Christmas Day Story: Old Tom

There are many animals in the Bible; camels and donkeys and cows and sheep, locusts and frogs and even rock badgers, whatever they are. There are some dogs, too,  though they don’t usually get a good press.

But there’s one animal which doesn’t get a look in at all, not a single mention, and that is the cat. There’s not a single cat in the Bible, not one, unless you count lions. There are no moggies or mousers, although there must have been plenty around.

Madonna del Gatto. Leonardo da Vinci, British Museum

But that didn’t stop people inserting a few here and there as they retold the stories. By the Middle Ages, there were several legends doing the rounds about cats at the birth of Jesus, and I’m going to tell you a story based on those tales.

This is the story of Old Tom.

Old Tom was a scraggy old cat, with matted fur and raggedy ears from fights he’d been in in the course of his long life. Old Tom didn’t belong to anyone – no cat really does, of course – but Old Tom really didn’t have anywhere to call home, any lap that was his to sit on, any fireside to curl up beside. Once he’d had a mother and brothers and sisters, but that was long, long ago, and anyway, just like him, they’d been homeless alley cats. The people of Bethlehem tolerated Old Tom, because he was a good mouser, but they weren’t so keen when he helped himself to the meat pie they’d left out to cool, or the milk they had collected to drink. Old Tom was used to dodging the boots they threw at him, making a sharp exit when he heard shouting. That’s how he knew what his name was, from the things they shouted. “Who’s taken our supper?” “ Oh – it was that old tom again,” he heard them say to each other.

One cold night in the middle of winter, Old Tom had found himself a quiet place to curl up and sleep, in the corner of a barn, on a warm pile of straw. It was dark in his corner, out of sight. No one would notice him here, which was just the way he liked it.

But he’d no sooner settled down, when the door of the barn creaked open, and in came a man and woman, leading a donkey – Mary and Joseph, they called each other, as they made their way in. Old Tom opened one eye, but stayed quiet. The man and woman didn’t see him as they led the donkey into a stall alongside the ox who usually lived there. He was well hidden, and, besides, they had their minds on other things, because, blow me down, if the woman didn’t lie down on the straw, right there and then, and give birth to a baby!  Old Tom had been born in a barn just like this, but he knew that humans generally had their young in more comfortable surroundings, not out here with the animals.

And no sooner had that baby been born – wailing like a kitten, and laid in the animals’ feeding trough – than a whole lot of other people showed up. The first visitors were strange creatures indeed, shining things, with wings like birds – and my, how they could sing! Old Tom liked a sing-song now and then, when the moon was full and the spirit took him – that was usually another moment when boots starting flying through the air towards him – but no one would have wanted to shut these creatures up. Then came the shepherds. Old Tom was more used to them, but what they were doing here, kneeling in front of the manger? Shouldn’t they be out in the fields, watching their sheep?

It was hours before the little family  – and Old Tom – were left in peace, and he could tell that the woman was very tired, and needed her sleep. The man walked up and down with the child, while she lay down on the straw and slept. The ox nodded off, and so did the donkey. In the end, the child slept and the man laid him down in the manger, and stretched himself out wearily to rest. Old Tom relaxed – now at last he might get the sleep he had been looking forward too. Being a canny cat, though, used to the dangers of the world, and always alert for the possibility of a quick meal, he was never quite off guard and so it was he alone who spotted something moving in the straw on the stable floor.  Was it a mouse? or a rat? But no, it seemed too long a thing for that. And it was green, and smooth. Old Tom knew what he was looking at. It was a snake!

Now , Old Tom didn’t like snakes, not one bit. They weren’t good eating, and if they bit you, it was bad news – Old Tom knew that. The humans didn’t like snakes either. He’d heard them talking about a snake who, right at the beginning of everything had whispered poison into the ears of the first man and woman – not literal poison, the kind that would kill your body, but the lies that can poison your spirit. “God doesn’t love you” “ You can’t trust him” “ look out for number one!” And somehow that had spoilt everything.

Old Tom had heard them saying, too, that one day a child would be born who would show them how to live and set right what had gone wrong back then. They didn’t know who the child would be, but he would be special.

Old Tom thought about those strange visitors who’d shown up when this child was born , and the shepherds who’d left their sheep. Maybe that always happened when a human kitten was born, but somehow he doubted it. What if this child was the one who was going to put right what was wrong?

And what if that snake, slithering closer and closer to the manger, were to bite him and put a stop to that wonderful healing before it had even begun? That couldn’t be? But no one had seen the danger. Everyone was asleep – the ox, the donkey, the man and the woman, the child himself – everyone slept as the snake crept closer and closer to the manger.

Old Tom knew he’d have to do something. He stood up, slowly, slowly, the way cats do when they’re hunting. He lined himself up like cats do, slowly, slowly, so the snake wouldn’t see him. And then….voomph! – off he went, yowling and hissing and screeching straight for the snake which slithered off like greased lightning. The baby woke up and started crying, the ox woke up and started bellowing, the donkey woke up and started heehawing. The man and woman woke up and shouted “Stop, cat!” They couldn’t see the snake; they thought Old Tom had just gone mad, like cats sometimes do. But Old Tom took no notice of them. He just kept charging along after that snake, round the walls, across the floor,  across the backs of the ox and the donkey, in and out of the legs of the manger. “Quick! Grab the baby, Joseph!  before he tips the manger over”. Joseph snatched the baby up just in time as the manger came crashing down. Mary and Joseph were too busy checking that the baby was all right to notice the moment when Old Tom finally cornered the snake under the manger and, with one bite behind its head, killed it.

Tom sat down and looked up at the little family, who were desperately trying to comfort the wailing child while the ox and donkey bellowed away in the background. He waited for their thanks, but Mary just turned to Joseph and said – “that cat has to go!”. And Joseph turned to Old Tom and said “You! Out!” pointing to the stable door. Old Tom was confused. Hadn’t he just saved their child? But Joseph picked him up, marched across the stable, opened the door and slung him out into the darkness of the cold, wet night. Well! If that was going to be all the thanks he got that was the last time he was ever going to help a human! He slunk across to the other side of the road, and sat down under the dripping eaves of the house opposite, in the darkest spot he could find.  He licked himself here and there, so it would look as if he really wasn’t bothered, but inside he was furious and humiliated. He had just wanted to help, and look where it had got him.

Back in the stable, the baby was still crying. Mary couldn’t stop him. Joseph couldn’t stop him, but at least, he thought, he could restore some order. He picked up the manger from where it had crashed down onto the floor, and there, underneath it he saw – the snake. It wasn’t moving, but Joseph prodded it with a stick just to be sure. As he looked more closely he saw that there was one, cat-sized, bite mark just below its head.

“Oh, Mary,” he said. “Look at this snake. The cat must have seen it coming towards our child and killed it! And we’ve just thrown him out into the cold and the wet! “

“Look outside, Joseph” said Mary. “See if you can see him. Bring him back so we can thank him and apologise.”

Joseph went to the stable door and peered out into the darkness, but Old Tom was well hidden. “Puss, puss,” called Joseph, “We’re sorry! Please come back into the warmth.” “Pah!” thought Old Tom, from his damp dark hiding opposite. “They needn’t think they can bring me round with  a bit of ‘puss, puss, pussing…”

“It’s no good Mary, I can’t see him anywhere!”

“Maybe he would come if we gave him some food. Isn’t there some cheese left in our bags?”

Joseph rummaged around a bit and sure enough, there was a little lump of cheese. He broke it up and put the pieces in a line just outside the stable door. “Puss – there’s some cheese here if you want it – just to say thank you and sorry.”

‘Cheese!’ thought Old Tom. “Now, I do like cheese. It can’t do any harm to go over and just have a nibble. He crept back across the road and sniffed at the first piece of cheese. Smelt ok! Tasted ok too. He wolfed it down, and then the next and the next and the next. The last piece of cheese brought him to the open stable door. It looked warm and inviting to him. Surely it couldn’t do any harm if he sat just inside the door.

Mary and Joseph saw him there. Mary was sitting in the straw, jiggling the baby on her shoulder trying to stop him crying. The baby’s cries went right through Old Tom. Suddenly he could remember crying like that when he was a kitten, and just wanting someone to comfort him. He crept closer and closer. Mary stretched out a hand to him and began to smooth his matted fur. She scratched him just behind his ear, where he liked it. “Thank you for saving our son. We’ll never forget it.” she said. “If only you could send him to sleep too!” Tom put first one paw, then the other onto her lap and reached his face up towards the baby’s. The baby, fascinated by this new creature, reached out a pudgy hand and laid it on his head, forgetting to cry as he did so.

Suddenly a strange peace spread through Old Tom, from the tips of his whiskers to the end of his scraggy tail. Old Tom, who had never belonged anywhere, suddenly knew that he belonged here, with this child, to this child. He didn’t need to be wary of him, on guard. To this child, even scraggy alley cats were welcome, trust was restored, love was renewed. He was the special child – Tom knew it.

And deep within Old Tom something started to happen, something that hadn’t happened since he was a kitten. Old Tom started to purr. At first his purr was a bit rusty and hesitant, but soon it filled the stable, and lulled by it the baby dropped off to sleep, and so did his mother and father, and the ox and the donkey in their stall. And the stable was at peace once more, but Old Tom’s peace was the deepest of all.

Amen 

Christmas Day Story: Old Tom

There are many animals in the Bible; camels and donkeys and cows and sheep, locusts and frogs and even rock badgers, whatever they are. There are some dogs, too,  though they don’t usually get a good press.

But there’s one animal which doesn’t get a look in at all, not a single mention, and that is the cat. There’s not a single cat in the Bible, not one, unless you count lions. There are no moggies or mousers, although there must have been plenty around.

Madonna del Gatto. Leonardo da Vinci, British Museum

But that didn’t stop people inserting a few here and there as they retold the stories. By the Middle Ages, there were several legends doing the rounds about cats at the birth of Jesus, and I’m going to tell you a story based on those tales.

This is the story of Old Tom.

Old Tom was a scraggy old cat, with matted fur and raggedy ears from fights he’d been in in the course of his long life. Old Tom didn’t belong to anyone – no cat really does, of course – but Old Tom really didn’t have anywhere to call home, any lap that was his to sit on, any fireside to curl up beside. Once he’d had a mother and brothers and sisters, but that was long, long ago, and anyway, just like him, they’d been homeless alley cats. The people of Bethlehem tolerated Old Tom, because he was a good mouser, but they weren’t so keen when he helped himself to the meat pie they’d left out to cool, or the milk they had collected to drink. Old Tom was used to dodging the boots they threw at him, making a sharp exit when he heard shouting. That’s how he knew what his name was, from the things they shouted. “Who’s taken our supper?” “ Oh – it was that old tom again,” he heard them say to each other.

One cold night in the middle of winter, Old Tom had found himself a quiet place to curl up and sleep, in the corner of a barn, on a warm pile of straw. It was dark in his corner, out of sight. No one would notice him here, which was just the way he liked it.

But he’d no sooner settled down, when the door of the barn creaked open, and in came a man and woman, leading a donkey – Mary and Joseph, they called each other, as they made their way in. Old Tom opened one eye, but stayed quiet. The man and woman didn’t see him as they led the donkey into a stall alongside the ox who usually lived there. He was well hidden, and, besides, they had their minds on other things, because, blow me down, if the woman didn’t lie down on the straw, right there and then, and give birth to a baby!  Old Tom had been born in a barn just like this, but he knew that humans generally had their young in more comfortable surroundings, not out here with the animals.

And no sooner had that baby been born – wailing like a kitten, and laid in the animals’ feeding trough – than a whole lot of other people showed up. The first visitors were strange creatures indeed, shining things, with wings like birds – and my, how they could sing! Old Tom liked a sing-song now and then, when the moon was full and the spirit took him – that was usually another moment when boots starting flying through the air towards him – but no one would have wanted to shut these creatures up. Then came the shepherds. Old Tom was more used to them, but what they were doing here, kneeling in front of the manger? Shouldn’t they be out in the fields, watching their sheep?

It was hours before the little family  – and Old Tom – were left in peace, and he could tell that the woman was very tired, and needed her sleep. The man walked up and down with the child, while she lay down on the straw and slept. The ox nodded off, and so did the donkey. In the end, the child slept and the man laid him down in the manger, and stretched himself out wearily to rest. Old Tom relaxed – now at last he might get the sleep he had been looking forward too. Being a canny cat, though, used to the dangers of the world, and always alert for the possibility of a quick meal, he was never quite off guard and so it was he alone who spotted something moving in the straw on the stable floor.  Was it a mouse? or a rat? But no, it seemed too long a thing for that. And it was green, and smooth. Old Tom knew what he was looking at. It was a snake!

Now , Old Tom didn’t like snakes, not one bit. They weren’t good eating, and if they bit you, it was bad news – Old Tom knew that. The humans didn’t like snakes either. He’d heard them talking about a snake who, right at the beginning of everything had whispered poison into the ears of the first man and woman – not literal poison, the kind that would kill your body, but the lies that can poison your spirit. “God doesn’t love you” “ You can’t trust him” “ look out for number one!” And somehow that had spoilt everything.

Old Tom had heard them saying, too, that one day a child would be born who would show them how to live and set right what had gone wrong back then. They didn’t know who the child would be, but he would be special.

Old Tom thought about those strange visitors who’d shown up when this child was born , and the shepherds who’d left their sheep. Maybe that always happened when a human kitten was born, but somehow he doubted it. What if this child was the one who was going to put right what was wrong?

And what if that snake, slithering closer and closer to the manger, were to bite him and put a stop to that wonderful healing before it had even begun? That couldn’t be? But no one had seen the danger. Everyone was asleep – the ox, the donkey, the man and the woman, the child himself – everyone slept as the snake crept closer and closer to the manger.

Old Tom knew he’d have to do something. He stood up, slowly, slowly, the way cats do when they’re hunting. He lined himself up like cats do, slowly, slowly, so the snake wouldn’t see him. And then….voomph! – off he went, yowling and hissing and screeching straight for the snake which slithered off like greased lightning. The baby woke up and started crying, the ox woke up and started bellowing, the donkey woke up and started heehawing. The man and woman woke up and shouted “Stop, cat!” They couldn’t see the snake; they thought Old Tom had just gone mad, like cats sometimes do. But Old Tom took no notice of them. He just kept charging along after that snake, round the walls, across the floor,  across the backs of the ox and the donkey, in and out of the legs of the manger. “Quick! Grab the baby, Joseph!  before he tips the manger over”. Joseph snatched the baby up just in time as the manger came crashing down. Mary and Joseph were too busy checking that the baby was all right to notice the moment when Old Tom finally cornered the snake under the manger and, with one bite behind its head, killed it.

Tom sat down and looked up at the little family, who were desperately trying to comfort the wailing child while the ox and donkey bellowed away in the background. He waited for their thanks, but Mary just turned to Joseph and said – “that cat has to go!”. And Joseph turned to Old Tom and said “You! Out!” pointing to the stable door. Old Tom was confused. Hadn’t he just saved their child? But Joseph picked him up, marched across the stable, opened the door and slung him out into the darkness of the cold, wet night. Well! If that was going to be all the thanks he got that was the last time he was ever going to help a human! He slunk across to the other side of the road, and sat down under the dripping eaves of the house opposite, in the darkest spot he could find.  He licked himself here and there, so it would look as if he really wasn’t bothered, but inside he was furious and humiliated. He had just wanted to help, and look where it had got him.

Back in the stable, the baby was still crying. Mary couldn’t stop him. Joseph couldn’t stop him, but at least, he thought, he could restore some order. He picked up the manger from where it had crashed down onto the floor, and there, underneath it he saw – the snake. It wasn’t moving, but Joseph prodded it with a stick just to be sure. As he looked more closely he saw that there was one, cat-sized, bite mark just below its head.

“Oh, Mary,” he said. “Look at this snake. The cat must have seen it coming towards our child and killed it! And we’ve just thrown him out into the cold and the wet! “

“Look outside, Joseph” said Mary. “See if you can see him. Bring him back so we can thank him and apologise.”

Joseph went to the stable door and peered out into the darkness, but Old Tom was well hidden. “Puss, puss,” called Joseph, “We’re sorry! Please come back into the warmth.” “Pah!” thought Old Tom, from his damp dark hiding opposite. “They needn’t think they can bring me round with  a bit of ‘puss, puss, pussing…”

“It’s no good Mary, I can’t see him anywhere!”

“Maybe he would come if we gave him some food. Isn’t there some cheese left in our bags?”

Joseph rummaged around a bit and sure enough, there was a little lump of cheese. He broke it up and put the pieces in a line just outside the stable door. “Puss – there’s some cheese here if you want it – just to say thank you and sorry.”

‘Cheese!’ thought Old Tom. “Now, I do like cheese. It can’t do any harm to go over and just have a nibble. He crept back across the road and sniffed at the first piece of cheese. Smelt ok! Tasted ok too. He wolfed it down, and then the next and the next and the next. The last piece of cheese brought him to the open stable door. It looked warm and inviting to him. Surely it couldn’t do any harm if he sat just inside the door.

Mary and Joseph saw him there. Mary was sitting in the straw, jiggling the baby on her shoulder trying to stop him crying. The baby’s cries went right through Old Tom. Suddenly he could remember crying like that when he was a kitten, and just wanting someone to comfort him. He crept closer and closer. Mary stretched out a hand to him and began to smooth his matted fur. She scratched him just behind his ear, where he liked it. “Thank you for saving our son. We’ll never forget it.” she said. “If only you could send him to sleep too!” Tom put first one paw, then the other onto her lap and reached his face up towards the baby’s. The baby, fascinated by this new creature, reached out a pudgy hand and laid it on his head, forgetting to cry as he did so.

Suddenly a strange peace spread through Old Tom, from the tips of his whiskers to the end of his scraggy tail. Old Tom, who had never belonged anywhere, suddenly knew that he belonged here, with this child, to this child. He didn’t need to be wary of him, on guard. To this child, even scraggy alley cats were welcome, trust was restored, love was renewed. He was the special child – Tom knew it.

And deep within Old Tom something started to happen, something that hadn’t happened since he was a kitten. Old Tom started to purr. At first his purr was a bit rusty and hesitant, but soon it filled the stable, and lulled by it the baby dropped off to sleep, and so did his mother and father, and the ox and the donkey in their stall. And the stable was at peace once more, but Old Tom’s peace was the deepest of all.

Amen 

Midnight Mass: The beginning of Christmas

I wonder what this moment feels like to you, on the cusp of the midnight that ushers in Christmas Day?  When we were small, we were probably full of excitement, dreaming of Christmas stockings, wondering what was in those parcels under the tree. Maybe now it is a bit more complicated, and feelings are more mixed – but whatever our experience, this is the moment when Christmas Day starts. Even if you are a real Grinch or Scrooge, a Christmas refusenik, it’s hard to resist the hopefulness of this moment when Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day.

The problem is, though, that by this time tomorrow, this moment of expectation will be behind us. The wrapping paper you’ve so carefully applied will be rubbish for the recycling, and the Christmas meal you’ve lovingly cooked will be reduced to leftovers and washing up. In the space of twenty-four hours, anticipation is often replaced by anti-climax. Even if your family festivities have been full of joy and happiness, you may realise at that point that nothing has really changed, and your life will soon be back to the same old, same old.  The problems you had before Christmas will still be waiting for you after it. That’s as true for the world around us as it is for us as individuals. We may send each other cards wishing “Peace on earth”, but the earth will be just as war-torn on Boxing Day as it is now. We remember that famous World War 1 truce, when English and German soldiers played football and sang carols together, but we forget that the next day they all went back to shooting at each other.  

Christmas isn’t magic, no matter how magical we try to make it. It can’t cure the world’s ills, make people happy when they aren’t, draw together feuding relatives, or mend marriages that are crumbling. It can’t put right in a day what has taken months, years, lifetimes to go wrong. It takes more than a bit of glitter and a tub of Quality Street to mend a broken world.

Christmas Day can sometimes seem disappointing, but I wonder whether that might be because  we see it as an end, when it’s meant to be a beginning.  

When Jesus came into the world at Bethlehem of course there was a sense of fulfilment and achievement. After all the hardships and tensions of the pregnancy, and that unplanned journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the child was born. Even if the only bed he had to lie in was a cattle stall, he was safe and well. Of course Mary and Joseph were relieved, and delighted by their new born son. But for them, just as for any new parents, this wasn’t the end of the story. This was where it started. Parents usually treasure their first moments with their new baby, posting endless photos on Facebook, spending hours just gazing at their little miracle, but they wouldn’t really want their child to stay like this forever. There would be something seriously wrong if they did. The joy of parenting lies in seeing your child grow up into the person they were meant to be. Along the way, there’ll be pain and challenge too – for any child, not just for Jesus, but growing and changing are what life is all about. Birth is a beginning, not an end.

There’s a lovely poem by a poet called Luci Shaw about the new born Jesus, which perfectly captures that moment when all his life lay ahead of him, unknown and unimaginable. It goes like this:  

In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.

He is so new, his silk skin has not yet

been roughed by plane and wooden beam

nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.

He is in a dream of nipple found,

of blue-white milk, of curving skin

and, pulsing in his ear, the inner throb

of a warm heart’s repeated sound

His only memories float from fluid space.

So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door,

broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,

wept for the sad heart of the human race.

(Kenosis, by Luci Shaw)

It’s a poignant poem, which acknowledges that this child is going to have sorrows to face as well as joys.  But it also reminds us of the gift he will be to the world. He’s the one who will weep “for the sad heart of the human race”. He’ll share our sufferings and by doing so, he’ll transform them. His death and resurrection will show us that however dark the night, God can bring his light into it and give us a future with hope.  In him, God will break into our human experience, not so that he can understand what it feels like to be us – he knows that anyway – but so that we can understand how much we’re loved.

And it all starts here with this child cradled in a manger, not an end but a beginning;  a small beginning who reminds us of the small beginnings each of us is called to make, the journeys which start here and now.

Tonight we may cradle in our hearts a dawning hope that change is possible, for ourselves or the world around us. But what are we doing to feed that hope, to help it to grow, to become the reality we long for?

Tonight we may cradle in our hearts a tiny flicker of faith, a desire to pray, a new born longing for God. But what are we going to do to nourish it so that so it can be a source of strength to us for the rest of our lives?

Tonight we may cradle in our hearts a sense that there’s something we’re meant to be doing with our lives, a meaning and purpose we need to search out. But what are we going to do that will help us to listen to that calling and respond to it?

Hope, faith, purpose; these are the sorts of things that are born in our hearts tonight. They are God’s gifts to us, but just like a new born child, they are small, vulnerable, easily destroyed. They are just beginnings. It is what happens next that matters, and if we want to help those “children” of ours grow up, if we want our hope, faith and purpose to develop, it will take more than good intentions.

It will take time and patience and will sometimes come at a cost. It will take other people. It takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes. Mary and Joseph seem to have been alone in Bethlehem, but God soon gathered some very unlikely people around him to form a family around them. There were shepherds from the hills, and foreign magi summoned from far away by a star. These aren’t the people you’d expect at the crib side – where are Jesus’ aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins? Later on there would be fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes, a strange “DIY” family to support Jesus and be supported by him. “Family” for him was never going to be simply about blood relatives – it was for anyone and everyone who wanted to be part of it.  That’s why Christian faith has always been a communal faith, one in which coming together is valued. We need one another - all of us - with our gifts and our scars, struggling to get along and learning to love and be loved as we do so.

That’s one of the reasons why you have all been given one of these pink slips tonight, so that, if you want to, you can let me know that you’d like to be kept in the loop, or maybe have a chat in the New Year. There are no strings attached to this offer; I just didn’t want people to go out into the night wishing they’d done something to take the next step. If you’d like to keep in touch, fill in the form and give it back to me, and I will make it happen.

It’s good for us to have our moment of wonder and joy tonight, but what God really wants is for us to have a lifetime of wonder, a lifetime of joy. It’s good that we can celebrate this child born in a stable tonight, but what God really wants is for Christ to be born in our hearts as well, and to grow and thrive there.

So, happy Christmas – it all starts here!  But let’s make sure it doesn’t end here too.

Amens, and foreign magi summoned from far away by a star. These aren’t the people you’d expect at the crib side – where are Jesus’ aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins? Later on there would be fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes, a strange “DIY” family to support Jesus and be supported by him. “Family” for him was never going to be simply about blood relatives – it was for anyone and everyone who wanted to be part of it.  That’s why Christian faith has always been a communal faith, one in which coming together is valued. We need one another - all of us - with our gifts and our scars, struggling to get along and learning to love and be loved as we do so.

That’s one of the reasons why you have all been given one of these pink slips tonight, so that, if you want to, you can let me know that you’d like to be kept in the loop, or maybe have a chat in the New Year. There are no strings attached to this offer; I just didn’t want people to go out into the night wishing they’d done something to take the next step. If you’d like to keep in touch, fill in the form and give it back to me, and I will make it happen.

It’s good for us to have our moment of wonder and joy tonight, but what God really wants is for us to have a lifetime of wonder, a lifetime of joy. It’s good that we can celebrate this child born in a stable tonight, but what God really wants is for Christ to be born in our hearts as well, and to grow and thrive there.

So, happy Christmas – it all starts here!  But let’s make sure it doesn’t end here too.

Amen 

Midnight Mass: The beginning of Christmas

I wonder what this moment feels like to you, on the cusp of the midnight that ushers in Christmas Day?  When we were small, we were probably full of excitement, dreaming of Christmas stockings, wondering what was in those parcels under the tree. Maybe now it is a bit more complicated, and feelings are more mixed – but whatever our experience, this is the moment when Christmas Day starts. Even if you are a real Grinch or Scrooge, a Christmas refusenik, it’s hard to resist the hopefulness of this moment when Christmas Eve becomes Christmas Day.

The problem is, though, that by this time tomorrow, this moment of expectation will be behind us. The wrapping paper you’ve so carefully applied will be rubbish for the recycling, and the Christmas meal you’ve lovingly cooked will be reduced to leftovers and washing up. In the space of twenty-four hours, anticipation is often replaced by anti-climax. Even if your family festivities have been full of joy and happiness, you may realise at that point that nothing has really changed, and your life will soon be back to the same old, same old.  The problems you had before Christmas will still be waiting for you after it. That’s as true for the world around us as it is for us as individuals. We may send each other cards wishing “Peace on earth”, but the earth will be just as war-torn on Boxing Day as it is now. We remember that famous World War 1 truce, when English and German soldiers played football and sang carols together, but we forget that the next day they all went back to shooting at each other.  

Christmas isn’t magic, no matter how magical we try to make it. It can’t cure the world’s ills, make people happy when they aren’t, draw together feuding relatives, or mend marriages that are crumbling. It can’t put right in a day what has taken months, years, lifetimes to go wrong. It takes more than a bit of glitter and a tub of Quality Street to mend a broken world.

Christmas Day can sometimes seem disappointing, but I wonder whether that might be because  we see it as an end, when it’s meant to be a beginning.  

When Jesus came into the world at Bethlehem of course there was a sense of fulfilment and achievement. After all the hardships and tensions of the pregnancy, and that unplanned journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the child was born. Even if the only bed he had to lie in was a cattle stall, he was safe and well. Of course Mary and Joseph were relieved, and delighted by their new born son. But for them, just as for any new parents, this wasn’t the end of the story. This was where it started. Parents usually treasure their first moments with their new baby, posting endless photos on Facebook, spending hours just gazing at their little miracle, but they wouldn’t really want their child to stay like this forever. There would be something seriously wrong if they did. The joy of parenting lies in seeing your child grow up into the person they were meant to be. Along the way, there’ll be pain and challenge too – for any child, not just for Jesus, but growing and changing are what life is all about. Birth is a beginning, not an end.

There’s a lovely poem by a poet called Luci Shaw about the new born Jesus, which perfectly captures that moment when all his life lay ahead of him, unknown and unimaginable. It goes like this:  

In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.

He is so new, his silk skin has not yet

been roughed by plane and wooden beam

nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.

He is in a dream of nipple found,

of blue-white milk, of curving skin

and, pulsing in his ear, the inner throb

of a warm heart’s repeated sound

His only memories float from fluid space.

So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door,

broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,

wept for the sad heart of the human race.

(Kenosis, by Luci Shaw)

It’s a poignant poem, which acknowledges that this child is going to have sorrows to face as well as joys.  But it also reminds us of the gift he will be to the world. He’s the one who will weep “for the sad heart of the human race”. He’ll share our sufferings and by doing so, he’ll transform them. His death and resurrection will show us that however dark the night, God can bring his light into it and give us a future with hope.  In him, God will break into our human experience, not so that he can understand what it feels like to be us – he knows that anyway – but so that we can understand how much we’re loved.

And it all starts here with this child cradled in a manger, not an end but a beginning;  a small beginning who reminds us of the small beginnings each of us is called to make, the journeys which start here and now.

Tonight we may cradle in our hearts a dawning hope that change is possible, for ourselves or the world around us. But what are we doing to feed that hope, to help it to grow, to become the reality we long for?

Tonight we may cradle in our hearts a tiny flicker of faith, a desire to pray, a new born longing for God. But what are we going to do to nourish it so that so it can be a source of strength to us for the rest of our lives?

Tonight we may cradle in our hearts a sense that there’s something we’re meant to be doing with our lives, a meaning and purpose we need to search out. But what are we going to do that will help us to listen to that calling and respond to it?

Hope, faith, purpose; these are the sorts of things that are born in our hearts tonight. They are God’s gifts to us, but just like a new born child, they are small, vulnerable, easily destroyed. They are just beginnings. It is what happens next that matters, and if we want to help those “children” of ours grow up, if we want our hope, faith and purpose to develop, it will take more than good intentions.

It will take time and patience and will sometimes come at a cost. It will take other people. It takes a village to raise a child, as the saying goes. Mary and Joseph seem to have been alone in Bethlehem, but God soon gathered some very unlikely people around him to form a family around them. There were shepherds from the hills, and foreign magi summoned from far away by a star. These aren’t the people you’d expect at the crib side – where are Jesus’ aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins? Later on there would be fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes, a strange “DIY” family to support Jesus and be supported by him. “Family” for him was never going to be simply about blood relatives – it was for anyone and everyone who wanted to be part of it.  That’s why Christian faith has always been a communal faith, one in which coming together is valued. We need one another - all of us - with our gifts and our scars, struggling to get along and learning to love and be loved as we do so.

That’s one of the reasons why you have all been given one of these pink slips tonight, so that, if you want to, you can let me know that you’d like to be kept in the loop, or maybe have a chat in the New Year. There are no strings attached to this offer; I just didn’t want people to go out into the night wishing they’d done something to take the next step. If you’d like to keep in touch, fill in the form and give it back to me, and I will make it happen.

It’s good for us to have our moment of wonder and joy tonight, but what God really wants is for us to have a lifetime of wonder, a lifetime of joy. It’s good that we can celebrate this child born in a stable tonight, but what God really wants is for Christ to be born in our hearts as well, and to grow and thrive there.

So, happy Christmas – it all starts here!  But let’s make sure it doesn’t end here too.

Amens, and foreign magi summoned from far away by a star. These aren’t the people you’d expect at the crib side – where are Jesus’ aunties and uncles, grandparents and cousins? Later on there would be fishermen and tax collectors and prostitutes, a strange “DIY” family to support Jesus and be supported by him. “Family” for him was never going to be simply about blood relatives – it was for anyone and everyone who wanted to be part of it.  That’s why Christian faith has always been a communal faith, one in which coming together is valued. We need one another - all of us - with our gifts and our scars, struggling to get along and learning to love and be loved as we do so.

That’s one of the reasons why you have all been given one of these pink slips tonight, so that, if you want to, you can let me know that you’d like to be kept in the loop, or maybe have a chat in the New Year. There are no strings attached to this offer; I just didn’t want people to go out into the night wishing they’d done something to take the next step. If you’d like to keep in touch, fill in the form and give it back to me, and I will make it happen.

It’s good for us to have our moment of wonder and joy tonight, but what God really wants is for us to have a lifetime of wonder, a lifetime of joy. It’s good that we can celebrate this child born in a stable tonight, but what God really wants is for Christ to be born in our hearts as well, and to grow and thrive there.

So, happy Christmas – it all starts here!  But let’s make sure it doesn’t end here too.

Amen 

Advent Breathing Space 3 : The two way street

Psalm 130, Luke2.15-20

In our Breathing Space services this Advent I've been exploring a little of what it means to have a communicative God, a God who speaks and listens to us.  In this last session I’d like to shift the focus from God to ourselves, because communication is a two way street. We can communicate by giving a lecture – or a sermon – or through a letter or poster or email or text message, but if that was all we ever did we would end up feeling very lonely.  We might get our message out but we’d never build any relationships.  A relationship in which the parties simply make announcements to one another or lecture one another isn't going to last very long! So it is with God. What he longs for is not simply a mute and obedient audience but a conversation, something dynamic, something alive.

Often people have modelled their relationship with God on the relationship they might expect to have with a great and powerful sovereign. He is so often called King and Lord, that it’s easy to simply assume he is like an earthly ruler, writ large.  I've been watching Lucy Worsley’s television programmes about the six wives of Henry VIII over the last few weeks. They've been fascinating as a glimpse into the world of the Tudor court, and the extreme care with which everyone had to approach the king, fitting in with his whims, observing the strict etiquette, knowing that if they put a foot wrong they would be in deep, and possibly fatal, trouble. That was how kings were, in Tudor times and in the times of the Bible.  But it’s not how God is.   

We might think of him as a king, but he isn't one who expects us to wait to speak until we are spoken to, or to guard our words with exaggerated care around him. This is the Creator who came walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening looking for the man and the woman he had made simply for the sake of their company, and was bitterly disappointed when he discovered they were hiding from him. This is the one who wants us to cry to him “out of the depths”, as the Psalmist put it.  We don’t have to guard our words with him, any more than we would with our best friend. A friend is someone who we know will continue to love us when we are less than sparkling company or need someone to have an unreasonable rant at, someone who wants to hear what’s troubling us, even if ends up troubling them too. God wants to hear from us. We don’t have to wait for a gilt-edged invitation, as we would for an audience with the Queen. We don’t have to worry that a word out of order will see us consigned to the outer darkness.

A true friend listens to us, but equally a true friend is someone who we want to listen to as well. If our relationship with God is true and deep we’ll want to listen to him, to trust his good intentions for us, to take seriously what we hear from him. Sometimes that might mean a very definite message – that happens more often than you might suppose. Sometimes, though, it will be a Bible verse that strikes us, or a conversation with someone else which has an impact beyond what we would expect, or it might be something that happens in our lives. It’s important that we test out those perceptions – not every stray thought that pops into our heads is a message from the Almighty – but if we take our relationship with God seriously then we will want to take time to weigh up what we think he might be saying to us. After all the extraordinary circumstances of the birth of Jesus, Luke tells us that Mary “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” She didn't just shrug her shoulders and say “probably just the hormones of childbirth swilling around – I expect everyone imagines angels and shepherds and such like…” She pondered all that had happened, turned it over in her mind, took it seriously, even if she didn’t fully understand it at the time.

The shepherds too responded to what they’d heard, in a very different way. They told others, and glorified God.  The news was so good they couldn't contain it. The sovereign God, the one who they thought of as dwelling in unapproachable light in a far distant heaven, was lying in a manger in a smelly stable in their own village, and he’d chosen them to reveal this news first of all.  

The Word was made flesh in Christ. Perhaps that was the only way we would ever really be able to grasp how God feels about us.  He came to us as a human child, not so that he could understand what it is to be human, but so that we could understand how deeply we’re loved. In Christ, God spoke to us from within our human condition, in that speechless child, so that we would know that even when we have no words to express ourselves he is with us.

In the silence tonight let us, like Mary, ponder these things and treasure them in our hearts.

Amen 

Advent Breathing Space 3 : The two way street

Psalm 130, Luke2.15-20

In our Breathing Space services this Advent I've been exploring a little of what it means to have a communicative God, a God who speaks and listens to us.  In this last session I’d like to shift the focus from God to ourselves, because communication is a two way street. We can communicate by giving a lecture – or a sermon – or through a letter or poster or email or text message, but if that was all we ever did we would end up feeling very lonely.  We might get our message out but we’d never build any relationships.  A relationship in which the parties simply make announcements to one another or lecture one another isn't going to last very long! So it is with God. What he longs for is not simply a mute and obedient audience but a conversation, something dynamic, something alive.

Often people have modelled their relationship with God on the relationship they might expect to have with a great and powerful sovereign. He is so often called King and Lord, that it’s easy to simply assume he is like an earthly ruler, writ large.  I've been watching Lucy Worsley’s television programmes about the six wives of Henry VIII over the last few weeks. They've been fascinating as a glimpse into the world of the Tudor court, and the extreme care with which everyone had to approach the king, fitting in with his whims, observing the strict etiquette, knowing that if they put a foot wrong they would be in deep, and possibly fatal, trouble. That was how kings were, in Tudor times and in the times of the Bible.  But it’s not how God is.   

We might think of him as a king, but he isn't one who expects us to wait to speak until we are spoken to, or to guard our words with exaggerated care around him. This is the Creator who came walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the evening looking for the man and the woman he had made simply for the sake of their company, and was bitterly disappointed when he discovered they were hiding from him. This is the one who wants us to cry to him “out of the depths”, as the Psalmist put it.  We don’t have to guard our words with him, any more than we would with our best friend. A friend is someone who we know will continue to love us when we are less than sparkling company or need someone to have an unreasonable rant at, someone who wants to hear what’s troubling us, even if ends up troubling them too. God wants to hear from us. We don’t have to wait for a gilt-edged invitation, as we would for an audience with the Queen. We don’t have to worry that a word out of order will see us consigned to the outer darkness.

A true friend listens to us, but equally a true friend is someone who we want to listen to as well. If our relationship with God is true and deep we’ll want to listen to him, to trust his good intentions for us, to take seriously what we hear from him. Sometimes that might mean a very definite message – that happens more often than you might suppose. Sometimes, though, it will be a Bible verse that strikes us, or a conversation with someone else which has an impact beyond what we would expect, or it might be something that happens in our lives. It’s important that we test out those perceptions – not every stray thought that pops into our heads is a message from the Almighty – but if we take our relationship with God seriously then we will want to take time to weigh up what we think he might be saying to us. After all the extraordinary circumstances of the birth of Jesus, Luke tells us that Mary “treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.” She didn't just shrug her shoulders and say “probably just the hormones of childbirth swilling around – I expect everyone imagines angels and shepherds and such like…” She pondered all that had happened, turned it over in her mind, took it seriously, even if she didn’t fully understand it at the time.

The shepherds too responded to what they’d heard, in a very different way. They told others, and glorified God.  The news was so good they couldn't contain it. The sovereign God, the one who they thought of as dwelling in unapproachable light in a far distant heaven, was lying in a manger in a smelly stable in their own village, and he’d chosen them to reveal this news first of all.  

The Word was made flesh in Christ. Perhaps that was the only way we would ever really be able to grasp how God feels about us.  He came to us as a human child, not so that he could understand what it is to be human, but so that we could understand how deeply we’re loved. In Christ, God spoke to us from within our human condition, in that speechless child, so that we would know that even when we have no words to express ourselves he is with us.

In the silence tonight let us, like Mary, ponder these things and treasure them in our hearts.

Amen 

Advent Breathing Space 2: The God who listens

Exodus 3. 1-10, Luke 1.5-17

Last week we thought a little about God’s communicative nature. God who spoke the world into being, who speaks to us in the Bible and who, ultimately speaks to us in Jesus, the word made flesh.

This week we are going to develop that a bit further, because communication isn't just about speaking; it’s also about listening. In fact, perhaps I have done these sessions a bit backwards, because for speaking to be effective, listening really has to come first. In the Bible, there is just as much emphasis on God being a God who listens as there is on his speech.

Take that first reading we heard, from the book of Exodus. It is a crucial moment in the story of Moses. In fact it is THE crucial moment. If it hadn't been for this moment, when Moses turned aside to see what was happening when he came across a bush on fire, yet not being burnt up, then he would have been unknown, and the Hebrew people would have remained slaves in Egypt, never returning to their Promised Land. It all turns on this moment.

Moses is on the run, out in the desert. He had had high hopes of making a real difference to his people, the Israelites, but it had all gone wrong and in a surge of rage he had killed an Egyptian and hidden his body. He had to scarper fast, and when he got out into the wilderness beyond Egypt he soon figured it was safer to stay there and make his home there.

In any case, what was the point of going back? His attempt to help had backfired. There was no hope of liberation for the Israelites, and it seemed their God -  his God – had forgotten them or just didn't care.

That’s why it matters so much not only that he encountered God in this burning bush, but what God said to him from it. The first thing, the main thing, God wants him to know is that he, God, has heard the cries of the Israelites. He hasn't been deaf to them, as Moses thought, or forgotten them. And having heard, he is going to answer their cries , through Moses as it happens. God has heard. God is listening.

In the Gospel reading, Zechariah makes the same, startling discovery. He was a priest, one of many who served in the Temple, taking their turn to do the most sacred jobs. Burning incense in the sanctuary was one of those, a real privilege. As a priest, Zechariah took the prayers of the people into the presence of God for them. But there was a prayer of his own which he had long since given up on, a prayer that he and his wife, Elizabeth, might have a child. They had waited and waited, but now it was too late. There’s something very poignant about Zechariah’s faithfulness in offering the prayers of others while apparently having put to one side the thing he most wanted in the world, evidently thinking that it would never be granted.

But when the angel appears to him, the first thing he tells him is “Zechariah, your prayer has been heard”. Impossible though it seems, Elizabeth is pregnant. What is more, not only will there be a child, but that child will be the forerunner of the Messiah. When he is born, Zechariah sings that in him  “by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet in to the way of peace.” (Luke 1.78)

Listening is often the most precious gift we can give to another, hearing them truly, giving our full attention. If you've ever experienced being listened to like that you’ll know how precious it is. Listening is a big part of my work, and one of its greatest privileges, but it saddens me how often I find that people are unused to being listened to and don’t expect to be heard. Why should their stories matter? Why should anyone be interested in them? It can be utterly revolutionary for someone to be listened to, something that changes their life completely.

For Christians that listening is rooted in the listening of God. “We love, because God first loved us”, says the first letter of John. The same is true for listening, “we listen” – or at least we should do – “because God first listened to us.” It is only when we take in the awesome truth that God hears us, that God cares, that God believes that what we have to say – the deepest and most secret cries of our heart – are important and worth his attention, that we can learn to pay attention to others. Real attention doesn't just want to fix them, or humour them, or impress them with our own goodness or cleverness. Real attention – simply hearing – opens the gateway of grace for them, enabling them to know that God hears and loves them too. 

Tonight we meet the God who listens. In our silence, we might like to ponder whether we believe that, and ask what God might be hearing in our lives at the moment, the cries that we hide from others, and maybe even from ourselves, the fears and hopes that we have buried because we think no one is listening to them.

Amen  

Advent Breathing Space 2: The God who listens

Exodus 3. 1-10, Luke 1.5-17

Last week we thought a little about God’s communicative nature. God who spoke the world into being, who speaks to us in the Bible and who, ultimately speaks to us in Jesus, the word made flesh.

This week we are going to develop that a bit further, because communication isn't just about speaking; it’s also about listening. In fact, perhaps I have done these sessions a bit backwards, because for speaking to be effective, listening really has to come first. In the Bible, there is just as much emphasis on God being a God who listens as there is on his speech.

Take that first reading we heard, from the book of Exodus. It is a crucial moment in the story of Moses. In fact it is THE crucial moment. If it hadn't been for this moment, when Moses turned aside to see what was happening when he came across a bush on fire, yet not being burnt up, then he would have been unknown, and the Hebrew people would have remained slaves in Egypt, never returning to their Promised Land. It all turns on this moment.

Moses is on the run, out in the desert. He had had high hopes of making a real difference to his people, the Israelites, but it had all gone wrong and in a surge of rage he had killed an Egyptian and hidden his body. He had to scarper fast, and when he got out into the wilderness beyond Egypt he soon figured it was safer to stay there and make his home there.

In any case, what was the point of going back? His attempt to help had backfired. There was no hope of liberation for the Israelites, and it seemed their God -  his God – had forgotten them or just didn't care.

That’s why it matters so much not only that he encountered God in this burning bush, but what God said to him from it. The first thing, the main thing, God wants him to know is that he, God, has heard the cries of the Israelites. He hasn't been deaf to them, as Moses thought, or forgotten them. And having heard, he is going to answer their cries , through Moses as it happens. God has heard. God is listening.

In the Gospel reading, Zechariah makes the same, startling discovery. He was a priest, one of many who served in the Temple, taking their turn to do the most sacred jobs. Burning incense in the sanctuary was one of those, a real privilege. As a priest, Zechariah took the prayers of the people into the presence of God for them. But there was a prayer of his own which he had long since given up on, a prayer that he and his wife, Elizabeth, might have a child. They had waited and waited, but now it was too late. There’s something very poignant about Zechariah’s faithfulness in offering the prayers of others while apparently having put to one side the thing he most wanted in the world, evidently thinking that it would never be granted.

But when the angel appears to him, the first thing he tells him is “Zechariah, your prayer has been heard”. Impossible though it seems, Elizabeth is pregnant. What is more, not only will there be a child, but that child will be the forerunner of the Messiah. When he is born, Zechariah sings that in him  “by the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide our feet in to the way of peace.” (Luke 1.78)

Listening is often the most precious gift we can give to another, hearing them truly, giving our full attention. If you've ever experienced being listened to like that you’ll know how precious it is. Listening is a big part of my work, and one of its greatest privileges, but it saddens me how often I find that people are unused to being listened to and don’t expect to be heard. Why should their stories matter? Why should anyone be interested in them? It can be utterly revolutionary for someone to be listened to, something that changes their life completely.

For Christians that listening is rooted in the listening of God. “We love, because God first loved us”, says the first letter of John. The same is true for listening, “we listen” – or at least we should do – “because God first listened to us.” It is only when we take in the awesome truth that God hears us, that God cares, that God believes that what we have to say – the deepest and most secret cries of our heart – are important and worth his attention, that we can learn to pay attention to others. Real attention doesn't just want to fix them, or humour them, or impress them with our own goodness or cleverness. Real attention – simply hearing – opens the gateway of grace for them, enabling them to know that God hears and loves them too. 

Tonight we meet the God who listens. In our silence, we might like to ponder whether we believe that, and ask what God might be hearing in our lives at the moment, the cries that we hide from others, and maybe even from ourselves, the fears and hopes that we have buried because we think no one is listening to them.

Amen  

St Peter and St Paul, Seal: The Children's Society

St Peter and St Paul, Seal: The Children's Society: Glad to be supporting the Children's Society at our  # Christingle  service this morning.  http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk There&...

St Peter and St Paul, Seal: The Children's Society

St Peter and St Paul, Seal: The Children's Society: Glad to be supporting the Children's Society at our  # Christingle  service this morning.  http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk There&...

Advent Breathing Space 1: The Word of God.

Lovely, peaceful, Advent Breathing space tonight. The address - the first of three - is below. Join us on the next two Thursday evenings (15th and 22nd) at 8pm for a chance to catch your breath and reflect amidst the hubbub of the run up to Christmas.

Advent Breathing Space 1 2016

One Word

Hebrews 1.1-3

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. 

 John 1. 1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

If you are following our Advent series of daily reflections, online or in the printed booklet, you will know that this year’s Advent theme is “One Word”. Each day there is one word to think about, a word linked to the Advent and Christmas stories in some way. It just seemed to me that at this time of year there is so much noise, so much chatter – advertisers shouting at us, demands and requests coming at us, background music everywhere, busy parties and family gatherings with everyone speaking over everyone else - and I just wanted to stay “stop!”. Let’s be quiet and give some space for the words that really matter to sink in. So, each day, there’s just one word, with some questions to prompt our thoughts – “expect”, “silence”, “hope”, “child”, “danger”, “peace”, “fear”, “manger” – these are the words we’ve had so far.

But in a sense they can all be summed up in the One Word who is at the heart of the story, that baby born in Bethlehem, the Word of God.

It’s no accident that John’s Gospel describes him like that - as a word. Words are one of the most important ways in which we express ourselves, explain ourselves, share our thoughts and feelings. They are the way we pass on wisdom.  The same is true for God.

The Bible pictures God as an avid communicator, someone who wants to get his message across. The Bible begins with him speaking into the darkness and chaos “Let there be light”- and there is light. God speaks creation into being. His words make something happen.

These sort of words are known technically as “performative utterances” – words that change things. Marriage vows are performative utterances. They are what tie couples together, not the signing of the registers in English law. Words can change us in other ways too. We never forget words from childhood which build us up, or tear us down.  Words matter.

God’s words matter most of all. It’s not just physical creation which they call into being. They can make a new creation in us too.  “ I have loved you with an everlasting love,”   he says through the prophet Jeremiah  ( 31.3) “I have called you by name, you are mine.”  - that’s Isaiah (43.1) How different would we be if we really let those words sink in? 

But, for Christians, the supreme way in which God speaks to us is in the Word made flesh – Jesus himself. For those who met him in his earthly life, Jesus seemed to sum up God, to express what he was about in a way they couldn’t miss. You didn’t need to read him in a book.  Through his life, his death, his resurrection, in the whole of his humanity, with all the complexities of any human life, he said “God”, to them. The letter to the Hebrews says that in him, God spoke to us “by a son” - “sonwise” , as the old translations put it. 

Why did that matter? Perhaps because, great though words are, they can never be a substitute for a flesh and blood encounter.   I often have to try to sum up a person at a funeral, maybe someone I have never met, and I am always well aware of the impossibility of such a task. Even if I get all the facts right, and even capture something of their spirit of the person, I know that to those who are listening there will be a whole world of complexity in their own memories which I can never capture, a richness which can never be pinned down. They will have been different things to different people at different times.

It was the same with Jesus. It was the whole encounter people had with him that spoke to them; not just his words , but his presence, his touch, his gaze, his attention to them. To some he communicated God’s challenge, or God’s call; others heard encouragement, gentleness, acceptance.  And though today we can’t physically take his work-roughened hands in ours, or look into his eyes, God’s promise is that, through the Spirit, he is with us, part of our lives, if we will let him be.

So through this Advent series, in these services at least, let’s slow down, silence the clamour that fills our life, so that we can hear what the One Word of God is saying to us. In the next two sessions we’ll think a bit more about speaking and listening –how God speaks and listens to us, and how we might speak and listen to him, to ourselves, to others – but I’ve said enough words for tonight.

We’re going to spend a few minutes in silence now, as we always do at our Breathing Space services. As we do, we ask that the Word of God will speak to us. It may be just a faint whisper; it may be may be a clarion call, loud and clear.  What is the Word of God saying to you tonight?

Amen

Advent Breathing Space 1: The Word of God.

Lovely, peaceful, Advent Breathing space tonight. The address - the first of three - is below. Join us on the next two Thursday evenings (15th and 22nd) at 8pm for a chance to catch your breath and reflect amidst the hubbub of the run up to Christmas.

Advent Breathing Space 1 2016

One Word

Hebrews 1.1-3

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. 

 John 1. 1-14

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

If you are following our Advent series of daily reflections, online or in the printed booklet, you will know that this year’s Advent theme is “One Word”. Each day there is one word to think about, a word linked to the Advent and Christmas stories in some way. It just seemed to me that at this time of year there is so much noise, so much chatter – advertisers shouting at us, demands and requests coming at us, background music everywhere, busy parties and family gatherings with everyone speaking over everyone else - and I just wanted to stay “stop!”. Let’s be quiet and give some space for the words that really matter to sink in. So, each day, there’s just one word, with some questions to prompt our thoughts – “expect”, “silence”, “hope”, “child”, “danger”, “peace”, “fear”, “manger” – these are the words we’ve had so far.

But in a sense they can all be summed up in the One Word who is at the heart of the story, that baby born in Bethlehem, the Word of God.

It’s no accident that John’s Gospel describes him like that - as a word. Words are one of the most important ways in which we express ourselves, explain ourselves, share our thoughts and feelings. They are the way we pass on wisdom.  The same is true for God.

The Bible pictures God as an avid communicator, someone who wants to get his message across. The Bible begins with him speaking into the darkness and chaos “Let there be light”- and there is light. God speaks creation into being. His words make something happen.

These sort of words are known technically as “performative utterances” – words that change things. Marriage vows are performative utterances. They are what tie couples together, not the signing of the registers in English law. Words can change us in other ways too. We never forget words from childhood which build us up, or tear us down.  Words matter.

God’s words matter most of all. It’s not just physical creation which they call into being. They can make a new creation in us too.  “ I have loved you with an everlasting love,”   he says through the prophet Jeremiah  ( 31.3) “I have called you by name, you are mine.”  - that’s Isaiah (43.1) How different would we be if we really let those words sink in? 

But, for Christians, the supreme way in which God speaks to us is in the Word made flesh – Jesus himself. For those who met him in his earthly life, Jesus seemed to sum up God, to express what he was about in a way they couldn’t miss. You didn’t need to read him in a book.  Through his life, his death, his resurrection, in the whole of his humanity, with all the complexities of any human life, he said “God”, to them. The letter to the Hebrews says that in him, God spoke to us “by a son” - “sonwise” , as the old translations put it. 

Why did that matter? Perhaps because, great though words are, they can never be a substitute for a flesh and blood encounter.   I often have to try to sum up a person at a funeral, maybe someone I have never met, and I am always well aware of the impossibility of such a task. Even if I get all the facts right, and even capture something of their spirit of the person, I know that to those who are listening there will be a whole world of complexity in their own memories which I can never capture, a richness which can never be pinned down. They will have been different things to different people at different times.

It was the same with Jesus. It was the whole encounter people had with him that spoke to them; not just his words , but his presence, his touch, his gaze, his attention to them. To some he communicated God’s challenge, or God’s call; others heard encouragement, gentleness, acceptance.  And though today we can’t physically take his work-roughened hands in ours, or look into his eyes, God’s promise is that, through the Spirit, he is with us, part of our lives, if we will let him be.

So through this Advent series, in these services at least, let’s slow down, silence the clamour that fills our life, so that we can hear what the One Word of God is saying to us. In the next two sessions we’ll think a bit more about speaking and listening –how God speaks and listens to us, and how we might speak and listen to him, to ourselves, to others – but I’ve said enough words for tonight.

We’re going to spend a few minutes in silence now, as we always do at our Breathing Space services. As we do, we ask that the Word of God will speak to us. It may be just a faint whisper; it may be may be a clarion call, loud and clear.  What is the Word of God saying to you tonight?

Amen