The lady rode
a donkey, the man walked, and the baby
was inside the lady.
They had to stay in a stable
with an ox and an ass (hee-hee)
but the Three Rich Men found them
because a star lited the roof
Shepherds came and you could
pet the sheep but not feed them.
Then the baby was borned.
And do you know who he was?
Her quarter eyes inflated
to silver dollars.
The baby was God.

And she jumped in the air
whirled round, dove into the sofa
and buried her head under the cushion
which is the only proper response
to the Good News of the Incarnation.

Sharon’s Christmas Prayer maybe sums it up. 

Let us marvel anew that God comes towards us. One of my favourite bits of scripture and the heart of Christmas for me is part of the Benedictus. You can’t beat this:

 “In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us,

to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,

and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Then in this story I see again an explosion of joy breaking into a gloomy and dark world. Angel songs, unlikely characters, no room, a chaotic background of occupation by a foreign power. The people in the story don’t expect it. No wonder when God breaks into their day they are “sore afraid.” Have we forgotten that God is into making things better? Do we expect in our churches anything to happen anymore? I’m convinced we are so busy keeping the institutionalised church going we have no energy or space to look for divine activity in a new place from where we are.

Of course some find this all a bit radical. A blog post that does spoof letters to the church magazine perhaps is a little too close to the truth.

Dear Sir

I was looking forward to the service at St Mary’s this morning. I always like to bring the grandchildren along to a service at Christmas time.

I was initially shocked to discover that the sweet young girl who welcomed us in is in fact the vicar – how did this happen?

And then imagine my further discomfort when the Gospel was about disputed parentage, a single mother and the idea of God talking to people in dreams.  This bizarre and disturbing story should have had a 15 certificate in my opinion.

In future I shall restrict my grandchildren’s visits to Easter. At least you cannot go wrong with eggs and bunnies.

Yours etc

Robert Brunchie, Middle Row, Lt Tremlett

I’m led again to the writing of Mary Oliver:

“If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.” 

I pray we might as we hear, as we worship, as we sing carols, we might listen and be surprised again. We need good news. As the vicar said this morning there are a lot of Herod’s out there.

The heart of Christmas

I’ve been challenged today by someone about what the heart of Christmas might be for a world that is uncertain. We have a new government and a Prime Minister full of confidence who tells us “we ain’t seen nothing yet” as he gets Brexit done and then makes the country great, but sadly some of us don’t feel it will be as easy as that. Meanwhile, the opposition parties, apart from the SNP, are licking their wounds and trying to think how they can pick themselves up. The Labour Party need a new leader. I would love Jess Phillips to be leader. She’d be fun opposite Boris! But Rebecca Long-Bailey would be good too. It’s time for a radical change to hold this government which has promised much to account. We might have had an election, but little has changed. In a civilised society, it is not right that food banks are overrun, that the gap between rich and poor widens, that people with mental health problems wait for ever for an appointment then are thrown away, that schools are at breaking point with scarce resources and teachers about to collapse, and we have America which is about to re-elect Donald Trump.

Where is the heart of Christmas? 

I’ve been glad through December to lead some worship in the Fens Circuit, helping people encounter a different agenda. We had a powerful Circuit Service on Advent Sunday, where my colleague Debbie preached on some of the hard events of recent times not lasting and the challenge to know God’s Kingdom lasts. I was glad to be asked to lead a reflective service on the second Sunday of Advent in our church at Marshland St James on angels. The angels in the incarnation narrative remind us there is a different song, a radical new way, if we, like shepherds, like Mary, are brave enough to see where it might lead. 

Then this last Sunday, in carol services, the series our Circuit is following, invited us to think about the encounter between two cousins, Elizabeth in old age, and Mary, an unmarried teenager, both pregnant beyond human comprehension. I love the passage in Luke chapter 1. The two cousins meet in Elizabeth’s home and marvel what God is doing with them. There is an explosion of joy within them as they reflect on God’s grace and possibility within them. Sometimes when God acts, we need a soul friend to help us sort through what God might be doing. That’s why every minister needs a spiritual director. I’ve been glad over the last seven years to work every six weeks with Sarah. I was sad, when having to leave Hastings, to have to give her up. But I’m glad to have now found Heather, a retired Anglican priest in Kings Lynn who is lovely. 

Is the Christmas story escapism from life for a few weeks or an abiding gift of overwhelming joy? The cousins in Luke 1 I think see what is going on and are excited. Suddenly, life has new meaning. One encounter with the divine leads to different priorities. The Christmas story is all about when we are suffering, God coming into that suffering, and saying in your despair hold on to joy.

A friend at the weekend led me to Mary Oliver’s writing: she writes that joy is not made to be a crumb.

Joy is not made to be a crumb! That’s led me to think about communion in these parts, and the ridiculously small piece of often stale bread the minister is given to break in communion services! Joy must overflow. I remember doing a seminar in college 23 years ago on Jurgen Moltmann’s Theology and Joy. Has Moltmann anything to say about Christmas?

“Here the distinction between joy and fun is helpful. We are living in the wealthier of the earth’s societies, and in the “upwardly mobile” sections of them. This is a “fun society.” “I want to have some fun,” young people who can afford it say, and throw parties—if possible with music that is so loud one can’t hear oneself speak. But then, one is not supposed to talk and listen, after all, but everyone is supposed to be “beside oneself,” each for oneself, in the dancing throng. If one has had this kind of fun, one is by no means sated and contented; one is hungry for more and more of it. Life is supposed to be an endless party. The elderly rich have their cocktail parties, where courtesies and platitudes are exchanged, and everyone watches to see what the other one is doing. One no longer knows how to be festive, and one has stopped trying. One engages an entertainer and an event managed, because one no longer knows how to set about these things oneself. But I will stop my mockery at this point, because I don’t want to be a “spoilsport,” as they say. 

The distance between joy and this kind of fun is as wide as the gap between experienced happiness and a game of chance, or between a successful life and a lottery win. Real joy is a feeling about life, but fun is a superficial experience; joy is lasting and enduring, and puts its stamp on one’s whole attitude to life. Joy is fulfilled time; fun is short-lived and serves to pass the time, as they say. The feeling about life behind the party-making, fun society is probably boredom and a certain contempt for life. Real joy stimulates the soul, makes relationships flourish, makes the heart light and limbs nimble, mobilizes undreamed-of powers, and increases confidence. Genuine happiness lays hold of the person’s whole being. In joy, the ecstatic nature of human existence finds its true expression. We are made for joy. We are born for joy.”

What is the heart of Christmas? Surely it’s that God comes where we are and shares life with us. Jesus is born to ordinary parents, forced to journey forever through a tyrannical census. They find no room and birth happens in mess and filth, unwelcomed and unnoticed by most. A few with wonder in their hearts and a conviction something new was happening, saw the joy God was determined to bring into his world.

I look back to a year ago. A year ago, I couldn’t walk very far without feeling exhausted. I couldn’t speak in public without getting breathless, I couldn’t function and slept a lot. I was depressed, wanting to be back working in my appointment in Hastings, but living in Hailsham, which, while a safe space, reminded me how far I was from what mattered to me. A year on, I am back, after a lot of hard work physically and mentally, doing ministry again and next year have a really good appointment to move to where I know we will be happy again. Stationing,which I dreaded, turned out to be an unexpected delight! So I look forward next year to discerning God’s plan and surprise and joy for us at Allhallowgate and at Harrogate Road, and at Boroughbridge, and at Kirkby Malzeard, Sawley and Dallowgill, and at Bishop Monkton and Grewelthorpe. A year ago, in despair, being so unwell, coughing through Christmas services on Holy Island, not being able to sing a carol, then getting upset sitting in the Covenant Service in Oakham contemplating being laid aside for ever, it is a miracle I am back and will begin 2020 well. I will be on the first Sunday of 2020 as I lead a Covenant Service in our church at Outwell be saying a thank you to God for leading me like shepherds and magi, to a new realisation of his presence.

What is the heart of Christmas? 

Perhaps it is this. Velvet was abandoned after giving birth to kittens. She was found in a garden. Now she has brought me unexpected joy. As she sits on my lap each night, she feels safe. Maybe as we feel God near to us again, we shall feel as the people of old did, a sense of wide eyed wonder.             

The day after

So how did last night end?

 I ate half a packet of cheese balls, and felt no better. 

I went to bed and watched events unfold. I had to turn the television off. 

This morning I felt like I did when the referendum result sank in three years ago. 

But like it or not, we have a new government and a Prime Minister with a huge mandate whether we trust him or not. I see in this area essential services being cut in the NHS and schools at breaking point. I see food banks overrun and those on benefit struggling to survive as cruel reassessments judge them not to be as disabled as they make out. I will judge this new government not by whether it gets Brexit done, but by how compassionate it is to the vulnerable. Many will have elected it with hope. Even if that hope is merely “get out of Europe and all will be well.”

 Let us pray for our country at this time, most of all that the polarisation we seem to have at the moment might find a coming together and that everyone can matter in policies and in attitude. And if I still don’t trust those elected, can I make a difference where I am? 

 

I find the lectionary passage for today a challenging one the day after...

Matthew 11.16-19

16 ‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, 
¹⁷ “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not mourn.” 
¹⁸For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; ¹⁹the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’

Jack Monroe has tweeted this tonight: 

People asking what we do now. We grieve. For a bit. And then we help the most vulnerable in any way we can. We donate to food banks. We campaign for living wages. We fight like buggery for our NHS. We sign every petition that we can get our hands on that might improve something.

When the referendum on whether we leave the EU result came in July 2016, I was in a hotel in Shetland. The result was such a shock I couldn’t leave my hotel room all day.

As the exit poll and actual result of this December 2019 General Election has sunk in, it has been another shock. I think I expected the outcome but not the size of the victory.

 With what shall I compare this generation? People however they voted yesterday wanted hope. Now all of us news to hold those promising hope to account and we need to make a difference by how we live, one word, one action, one day at a time. I am worried about the extremism and polarisation of society and I pledge, the day after, to work for healing in community, in relationships, and by caring where I can. As someone once said, I cannot fix all the world’s problems. If I don’t have a ladder, I can only deal with what I can reach. 

 I am challenged by this I’ve suddenly remembered quoted by the writer Timothy Keller in one of his books: When a newspaper posed the question, ‘What’s Wrong with the World?’ the Catholic thinker G. K. Chesterton reputedly wrote a brief letter in response: ‘Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely Yours, G. K. Chesterton.’ That is the attitude of someone who has grasped the message of Jesus.” Timothy Keller, The Prodigal God (New York: Dutton, 2008)

 I can’t do much about Boris Johnson except protest or pray now. I can’t do much about the soul-searching that will now happen in the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties as one leader says he will go early next year and the other has gone having lost her seat. I can’t move to Scotland and be independent as it surely will be if Nicola keeps whipping up momentum. But I can change me. Wisdom is vindicated by deeds. A day after sermon!

The day before: scary expectation

We are today eleven days into Advent. The panic about Christmas being near has begun. A mixture of excitement as we wrap presents, make plans, and get too much food in, with a sense of dread we might not be ready or it might not live up to expectations. In waiting some people like to rush to have what we want to happen happen quickly, not worrying about details, whereas others want to look over everything before they believe they are ready. 

For little children, the day before Santa coming  is a terrible wait. They want tomorrow, today. But isn’t if tomorrow is huge, the day before one of a mixture of stuff in our heads? Dread, anticipation, longing? The hopes and fears of all the years might come to be as tomorrow the world might change. 

We have what I believe is the most crucial General Election in years in our country tomorrow. Tomorrow, well, Friday really,  things in our country will not be the same as they are today. At election time I always think of how hard people before us fought to get the vote. Suffragettes a century ago, are an example of how society has not been equal. In some parts of the world today suffrage for everyone is still not a reality. I think voting like in Australia should be compulsory. Even if you scribble on the voting paper or write rude words on it, you should do this one bit of democratic right that wasn’t always a right. I also think you can’t moan about politics in the next five  years if you haven’t taken part in the process tomorrow. My vote has gone into a post box in Tydd St Giles. My constituency is a very safe seat for the current incumbent, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. I’m sure he’s a very nice man, and I hear he’s been about, but we’ve had no hustings and very little information about any of our candidates, in these rural parts, which I’ve found sad. I’ve voted and I’ve taken part and I wait to see what happens, not just with Mr Barclay but nationally.

We all want a society that is fair, just, inclusive and where we can flourish. I’m writing this in Sainsbury’s cafe in Kings Lynn, waiting for my car to be ready as it is in the garage opposite. John Lennon’s Happy Christmas War Is Over is blasting out over my scrambled eggs! All the Christmas songs we hear over and over are about a desire for a twee world where everyone loves each other and there are no problems suddenly. Think about the classic from Meet Me In St Louis, Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas: the message is definite. From now on our troubles will be out of sight. 

The election campaigns, (and I am using a mixture as I can’t tell you how to vote) are about this better future tomorrow and the fear we might go another way. It’s been a nasty year or so in Parliament. And the election campaign has been really shameful too. The worst has been the conservative candidate in Hastings and Rye making shameful comments about disabled people. She should be removed from even standing. Discrimination has no place in a just society. The media this week depending on their editorial stance, try to put the fear of God into us if we dare consider another way we think might bring a better tomorrow, or they dig up dirt from the past so we dare not trust the person they want to smear. It’s all very worrying and sad. I understand why people might not vote tomorrow but as I’ve said I urge scribbling on the paper! 

A General Election in Advent is a rare thing. The last time it happened was in 1923. Some people were very scared a Labour government might be elected for the first time and threatened to leave the country should that happen. Ramsay McDonald was indeed elected. His administration didn’t last long but it was a seismic shift in politics in this country. A similar thing happened with the election of the Attlee government in 1945, the arrival of Thatcherism in 1979 and the jubilation we felt when Tony Blair walked into Downing Street in 1997. I don’t think I have been so let down by a Prime Minister than I was by him. At a time of expectation we can be swayed by strong rhetoric. I said all along America would elect Donald Trump, because he played the “we can make our country better” card. I can also see how Hitler advanced as Germany was in a mess and he told them his ideology was the answer. 

We want a better tomorrow. We are people of expectation. Thinking about Advent, God’s ancient people believed that a vibrant future would come of blessings and prosperity. But they forgot the ethics in the scripture they recited and heard in their worship. For a stronger tomorrow, they needed to return to God. They needed at the heart of their lives God’s shalom. 

If we expect only what we want or a narrow view blessing only us, then we blind ourselves to the possibility that tomorrow might be radically new. All those standing for public office tomorrow I believe sincerely want to make a difference. They are, in the main, good people. The proof of their commitment to a just society will come if they really can deliver the words of a manifesto. If Mr Barclay is re-elected, I have an issue about major unfair injustice in our part of his constituency  I need to have out with him! I’ve come across scandalous neglect in mental health provision and it’s causing indescribable suffering. 

 SNP, Green, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Conservative, Brexit party, or none of the above, I the end we make our choice thinking deeply about the issues and if we have a faith, what we believe God is saying to us today on this last day of campaigning concerning tomorrow. Whether we trust those on the ballot paper or not, we have a responsibility to make a difference ourselves. The result of this election may be one some of us don’t want. I remember the day after George W Bush was re-elected in America, the Guardian’s front page was just a page of black ink with a tiny caption of two words: “oh shit”! But maybe in the end we have to live what we expect. Maybe as Jim Wallis writes on the last page of his fabulous book “God’s Politics” we need to be the ones we are waiting for. 

After making a huge mistake the other day, I’ve been challenged about my behaviour. For the situation to be better, only I can put it right through different words and a better attitude, breathing more and getting less wound up. The Advent hope is that a better world can come. God in the coming Christ does his bit, but we have to play our part. The teenager Mary saw it. More powerful than any manifesto, in the Magnificat, which certain traditions recite every evening ,the world is about to shake, and everyone is included, and those that have been unjust are dealt with. There is an excitement that all of us can be part of a divine party to build something new! Tomorrow will be better. 

Someone sent this prayer above to me yesterday. It can be seen as controversial. But it isn’t party political! It is saying it is a given if we follow a religious path, that inclusivity, the other, not just want we want is the only way to have that tomorrow we want and need. 

So dear readers, read and think today. Unless you’ve already posted your vote following all the instructions how to put gote voting paper into envelope B etc, go and be in your little booth in A cold church hall somewhere, take the little pencil on a string and make a difference. And whoever is elected, we pray for them, and in expectation, even if party politics after tomorrow lets us down, we can build that better future ourselves where we are. Are we the ones we are waiting for?

Rend Your Heart

12 “Even now,” declares the Lord,
    “return to me with all your heart,
    with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

13 Rend your heart
    and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
    for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
    and he relents from sending calamity.

Advent Angels

What’s your favourite carol? I have two. Is that allowed? My congregations know I always pick Cradled in a manger meanly on Christmas morning. Well I’m on Holy Island on Christmas morning so we’ll sing it in a bit. Here’s  a poem by Edmund Hamilton Sears.

Calm on the listening ear of night
Come heaven's melodious strains,
Where wild Judea stretches far
Her silver-mantled plains;
Celestial choirs from courts above
Shed sacred glories there;
And angels with their sparkling lyres
Make music on the air.

The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply,
And greet from all their holy heights
The day-spring from on high:
O'er the blue depths of Galilee
There comes a holier calm,
And Sharon waves, in solemn praise,
Her silent groves of palm.

"Glory to God!" The lofty strain
The realm of ether fills:
How sweeps the song of solemn joy
O'er Judah's sacred hills!
"Glory to God!" The sounding skies
Loud with their anthems ring;
"Peace on the earth; good-will to men,
From heaven's eternal King!"

Light on thy hills, Jerusalem!
The Saviour now is born:
More bright on Bethlehem's joyous plains
Breaks the first Christmas morn;
And brighter on Moriah's brow,
Crowned with her temple-spires,
Which first proclaim the new-born light,
Clothed with its Orient fires.

This day shall Christian lips be mute,
And Christian hearts be cold?
Oh, catch the anthem that from heaven
O'er Judah's mountains rolled!
When nightly burst from seraph-harps
The high and solemn lay,--
"Glory to God! on earth be peace;
Salvation comes to-day!"

He also wrote “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” in 1849.

Sears was the minister of the small congregation in Wayland, Massachusetts, in the late 1830s, but went to Lancaster, Massachusetts, to serve a larger congregation. After seven years of hard work, he suffered a breakdown and returned to Wayland. He wrote his famous carol while serving as a part-time preacher in Wayland, which called him back to full-time service in 1850. (He retired in 1865.) Some people suggest  the carol was first performed by parishioners gathered in his home on Christmas Eve. 

Sears’s words are both beautiful and powerful. The message is grounded in the first verse in the biblical past. 

It becomes prophetic in the last verse, which raises yet again the hope of a time to come of peace on earth. But it is most strikingly put in his third verse:

Yet with the woes of sin and strife

   the world has suffered long;

Beneath the angel strain have rolled

   two thousand years of wrong;And man, at war with man, hears not

the love song which they bring;

O hush the noise, ye men of strife and hear the angels sing.

Sears’s carol is remarkable for its focus not on Bethlehem, but on his own time, and on the ever-contemporary issue of war and peace. Probably more than any other Christmas carol, it talks about today — his day or our day. It says that the call to peace and goodwill to all is as loud on any other day as it was on that midnight of old, if we would but listen “in solemn stillness.”

Which leads me to think about angels and angel song in Advent. 

A lady said to me one Christmas, struggling with it being everywhere, and the noise of it, “I just want some time to hear the angels sing.”  

We need something to break into our world – a new song, a heavenly host to bring us good news – glory to God in the highest and on earth, goodwill to all people. “I just want some time to hear the angels sing.”

In a world of pain and sorrow and not a lot to celebrate we need a new song. In a General Election week, we need a new song in our nation, however we choose to vote. We need to heal division, challenge poverty, support the weak, uphold the fainthearted and remember the most vulnerable. We need God’s Kingdom Jesus brought to birth amongst us again. We need angels to announce radical change. Don’t we? 

Typing ‘angels’ into the search box on Amazon, and limiting the results only to books, yields over 50,000 titles. Angels are big business. 

Delve further and you will find courses on angel therapy and angel healing, workshops on how make your angel be more productive for you. They are there to help: indeed as one book puts it, once you’re aware of your angels, you just can’t stop asking them for help all the time. They like nothing better than to help you find your keys, or get you to an appointment on time.

 The contemporary view of angels is about as far removed from the biblical conception of angels as it’s possible to be. Angels are not our servants or fairy godmothers, ready to respond to our every whim. And they have better things to do than find our lost keys. Contemporary beliefs about angels tend to reveal the human tendency to make everything all about us. The biblical depiction of angels shows us something quite different. ‘You have made them little lower than the angels’, says the Psalmist of human beings. Right at the start, that puts us in our place. Angels are not there to serve us; they’re there to serve God, and they were created higher than us because they’re closer to him: they minister in heaven. The story of incarnation is all about confrontation with the divine; the divine stronger than the human, the angel’s song louder then Christmas

The angels come to bring news to our world. Someone wrote “they roll back the curtain of the real world and open the eyes of people working on earth to a vision of heaven.” Is that our  mission – giving people a vision of heaven? 

Angels are referred to in the book of Job as “the sons of God”, in that God is their creator and they were the first beings to be created. Because the angels live in heaven with God, His glory pours out of them.  

They are described as the heavenly host – the word “host” meaning an army.  Their appearance as mighty warriors armed with God’s glory frightens the living daylights out of anyone to whom they appear.  This is a far cry from the angels we see in nativity plays!

Consider angels in the Christmas biblical accounts. 

Consider Gabriel’s visit to Mary. 

Mary said yes to God's astonishing proposition that God the Son should be born into this world, and that she should risk stoning to become his mother. Sometimes God's ways of doing things are way beyond anything that any sensible human could think up, and perhaps we need to keep that in mind when we wonder what on earth God is up to.

 ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word.' Mary’s response is really quite staggering: we are not told that she asks for time to think it all over, or talk to her parents or fiancé about it, as would be the cultural norm; instead this 12 or 13 year old girl from a backwater village in a small part of the Roman empire quite simply says ‘yes' to God and risks all the consequences.

Gabriel and all the angels “are in the service of your salvation,” wrote Origen, a third-century teacher of the church. In one homily, he imagines them in heaven, embracing this role at the moment of Jesus’ birth: “They say among themselves, ‘If he has put on mortal flesh, how can we remain doing nothing? Come, angels, let us all descend from heaven!’”

Gabriel isn’t named in the story of the Bethlehem shepherds who saw the angels descend in a blaze of light and sing out the “good news of great joy.” But it’s reasonable to suppose that he is “the angel of the Lord” who speaks the message and leads the chorus.  The  shepherds put aside fear and open their hearts to joy. Then they imitate the angels in two ways: They praise God, repeating the “glory!” of the heavenly choir and they spread the news of Jesus’ birth.

 Together with the angels, the most unlikely  become the first evangelists in Luke’s Gospel.

Christmas is all about the bad news of today’s experience, no matter how bad, soon, unexpectedly giving birth to good news for the world. The angels bring us the news, open our eyes, have a party and then clear off – they do – read the story! They leave us then to work out where we go from here. What difference does this story make to us?

I encountered Christmas  spirit in Sainsbury’s in March the other day .

“Santa Baby” by Kylie was  blasting out. A woman came dancing and singing down the aisle.

“Sorry,” she said, “I love this one!”

“It’s the one’s you don’t love that drive you mad.” said I. 

“I love them all. I love Christmas!”she replied. 

I guess I want to say do we know the angel song glory to God in the highest and on earth peace goodwill to all people that we can anticipate it, worship it and then be excited to sing it ourselves. 

I read this article in the week:

“Luke takes the trouble to tell us about the Roman emperor Augustus, and his desire to take a census of more or less the whole known world. This isn’t just background information, or local colour to spice up the story. Empires, censuses and taxes were hot topics in the Middle East in the first century. When we have a census, we just fill in a boring form and send it off. They’re going to tax us anyway. Every time they had a census there were riots and people got killed: censuses then raised the sharp and dangerous questions of who runs the world, how it’s run, who profits by it all, who gets crushed in the process, and, perhaps above all, when is it all going to change? And what should we be doing about it? Luke has placed his story of Jesus’ birth and the angels’ song within this everyday story of Imperial behaviour because he wants us to know that Jesus’ birth is not an invitation to a private religion into which we can escape and feel cosy, but a summons to us, as it was to his first followers, to sign on under his authority, to celebrate the birth of the Wonderful Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, and to work under that authority for the growth of his promised kingdom of endless peace, of justice and righteousness.” There’s a message a few days before an election.

Hear the angel song: not just good news but fear not, do not be afraid for the Christ is come, and will come.  There is a Christmas anthem, there is a new song, we need it to be noisy and out there and we need to get on with singing it. Maybe we need to return to Sears great carol which speaks to today as powerfully as it did to his context 160 years ago. Maybe we need the missing verse:

O ye, beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low

Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow

Look now for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing

O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.

Then we sing this: 

For lo the days are hastening on, by prophets seen of old

When with the ever circling years shall come the time foretold

When the new heaven and earth shall own the prince of peace their King

And the whole world send back the song which now the angels sing.