Ten

Noah turned 10 today. Happy birthday, son!

What a blessing you are to our family.

Created : Formed

A sermon on Isaiah 43:1-7 and Luke 3:15-17, 21, 22

To be human is to tell stories. And why do we tell stories? Not as momentary escapes from our lives, but in order to teach us how to live.

At the moment, there are three big films showing in cinemas:

Lincoln is based on the historical person of Abraham Lincoln;

Les Miserables is a fictional tale set against an historical backdrop, revolutionary France;

The Hobbit (part 1: An Unexpected Journey) is pure fiction, drawing on northern European mythology;

three different kinds of story, but with common threads.

Lincoln deals with the final four months of Abraham Lincoln’s life, before he was assassinated. It focuses on his efforts to secure the passing of the thirteenth amendment, abolishing slavery, before the Civil War comes to an end. This was by no means guaranteed, as others believed that priority must be given to ending the war, whereas Lincoln believed that unless the issue of slavery was settled first, all could be lost. In many ways, the work of those final months was what Lincoln’s whole life up to that point had been preparing him for.

Les Mis follows the misadventures of Jean Valjean, and others, caught up in the struggle between law and grace, injustice and freedom, violence and peace. It is often described as a story of redemption, painted on a huge canvas, in novel, musical and now cinematic form.

The Hobbit tells of the adventures of the unlikely hero Bilbo Baggins, a home-loving hobbit drawn into a classic quest by his friend Gandalf, overcoming dangers and disagreements, and eventually returning home...to discover that neither home nor hero are quite as they were before. It is worth remembering that Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, and its sequel The Lord of the Rings, in the build-up to, course of, and aftermath of the Second World War, when ordinary men and women needed to go on just such a journey.

We tell stories, and the stories tell us the same thing over and over: life is made up of two main parts, each with their own concerns and tasks.

The first part of life is concerned with creating a structure that will enable us to live life. This is where we are equipped by education, where some are gifted inherited security, where we form friendships and alliances, where some marry and create a new family.

The second part of life – which may be far shorter – is concerned with actually living the life we were, uniquely, made for: that no one else can live in our place.

The dilemma is this: we need a strong structure in order to face the later challenges, but the more comfortable it is, the less likely we are to step out into the unknown. That is why we must be forced – as Abraham Lincoln was by the impending end of the Civil War – or even tricked – as Bilbo is tricked by Gandalf; as Jean Valjean is tricked by the Bishop of Digne – into such a journey of discovery.

To be honest, whether oppressed by poverty and war or wealth and comfort, the concerns of the first part of life are as much as most people engage with. In our society, the mid-life crisis, which is meant to be an invitation to step out of the first half of life into the second, is seen as an opportunity to go back and re-do the first half, to re-invent ourselves instead of discover our true identity.

John the Baptist spoke about one who would separate the wheat from the chaff, storing the wheat in barns and burning the chaff in fire. We are mistaken to believe that this is a separating out of bad from good. Chaff surrounds the grain, and protects it, but has no nutritional benefit. The chaff must be removed – by the difficult process of winnowing. Then the grain is revealed. The chaff is burnt. The grain, of course, will be crushed and kneaded into dough and also put on the fire, to be turned into bread. This is not a story about judgement, but about the process by which our hidden identity is first revealed and then transformed into something else.

I love this passage, the first seven verses of Isaiah 43. Listen to how they begin: the Lord created you, O Jacob, and formed you, O Israel. Listen how they end: in sons and daughters, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. First created; then formed. First created as Jacob; then formed into Israel. This is a process of redemption. It is a difficult and dangerous process, but one through which God promises to be with us and save us: because of his love for us, we are invited not to be afraid.

Jacob was Abraham’s grandson, one of the twin sons of Isaac and Rebekah. You can read his story in Genesis 25-50. He wrestled with his brother Esau in the womb. When Rebekah asked God why, he told her “Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you will be separated; one people will be stronger than the other, and the older will serve the younger.” Esau was born first, with Jacob grasping his heel: and so he was called ‘he grasps the heel’ or ‘he deceives’...and he lives up to his name, first cheating Esau out of his birthright, then deceiving his father Isaac in order to receive the blessing that should have been Esau’s, before running for his life. On his journey, God meets him in a dream, and reveals to Jacob his determined purpose, to be with him and bring him back home and bless all peoples through his descendents.

But Jacob is alone, not yet ready to move into the second-half of life. He goes to his uncle Laban, and each tries to get the upper hand over the other by deceit, until Jacob must run away again. By now he has a large family, by four women, sons who will become the fathers of tribes. Jacob runs, with angry Laban behind him and Esau – last seen very angry – in front of him.

God comes to him again by night, and this time they wrestle, all night long. Wrestle, as Jacob has done his whole life, until, unable to overpower him, God...cheats, dislocating Jacob’s hip. And as the dawn breaks, Jacob is given a new name by God: Israel, the one who struggles with God; the one who wrestles and will not let go until God blesses him. He will still be known as Jacob – indeed, he is taken up into the name by which God reveals himself, as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob – but he now limps into fruitfulness, out of the life he had known and into the long and difficult process by which God brought together all the division Jacob had created, starting with reconciliation with Esau, ending with his sons reconciled before Joseph’s Egyptian throne...

God takes what he has created – Jacob – and forms his creation – into Israel – through waters and fire, through winnowing, gathering, burning; the process of redemption, not discarding and starting over again but taking what is, and transforming it into what waits hidden within: to reveal our true identity, and fulfil our true purpose.

Jesus enters into the water of the river Jordan. He knows that he must leave the security of his home, his family, his trade, and step out on a journey that will lead to his death. He will return from death: the same, and yet not the same: having fulfilled the purpose for which he was given to live among us. But the journey lies ahead of him, exactly what will transpire unknown. To begin, he needs to hear the voice of God:
“I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you...when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned...you are precious and honoured in my sight, and...I love you...Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring you children from the east...the west...the north...the south...everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

That includes you, and me. Created and formed. You see, being created is only half of the story. We need to be formed. It is a perilous process, one which many of us will avoid at all costs. That is not what God wants for you. Do not be afraid.

We are in the season of Epiphany, of learning to see signs of God being at work in the world, involved in our lives. What is the epiphany for you, today?

Perhaps, in the place of force or trickery, it is the revelation that you need to stop resisting and step out from the familiar into the unknown, trusting your steps to the one who loves you and calls you by name?

Perhaps, facing waters or fire, in the disorientation of winnowing and burning, it is the revelation that God is with you, that you are precious to him?

Without epiphanies, our lives remain a mystery to us: comfort a velvet prison cell, disruption unintelligible. Our lives may never be portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis, but we have been cast in the greatest story ever told...

C + M + B + 2013

January 6 is the Feast of the Epiphany, the day on which we remember the Magi who journeyed to find the infant Jesus – Matthew’s account suggests that he would have been around two years old by the time they arrived; hence a little distance from the shepherds who visited Jesus when he was hours old. If the shepherds represent Jesus’ own people, and also the marginalised, the presence of the Magi broadens the significance of the incarnation, to include the gentiles and also those with privilege: first the Jews, but then all; first the marginalised, but then all.

The Gospel account tells us very little about the Magi. We don’t know their names, where they came from, how many there were; we know they brought three kinds of gift – gold, incense, myrrh – but we don’t know in what volume. Their cameo has intrigued people’s imaginations for centuries, has become a gift-box in which to carry our own gifts to Jesus, and down the years many stories have been told, building into traditional or familiar doors through which we might enter-into the story ourselves.

Within European tradition, the Magi became three figures (working backward from three gifts), and were given the names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. No-one believes that these were their actual names; but then very often ‘famous’ people are ascribed nick-names and stories by others looking back – consider the myth of Honest Abe that grew from Abraham Lincoln – and there are also hints that God holds a name for us – our real name – in heaven.

Within European tradition, on the Feast of Epiphany Christians write C + M + B + the year (in this case, 2013), in chalk, on the door of their home. This code has a double-meaning. It stands for Caspar and Melchior and Balthasar, but also for Christus mansionem benedicat, or May Christ bless this home (the ‘+’ also doubles for ‘plus’ and for the cross). And until the chalk fades or is washed off, it is a daily reminder to seek and to dwell in and to share the blessings of Christ: his peace, his joy, his love, his provision, his companionship, his comfort, his generosity, his hospitality...

Seeing Epiphany

A new leg is about to be run, the evening of 5 January being the hand-over box between Christmas and Epiphany. I have written about Epiphany – short poems, longer reflections – in past years, with a link on the sidebar to the right or via ‘Worship’ on the page menu along the top of this blog.

An epiphany can be described as a moment of revelation, of what was unclear coming into sharp(er) focus. I suggest that the reason we need an epiphany of God with us is not because God is so distant, but because God is closer to us than we are to ourselves.

When I kiss my wife, my children, my parents, my friends, there is a moment when they become too close to see. A kiss is an act of trust – and when we have a crisis of trust, those who mean to kiss bump noses instead. (That is why betrayal by a kiss is so charged.) When we kiss in greeting, we may close our eyes momentarily, as a reflex action, because the image is out of focus. When we kiss more intimately, we may close our eyes intentionally because we are abandoning ourselves to trust, and that trust is pleasurable. But after the kiss, we step back, and then we can study our friend or beloved, look into their eyes and acknowledge them as precious gift.

God is so close as to be hidden from us, even as we are, for the most part, hidden from ourselves. Where is God in our joy? Where is God in our grief? Where is God in the mundane routines of our lives?

In a previous Epiphany, I observed that in the Bible, those who have an epiphany of God are either searching (the Magi, Simeon, Anna, all in stories associated with Epiphany) or are running away (Jacob, Moses, Jonah; perhaps Paul on the road to Damascus is searching and running away at the same time). Where is God in our hiding from God, in our running from God, in our habitual attempts to assert independence from God which are called sin?

The Season of Epiphany is an annual invitation to step back and so allow God to come into focus, to learn how to see God – and then to step forward again, in trust.

The classic image of Epiphany is of the Magi following the bright star (possibly an alignment of planets), trying to interpret its significance. It is perhaps a mistake to believe that they travelled (only) by night, but they would have used darkness to navigate their route. And their attempts – which are honoured by God – have unintended consequences of darkness for people they had never met.

The particular darkness in our hearts conceals/contains a particular revelation of God, and monastic tradition advises that we do not seek to be rid of our besetting sins until we have first learnt from them. Or, indeed, perhaps those sins against us we are called to forgive, and can let go of fully only once we have experienced an epiphany of God in those places.

Jacob is a sleight-of-hand deceiver, which is to long after certainty. And God is in that very place, meeting him first in two places at once (how can he appear to be at both the top and the bottom of the ladder simultaneously?) and later as a slippery, cheating wrestler, so that, having experienced his epiphany Jacob is set free to trust and to be trusting – to the extent that even when Jacob is himself deceived, God’s faithfulness is made manifest.

Moses is tormented by the need to be significant. He has gone from being a tall tree to being a thorn bush, desert scrub, condemned by the gods to be endlessly burnt but never consumed, in punishment for killing one of their slaves. And God is there, so that having experienced his epiphany Moses is set free to be a man known as the friend of God – not striven for, just free to allow God to come into focus.

Jonah is swallowed-up by purity, acutely aware that he is surrounded by impure people. And God is in that place, so that when he has experienced his epiphany Jonah is set free from anally-retentive obsession into a dirty dedication to God that embraces a Jew in the mess of the belly of a big fish – seaweed and vomit – and Gentiles in the mess of sackcloth and ashes.

Like Cain before him, Paul’s murderous anger betrays his fear of being rejected by God. And God is in that very place, so that having experienced an epiphany of Christ, Paul is set free into a radical inclusivity: Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, all are welcomed by God.

As we step from 2012 into 2013, with the cultural pressure to detoxify, we also step from Christmas into Epiphany. I wonder what epiphany awaits us, not to purge but to transform, not to make us more acceptable to God but to enable us to see the One who has already met us – in Christmas – with a kiss...?

The Next Instalment

Here is the next instalment in what I am writing – this paper on discipling prophets.  (I think there will now be a much longer gap until the next paper in the series.)

One of the things that is hinted at throughout, but which I don’t explicitly state (and perhaps need to in a revision) is this reason why we need prophetic intelligence:

We live in a society where certain voices – both for and against religious faith – are insisting that only the literal form of ‘truth’ (and, in fact, only a particular kind of literal: what is measurable) is ‘real’ truth, or at least it is the highest form of truth. This ought to be patently nonsense to anyone who has ever read a novel or been moved by music – but sadly is not – and what is most ridiculous of all about it is that it renders everything produced by humanity prior to the Modern Era as untrue.  What is literally true is true, of course: but it is the lowest and most empty form of truth, not the pinnacle. This is why we need the storyteller, the songwriter, the artist, to help us to explore the significance of the life we have learnt to measure but failed to interpret, to the extent that we can create for ourselves anything we want but fail to share with our brothers and sisters...

Writing Projects

One of the things I attempted to do in 2012 was to write a book manuscript, on vocation: the calling on each one of us to be someone in particular and to do something in particular; to receive ourselves as gift from Jesus and to offer ourselves back as gift to him and for the world.

This was a fascinating learning experience. I learned that I have allies, who believe that I have something to say that is worth saying – indeed, I embarked on the project not out of some need to do so, but because I was encouraged to do so by others whose opinion I value. I learned that people in the publishing world might take me seriously. And I rediscovered just how short and wide my attention span is, flitting from one thing to another. That I am not likely to write a full-length manuscript (at least without a sabbatical from any other commitments); and that a series of papers might in fact be a better way of saying the things that I want to say, creating a little reference library, each volume being a conversation-starter in its own right.

And so as the year comes to a close, I have put out the first and second in a series of papers online (with a permanent link from the sidebar of this blog).

The first paper is perhaps the bones and internal organs, as yet lacking the flesh we recognise as familiar; or the foundations and core structure, the visible building yet to be entered: things that are essential, but will remain hidden to most.

My intention over 2013 is to produce several much shorter papers, filled with stories that illustrate what different kinds of apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers look like – to help us to see ourselves, in the nuance of our calling; to receive ourselves as gift from Jesus and to offer ourselves back as gift to him and for the world. The second paper looks at apostles.

The Boy Jesus At The Temple

Luke 2:41-52

May the word of Christ dwell in us richly as we enter-into the story of his childhood. It is a story of growing in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and with human beings (v 52), who are also human becomings, in that we grow into ourselves. And at first glance, it may appear that Jesus’ parents do not appear in a good light, but we need to look again. This story reveals to us that God made a very good decision when he chose to give away his only begotten son to these particular parents. And, following God’s example, choosing to give away those we love is the only way in which they – and we – will grow to maturity, from the total dependency of babies to the mutual dependency of adults.

The first thing that Jesus’ parents give him away to is the story of their people, their enacted tradition, and in particular the enacted story of the Passover. This is the story of a God who comes to set his people free. And freedom from external oppression is only the beginning. At Mount Sinai, God invites his people into a conversation about being truly free – and they are terrified; for the thought of freedom is terrifying.

The conversation begins with the Ten Words: God comes as a friend – as he was known in Eden – in the hope that the people might experience freedom from anything or one who would set themselves over them to oppress them; might live in freedom even from their own conceptions of God, which are always inadequate, and, though necessary, when we hold them too tightly become idols; might live in freedom from invoking God to ensnare others; might live in freedom from the tyranny of endless work; might live in the freedom of belonging to others: might live in freedom from setting ourselves over others in judgement or envy or possession or greed or accusation or ingratitude.

This is the story Jesus’ parents had given him away to. It necessarily comes to us first as law, as rules, because children need a framework: need to know security in a big world. That is why it is tragic when parents say, “I’m not going to bring my child up within a particular tradition; they can decide for themselves when they are older.”: without a framework to give us security, a framework to kick against in time, we are overwhelmed by freedom and end up, ironically, enslaved. But these words are an invitation to listen to God as a friend, and so the truly free person is not enslaved by rules. This freedom is what the Pharisees were so afraid of, protecting the words with other rules; upset that Jesus’ disciples did the work of plucking and ‘milling’ grain on a Sabbath, while Jesus knew that the Sabbath word is given as an invitation to freedom, not another form of slavery.

The other thing Jesus’ parents gave him away to was wider company, relatives and friends. That is why they were, at first, and for a whole day, unaware that he was not with them. Part of being a parent is coming to several points where you have to share this precious gift you have been given: with their choice of friends, you may or may not approve of; perhaps with their choice of a life-partner you may or may not approve of...Even before that, part of being a parent is recognising that we have been given this gift for the very purpose of giving it away, by degrees, in order to become themselves; of recognising that, after the pattern of the Trinity, family love was never meant to be self-contained: and that, in part, is why one of the first things we do for our children is choose godparents, a first step – along with relatives – into wider community.

This being given away to others is a necessary part of becoming ourselves, of growing into maturity: and the fear we have over that in our own society is one of the most tragic consequences of our having forgotten how to receive other peoples’ children: that out of right concern that no child should be abused in certain ways, all children are abused in another. The church needs to be a wider community that models trust and enables freedom.

Jesus, having been raised in this way – given away – has come to a moment when he can give himself away: can stay behind in his Father’s house, without his parents, relatives and friends.

Now we come into the present story. Jesus’ parents have travelled away from Jerusalem a day’s journey. As their company sets up camp for the night, they discover that Jesus is not among them – has not been among them: everyone has assumed that he was with someone else. And so they head back to Jerusalem. Most likely, they are travelling along the road between Jerusalem and Jericho: the steep road they have gone down by day in company, they now climb up alone in darkness: a long and difficult journey. Who knows what hour of the night they reached Jerusalem; perhaps the city gates were locked and they could not enter; perhaps they camped at the foot of the Mount of Olives, where within a few years so many Passover pilgrims would camp; perhaps even in the Garden of Gethsemane, a camp-site that had become habitual to Jesus by his adulthood.

Perhaps, as they made their way, their thoughts returned to a decade earlier when, with their toddler, they had fled along the Negev road to Egypt by night: to a time when they had had to give themselves and their son away, into the hands of God, into the hands of strangers, to be kept safe. After three days of searching, they will be – increasingly – anxious. But perhaps the night holds them in creative tension, between chaos and trust: that night we always find ourselves in when we give someone we love away, when we give ourselves away, not knowing what will become of us, but knowing the One who holds us (in the words of the Doctor, “I never know how, I only know who.” Dr Who Christmas Special 2012).

The night stretches out over three days. We might recall the three days Jonah spent inside the big fish. We will recall – as Mary might, with much later hindsight – the three days between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Three days symbolise God at work in the hidden place, forming something new that transforms chaos, that will turn our lament into joy, that will turn loss into gain, defeat into victory, death into life. And as this is going on around Jesus, he is in the eye of the storm.

Mary says, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” The irony is that they have prepared Jesus for this very moment, by faithfully giving him away; and when he gives himself away, they are at a loss. In our culture, that does not honour father and mother, it would be easy to dismiss them: to point out that Joseph is not Jesus’ father, whatever rights he might believe he is entitled to. But that would be to misunderstand the story, to misunderstand God. In this record, we see family honoured: Jesus is their son, son of Mary, son of David’s line; and they have searched for him patiently and carefully for far more years than the days they have searched for him anxiously. And now he is revealed, a little more, to them: but still not yet fully – the process will continue.

Then Jesus returns to Nazareth with them, and was obedient to them. Obedience in Scripture does not mean what it means today, doing what you are told by someone over you. It means to listen attentively. To listen, and ask questions; to enter into conversation: just as Jesus had done in the temple; just as God had invited his people to do at Mount Sinai...to continue to grow into freedom, learning the spirit of the law, and when to break the letter of the law in order to live as God hopes for his friend.

What, then, is the word of Christ to you through this Gospel – good news! – story; the word you are invited to let dwell within you richly (Colossians 3:16), to make his home more fully in your life?

With Jesus’ parents, is the good news to you an affirmation that you have done a better job of giving someone you love away than you have realised; that God does not regret his choosing you for that task? Or perhaps the good news to you is that word that calms our anxious fear: love, the love of our heavenly Father for the one you have given away into his care.

With Jesus, the good news to you may be an invitation to respond to the freedom God created you to live in, more fully than you have done up till now – regardless of how young or old you are, how much or little freedom you already know.

Whatever the word, it is Jesus’ intention that you, like him, should grow in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and with other people. So welcome his word to you, and, like his mother, treasure it within your heart.

Christmas Greetings

John's Prologue

These words, concerning the Word, are among the most celebrated words ever written. They create a frame – a manger, if you will – in which to place the One who is both fully God and fully human; and just like the manger in which Luke tells us Jesus was laid, they are at one and the same time unworthy yet chosen and dignified by God-with-us. As we gaze on the manger, may we see the face of Christ.

These words are deep, pointing to a mystery beyond our understanding. Nevertheless, they speak to us with words of invitation and of challenge – invitation to us when we believe that all this is beyond our knowing, and challenge to us when we believe we are already in the know.

What does it mean to be a witness to the light (v 8)?

How might we (fail to) recognise (v 10) and receive (v 11) this light?

What does it look like, for the Word to have become flesh and made his dwelling among us (v 14)?

Let me offer these suggestions, as a start:

The-Word-become-flesh-and-dwelling-among-us looks like local churches coming alongside couples preparing to start out on the challenging adventure of marriage, or families adjusting to the addition of another member, or grieving the death of one of their own...

It looks like local churches running food banks for those who have been hit hardest by the recession; or youth clubs in areas where there are no other safe places where teenagers can gather together; or any of the other activities that make up the thousands of hours of voluntary service given by church members every week.

The-Word-become-flesh-and-dwelling-among-us also looks like this: the asylum-seeker, the sex worker, the elderly person who has lost control of their bladder and their memory, the disaffected youth, the Big Issue seller, the hurting and the hopeful, the person who rarely if ever comes into a church at a service of public worship because they don’t know what is expected or don’t feel worthy or capable of contributing to all that goes on. Jesus said that whenever we serve such people, we are – quite unaware – serving him, encountering him in our neighbourhood. Perhaps if we are only aware of the respectable people in our neighbourhood, or the people who do not make us feel uncomfortable, then we haven’t seen Jesus for some time...

You see, the-Word-become-flesh-and-dwelling-among-us is both incomprehensibly mysterious and earthily ordinary; bigger than our imagination can conceive, and so small we miss it, right under our nose, again and again.

And so, this Holy Night, what is it that God’s Spirit is whispering to your spirit?

Will you see me?

Will you welcome me?

Will you see me, and welcome me, in you?

Will you live in such a way that others get the opportunity to see me and to welcome me, too? Will you be a manger for the Christ child?

Such a whisper may bring us to our knees, in conviction of our failings, in wonder that God loves us so very greatly. And that, as John understood when he came to write down his account of Jesus, is the place of the beginning.

Happy Christmas! May you know both joy and peace, both grace and truth, both now and in the days ahead.

Advent 2012 : Day 23

My Heart Is Now Become An Ark


In the past

God gave instruction to his people

to build an ark

out of acacia wood

covered with purest gold inside and out

and overshadowed by

gold cherubim.

Within the ark were placed those

treasured mementos

of God’s presence,

and so it served as promise

that in all the days ahead

God would meet with his people

at the ark.

My heart is now become an ark

of a renewed covenant.


Exodus 25:10-22

Exodus 37:1-9

Luke 2:8-20

Outline Nativity

Here is an outline I made for an all-age Nativity, which we used this morning. It is built around Luke 2:1-20. People had been invited to come dressed as their favourite character from the Christmas story. No line-learning is required; nor is it dependent on who turns up.

Welcome, introduction/explanation: everyone will be involved.

We sang a carol

Luke 2:1, 3
Has anyone come as Caesar Augustus? He was the first Emperor, the adopted son of Julius Caesar. When JC was stabbed in the back, Augustus took revenge on his killers, and proclaimed himself Emperor. He proclaimed his dead dad a god, and himself to be a living god, who had brought peace to the world. Caesar Augustus is the centre of his own universe; and though it is unlikely that anyone will have come dressed as him, there is a bit of him in every one of us. This, then, is an appropriate lead into confession. We use a form of confession, and absolution, from Common Worship.

Luke 2:4
Joseph is returning home for ‘Christmas’ – so anyone who has returned home for Christmas, as well as anyone come dressed as Joseph, gets to be Joseph. He was returning home not just to visit his relatives, but because he had no choice. Sometimes we have to return home for happy reasons – such as a significant birthday or anniversary – or sad reasons – such as a funeral. Life is full of highs and lows, and hopes and fears, to be held before God. Calling to mind a high point from 2012, we held our hands up high and thanked God for those things we wished to celebrate. Calling to mind a low point from 2012, we held our hands as low as we could reach, and thanked God that he never leaves us on our own, but is with us to comfort and strengthen us. Turning to 2013, we called to mind a hope, holding our arms out wide, and thanking God for giving us hope; then called to mind a fear, holding our hands close together, and asked God to fill our hearts with his love that drives out fear.

Luke 2:5
Mary is visiting the in-laws – so anyone who is visiting (or has visited) their in-laws for Christmas gets to be Mary, along with anyone who has come dressed in the part. At this point, we light the fourth candle on our Advent wreath, and pray together using resources from Times and Seasons.

We sang a carol

Luke 2:6-16
Here are several more characters: Joseph’s relatives (those hosting Christmas), the shepherds (those whose plans have ever been disrupted at Christmas), and the angels. With each new set of characters, the number of children and adults at the front grows. At this point I handed out 16 key words/phrases taken from the Bible reading, and made observations on ways in which Christmas is for people who identify with any of these categories. The words I chose were:

census; Bethlehem; first baby; not enough room; night-shift; glory; afraid; good news; great joy; a Saviour; company of angels; praise God; peace; spread the word; amazement; treasured.

We sang a carol

Intercessions: An open time for people to call out the things on their hearts, using the formula, “We pray for...Lord, in your mercy: hear our prayer.” (we all join in the response hear our prayer); followed by joining in the Lord’s Prayer.

Luke 2:17-20
The final characters in the story (for those who haven’t identified with any of the other characters yet) are the neighbours. What do you make of the Christmas story? It is both invitation, to enter-into the Story, and challenge, to tell others.

We sang a carol

Closing prayer and blessing (again, we used resources from Common Worship).

Mary's Song

Mary sings a song (Luke 1:46-55), a song glorifying God, a song that is still declared daily by many Christians around the world. But before we look at her song, we need to understand why she sings. Mary is expecting a child, a son, and this son’s birth will be a sign.

Mary has been told, by a messenger from God, that she will have a son. This son will be called the Son of the Most High, the Son of God. We need to understand what that would have meant to Mary. In time, Jesus’ disciples came to the conclusion that he was the Word of God made flesh. In time, the Church came to articulate their understanding of the Trinity – one God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But Mary did not know that. Mary would not have understood the angel’s words to mean she was giving birth to the Second Person of the Trinity. Mary would have known that the titles Son of the Most High, or Son of God, were attributed – without any suggestion of divinity – to David, king of Israel described as a man after God’s own heart, a man who pursued obedient covenant relationship with God. A man who had unified the tribes of Israel into a nation that enjoyed peace in the land God had given them, for the first time; a man whose descendants parted company, dividing into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah; a man who was distantly related to her husband, Joseph. And her son will restore David’s throne.

What is more, Mary is a virgin; that is, a young woman. Now, listen carefully to what I am going to say. I am not denying the traditional belief that Jesus’ conception was miraculous, but we need to recognise that a virgin being with child is not, in itself, unprecedented. It has a very significant precedent, as a sign. When Judah is threatened by Israel and Damascus, the prophet Isaiah tells king Ahaz that God is giving him a sign (Isaiah 7): a virgin will have a son; before the child is old enough to know good from evil, Israel and Damascus will have been defeated by the Assyrians. So Judah will be spared from Israel and Damascus. However, Judah itself will be besieged by the Assyrians, and this will be a time of judgement unlike any they have previously known. All this came to pass. God was with Judah and miraculously intervened to bring an end to the siege of Jerusalem, but the people did not turn back to him and ultimately fell to the Babylonians instead.

God speaks to Isaiah about other sons, born to other women, as signs of what God is about to do (Isaiah 7, 8, 9). Micah also speaks of a woman who will give birth to a son (Micah 5). None of these prophecies are, in the first instance, about Jesus. But they create a ‘type’ that Jesus’ birth will fit into (which is why most are read around Christmas).

So when a young woman about to be married is told that she will have a son who will restore David’s throne, her question, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” is not one of mechanics (how will I get pregnant?) but of significance: according to the precedent, a virgin with child is a sign that God will judge, not restore. And Gabriel’s reply – which is also about significance, not mechanics (yes, this birth, like several other births in Scripture, is miraculous; but Scripture is never concerned with how God does what he does, it is always concerned with what miracles signify) – is that God’s departed presence will return and cover the faithful with his protection.

Mary’s pregnancy is a sign, that God is about to act in both judgement and deliverance. And that is why Mary rejoices in song: God’s judgement and deliverance are worth rejoicing over, because the world needs both.

God’s coming judgement is worth rejoicing over, because corporately as the human race we sense that things are not right. We see that even in very recent days, not only in tragedies in our news, but also in the widespread expectation of an apocalypse – which we might laugh at, but betrays a significant recognition at least at a subconscious level, that our civilizations deserve to be judged.

God’s coming deliverance is worth rejoicing over, because corporately as the human race we long for something better, something that we recognise – again, perhaps subconsciously, and in the face of the posturing of humanism – we have not been able to achieve ourselves.

There is so much in the world – so much within each one of us – that needs turning on its head: pride scattered, rulers brought down, humility lifted up, hunger fed, greed emptied. And yet not one of us is competent to hold justice and mercy together, to meet our need for both to be done.

That is one reason why Mary’s song is still said or sung each day, at Evening Prayer.

Unless we take on the discipline of Mary’s song, we will fear God’s judgement as applied to our own lives and not embrace it.

Unless we take on the discipline of Mary’s song, we will distort the message of God’s judgement, declaring injustice against the weak to be God’s judgement on the powerful, as some Christians in America have declared the recent school shooting to be God’s judgement.

Unless we take on the discipline of Mary’s song, we will grow to doubt God’s interest in mercy, or distort it into cries for our own vindication.

But if we sing, and allow this song to shape our lives, then in countless little Christmases, Mary’s son will come into his world again, not only as a sign to his people destroyed by Rome in AD 70 and to his first disciples who survived the end of their world in that apocalyptic event, but as a sign to those who would respond in every time and place, until he comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

In the words of an ancient Christian prayer prayed each year on the twenty-third of December:

O Emmanuel, our King and lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Advent 2012 : Day 22

O Emmanuel


When he comes

I shall be completely undone;

undone, undone,

and made complete.

The life that always was

of God’s great plan,

hidden within for now – 

constrained by my weak flesh – 

shall then be birthed

for all to see,

on that great day

on that great day

on that great

and terrible Day.



O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and our lawgiver,

the hope of the nations and their Saviour:

Come and save us, O Lord our God.

Advent 2012 : Day 21

O Rex Gentium


One day, out of the blue

a caravan of travellers came to town,

exotic in their clothes and tongue.

They came in from the west – 

the road of dreams – 

but pitched their tents towards the east,

to indicate they came in peace,

as father Abraham himself had done.

They set up camp, and all the while

the eyes of every Bethlehem child

held every move: our sentinels.

All, except one: my son.

Like any boy his age, he did not lack

boldness of heart, inquiring eye...

but nonetheless,

he looked up from the dust

in which he drew – 

unfolding stories with a sweep – 

and then turned back

to his own occupation. Sure enough,

when they were ready,

they came to him.

They next day, they were gone again,

as suddenly as they had come;

off on their onward journeying,

in search of precious hope

and rising faith

and costly love.



O Rex Gentium

O King of the Nations, and their desire,

the cornerstone making both one:

Come and save the human race,

which you fashioned from clay.

Advent 2012 : Day 20

O Oriens


O you planets, on your sure

Orbits – set at his command – now

rolling into rare alignment;

in unison proclaim the news

entrusted to your care:

now is the time: earth’s

saviour is revealed!


O Oriens

O Morning Star,

splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness:

Come and enlighten those who dwell in darkness

and the shadow of death.

Advent 2012 : Day 19

O Clavis David


Christ is the Key

that opens every door:

that unlocks bound-up heaven

that unlocks bound-up hell;

that overturns our fear with love

our enmity with friendship

our boastful pride with quiet modesty

our riches with emptiness

our emptiness with riches.

Christ is the Key

that opens every door:

that unlocks bound-up earth

that unlocks bound-up heaven;

that overturns our rule with grace

our wounds with healing balm

our brokenness with noble company

our dignity with troubled minds

our troubled minds with dignity.

Christ is the Key.


By the time John comes to write his Gospel, at the end of his long life, he has come to understand that Jesus is the Word of God made flesh. Later still, the Church comes to articulate the Doctrine of the Trinity. I believe that it was the Holy Spirit that led them to these points. But I also believe that it is anachronistic to think that Mary understood Gabriel’s message (Luke 1:26-38), that her son would be known as the Son of the Most High and the Son of God, to mean that she would give birth to the Second Person of the Trinity. This description – without any claim to divinity – was ascribed to king David; and Mary would have understood the angel’s message as God’s intent to restore David’s kingdom.

This raises a problem for Mary: she is a virgin. Her question – How will this be? – ought not to be understood as a question of mechanics (how can I become pregnant? – news that a bride will become a mother is not unusual) but of significance: how can a virgin giving birth to a son signify the restoration of David’s kingdom, when the Scriptural precedent is that a virgin giving birth to a son signifies that the Davidic line of kings is soon to come to an end? (Isaiah 7 – and, indeed, the following several chapters – read far enough, and you’ll come across yesterday’s Root of Jesse. In the immediate, the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed, while the southern kingdom of Judah was besieged but delivered: it was, however, to be the Beginning of the End.) (Here I am not denying the traditional Doctrine of the Virgin Birth, but rather denying the unscriptural belief that it signifies something unique, without precedent.)

Likewise, Gabriel’s response is not concerned with mechanics (how God will do this – Scripture is rarely if ever concerned with how God does things, which is why faith and science are not incompatible but complementary) but with significance: what previously symbolised God giving his people over into the hands of their enemies will be reversed because God’s presence is about to return to his people, and his protective presence will cover them. As in Isaiah’s time, the people are about to be destroyed. Yet in this moment of crisis, God will reverse the fortunes of the people, bringing down false rulers and raising up the humble (as Mary recognises in her song of praise, Luke 1:46-55).

So God is about to do something which will restore a Davidic king on David’s throne. And here is why it is important that we understand Son of God to refer to Son of (his father) David, and not jump straight to Second Person of the Trinity: David is king for many years before he takes up his throne; years spent hidden in a cave, while those broken by Saul’s mad reign are drawn to him and find themselves formed into a community of Mighty men and women. This is the significance, as in Advent we look to Christ’s return, to his taking his throne: that Mary’s son, the hidden king, receives the broken and confers upon them dignity and purpose, still.


O Clavis David

O Key of David and sceptre of the House of Israel;

you open and no one can shut

you shut and no one can open:

Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house,

those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

Advent 2012 : Day 18

O Radix Jesse


When God came into the world,

it was as one entrusted not to kings

or priests or generals

but to a carpenter:

to one who knew not how to rule,

or broker rites, or break resistance,

but one who knew the life of

trees - 

which one to choose,

to trust, for every purpose.

One whose trained eye could tell

what lay beneath outward appearance,

whose skill could fashion habitable space

for saint and sinner, Jew and Gentile.

From the beginning

God had known

this was the call

to which he must apprentice.



The very act of human living involves the repeated discipline of receiving life and letting-go of death, as we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. In God’s breath-taking vision, trees take in carbon dioxide and give out oxygen: an exchange that calls on us to shepherd trees well, and, as long as the mutual interdependence of all creation is honoured, guarantees that we are not consumed.

One of the ancient images of Jesus is the Root of Jesse. As a tree cut back will grow again if its roots remain, so Jesus is the re-growth of David’s family line (Jesse was David’s father; David, king of Israel; and David’s line cut off at the Exile – defeat and a series of exiles and later returns – under the Babylonian empire).

But there is more to the image of Jesus as tree than that: echoes of the Tree of Life, and of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (knowing right from wrong); echoes of the ark in which survival was secured in the days of a Great Flooding of the Cradle of Humanity...and of the ark of the Covenant, symbol and sign of God’s presence with his people; echoes also of the crucifixion, and of the exchange where God takes on himself the sin (the death that exists when we live in disharmony) of humanity, in so doing destroying sin, and extends his own righteousness (the life that exists when we live in harmony) to us.


O Radix Jesse

O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign to the peoples;

before you kings will shut their mouths,

to you the nations will make their prayer:

Come and deliver us, and delay no longer.

Advent 2012 : Day 17

O Adonai


He falls, arms outstretched,

at my feet. His eyes meet mine,

imploring me to lift him up

and hold him in my arms;

my heart is in my mouth, again.


He runs, arms outstretched,

to my side. His eyes meet mine,

imploring me to lift him up

and hold him in my arms;

my heart is in my mouth, again.


He dances, arms outstretched,

before the fire. My eyes meet his,

inviting him to lift me up

and hold me in his arms;

my heart is in my mouth, again.


He hangs, arms outstretched,

from a tree. His eyes meet mine,

imploring me to lift him down

and hold him in my arms;

my heart is in my mouth, again.



Exodus 3



O Adonai

O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel,

who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush

and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm.