Childlike Vulnerability

How many of us have day-dreamed about being great? Imagined that at the end of our lives- or preferably during it- someone might say “that Fiona Jenkinson, she was great”. Greatness means different things to different people I guess, so what might that mean to you?

It might be lifting the FA cup as the captain of your beloved football team, taking the chequered flag at Silverstone and being crowned F1 world champion, could be winning an Olympic gold medal or a Nobel prize in your chosen field. It might mean being Prime Minister or Archbishop of Canterbury. It could be heading up a charity that’s able to support a huge number of people in need. 

This kind of greatness is all to do with achievement and it’s usually something you can see reflected through other people’s eyes, that external validation boosts our own ego and helps us to confirm to ourselves, yes I am pretty great. 

It’s probably the case that as Christians we believe greatness to be something very different from these achievement based factors, that it might be something closer to the teaching in the reading from James this morning, that to be truly great we might possess the wisdom of God, first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 

This makes me curious as to how the disciples were defining greatness in our gospel reading, and what led them to be having that discussion is the first place.

We find them with Jesus on the road, on a long and lonely journey. Jesus thinks this might be the right time to try and explain to them something that’s going to be really hard for them to hear- they’re soon going to be leaderless. He tries to explain to them that he’s going to die, that it has to happen, and that most importantly he’ll rise again. 

Sadly they’re not ready to hear it, they don’t understand and are scared by what Jesus is telling them, but rather than ask questions or ask for more explanation they stick their heads in the sand and fall into the kind of petty squabble we’ve seen them have before- who’s the best.

Maybe something of what Jesus has said has sunk in, maybe their banter about which of them is greatest is in part due to the fact that one of them will soon need to step into the leadership role that opens up when Jesus is arrested and killed.

I’m sure Jesus could hear what was going on behind him because when they reach Capernaum he gathers them together and asks “right lads, what was all that chat on the road about”. They fall silent, he’s talked to them about this kind of thing before and they probably know he’s got a few opinions to share.

He tells them what we’ve heard him say before- if you want to be lead, first you have to serve and serve everyone- be last of all and servant of all. Then he takes a child and tells them if you welcome a child like this you welcome him, and even more than that you welcome God.

Jesus completely flips the idea of greatness on it’s head and places the most vulnerable in society into the conversation.

But to truly understand this teaching I think it’s important to have an understanding of what children meant in this society because Jesus isn’t necessarily talking about welcoming the innocent and sinless, or children as we understand them now. The idea of children as angelic and innocent started in around the 18th century. Children weren’t revered as a symbol of innocence as they are now. 

When we’re talking about children in 1st century Palestine we’re talking about someone with no place and little value to the wider system. Infant mortality is estimated to have been around 30%, and although it’s difficult to know it’s thought that a further 30% died by the age of 9. If a child lived long enough to be useful the boys would be replacing the workforce and the girls married off to make more children to keep the cycle going.

Now we know children were loved by their families, of course they were, we see this in the story of Jairus’ daughter, but to society it was a different matter. How many children had Jairus and his wife already lost before the age of 9? Was that why their daughter was so precious? Yet with limited birth control how many families were welcoming children that were unwanted and seen as a burden until they were old enough to work or be married- if they lived that long.

There was no sentimentality about childhood. It was scary and it was messy. By telling the disciples the most important act of leadership is service, and the most important act of service is to welcome a child, Jesus is telling them that greatness is to be hospitable to a worthless, financially unviable human who has a high chance of dying on them. In short to serve those who can offer them nothing in return and might actually end up costing them something, financially and emotionally.

Now the easiest place to see ourselves in this gospel story is in the disciples, the community of Jesus followers trying to figure out how to serve, live and lead with Christ’s teachings, but something struck me after our church planning day last Saturday when Huw remined us of our need to be open with each other in our broken stories and vulnerabilities.

What if we’re the child? Hiding our broken stories and vulnerabilities is something we learn as we grow, we see the world’s response to them and the need to have an outward show of being OK, when we’re far from OK. What if our call as a community, our way to engender the gentleness born from the wisdom from above as James puts it, is to present ourselves childlike before each other, without those acquired ways of hiding our true selves. 

To be here, fully ourselves, vulnerable in whatever way we’re vulnerable, but knowing 100% that we’ll be fully loved, fully accepted and served by each other? Not scared of the cost of that service to our sisters and brothers? If we’re to serve the most vulnerable as if we’re serving Jesus himself surely it’s also part of our Christian calling when we’re the one who’s most vulnerable, to let our community care for us as if were letting Jesus himself care for us?

What if someone thought we were great because we were able to open ourselves up to them, present our truly authentic and vulnerable self, and by doing so gave them permission to do the same? And how might a community look who joined together without masks, without affectation, to be a place of welcome and service? Pure, peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy. 

I feel this is the community we’re evolving into and from our planning day, having been apprehensive about the path ahead, I’m now excited about what might be possible and about what we can do as a people called to serve the world round them.

Based on James 3.13-4.3,7-8a 

And Mark 9.30-37

Me or We?

Today is the feast day of St James the Great, and we heard a little bit about him in our readings this morning. We heard about his death from St Paul, and in our gospel reading we had a little snapshot of one incident that may tell us a little of who he was, or at least who he was before Jesus’ death and resurrection.

So what do we know about him? Despite his and his brother’s aspirations to be at Jesus’ side in God’s kingdom, James the Great’s name probably came from his height, the other James probably being a bit shorter. He was the brother of Gospel writer John and with John, Simon Peter and Andrew, was one of the first to be called by Jesus. He was a fisherman but a man of means, his dad, Zebedee, employing several other men.

He's witness to key gospel events such as the Transfiguration and the healing of Jairus’ daughter. He also calls for hellfire to be called down upon a Samaritan town, only to be rebuked by Jesus and along with his brother gets the nickname the “sons of thunder”.

He is of course the patron saint of Spain and, according to legend, his remains are held in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia. When the 25th July falls on a Sunday like this year it’s considered to be a particularly holy year in the Spanish, Catholic tradition.

And this rather fiery sounding character actually inspires the most popular Christian pilgrimage of the modern age, the Camino de Santiago, having attracted over 300,000 travellers over the years. The popularity of this act of pilgrimage, discovery and faith is an interesting parallel to the character we see in todays gospel reading; maybe his own pilgrimage began here as he reflected upon Jesus’ response to his mother’s request, not fully understanding it until he had journeyed with Jesus through his death and resurrection and then met his own death as a follower of Christ.

“What do you want” Jesus asks as the family approach him. And this is our question too. What do we want from Jesus? From life? From our church? What motivates us? What matters most to us?

What do we think James and John really want from him? Greatness? Power? Security? Status? This story appears in the gospels of Matthew, Luke and Mark, but only in Matthew is their mum included. Matthew is big on detail, so I’m thinking the detail of her being there matters. Her sons have walked away from a profitable family business to join a religious sect. Even if she herself is a “believer” she’s also looking out for her boys. She wants to know they’re going to be ok, to have the status she believes is fitting.

But the message of God’s equality hasn’t quite sunk in yet and Jesus responds “you do not know what you are asking”. 

He tries to explain what power looks like to God, that whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; he tells them that ultimately his own pathway will lead to his death and that to truly follow him they must understand that this may be, and for James will be, their fate too.

It doesn’t feel very hopeful does it? it actually feels really sad. Most of these young men do die for their beliefs, with only John that I can think of reaching old age, his fate to recall all that happened and perfect his beautiful and poetic gospel and other writings, but without these men and without his brother.

So what’s the message that we should take from this gospel? That if we truly believe, our fate is to suffer like Jesus? I don’t believe that at all. The message I want to share is about where our motivations come from? Are we “me” centred or “we centred”?

That’s a little bit trite I know but when the Zebedee family come to Jesus their only concern is for their own fate and status, they want to know they’re going to be looked after. Jesus tries to explain that in God’s kingdom no one is first or last because everyone is first and last. That’s true equality. 

We have to think about where we fit in the bigger picture, that we’re each part of something bigger- our church, our town, our city, our country, our world. 

There’s nothing that’s just about us. And following Jesus isn’t going to bring power and status and glory- I would question any form of Christianity that looks like that.

Because I think that to follow Christ means we have to expect nothing but hope for everything. Now what I mean by this is that we can’t expect our lives not to be touched by illness or tragedy, financial problems, stress or difficulty. If we’re truly equal with our fellow humans we have to expect that bad things happen to everyone, regardless of our faith or belief. 

But we can “hope for everything”, by which I don’t mean to hope for greatness, wealth or status but to hope to see the world we believe is possible, to hope to see the world God knows can exist if we each take ourselves out of the centre of things and work towards a world where we put others at the centre, a “we” world not a “me” world.

Now to strive for equality doesn’t mean treating all people equally and it’s taken me a long time to figure this one out. If we think about the words of the Magnificat, Mary states that to achieve equality the rich must be brought down and the poor raised up, this way we meet in the middle.

Stepping out of the centre and looking in gives us a better viewpoint to see where our service is most needed. Who’re the people who need to be lifted up, and who needs to be brought back down- who has placed themselves so far above the ones they’re meant to serve that they’ve completely lost perspective and are only serving themselves? Part of our communal life is to hold them to account.

When we share our eucharist, even as oddly and at times metaphorically as we’ve shared it over the last 18 months, we’re saying to Jesus “I can drink your cup”, I can choose to try to live a communal life, a life of service, a life where I do my best to lift up those who need it and hold to account those who are only serving themselves. 

But there’s a reason why we don’t just have communion once, unlike our baptism it’s not a once only deal, we need to ask ourselves time and time again: can I still do this? Do I still want this? Can I still drink from this cup? We need the cup to be refilled so we can keep drinking from it, we need to be sustained, reaffirmed and reminded. Even Jesus asked if the cup could be taken from him, and if it’s ok for Jesus to ask then it’s OK for us too.

And sometimes we’re the ones who need serving and to be lifted up, at other times we need to brought back down and remined that we’re all servants. Joining together in communion with each other, repeating this act, helps us to refocus and be ready to say “yes, I can still do this” as we continue on our own personal pilgrimages, but are very much a part of something much bigger than just ourselves.

God of the Desperate

I was recently involved in delivering a teaching session for the current ALM module, which is about prayer and spirituality. The session I was asked to be part of was about prayer for wholeness and healing, which I’m very passionate about.

For me the whole ministry around wholeness and healing is a very practical one, it centres around loving people through adversity and empowering them to find peace and make their relationship with God and creation more whole. If physical healing also happens that’s a bonus.

We all know how rare and random healing miracles are, they appear to have very little to do with the strength of someone’s faith or how many people are praying for them, but the question inevitably came up in the teaching session- why aren’t miracles happening now?

In the version of the great commission as told in Mark’s gospel Jesus tells the disciples they’ll preach, baptise, cast out demons and heal. My response to this is usually that as we understand the concept of demons very differently to 1^st century Palestine, has our understanding of healing also changed? And yet we’re presented today with 2 very clear examples of physical healing miracles.

Due to the indiscriminate nature of healing miracles, both in the bible and our own lives, I always think they must tell us more about God than they do the individual. But that’s not to say the details don’t matter.

The most important question we should ask ourselves when reading the bible is “why did someone choose to write this down?” Why is it important? What are they trying to tell me? Why these details? And there are some really interesting details in this seemingly familiar but incredibly complex reading.

If we take the healing of Jairus’ daughter it’s interesting that we’re given the father’s name, his status is important. We’re told 3 times that he’s the leader of the Synagogue. As someone of such importance and high standing he’s risking everything by asking for Jesus’ help. We know the leaders of the synagogue were in direct opposition to Jesus, they were seeking his downfall and eventually conspired to bring it about. But none of that matters when your 12 year old child is dying, loyalties and logic go out of the window. Jairus’ love for his daughter was stronger than his pride or politics. He’s willing to try anything to save her, he’s desperate.

As Jesus heads out to heal this 12 year old child he encounter’s the unnamed woman who’s been haemorrhaging for 12 years, it can’t be a coincidence that she’s been suffering for the same time Jairus’ daughter has been alive. This detail fascinates me. It’s a really interesting time span as 12 years as a lifespan is nothing, for anyone to die aged just 12 is horrific. In the context of the family in our reading this girl would have been considered to be on the cusp of adulthood, nearing the transition from a child with all the hope and expectation that brings. But 12 years of life is nothing.

But 12 years suffering a debilitating illness? 12 years bleeding, being ritually unclean, excluded socially, excluded from your faith, spending every bit of money in the hope of a cure yet finding yourself even worse and completely cut off from everyone and everything which you value? In this case 12 years must feel like forever. Those of you who have a chronic illness I’m sure will understand her frustration and desperation. This woman is willing to try anything, she, like Jairus, is desperate.

And here is what I think links these 2 situations more than anything. We interpret these stories as ones of great faith, Jesus declares it, so we don’t examine it further. Yes, these people do have faith that Jesus’ will heal them…but in both cases it’s as a last resort. They’ve literally tried everything else, there’s nowhere else they can go. They turn to Jesus in utter desperation, with nothing else to lose- because the woman has lost everything already and because for Jairus he’d rather put himself in the woman’s position- be cast out socially and from his faith community, than lose his daughter.

This is where we see what these miracles tell us about God, the God of love, the God of the outcasts and marginalised, the God who heals those who are desperate, unloved and have nothing, the God who takes us in when we’ve risked or given up everything.

Jesus restores for Jairus the most important thing in his life, and gives back to the woman the life she’d lost, and even though in the narrative she’s unnamed he calls her “daughter”. God loves us, even the least of us, as much as Jairus loves his daughter, will go to any length to save us, and names us amongst God’s children. There’s something which I find incredibly affirming about these miracles, something which tells me so much about God.

The child who Jairus is prepared to give up everything for is a girl. This isn’t his son who’ll continue the family name and maybe stand alongside him at the temple, his motivation for risking his reputation and standing is purely motivated by love. I’m certain Jesus sees this.

Our unnamed and unknown women being healed and then called “daughter” by Jesus tells me that just like the disciples we revere and have sainted this woman is a beloved child of God. She matters to God. Both these people matter to and are loved by God even if they don’t matter to their society. It’s a reminder than God sees us and knows us and loves us even when nobody else does. We all matter to God, no matter other people’s opinions of us, or our opinion of ourselves. And we’re all capable of accessing a healing that yes, may not bring us a physical health but can bring us a spiritual one.

Through God we can see our own worth, and see how we’re seen by God, loved by God and how we matter to God. We can be healed of the things which stop us from loving ourselves and prevent us from being at peace with ourselves, the kind of peace which whilst it can’t protect us from illness or grief or even death, can enable us with the skills to better deal with the difficulties that we encounter, to better relate to God’s creation and ultimately to better see or own place and worth within it.

This sermon is based upon Mark 5:21-end

That's the Point

If, like me you’re someone who potentially spends more time on social media than is probably good for you, you might be aware of a bit of a Twitter Storm over the Easter Weekend. 

Professor Alice Roberts, an anthropologist and President of Humanists UK, and someone who I have a lot of time and respect for, caused a bit of upset by tweeting on Good Friday, “Just a little reminder today. Dead people don’t come back to life”. This understandably caused a bit of a backlash, writing it as she did on one of our most holy days. 

Now the 280 characters which Twitter allows doesn’t give much scope for nuanced argument but the general gist, from both believers and non-believers, was it was a bit mean-spirited to put a statement out there that was clearly only meant to disrupt on Good Friday, and that a militant atheist is as unpleasant a thing to encounter as a militant Christian- a belief that I share, because absolute certainty is something I find utterly scary, whichever side of an argument the certainty is on.

We have some magnificent, stirring hymns don’t we? I wish we could sing them I'm church at the moment! “Blessed assurance! Jesus is mine”, “no more we doubt thee! Glorious Prince of life” and in the moment when we’re belting out those words we believe it completely. But when I encounter a fellow Christian who spouts such rhetoric and certainty outside of our singing I feel quite uncomfortable, because I don't quite trust it.

It may be they believe utterly in what they’re saying, in which case they're perhaps being a bit dishonest with themselves because faith and doubt aren’t opposites, they’re siblings. They live side by side and one informs the other, they’re forever entwined within us and to deny one is deny a part of ourselves- whether we’re denying the possibility we might have doubts or denying the possibility that the world contains a spark of divinity.

This is why I like the fact that St Thomas, forever labelled as the doubter, has such a prominent place in our little church. 

Some of our historians will know the background of the who commissioned the windows here at St Michael’s but I’d be interested in hearing if we know the reasons behind some of the less obvious choices of who they depict. The illustrations of episodes from Jesus’ life make sense, and probably the St George window too, but then we have saints Oswald and Aidan, the Celtic saints, hidden behind the organ loft.

And then, in the central focus of the building, above the altar and alongside our patron saint and our Lord we have St Thomas. 

Why does he have such a place of prominence? Did those who commissioned him share my belief that faith and doubt must live together, is it sending a message that even before our own time St Michael’s has been a safe space to have questions and doubts?

There’s a reason why this was the community that brought me back to my childhood faith. If I’d walked into this community and been met with a series of certainties and immovable facts, such as the rejection of the science I believe is all part of God’s creation, or a condemnation of the LGBT people in my life who are all beautiful spirit-filled children of God, well I would have turned on my heel and been right out of that door again, but this community is what I long for in every faith community-  a place that respects ideas, encourages debate and allows questions  and indeed doubt.

The only certainty I was met with here was the certainty of God’s love, but not necessarily an explanation of what that ultimately means or any boast of having the key or knowledge to accessing anything those on the outside of the community couldn’t.

I find the centrality of Thomas reassuring and a comfort. It’s a sign of the values that have underpinned this community for generations.

But what of Thomas himself? We know so little of him; we know he’s a twin, it’s Thomas who says to Jesus “we don’t know where you’re going” leading to one of the passages most commonly read at funerals. It’s Thomas who travels with Jesus on learning Lazarus has died and in tradition it’s Thomas who took Christianity to India and we have a strong Marthoma community here in Manchester, part of those South Indian traditions.

But in the passage we hear today John is using Thomas in a very deliberate way. His declaration of “my lord and my god”, his testimony to the living, breathing, bodily Jesus, is absolutely to do with his witness and declaration of faith; “these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.”

The encounter with Thomas is incredibly visceral, his declaration is sparked by physical contact, the proof that this is the same Jesus who died on the cross, not a representation but the same body with the same wounds. 

At Christmas the emphasis is on the incarnation and bodily presence of God amongst us, but we sometimes forget this is central to the whole of Jesus’ life and never more so than in the Easter and Resurrection narrative. 

John’s is definitely the gospel to remind us of this and should be a reminder of our embodied faith, and should shred the long-held belief that our bodies and their functions are shameful in any way; God created our bodies and chose to be incarnate, chose a body just like yours. John’s is the gospel of body and blood; where the Holy Spirit is physically breathed into the apostles.

This passage shows us the body tortured and killed on a cross is the same body Thomas touches and who he then realises is both man and God. That’s why this is special, that’s why this matters. 

To return to Professor Robert’s controversial tweet- Dead people don’t come back to life. That’s the point. That’s the marvellous, miraculous, central point of the entire story. This doesn’t happen, except here, and in all our faith and our doubt we choose to believe in the miracle. We choose to have faith.

Some days there may be more doubt wrapped up in that faith than others, but we still choose to come back to our faith, because there’s just something, something about this story, something about this man that’s leads us too to declare “my Lord and my God”

So yes, we will have doubts, yes we will have questions, but it doesn’t take away from our faith. It holds our faith to account, it helps it grow and change and evolve. It ensures we that like creation itself we never stand still or stagnate but keep growing and maturing, it helps our faith to become bigger and our relationship with God to become more whole.

Epiphany of Love

I think it was Johnny Lee who sang “Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places” I’m a little bit young to remember that song but it sort of describes where the Magi are at in the beginning of our Gospel story. Not that they that know they’re looking for love! They have an idea of what or who they’re seeking but by the end of their tale what they’ve sought and what they’ve found are not entirely the same.

In Huw’s sermon a few weeks ago he talked about how through this very strange and unsettling year we’ve had, many people have either been searching for something- whether it be meaning, purpose or hope in the wrong places, or that when we have found something which has meant something to us or given us joy or hope amid the hopelessness it’s been something and somewhere unexpected. 

Our Magi are searching for a king, an important king; they know there’s going to be something very special about this king, worth them embarking on what would have been a very long and not very easy journey. Scholars have tried to pinpoint over the years where these men may have journeyed from and the best guess is part of the Persian empire, estimating a 400-700 mile journey.

This would not have been an easy or safe trip so they must have placed a great deal of importance on what they were doing. And they did the really obvious thing, after losing sight of the star which had led them to Israel they headed to the capital city of Jerusalem, headed to the palace and asked the guy in charge if he knew where the new king was being born!

This was a pretty foolish error on the part of our travellers, they couldn’t have had an understanding of the political situation, that news of a powerful leader being born would cause a man like Herod to take cruel and divisive action. The actions of the Magi, looking in the wrong place, directly leads to the massacre of innocent children.

But they knew a powerful king was being born and so they go to where they think the seat of power is- in the palace. 

The news that the Messiah was going to be born should have delighted the people of Jerusalem and the priests but they, like Herod, are greatly disturbed. They know their leader has power because he’s in the pocket of their Roman occupiers and is ruthless enough to hang onto this power by any means. Herod is so feared that the news of the birth of the leader predicted to liberate the Jewish people is not recognised. 

In defence of the Magi, when the star which has led them disappears they mustn’t have felt they had any other option. They haven’t come all that way to fail and by going to the palace they have access to Herod’s advisers and can pinpoint a town where the king is to be born. When they leave Jerusalem their guiding star reappears and they’re able to fulfil their objective of finding what they had come so for to seek…or had they?

Because what they thought they were going to find and what awaited them as I’ve already said were not entirely the same. 

They come looking for the one who would be the king of the Jews, the prophesised Messiah, long predicted to be a great military leader to liberate the Jewish people with military power. To empower the nation to take control back as the Jewish people had done generations earlier when they’d marched into this land and took occupation from those that lived there before them. 

But that’s not the leader Jesus was destined to be. I wonder what the Magi thought when on arriving in this unremarkable town the star led them to the outhouse used for the animals? When they discovered the king’s parents to be so…ordinary, when measured against the human makers of power and greatness? 

Whatever and whoever they expected to find at the end of their journey what awaited them was both ordinary and extraordinary.

They found a family, ordinary by appearances. They found God’s love made physical and embodied in a human child and in the love he generated in his parents. 

They had thought, as did the people of Jerusalem, that power resided in the palace with Herod, but God’s statement by choosing to have his son born to these people in these circumstances is to declare that the greatest power lies in the lives of the most seemingly ordinary people.

Throughout this last, most extraordinary, twelve months we’ve seen the power of ordinary individuals. As governments and those in authority in many countries have struggled in their response to the global pandemic we’ve seen how the actions of single people can effect so many. 

We’ve realised the measures a single person can make in their daily lives to help contain the virus and seen reports of how a lack of personal responsibility has had dire consequences for many.

We’ve also seen the people who have gone above and beyond in their personal actions to make things better for others, we know of the heroes of the pandemic such as Sir Tom Moore, and those with high profiles such as Joe Wicks and Marcus Rashford but then there’s the likes of my friend Camilla, supposed to be traveling the world at the start of 2020 but she returned to her home-town in Italy when their hospitals were at their fullest to work nursing patients with covid.

There’s the NHS staff who’ve returned from retirement or other careers to support the frontline, shop workers ensuring our essential and non-essential needs are met, teachers negotiating moving from in person to online teaching and back again. And then there’s the teams of individuals the world over who’ve poured all their time and resources into developing vaccines to ensure we eventually return to the lives we love and miss.

So many unnamed and unknown to us, have individually and collectively been extraordinary. As we’ve looked to those we believe hold the power to control and help our current situation it’s people like ourselves, our neighbours and members of our communities who’ve had the power to help, uplift and inspire us; through love, through duty, through a sense and needing to do what was right or just trying to do their jobs in whatever way they could. 

Regarding Epiphany I read this week that only in darkness can we see the stars, and in our recent darkness many stars have revealed themselves.

The message of Epiphany is that of the revealing of Christ to the Gentiles, the realisation that kingship means something very different to God than to humankind and that a tiny child can hold all the power in the world. This is the great revelation; the greatest power on earth is love and God is the source of that love.

In every act of love God is revealed over and over again and my greatest source of hope through all this has been the constant revelation of people’s goodness and kindness, as goalposts have moved and the hope of the things I usually have to look forward to have diminished, my own epiphany is that my hope doesn’t live in a wish to return to our lives as they were, although I dearly do wish for it; my hope, as it always should be, is in the continual revealing of God in the goodness of the ordinary and in the simplicity of love.

Matthew 2.1-12

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written:

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

for out of you will come a ruler

who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

Chaplaincy Nativity and Carol Service

I'm, sure many of us are missing out on a traditional nativity and carol service this year so we'd like to welcome everyone to our Chaplaincy carol service which you can enjoy from your desk! This will unashamedly mirror the sort of family crib service Andrew and myself might have in our parishes, or maybe the Nativity plays your children or grandchildren have taken part in.

We're going to sing some much loved Christmas carols and hear what happened all those years ago on that first Christmas. We begin with O Little Town of Bethlehem

Let's set the scene for how our story begins.

Luke 2:1-5: In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to register. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child.

So the journey has begun, a perfect opportunity to sing Little Donkey.

Our little donkey has taken Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem and Mary is very close to giving birth. Let's see what happens next in the story.

Luke 2:6-7 :While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 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.

Now Jesus has been born, not as you’d expect a king to be born in a palace or castle but in the place where the animals sleep. To reflect on that we sing Away in a Manger.

Let's hear about some other unexpected characters who join in the story of that first Christmas.

Luke 2:8-16: In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them: ‘Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!’ When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another: ‘Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.’ So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.

As the shepherds have come to worship Jesus we’ll sing our next carol, See Him Lying on a Bed of Straw

Now anyone familiar with the Christmas story knows there are some more guests yet to arrive in Bethlehem. 

Matthew 2:1-2 and Matthew 2:10-12: In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking: ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’ When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Of course we now need a carol about the wise men, it has to be We Three Kings

And so that was the first Christmas. Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem, where Jesus was born and visited by some unlikely guests. But it’s not the end of the story, not by a long way, in fact it's just the beginning. Jesus is going to do amazing things, and Christians believe he still does amazing things in our lives and through our lives. To prepare for some prayer time we sing Silent Night.

Let us pray

Jesus Christ, born in a stable,

Be with the poor and homeless this Christmas time.

As we pray, live and give;

shine your everlasting light.

 

Jesus Christ, born of Mary,

Be with young mothers across the world this Christmas time.

As we pray, live and give;

shine your everlasting light.

 

Jesus Christ, visited by Shepherds,

Be with all who have to work this Christmas, and those who long to work.

As we pray, live and give;

shine your everlasting light.

 

Jesus Christ,

who became a refugee,

Be with those who fear for their lives, and those who have left homes and families this Christmas.

As we pray, live and give;

shine your everlasting light.

Amen.

 

This is the story of our first Christmas. We wish you all a joyful, peaceful Christmas filled with love. As we go back to our work we go with joy in our hearts, singing Joy to the World.

Go in peace,

We go in peace

Go in joy

We go in joy

Go in love

We go in love

Amen.

The Four Stages of Love

Based upon Matthew 22:34-46

I’m sure that Jesus’ reply to the rather sneaky line of questioning in today’s gospel is familiar to many of us as it’s something we hear repeated at the beginning of most communion services throughout the year. He begins with the Shema, the command from Deuteronomy 6, also repeated daily in Jewish morning and evening prayer:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind

But Jesus adds to this from Leviticus 19:

You shall love your neighbour as yourself

I think we could agree that Jesus does nothing by accident and therefore it’s the relationship between the two verses he uses that’s the important thing. If we stripped our entire faith down to it’s barest of bones what Jesus says here is the core of our belief.

Putting these two commands together, not having just one or the other, matters. If we just have the Shema we run the risk of our journey with God becoming about an isolated relationship between the two of us, just us and God. If our faith develops in that bubble we can become oblivious to everything and everyone outside of it. 

God exists within the relationship of the Trinity, giving us a clear example for our own lives. And so Jesus adds a third party to our relationship with God. Our Faith journey is not just us and God, it’s us, God and neighbour. 

Whilst doing some background reading for today’s sermon I came across the writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. He was a monk writing in the early 12th century and examined what it means to love God with our entire being, and love or neighbour as ourself, in what he called The Four Degrees of Love. I’m going to share some of his thoughts with you in the hope that he can help us pick this apart a little bit.

The first degree of love is the love of self for self’s sake, putting our-self first because it benefits us. This is where most of us start out. We have our own needs and wants and this is what we’re mainly interested in taking care of. It’s in our human nature, but if left unchecked we can go too far, we can hurt others by the pursuit of our own desires and happiness. Our love of neighbour should hopefully keep our love of ourself in check.

The second degree is the love of God for self’s sake, loving God because we may benefit from it. We may be in the middle of  a crisis and turn to God, we may be asking the big existential questions about creation and existence or we may have come from a background where we think if we don’t love God we’ll be punished, or that loving God will put us in the holy good books and God will treat us more favourably than others.

This is the kind of faith which tends to crumble when we meet real adversity and perceive that our prayers haven’t been answered. We’re a good person, a good Christian- why has this happened to us? When we’re able to open our hearts to the suffering of others, suffering outside of our own immediate situation, knowing lots of bad things happen to lots of good people, we begin to move past this.

The third degree is loving God for God’s sake. This is when we keep loving God, even when bad things happen and our own needs aren’t being met because when we continually do our best to love God, and keep loving God, we learn to know God’s goodness and as or relationship develops we love because we sense we are loved. We care for others because we come to the realisation that Jesus cares for us.

This is a mature faith, where most of us probably find ourselves.

Bernard describes one final degree of love: love of self for God’s sake. This is much more difficult to understand because so few of us experience it. It’s a moment of transcendence, rare and fleeting, when we will be of one mind with God, and our wills in one accord with God. The prayer, “Thy will be done,” will be our prayer and our delight.

This is the perfect love of God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength. I think some people spend their entire lives trying to find this, it’s like a glimpse of heaven. Unity and oneness with God. We see ourselves and others as God sees them.

Bernard writings remind us of the centrality of love in all things- those which come from God and those of our own making. He writes “Love is the fountain of life, and the soul which does not drink from it cannot be called alive.” In Jesus’ answer to a man trying to catch him out he places love at the centre of everything- our entire faith. 

Here and now, we continue to experience varying degrees of isolation, particularly with an increase in the restrictions we face but our experiences this year have helped us examine how we live alongside each other and what our communal responsibilities are. So many of the choices we have to make are driven by a love of neighbour as we choose ways of being and living that may inconvenience us in the hope that we’re doing the right things for the community as a whole.

Even when living in a more isolated way than we ever have, we can find new ways to love our neighbour and through this love to see our own place in a much bigger picture. As we, as Jesus instructs us, strive to love God perfectly, by loving each other better, we may be moving a little closer to a taste of that perfect oneness with God that Bernard tells us is achievable by each of us, if only even for a moment.

Amen.