These days, television shows which use hidden cameras are commonplace. Back in the day, there was Candid Camera. Members of the public were put in bizarre situations and their reactions secretly filmed. And hilarity ensued.

My favourite stunt is from the American version of the show. Children were interviewed and asked a hypothetical question. Imagine you could meet a legendary sportsman, like the boxer, Muhammad Ali. What would you say to him and what would you do? Muhammad Ali probably still is the most famous sportsman of the modern era. What would it be like to meet such an iconic figure, a legendary almost mythical character? What would it be like to meet Muhammad Ali, face-to-face?

The children have a variety of responses; questions they would ask, things they would say if they could meet the legend. Of course, while they are answering the hypothetical question, Muhammad Ali himself, in person, walks into the room, behind the child. While they are still talking, Ali taps them on the shoulder. They turn their heads and find themselves looking up into the face of the legendary, mythical figure. At that point they stop talking. Their mouth falls open and they are silent, for a moment at least. What had been a hypothetical question about a mythical figure is now a face-to-face encounter with a person who has entered the room.

And that’s what the Christmas story is about. The figure of myth and speculation has entered the room. We can speculate about God – whether God exists, what God might be like – but the Christmas story says that God has walked into the room and is not a concept to be debated, but a person to be encountered.

It’s time to stop talking about God. It’s time to meet God. We find ourselves looking into the face of God in – of all places – a manger, an animal’s feed trough. The last place on earth you’d go looking for God!

The trouble is, the God of our imagination doesn’t look like this: that most helpless of creatures, a new-born human baby. A weak, vulnerable child that needs a mother’s milk to survive; a baby that needs to be changed and cleaned by human parents. And don’t give me any of that ‘Away in a Manger’ nonsense about the little Lord Jesus, “no crying he makes! Of course he cried, when he was hungry, cold, uncomfortable or dirty. Like any one of us.

(The adult Jesus wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus and over the city of Jerusalem because it didn’t know the way to find peace. It seems highly unlikely that he didn’t cry as baby!)

‘Once In Royal David’s City’ gets closer to the truth:

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall;

He was little, weak and helpless.
Tears and smiles like us he knew.
And he feeleth for our sadness
And he shareth in our gladness.

The bible says, that’s what God is like: little, weak and helpless. The child in the manger, because there was “no room at the inn”, discovers there’s no room in the world. The earthly life that begins in a wooden manger, will end on a wooden cross. Mary’s child will be nailed to a plank and publicly exposed to humiliation. A baby in a manger or a man nailed to a cross is hardly in a position of power! But then, this man shows what real power looks like when he wraps himself in a towel and washes the feet of his disciples. Jesus shows us a God who chooses the role of a servant, not a boss.

Not the God you want? Other gods are available! The gods of power, wealth, fame, comfort, religion… But I’m sticking with this one! The one who, as ‘Emmanuel’ – God with us – offers to share our lives with us.

Of course, one day we will have to give an account to God of what we did with the life he gave us. That’s a terrifying prospect! But the bible says we can face it with confidence because of what that child in the manger has done for us: he has broken the barrier between us and God through his death on the cross. At the Lord’s Table we are invited to take bread and wine in remembrance of him; the God who makes himself known as the babe in the manger, the foot-washing servant, the man on the cross and in the everyday ordinariness of bread and wine.

Happy Christmas!

The Blessed Virgin Mary, a picture of serenity in stained glass window or pious painted scene on a religious Christmas card. In your blue cloak, and in quiet contemplation, you wait devoutly for the Angel to bring you his news.

But I wonder… I wonder if it was like that. Centuries of art, religious tradition and the occasional nativity play, have got between you and us. Even your name, Mary – you sound so British! (As Alf Garnett argues in a famous Christmas episode of ‘Till Death Us Do Part’.) Or possibly Irish. ‘Mary’. If we think of you as a Miriam, which is what the gospels call you, we get a little closer to the Jewish peasant girl. You were just a teenager, really, betrothed to Joseph – and him older than yourself, probably – when the news came. An unplanned teenage pregnancy! You were not the first to find yourself in that difficult position; and not the last either. Fortunately, your Joseph is a decent chap and a quick word from an Angel of the Lord puts him in the picture too.

In the children’s nativity play, Baby Jesus arrives in the arms of an angel with tinsel wings, and is plonked unceremoniously into the makeshift crib. I wonder if his birth was as easy as that. I have a feeling that it wasn’t… No NHS delivery suite for you. No birthing pool. No ‘gas and air’. Not even the comfort and familiarity of your own home. Just you and that old man of yours, and now you’re a family: the baby, wrapped in bands of cloth and placed in a manger. “Because there was no room at the inn”. I don’t think for a moment that that’s what you’d imagined for your firstborn. In the nativity play, you sit on a piano stool and cheerfully welcome your strange visitors – shepherds in dressing gowns and tea-towel headdresses, and wise men with their turbans, cloaks and weird ideas about what makes a suitable gift for a baby. The words of the shepherds, we are told, you treasured and pondered (Luke 2:18). Well, you’ll need something to sustain you: old Simeon will tell you, when he meets your little one, that being his mother will break your heart: ‘a sword will pierce your soul’.

Oh, Miriam! Who could have known what lay in store when you said those words to the Angel,

‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ (Luke 1:38)

Sermon preached at St Matthew’s, Stretton

At Parish Communion 10:30AM Sunday 7 December 2014

Introduction

If you heard me preach last Sunday, I can only apologise. You will have been on the receiving end of my traditional Advent rant, the launch of the Vicar’s annual campaign for the preservation of Advent. It was like an episode of ‘Grumpy Old Vicars’©. If you heard me preach last Sunday evening, an extra apology. My sermon was on my iPad and my iPad started to misbehave, randomly swapping pages, then changing documents, then apps. You’re lucky the sermon didn’t degenerate into a series of Facebook updates or Angry Birds scores.

I’ve decided to give in. A bit. I knew I was on to losing wicket when I realised that here, the Christmas trees are lit even before Advent begins, and that I am the vicar of a church that does not even have a purple Advent altar frontal.

But instead of ranting about it, hear this:

Isaiah 40:1-11

God’s People Are Comforted

Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.

The middle section of the book of Isaiah, which begins with these words, is from the period when God’s people were in exile in Babylon. The prophets saw that as a consequence of God’s punishment for their sins, for failing to be the people of God. Now they hear the words of comfort and promise:

A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’

These words are like those that go before a king: make ready! The king needs a smooth, straight path on which to travel.

Mark’s Gospel picks up the prophetic word

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way;

the voice of one crying out in the wilderness:
“Prepare the way of the Lord,
make his paths straight” ‘,

Mark introduces us to John, whose job it is to introduce us to Jesus, of whom he says, “I’m not worthy to untie his sandals”, to be his slave. And the job that Jesus does is to introduce us to God.

John stands in the tradition of the prophets, a wild character, an outsider. He looks the part, dressed in camel hair, eating locusts and wild honey. Severe, austere, uncompromising – and those are just his good points! And with a dress sense and diet that befits your otherworldliness. He’d be a great candidate for a reality show makeover. And he speaks in the wilderness, where so many key moments and stories from the bible happen – in the desert. He preaches repentance and offers baptism as a sign of starting again with God. He asks, are you ready?

Conclusion

Are you ready for what? Mark starts his book with these words:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The beginning…

Like John (John 1:1), Mark takes us back to the beginning, to Genesis (“In the beginning…”, Genesis 1:1). Here is a new beginning that bears comparison with the beginning of all things. That’s how significant this is!

The Gospel

It is the beginning of the Gospel – good news. In the days before 24 hour news, the internet and texting, a messenger arrives, but it is good news or bad? Have you won the battle or lost it? It’s good news! It’s gospel! Mark tells us that his story is gospel, good news. And he has invented a new literary genre: no one had written a gospel before! But how else to tell this story?

Jesus

It’s the story of Jesus – Yeshua (like Joshua). His name means ‘God (Yahweh) is my salvation’. He is ‘God to the rescue!’

Christ

Jesus is the Christ, the one anointed to be God’s king –

The Son of God

And Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the one in whom we meet with God, in whom our relationship with God is restored.

Are you ready? Not for Christmas, but for Jesus, for the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God?

In the half-term break, Rose and I visited London and were able to see the poppies at the Tower of London.

“Up to 4m people are expected to have visited before 12 November, when there will be 888,246 ceramic poppies – one for each British and Commonwealth death during WW1.

Entitled Blood Swept Lands And Seas Of Red, the installation is the work of ceramic artist Paul Cummins, from Derbyshire.”

There have been critics too. One of whom suggested that:

“A meaningful mass memorial to this horror would not be dignified or pretty. It would be gory, vile and terrible to see. The moat of the Tower should be filled with barbed wire and bones.”

When we were there, some visitors were taking cheesy selfies with the poppies behind, which suggests that not everyone was looking at the same thing that we were. But the fact that 4m people will have been to see the poppies suggests that it resonates with many.

The point of course, is that it helps you to visualize what 888,246 looks like. Each one of those ceramic poppies represents a life that did not fulfil its potential. Someone once said, “A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic”. The poppies remind us that each death in war is a tragedy. The Quakers have produced a map to show how big the installation would have to be to have one poppy for each of the 19.5M deaths resulting from the First World War.

Each one of those who died was someone’s son, someone’s husband, someone’s brother. They were members of families. They had friends and neighbours. They were part of their community. Each death is a loss for a whole network of people.

For many years in my ordained ministry, I have spoken about the difficulty for us of ‘remembering’ events that happened before we were born. Then in December 2009, shortly before Christmas, while I was Rector of Halewood, my phone went. It was an army chaplain giving me the news that Corporal Simon Hornby, from 2nd Battalion The Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, had been killed in Afghanistan, by a roadside bomb while on foot patrol. Although I didn’t know him, he had been brought up in my parish; he had been to school in Halewood. His family lived in the parish. And so I got to meet his parents, Joe and Julie, his wife, Holly, and other members of the family. Each year, on Remembrance Sunday the Hornby family attend church at St Nicholas’ in Halewood and lay a wreath in memory of Simon. In the years I’ve done christenings for the family; christenings at which uncle Simon should probably have been a godparent. Meeting Simon’s family and friends have helped me to understand what each death in war means.

As Christians we are invited to remember. Jesus, talking about his death, takes bread and wine. He says, “This is my body; this is my blood. Do this in remembrance of me”. 200 years later, Christians take bread and wine to remember him; to remember his death and consider what it means.

Jesus said:

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

Luke 15

I never did get into the US TV series, ‘Lost’. I saw the pilot episode, which was one of those American shows that has a bigger budget than the entire British film industry since the War. It’s the story of the survivors of a plane crash who find themselves on an apparently deserted island. Perhaps it was popular because we all know that feeling of being lost. My earliest childhood memory is of getting lost in town and being brought home in a police car (my one and only time!). I suspect my parents were more traumatised by the event than I was. I came home with a packet of Smarties, most of which I had dribbled down the front of my clothes.

Luke 15 could be entitled ‘Lost’. We hear the stories of a lost sheep, a lost cost and a lost son. In each case, that which was lost is restored to its rightful place. The sheep gets lost because it wanders off. (You know what sheep are like.) The coin is lost through no fault of its own. It simply finds itself lost. And the son, having told his father ‘I wish you were dead’, runs off to a distant country in the hope of a better life, free from parental restrictions.

Look at the context in which Jesus tells these stories:

Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ (Luke 15:1,2)

It’s one of the things we know about Jesus. He’s not fussy about his friends. He doesn’t choose them in order to better his social standing. Quite the opposite: Jesus makes friends with those that society would happily lose – the ‘sinners; people who are not ‘us’, the respectable, the religious.

So, if you had a hundred sheep and lost just one, you would leave the 99 safely in the fold and search high and low until the one missing sheep is found. You don’t say, “I’ve got 99, that’ll do”. They are your sheep. Finding the missing sheep is an occasion for celebration. You say to your friends and neighbours, “It’s party time!” Jesus says, That’s what God is like. Happy with the 99% who are safe. But never really happy until the last one is safely home.

If you had ten silver coins and lost just one, the same thing: search high and low and, when the missing coin is found, it’s party time.

And the same with the son, even though it was through his own choice that he got lost. And that’s why Jesus eats with sinners. Sinners matter to God just as much as the righteous, the respectable and the religious:

For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.
Luke 19:10

November!

November

November – hardly anybody’s favourite month. Even those of us who have birthdays! It’s often a bleak month, although this year it has begun with some mild autumnal weather. There are newspaper headlines promising

“Coldest winter in 100 years on way”.

The clocks have gone back and it was dark before you set out in the evening. The school half-term holiday is over so we don’t have that to look forward to and the Christmas festivities are a long way away.

Poem by Thomas Hood (1799-1845)

November

No sun – no moon!
No morn – no noon –
No dawn – no dusk – no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member –
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! –
November!

Many of us are ‘under the weather’. For some, the darker, colder days bring on illness – Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). For sufferers, this is not just feeling down but a real debilitating illness. They dread November!

The events we commemorate at this time of year have a dark side to them: at Halloween children are given licence to trick or treat. In some parts of Liverpool ‘Mischief Night’ has young people out on the streets engaging in acts of vandalism and sometimes violence. Bonfire Night marks the execution of a conspirator, Guy Fawkes, who had been involved in the ‘9/11’ of his day. The religious nature of that conspiracy has largely been forgotten, thank goodness!

And Remembrance Sunday, this year marking the 100^th anniversary of the start of the Great War, the one that was supposed to end all wars, the one we call the First World War. The thousands who have been to see the poppies at the Tower of London show the power of those events in our collective memory. The television news reminds us daily that war is not something left in our primitive past but very much part of the lives of many in the world we share.

In the Church calendar this weekend sees us marking the feast of All Saints – the heroes of the Christian faith, many of them lived through dark days are were called to be martyrs for their faith. And then All Souls, the commemoration of the faithful departed, when our minds turn to those we love but see no longer.

Bereavement

For those who have lost loved ones, perhaps every month is a November. Bereavement can feel like a kind of winter – a land where it is always winter and never Christmas. We feel cut off from the warmth and light that our loved ones brought to us. The Bill Withers song is about the end of a relationship, rather than a bereavement, but it says something:

Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone. It’s not warm when she’s away.

But one thing we know from the calendar is that November has 30 days. It doesn’t last for ever (even if it feels like it!). December, January, February – each will take their turn. And, eventually, although it may seem an eternity away, Spring arrives. (The Times used to carry a correspondence about when the first cuckoo was heard.)

The natural world has its seasons – winter means that Spring is on its way. Bereavement too has its seasons. The initial pain and shock don’t last forever. We never forget those we love, but healing comes with time. They say that time is healer. I’m not sure about that. But I believe that healing takes time; that time allows healing to take place.

Seasons

The Church’s year has its seasons. We are approaching Advent – a solemn time of preparation for the coming King. In Advent we are invited to be serious about life. Which is why vicars spend so much of November and December fighting off Christmas. We live in a world of instant gratification. We want it to be Christmas now. But the Church wants us to go through Advent first! Why? So that the Christmas celebrations make more sense. Why did God send His Son to be born for us, to die for us and to rise for us? Because we live in a dark world. In November we think about that so that on Christmas Night we know what it means to say that

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. (John 1:5)

We will hear those words in church on Christmas Night – if you are able to join us. In the middle of the night, around the darkest time of the year, when the says are short. Not a minute too soon! The light of Christ shines in the darkness!

The Church year celebrates the seasons of the Gospel. On Good Friday, we go to the foot of the Cross to spend time with our dying Saviour. But on Easter Day we rejoice in his resurrection. In the northern hemisphere, at least, resurrection is celebrated with the new life of Spring, which is why our Easter cards have daffodils on them.

Jesus said that a grain of wheat had to die in the cold earth in order to produce new life.

Today – All Souls Day – as we commemorate the faithful departed, we thank God for those we love but see no longer. Those we remember may or may not have been ‘saints’, but they were loved. We also reflect on our own lives. How would we like to be remembered? We too will one day have to give an answer to God for the lives we have lived. But just as winter is followed by Spring, we are assured that God’s judgement is flooded with mercy; and that death is the gateway to resurrection.

It’s Friday. But Sunday’s Coming!

Tony Campolo tells the story of an old black preacher who was talking about the Crucifixion. He said, It’s Friday. But Sunday is coming! Good Friday gives way to Easter Sunday. Darkness gives way to light. Death gives way to life. It’s November but Spring is coming! It’s Friday but Sunday’s coming.

In this life, we know pain and struggles. All of us do. But we are promised something better. The bible calls it ‘eternal life’. Not just when we die: there are tastes of it in this life. The communion service points towards the heavenly banquet. Being loved points towards the infinite love of God.

It’s Friday. But Sunday’s coming!