Homily - Christmas 2008

Christmas Night / Day – Eucharist – 24/25.xii.2008 (Isaiah 9.2-7; Titus 2.11-14; Luke 2.1-20) I went to see my spiritual director the other day. Clergy - as much as anyone else - tend to rush around at Christmas thinking about all the things they haven’t done: writing Christmas cards, buying presents, getting the shopping in - or contemplating Christmas with the family with a mix of excitement and anxiety. And all the churchy busy-ness itself can be a bit distracting: checking that you‟ve enough candles for the Christingles and extracting jammed service sheets from the photocopier are not in the final analysis what Christmas is about. So making my confession and talking about where I am in my relationship with God is a bit of a reality check. And it is a reality check, not just an inducement to try to be more holy. This year my spiritual director advised, “Don‟t try to put too much into your Christmas sermons. The best we can do really is just to remind people that it is Christmas, and to wish them a happy one.” So Happy Christmas! You don‟t need to be pious about all of this. Christmas is about God coming among us as a baby - and about that there should be more excitement than just about anything else. Babies bring us joy - little children make us smile. And Christmas is the opportunity to bring out the child in us and drop our adult defences. So even before you get to tomorrow‟s

dreadful

Christmas

cracker

jokes,

here

are

some

misapprehensions of Christmas: Camels In Jane’s Christmas drawing, two of the camels were approaching the inn, over which was pictured a large star. The third camel and its rider were going directly away from it. “Why is the third man going in a different direction?” her mother asked. Jane replied: “Oh, he’s looking for a place to park.” 1

Father Christmas Of course, I had expected that by the age of seven it was inevitable for my son to begin to have serious thoughts about Father Christmas. Sure enough, one day he said, "Mum, I know something about Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy." Taking a deep breath, I asked him, "And what is that?" He replied, "They're all nocturnal.” Snowmen Two snowmen were standing next to each other. One said to the other: "Can you smell carrots?" Christmas Carols One night Freda went carol singing. She knocked on the door of a house and began to sing. A man with a violin in his hand came to the door. Within half a minute tears were streaming down his face! Freda went on singing for half an hour, every carol she knew - and some she didn't. As last she stopped. The man had continued to weep gently throughout her performance. “I understand,” she said softly. “You are remembering your happy childhood Christmas days. You're a sentimentalist!” “ No, not exactly,” he replied in a choked sort of voice. “I'm a musician!”

That‟s enough of that… In preparation for Christmas I came across a suggestion that churches might like to conduct an opinion poll amongst their congregations. Not a good idea on the whole… But I was taken by these questions: (Under the heading…) All I want for Christmas.... what is your most hoped for present? ___ what do you dread receiving? ___ Father Christmas how many times will you visit him this year? ___ do your children write or email Father Christmas? ___ in this health conscious age, how fat should Father Christmas be? ___ School nativity play Do you expect to attend one? ___ More than one? ___ Are any of your children involved? ___ Do you have a favourite memory from last year’s? ___

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I think the questions about the Nativity Play take us to the point better than any other. What we do at Christmas is to tell the story. We know it already, but we tell it again. It‟s even better when children tell it, because they do so with innocence and freshness. The mistakes don‟t matter. The bits that get added in or happen in the wrong order don‟t matter. This year I‟ve managed to get to a school nativity play, a school carol service and three school assemblies where we sang choruses from John Lennon, Slade and Wizzard. It‟s been fun… even before we got going with the Leadgate Gleemen and our Handbell Ringers over in the Church Hall. But perhaps the best experience for me this year has been to see the Nativity production by Kaydar, a local organisation which works with people of different ages who have a variety of learning and physical disabilities. They use our hall on a regular basis - and that‟s where they performed their play just last week. To see the story through their eyes and in their performance was terrific. The Angel Gabriel was a real star (actually so was the young woman who played the Star itself - who guided angels, shepherds and "wise men" on their journey to Bethlehem). At first I was mainly concerned that the Angel didn't fall off our stage, but I need have had no fear. She had learned a full script which she not only voiced clearly for all to hear, but she signed it too ("She's deaf, you know," a member of the audience whispered to me) - and issued stage directions with aplomb. Mary and Joseph knew just where they were supposed to be, and everybody played their part. The whole production was fresh and beautifully delivered - and the audience not only clapped and cheered but was quite visibly and audibly moved. It's a pity that not more people could see it. I'm glad I did. And if there were proof that it's not just politically correct to call them "differently-abled," this was it.

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And all this chimed in with an account I‟ve just read of a Nativity Play in South Africa, written and performed in very different circumstances to our own. This is what the local parish priest wrote. The play had been quite a straightforward re-telling of the Nativity, all the characters you‟d expect… but then, “After the wise men had come and gone I noticed the arrival of three more strange characters – one was dressed in rags, hobbling along with the aid of a stick. The second was naked except for a tattered pair of shorts and was bound in chains. The third was the most weird. He had a whitened face, wore an unkempt grey wig and an Afro shirt. “As they approached, a chorus of men and women cried out „Close the door, Joseph, they are thieves and vagabonds coming to steal all we have.‟ But Joseph said, „Everyone has a right to this child – the poor, the rich, the unhappy, the untrustworthy. We cannot keep this child for ourselves. Let them enter.‟ “The men entered and stood staring at the child. Joseph picked up the gifts the wise men had left. To the first strange man he said, „You are poor: take this gold and buy what you need. We will not go hungry.‟ To the second he said, „You are in chains and I don‟t know how to release you. Take this myrrh – it will heal the wounds on your wrists and ankles.‟ To the third he said, „Your mind is in anguish. I cannot heal you. Maybe the aroma of this frankincense will soothe your troubled soul.‟ “Then the first man spoke to Joseph. „Do not give me this gift. Anyone who finds me with this gold will think I have stolen it. And sadly, in a few years, this child will end up as a criminal too.‟ The second man said, „Do not give me this ointment. Keep it for the child. One day he will be wearing chains like these.‟ The third man said, „I am lost. I have no faith at all. In the country of my mind there is no God. Let the child keep the incense. He will lose his faith in his Father too.‟

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“While Mary and Joseph covered their faces the three men addressed the child. „Little one, you are not from the land of gold and frankincense. You belong to the country of want and disease. You belong to our world. Let us share our things with you.‟ The first man took off his ragged shirt. „Take these rags. One day you will need them when they tear the garments off your back and you will walk naked.‟ The second man said, „When I remove these chains I will put them at your side. One day you will wear them – and then you will really know the pain of humanity.‟ The third man said, „I give you my depression, my loss of faith in God and in everything. I can carry it all no longer. Carry my grief and loss with your own.‟ “The three men then walked back out into the night. But the darkness was different. Something had happened in the stable. Their blind pain was diminishing. There had been a kind of epiphany. They were noticing the stars now.” As we celebrate Christmas once more all we need to ask is what can we bring to Jesus? And even more, what can he give back to us?

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