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.