The Weaver of Bethlehem : A story for Christmas Day

There was once a woman, called Sarah, who lived in small house just beyond the edge of the town of Bethlehem.

Her husband kept a flock of sheep on the hills around the town. Often, he would be gone for weeks at a time, and as their children were long ago grown up and gone, when he was away she was alone, but she kept busy, looking after the house, growing vegetables, and most of all, spinning and weaving with the wool from her husband’s sheep. 

Sarah was a very good weaver, known throughout the town for the beauty of her cloth. She could weave strong, thick fabric, to keep the fiercest wind out, but she could also weave the finest cloth, gossamer thin, like silk. But although both she and her husband worked hard, they still only just about made ends meet.

One day, when Sarah’s husband was away searching for pasture with the sheep, there was a knock on the door. There on the doorstep was an official looking man, dressed in fine clothes. 

“Are you the weaver, Sarah?” 

“I am,” Sarah said, nervously, wondering what all this meant. 

“I have a message for you – You are to present yourself at the court of King Herod in Jerusalem tomorrow, with a piece of your finest cloth.”

This didn’t sound like good news at all to Sarah. It was usually far safer to go unnoticed, especially by someone like King Herod, who had a reputation for being cruel and angry. But an order from a king can’t be ignored, so early the next morning, Sarah set off to walk the five miles or so to Jerusalem, with a piece of her very best weaving folded carefully in her pack.  

She presented herself at the palace gates, and was taken in through room after room, corridor after corridor, each one bigger and grander than the last until she was ushered into the most splendid room of all. She’d never seen anything like it; fine carved wood, and silk cushions on the chairs and a great throne upon which sat a bored looking man, holding a cup full of wine in his jewelled hands. 

“Who’s this?” he said to the attendant who had brought her in. 

“Sarah the weaver, sir”.

“Ah yes, the weaver. I hear that you are the best weaver in the area – is that true?”

“I, I don’t know, sir – I try my hardest to do a good job.”

Sarah handed over the cloth she had brought with her. Herod rubbed it between his fingers. “Yes, if it is as good as this, it will do.”

“Do for what, sir?”

“I want a toga – you know, one of those long things people wrap round and round themselves. They’re all the rage in Rome. All the best people wear them, including the Emperor. So, obviously, I should have one too. But it’s got to be made of your very best, finest wool. It must be the best weaving you have ever done. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. How long should it be, sir?”

“Twelve cubits exactly – no longer, no shorter. – A cubit was about the length from your elbow to the tip of your fingers – “ That’s what I’m told is the perfect  length, so that’s how it should be.”

Twelve cubits, thought Sarah – that will take months to weave in between all the other things I have to do! 

“And I shall want it to be ready by the time of my birthday feast, which is…hmm…three weeks away.”

Three weeks! Thought Sarah. How can I possibly get it finished in time?

Herod waved Sarah away impatiently. As far as he was concerned it was all settled. 

But Sarah knew there was one other question she really had to ask, so, summoning all her courage, she coughed gently. 

“Excuse me, your majesty, but might I ask how much you will pay me for the cloth I weave for you?”

Herod turned back towards her, and looked at her, astonished. “Pay you! What do you mean, ‘pay you!’ It will be an honour for you to do this work for me, a token of your admiration and loyalty. And just think of the important people who will see it – it will be free advertising for you. It might even bring you more work. Why ever should I pay you for it? But mark my words; if you don’t finish in time, or it isn’t just as I have ordered, then you can be sure there will be trouble. 

“The impertinence” – he said to the attendants. “how much will you pay me? – whatever next! Take her out!  “ 

So Sarah was taken out and sent home, knowing that there was nothing for it but to do as Herod demanded. 

There was no time to lose. And before she could even start on the weaving, she had to have yarn to weave with.  

She set to work. She sorted through the fleeces in the storeroom, choosing the finest she could find. She washed them and carded them and set to work with her spindle spinning the yarn. Every spare moment she had she spun and spun and spun, as finely as she could until there were reels and reels of yarn ready for weaving and her hands ached. Days passed, a week passed, before she was even ready to set up her loom and begin to weave. There was only a fortnight left. She wove and wove, sending the shuttle backwards and forwards as fast as she could, but it was slow, slow progress. The yarn was so fine. Sometimes the cloth hardly seemed to grow at all. Now there was only a week left. Faster and faster she wove. Now there were only two days left, now one, but it still wasn’t finished. On the night before Herod’s birthday, she still had two cubits to go. “If I stay up all night, perhaps I might just finish it,” she thought.  

She wove on by the light of a single candle as the darkness fell and the stars came out. Sarah was exhausted. Her eyes kept closing, no matter how hard she tried to stay awake. Maybe just a five-minute nap would refresh her, she thought, as she leant back in her seat at the loom and rested her back against the wall, just for a moment. In an instant she was fast asleep, but as she slept she dreamt she felt  the touch of soft feathery wings and heard sweet singing – a song of a world where people loved each other, and no one was oppressed.  

But then, suddenly, interrupting that glorious music came the loud crowing of a cockerel. Sarah sat bolt upright. The first light of dawn was streaming in through the window. She’d slept all night. Oh no! there was no chance she’d finish the weaving now, was there. She reached for the shuttle, but what was this? 

She looked at the loom. She knew where she had stopped weaving the night before, but somehow the loom was full. The weaving was finished. Had she been weaving in her sleep? No, she was sure she hadn’t. As she wondered what could have happened, she noticed one stray white feather lying on the floor beside the loom which was far too big to have come from any bird she’d ever seen.  

Shaking her head, she cut the cloth off the loom, and measured it. One cubit, two cubits, five cubits, ten cubits, eleven cubits, twelve cubits – the length she’d promised – but there was more - thirteen cubits, fourteen. Two cubits too many. What should she do? Herod had been clear. It had to be twelve cubits long – that was the perfect length, he said. Would it matter if it was longer? With someone like Herod you could never be sure. So, Sarah cut off the extra bit and hemmed both pieces with tiny stitches to stop them unravelling. She set the smaller piece to one side, wondering what to do with it. As she looked at it again, it seemed even better than her own weaving. 

But there was no time to think of that now. She folded Herod’s toga and put it in her bag and hurried off towards Jerusalem. When she got there, a servant at the gate took it from her with a grunt and shut the door in her face – no thanks, no acknowledgement, and certainly no pay. All she could do was turn around and head back the way she’d come, hoping that the toga was good enough not to bring Herod’s wrath down on her head, hoping that was the last she would ever have to do with him.  

But as she put Jerusalem safely behind her, she started thinking about that spare piece of cloth she’d set aside. What should she do with it? It would raise very good money if she sold it; it was so fine! She started daydreaming about what she would spend the money on; something useful for the house? Or just something beautiful – there was never any money for luxuries, and it would feel lovely to have a treat… By the time she got home, she had a whole shopping list in her mind. At least something good had come from this.  She was very excited. She folded the cloth into her bag and decided to set off for the market to see if she could sell it straight away. 

But as she headed for the door, it opened, and there was her husband, home at last! He seemed to be just as excited as she was.“You’ll never guess what happened” they both said at the same time. 

“You go first,” he said. “No, no – you tell me your news” she answered – so he did.

“Well!” he said, “What a night! We were out on the hillside, just like always. It was pitch black, no moon, and cold, cold. But then, all of a sudden there was light everywhere and great flying things with snowy white, feathery wings, singing at the tops of their voices. It was amazing. Then one of them says to us ‘Don’t be afraid’ – which we were – ‘the Messiah has been born, the one God said he would send to save you. He’s in Bethlehem, and he’s lying in a manger, and you can go and see him.” Well. We were gobsmacked. We just stood there with our mouths open until he said again – ‘Go on then…’  So we did. Turns out he’s right here in Bethlehem staying in old Eli’s place – the father is some sort of relative of Eli. But Eli’s guest room was full, so there was nowhere for them to stay except down the end of the house where the animals were. They’d had to put the baby in the animal’s feeding trough. The poor little scrap was just lying on the scratchy straw. The angel said he was “wrapped in swaddling clothes”, but it looked like they were cut from one of Eli’s old hessian feed sacks to me. We’d never have let our babies sleep like that. The mother and father – Mary and Joseph were their names - must be really hard up, and old Eli doesn’t have a clue about babies.

Anyway, sorry to be rattling on. What was your news?”

“Oh… never mind,” said Sarah. “It can wait. This baby… do you think I could go and see it too.”

“I don’t see why not” said her husband, “I expect Mary would be glad to see another woman – she looked worn out and terrified.”

Sarah didn’t wait a moment. She set off on the short journey to Eli’s house. She called out quietly as she pushed open the door, but she needn’t have worried. The young mother, trying to hold the wriggling baby in her arms, looked up at her with tears of relief in her eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. This is my first and I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is that this isn’t how it’s meant to be, a baby having to lie in the straw among the animals.” 

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine” said Sarah “It takes a while to get used to babies. But I have something for you that might just help.”

Sarah took the cloth out of her bag. It was funny; it looked even more beautiful than it had done when she’d first seen it. She could swear it shone with its own light. It must be her eyes – she was very tired! 

“Here,” she said. “I don’t really know where this cloth came from, but I know where it should be going.”

And she wrapped the child around with the cloth, just as she had her own children so long ago, and gave him back to his mother, and he lay in her arms, comforted, and quieted by his fine new shawl. 

And as he slept, Sarah told Mary what had happened, about Herod – ‘steer clear of him if you can’ – and about the weaving, and about her dream, and about the single white feather she’d found. “What can it all mean?” she asked. 

“I don’t know” said Mary, “but I do know this. There will always be Herods in the world – people who have to throw their weight around to feel they matter at all - but there will also always be love, and this shawl will remind me of that, whatever happens in the future. If what I’ve heard is right my son who is wrapped in it, has come to bring us love enough to wrap the whole world if we will let him.” 

And the child fell asleep, and so, not long afterwards, did his mother. And Sarah tiptoed out and left them to rest, and so shall we. Amen 

The Weaver of Bethlehem : A story for Christmas Day

There was once a woman, called Sarah, who lived in small house just beyond the edge of the town of Bethlehem.

Her husband kept a flock of sheep on the hills around the town. Often, he would be gone for weeks at a time, and as their children were long ago grown up and gone, when he was away she was alone, but she kept busy, looking after the house, growing vegetables, and most of all, spinning and weaving with the wool from her husband’s sheep. 

Sarah was a very good weaver, known throughout the town for the beauty of her cloth. She could weave strong, thick fabric, to keep the fiercest wind out, but she could also weave the finest cloth, gossamer thin, like silk. But although both she and her husband worked hard, they still only just about made ends meet.

One day, when Sarah’s husband was away searching for pasture with the sheep, there was a knock on the door. There on the doorstep was an official looking man, dressed in fine clothes. 

“Are you the weaver, Sarah?” 

“I am,” Sarah said, nervously, wondering what all this meant. 

“I have a message for you – You are to present yourself at the court of King Herod in Jerusalem tomorrow, with a piece of your finest cloth.”

This didn’t sound like good news at all to Sarah. It was usually far safer to go unnoticed, especially by someone like King Herod, who had a reputation for being cruel and angry. But an order from a king can’t be ignored, so early the next morning, Sarah set off to walk the five miles or so to Jerusalem, with a piece of her very best weaving folded carefully in her pack.  

She presented herself at the palace gates, and was taken in through room after room, corridor after corridor, each one bigger and grander than the last until she was ushered into the most splendid room of all. She’d never seen anything like it; fine carved wood, and silk cushions on the chairs and a great throne upon which sat a bored looking man, holding a cup full of wine in his jewelled hands. 

“Who’s this?” he said to the attendant who had brought her in. 

“Sarah the weaver, sir”.

“Ah yes, the weaver. I hear that you are the best weaver in the area – is that true?”

“I, I don’t know, sir – I try my hardest to do a good job.”

Sarah handed over the cloth she had brought with her. Herod rubbed it between his fingers. “Yes, if it is as good as this, it will do.”

“Do for what, sir?”

“I want a toga – you know, one of those long things people wrap round and round themselves. They’re all the rage in Rome. All the best people wear them, including the Emperor. So, obviously, I should have one too. But it’s got to be made of your very best, finest wool. It must be the best weaving you have ever done. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. How long should it be, sir?”

“Twelve cubits exactly – no longer, no shorter. – A cubit was about the length from your elbow to the tip of your fingers – “ That’s what I’m told is the perfect  length, so that’s how it should be.”

Twelve cubits, thought Sarah – that will take months to weave in between all the other things I have to do! 

“And I shall want it to be ready by the time of my birthday feast, which is…hmm…three weeks away.”

Three weeks! Thought Sarah. How can I possibly get it finished in time?

Herod waved Sarah away impatiently. As far as he was concerned it was all settled. 

But Sarah knew there was one other question she really had to ask, so, summoning all her courage, she coughed gently. 

“Excuse me, your majesty, but might I ask how much you will pay me for the cloth I weave for you?”

Herod turned back towards her, and looked at her, astonished. “Pay you! What do you mean, ‘pay you!’ It will be an honour for you to do this work for me, a token of your admiration and loyalty. And just think of the important people who will see it – it will be free advertising for you. It might even bring you more work. Why ever should I pay you for it? But mark my words; if you don’t finish in time, or it isn’t just as I have ordered, then you can be sure there will be trouble. 

“The impertinence” – he said to the attendants. “how much will you pay me? – whatever next! Take her out!  “ 

So Sarah was taken out and sent home, knowing that there was nothing for it but to do as Herod demanded. 

There was no time to lose. And before she could even start on the weaving, she had to have yarn to weave with.  

She set to work. She sorted through the fleeces in the storeroom, choosing the finest she could find. She washed them and carded them and set to work with her spindle spinning the yarn. Every spare moment she had she spun and spun and spun, as finely as she could until there were reels and reels of yarn ready for weaving and her hands ached. Days passed, a week passed, before she was even ready to set up her loom and begin to weave. There was only a fortnight left. She wove and wove, sending the shuttle backwards and forwards as fast as she could, but it was slow, slow progress. The yarn was so fine. Sometimes the cloth hardly seemed to grow at all. Now there was only a week left. Faster and faster she wove. Now there were only two days left, now one, but it still wasn’t finished. On the night before Herod’s birthday, she still had two cubits to go. “If I stay up all night, perhaps I might just finish it,” she thought.  

She wove on by the light of a single candle as the darkness fell and the stars came out. Sarah was exhausted. Her eyes kept closing, no matter how hard she tried to stay awake. Maybe just a five-minute nap would refresh her, she thought, as she leant back in her seat at the loom and rested her back against the wall, just for a moment. In an instant she was fast asleep, but as she slept she dreamt she felt  the touch of soft feathery wings and heard sweet singing – a song of a world where people loved each other, and no one was oppressed.  

But then, suddenly, interrupting that glorious music came the loud crowing of a cockerel. Sarah sat bolt upright. The first light of dawn was streaming in through the window. She’d slept all night. Oh no! there was no chance she’d finish the weaving now, was there. She reached for the shuttle, but what was this? 

She looked at the loom. She knew where she had stopped weaving the night before, but somehow the loom was full. The weaving was finished. Had she been weaving in her sleep? No, she was sure she hadn’t. As she wondered what could have happened, she noticed one stray white feather lying on the floor beside the loom which was far too big to have come from any bird she’d ever seen.  

Shaking her head, she cut the cloth off the loom, and measured it. One cubit, two cubits, five cubits, ten cubits, eleven cubits, twelve cubits – the length she’d promised – but there was more - thirteen cubits, fourteen. Two cubits too many. What should she do? Herod had been clear. It had to be twelve cubits long – that was the perfect length, he said. Would it matter if it was longer? With someone like Herod you could never be sure. So, Sarah cut off the extra bit and hemmed both pieces with tiny stitches to stop them unravelling. She set the smaller piece to one side, wondering what to do with it. As she looked at it again, it seemed even better than her own weaving. 

But there was no time to think of that now. She folded Herod’s toga and put it in her bag and hurried off towards Jerusalem. When she got there, a servant at the gate took it from her with a grunt and shut the door in her face – no thanks, no acknowledgement, and certainly no pay. All she could do was turn around and head back the way she’d come, hoping that the toga was good enough not to bring Herod’s wrath down on her head, hoping that was the last she would ever have to do with him.  

But as she put Jerusalem safely behind her, she started thinking about that spare piece of cloth she’d set aside. What should she do with it? It would raise very good money if she sold it; it was so fine! She started daydreaming about what she would spend the money on; something useful for the house? Or just something beautiful – there was never any money for luxuries, and it would feel lovely to have a treat… By the time she got home, she had a whole shopping list in her mind. At least something good had come from this.  She was very excited. She folded the cloth into her bag and decided to set off for the market to see if she could sell it straight away. 

But as she headed for the door, it opened, and there was her husband, home at last! He seemed to be just as excited as she was.“You’ll never guess what happened” they both said at the same time. 

“You go first,” he said. “No, no – you tell me your news” she answered – so he did.

“Well!” he said, “What a night! We were out on the hillside, just like always. It was pitch black, no moon, and cold, cold. But then, all of a sudden there was light everywhere and great flying things with snowy white, feathery wings, singing at the tops of their voices. It was amazing. Then one of them says to us ‘Don’t be afraid’ – which we were – ‘the Messiah has been born, the one God said he would send to save you. He’s in Bethlehem, and he’s lying in a manger, and you can go and see him.” Well. We were gobsmacked. We just stood there with our mouths open until he said again – ‘Go on then…’  So we did. Turns out he’s right here in Bethlehem staying in old Eli’s place – the father is some sort of relative of Eli. But Eli’s guest room was full, so there was nowhere for them to stay except down the end of the house where the animals were. They’d had to put the baby in the animal’s feeding trough. The poor little scrap was just lying on the scratchy straw. The angel said he was “wrapped in swaddling clothes”, but it looked like they were cut from one of Eli’s old hessian feed sacks to me. We’d never have let our babies sleep like that. The mother and father – Mary and Joseph were their names - must be really hard up, and old Eli doesn’t have a clue about babies.

Anyway, sorry to be rattling on. What was your news?”

“Oh… never mind,” said Sarah. “It can wait. This baby… do you think I could go and see it too.”

“I don’t see why not” said her husband, “I expect Mary would be glad to see another woman – she looked worn out and terrified.”

Sarah didn’t wait a moment. She set off on the short journey to Eli’s house. She called out quietly as she pushed open the door, but she needn’t have worried. The young mother, trying to hold the wriggling baby in her arms, looked up at her with tears of relief in her eyes. “I’m so glad to see you. This is my first and I don’t know what I’m doing. All I know is that this isn’t how it’s meant to be, a baby having to lie in the straw among the animals.” 

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine” said Sarah “It takes a while to get used to babies. But I have something for you that might just help.”

Sarah took the cloth out of her bag. It was funny; it looked even more beautiful than it had done when she’d first seen it. She could swear it shone with its own light. It must be her eyes – she was very tired! 

“Here,” she said. “I don’t really know where this cloth came from, but I know where it should be going.”

And she wrapped the child around with the cloth, just as she had her own children so long ago, and gave him back to his mother, and he lay in her arms, comforted, and quieted by his fine new shawl. 

And as he slept, Sarah told Mary what had happened, about Herod – ‘steer clear of him if you can’ – and about the weaving, and about her dream, and about the single white feather she’d found. “What can it all mean?” she asked. 

“I don’t know” said Mary, “but I do know this. There will always be Herods in the world – people who have to throw their weight around to feel they matter at all - but there will also always be love, and this shawl will remind me of that, whatever happens in the future. If what I’ve heard is right my son who is wrapped in it, has come to bring us love enough to wrap the whole world if we will let him.” 

And the child fell asleep, and so, not long afterwards, did his mother. And Sarah tiptoed out and left them to rest, and so shall we. Amen 

Mary's Song: Advent 4

 

Micah 5.2-5a, Luke 1.39-45, Canticle Luke 1 46b-55

 

When Philip and I went to Israel a couple of years ago, one of the most atmospheric places we visited was the ancient town of Sepphoris, about 4 miles from Nazareth. It’s not mentioned by name in the New Testament, but some ancient traditions say that it was the birthplace of Mary – and who knows, maybe it was.

 

Sepphoris was inhabited until the Arab/Israeli conflicts of 1948, when it was a focus of bitter fighting, and its predominantly Arab population was evicted, after which it was excavated – it is now just an archaeological site. But that was just the latest in a long line of troubles. And one of the worst time had been under the Roman occupation of Israel, around the time of Jesus’ birth.

 

Shortly after King Herod died in 4 BC, a Jewish rebel leader called Judas, the son of a local bandit, had seized Sepphoris and incited its people to revolt. The Romans came down hard on Sepphoris, and, of course, the rebel forces were no match for theirs. According to ancient historians they burned the city to the ground, and killed many of its inhabitants.

 

Rather than leaving the town a ruin, though, Herod’s son, the new ruler of the area, decided to rebuild Sepphoris, to be what he called “the ornament of Galilee”, a fine Roman-style town, which would remind anyone who saw it who was in charge. Sepphoris became famous for its loyalty to Rome – they never rebelled again. They had learned their lesson the hard way.

 

But rebuilding the town was no mean feat. It took a lot of builders, and where were they to come from, when so many in Sepphoris itself had been killed? They were brought in from neighbouring villages, places like Nazareth, which is just on the next hill. It’s entirely possible that one of those builders was Joseph. We usually think of him as a carpenter, but the Greek word that describes him is teknon, and it just means a builder – the kind of person who could turn their hand to anything. He would almost certainly have taken along any of his sons who were old enough to be any use too, so today, when you place your hands on the ruined walls of Sepphoris today, you just might be touching the work of Joseph, or Jesus himself, a thought which I found rather spine-tingling when I was there.

 

Whether “Joseph and sons” rebuilt Sepphoris, though, they would have known what had happened there, just as we would if a great disaster had fallen on Wrotham, which is about the same distance away from us in Seal. They would have known people directly affected by the rebellion and its aftermath. Perhaps friends or relatives would have been among those killed or made homeless. The slaughter and sacking of Sepphoris would have overshadowed local memory, and the message of power that was being sent out by its rebuilding would have been clear to everyone. Don’t mess with Rome. It won’t end well.

 

It’s against this backdrop that we need to read Luke’s Gospel, and especially the song of Mary, which we heard today. Jesus was born into a world where ordinary people had no security at all, where their voices didn’t count, where their homes and lives could be taken away on a whim, and where they might even be expected to build monuments to their own oppression, which is what this “ornament of Galilee” really was.

 

Mary knew what power looked like in her world, and what happened to those who challenged it. And yet she rejoiced that through her child, God would pull down the powerful from their thrones, lift up the lowly, fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty.  She knew the risks. She knew the cost. She knew the price that people paid when they stood up to oppression. And yet she rejoiced, because she also knew God, and she knew that he cared and that he would act, just as he had so many times before – through Moses, through Miriam, through Joshua, through Deborah, through David, through Ruth, through Daniel, through prophets and leaders, brave men and women who had trusted God and had stood up for what was right, even when everything looked as if it was against them. And now he was acting through her, and through the child she carried.

I’ve had two children myself, and remember the joy of knowing that I was carrying a new life, but if I’m honest, it was really just about me and them. It’s very hard, when you are expecting, or are a new parent, to see beyond the tiny baby to the grown adult they will become, to rejoice not just for the immediate joy they bring to what they might one day do for others. But Mary does in her song. In fact, this child will grow up to die on a cross. He won’t be there to support her in her old age. He won’t give her any grandchildren. But she takes joy in what he will do for the rest of the world, the gift he will be for everyone else, as he gives a voice to the voiceless, and stands with those who are marginalised and ill-treated.

 

I’ve noticed that whenever church leaders make any statement about any sort of current affairs, people leap on them and tell them to stay out of  politics and stick to spiritual matters. As the 20^th century Brazilian Bishop, Helder Camara, said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” It is often far more comfortable to spiritualise and privatise faith, to make it all about individual salvation or personal happiness, but that’s not a faith which Mary would have recognised.

 

That tendency to look inwards often seems especially strong around Christmas. The images we see often focusses on the home, on the nuclear family gathered around a groaning table. It’s about Christmas jumpers and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, about time off and relaxation in the private sanctuary of your own home.

 

There’s nothing wrong with any of those things in themselves, but it’s important to recognise that for Mary, the birth of her son is about on those who have no home, no family, no food, never mind a groaning table. It’s about those who long for rest, but find none, who daily face the grind of oppression. These are the ones who she longs to see lifted up, and knows that to do so will mean that others must be pulled down. The birth of her son is for those forced by the vagaries of politics to make long journeys, as she was, to places where there is no room for them. It is about danger and fear. It’s hard for us to see any cause for rejoicing in that, but Mary realises that into all this mess, the son of God is about to be born, through her. It may seem like a small thing – a tiny baby born to a poor family – but this is the one whose life will change the world, by changing the lives and hearts of those who follow him.

 

And that is why she rejoices.

 

Her words, which are said or sung at every service of Evening Prayer, are explosive in their implications. This is what Christian faith is meant to look like. This is how the followers of Jesus are meant to live, she reminds us.

 

This year, above all years, none of us knows quite what Christmas will look like. We take our lateral flow tests and hope that we won’t see that second red line, with all that might mean for us. We worry about Christmas being spoiled, our best laid plans coming to nothing.

 

But Mary’s song reminds us that it is precisely for times like these that Christ was born, when the love and courage we show one another really matters, when we are called to put others needs before our own. He is the promise of God’s love in the darkness as much as the light. He is the promise of God’s love when things go wrong just as much as when they go right.  And neither invading armies nor invading viruses can take that love away from us, this Christmas or ever.

Amen

 

Mary's Song: Advent 4

 

Micah 5.2-5a, Luke 1.39-45, Canticle Luke 1 46b-55

 

When Philip and I went to Israel a couple of years ago, one of the most atmospheric places we visited was the ancient town of Sepphoris, about 4 miles from Nazareth. It’s not mentioned by name in the New Testament, but some ancient traditions say that it was the birthplace of Mary – and who knows, maybe it was.

 

Sepphoris was inhabited until the Arab/Israeli conflicts of 1948, when it was a focus of bitter fighting, and its predominantly Arab population was evicted, after which it was excavated – it is now just an archaeological site. But that was just the latest in a long line of troubles. And one of the worst time had been under the Roman occupation of Israel, around the time of Jesus’ birth.

 

Shortly after King Herod died in 4 BC, a Jewish rebel leader called Judas, the son of a local bandit, had seized Sepphoris and incited its people to revolt. The Romans came down hard on Sepphoris, and, of course, the rebel forces were no match for theirs. According to ancient historians they burned the city to the ground, and killed many of its inhabitants.

 

Rather than leaving the town a ruin, though, Herod’s son, the new ruler of the area, decided to rebuild Sepphoris, to be what he called “the ornament of Galilee”, a fine Roman-style town, which would remind anyone who saw it who was in charge. Sepphoris became famous for its loyalty to Rome – they never rebelled again. They had learned their lesson the hard way.

 

But rebuilding the town was no mean feat. It took a lot of builders, and where were they to come from, when so many in Sepphoris itself had been killed? They were brought in from neighbouring villages, places like Nazareth, which is just on the next hill. It’s entirely possible that one of those builders was Joseph. We usually think of him as a carpenter, but the Greek word that describes him is teknon, and it just means a builder – the kind of person who could turn their hand to anything. He would almost certainly have taken along any of his sons who were old enough to be any use too, so today, when you place your hands on the ruined walls of Sepphoris today, you just might be touching the work of Joseph, or Jesus himself, a thought which I found rather spine-tingling when I was there.

 

Whether “Joseph and sons” rebuilt Sepphoris, though, they would have known what had happened there, just as we would if a great disaster had fallen on Wrotham, which is about the same distance away from us in Seal. They would have known people directly affected by the rebellion and its aftermath. Perhaps friends or relatives would have been among those killed or made homeless. The slaughter and sacking of Sepphoris would have overshadowed local memory, and the message of power that was being sent out by its rebuilding would have been clear to everyone. Don’t mess with Rome. It won’t end well.

 

It’s against this backdrop that we need to read Luke’s Gospel, and especially the song of Mary, which we heard today. Jesus was born into a world where ordinary people had no security at all, where their voices didn’t count, where their homes and lives could be taken away on a whim, and where they might even be expected to build monuments to their own oppression, which is what this “ornament of Galilee” really was.

 

Mary knew what power looked like in her world, and what happened to those who challenged it. And yet she rejoiced that through her child, God would pull down the powerful from their thrones, lift up the lowly, fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty.  She knew the risks. She knew the cost. She knew the price that people paid when they stood up to oppression. And yet she rejoiced, because she also knew God, and she knew that he cared and that he would act, just as he had so many times before – through Moses, through Miriam, through Joshua, through Deborah, through David, through Ruth, through Daniel, through prophets and leaders, brave men and women who had trusted God and had stood up for what was right, even when everything looked as if it was against them. And now he was acting through her, and through the child she carried.

I’ve had two children myself, and remember the joy of knowing that I was carrying a new life, but if I’m honest, it was really just about me and them. It’s very hard, when you are expecting, or are a new parent, to see beyond the tiny baby to the grown adult they will become, to rejoice not just for the immediate joy they bring to what they might one day do for others. But Mary does in her song. In fact, this child will grow up to die on a cross. He won’t be there to support her in her old age. He won’t give her any grandchildren. But she takes joy in what he will do for the rest of the world, the gift he will be for everyone else, as he gives a voice to the voiceless, and stands with those who are marginalised and ill-treated.

 

I’ve noticed that whenever church leaders make any statement about any sort of current affairs, people leap on them and tell them to stay out of  politics and stick to spiritual matters. As the 20^th century Brazilian Bishop, Helder Camara, said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist.” It is often far more comfortable to spiritualise and privatise faith, to make it all about individual salvation or personal happiness, but that’s not a faith which Mary would have recognised.

 

That tendency to look inwards often seems especially strong around Christmas. The images we see often focusses on the home, on the nuclear family gathered around a groaning table. It’s about Christmas jumpers and chestnuts roasting on an open fire, about time off and relaxation in the private sanctuary of your own home.

 

There’s nothing wrong with any of those things in themselves, but it’s important to recognise that for Mary, the birth of her son is about on those who have no home, no family, no food, never mind a groaning table. It’s about those who long for rest, but find none, who daily face the grind of oppression. These are the ones who she longs to see lifted up, and knows that to do so will mean that others must be pulled down. The birth of her son is for those forced by the vagaries of politics to make long journeys, as she was, to places where there is no room for them. It is about danger and fear. It’s hard for us to see any cause for rejoicing in that, but Mary realises that into all this mess, the son of God is about to be born, through her. It may seem like a small thing – a tiny baby born to a poor family – but this is the one whose life will change the world, by changing the lives and hearts of those who follow him.

 

And that is why she rejoices.

 

Her words, which are said or sung at every service of Evening Prayer, are explosive in their implications. This is what Christian faith is meant to look like. This is how the followers of Jesus are meant to live, she reminds us.

 

This year, above all years, none of us knows quite what Christmas will look like. We take our lateral flow tests and hope that we won’t see that second red line, with all that might mean for us. We worry about Christmas being spoiled, our best laid plans coming to nothing.

 

But Mary’s song reminds us that it is precisely for times like these that Christ was born, when the love and courage we show one another really matters, when we are called to put others needs before our own. He is the promise of God’s love in the darkness as much as the light. He is the promise of God’s love when things go wrong just as much as when they go right.  And neither invading armies nor invading viruses can take that love away from us, this Christmas or ever.

Amen

 

Rejoice! Advent 3

 Audio version here 

Philippians 4.4-7, Luke3.7-18

 

Today, the third Sunday in Advent is sometimes called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means “rejoice” in Latin, and it’s the opening word of the first reading we heard, which has been been read on this day right back into the Middle Ages.. “Rejoice!” says Paul to the Philippians. In fact, he says it twice – “and again I say rejoice”. We light the pink candle on our Advent wreath in church because today was traditionally a day when the Advent fast was relaxed. “Are we nearly there yet?” Yes, we are. We’ve nearly made it to Christmas

 

The reading is a wonderfully joyful one...unless, of course, your life has just gone pear-shaped, you’ve got a chronic illness, you’ve lost a job, you’ve been bereaved, you’ve fallen out with a friend or family member, or encountered any one of the many disasters that life can throw at us. It that’s the case, then Paul’s cheery words can just  feel like a kick in the teeth. It’s like when someone says “cheer up, it may never happen” - but it already has. “Turn that frown upside down” people say – well, no, sometimes we can’t, and we shouldn’t.  It’s all very well for Paul, we might think. Life was obviously going swimmingly for him. If he was in our shoes, he wouldn’t be so irritatingly jolly.

 

Except that if we read the whole of his letter to the Philippians, we find that isn’t so at all. In fact, when he writes these words, Paul is under arrest. We know that because he tells us so at the beginning of the letter. He’s been imprisoned by the Romans, and is being guarded by Roman soldiers, and that’s never good news. Paul knew that sooner or later his message would probably get him into trouble, and it did. You don’t tangle with the might of Rome and get away with it. Eventually he was executed for his faith, and it’s not hard to see why. He was preaching about another kingdom, the kingdom of God, and that sounded like rebellion to the Romans. He followed another ruler, and to add insult to injury, it was Jesus, who they thought they’d got rid of on the cross, but who Paul insisted had been raised from death. They couldn’t be doing with people who made trouble like that.

 

Even as Paul writes to the Philippians, he knows that the writing is on the wall for him.  

And yet, still he says “rejoice”.

 

But of course, he doesn’t just say “rejoice” and that’s the key to understanding this passage. He actually says “rejoice in the Lord”. When it’s all going wrong, when the sky feels as if it’s falling on our heads, simply being told to rejoice is an insult. We have to have something to rejoice about, some reason for rejoicing, something to find joy in, and for Paul, the cause of his rejoicing is Jesus. His resurrection was the proof for Paul that nothing, nothing could defeat God’s love. No army in the world, no disaster, not even death on the cross had the last word; the last word belonged to God.

 

The resurrection wasn’t just an amazing miracle to Paul; it was the proof that in the end, love wins, that it is stronger than hatred. He didn’t think that God would prevent bad things happening – after all, God hadn’t swooped down and saved Jesus from dying – but his resurrection showed that even though sometimes love seems wasted, goodness seems pointless, they never are. Their effects are eternal, and spring up in the most unexpected times and places. At the beginning of his letter to the Philippians, he says that what has happened to him – this cruel imprisonment - has actually helped to spread the Gospel, because his message has now come to the imperial guard, the soldiers who are guarding him, and that it is changing lives even among them. When he calls the Philippians to rejoice, he isn’t calling them to forced cheerfulness, he is calling them to see that in all times and all places, God is at work, that, as he puts it here, the Lord is near.

 

In the Gospel reading today, John the Baptist also preached about God’s nearness,  but in a much starker and less comfortable way. He doesn’t mince his words with those who come to him. I’ve never called people a “brood of vipers” from the pulpit, and I don’t plan to start doing so - I think you’d probably be complaining to the Bishop if I did, and with some justification. But we do all need shaking out of our complacency sometimes. There are times when we need to change. We know there’s no quick fix to problems like the climate emergency. There’s no superficial answer. We can’t just hope that clever scientists or politicians will come up with a magic wand which enables us to go on living as we do; we know that all of us will have to learn to live differently if there’s any hope of the human race living at all.

 

Whether it is big things like that, or the many smaller, but just as devastating problems we face individually, it is easy to wallow in blame and guilt, or just to try to close our eyes to them. One of the reasons we do that is because, deep down we don’t really believe that anything can change. But John’s words, stark as they seem actually lead us out of that despair. He preaches about the possibility of change, calling people to share what they have, treat others fairly, do their jobs with integrity, whatever they are. He preaches about a God who loves his people enough to want them to be transformed, washed clean in the waters of baptism, able to start again. He doesn’t abandon us or give up on us. In a lovely poem about John the Baptist, Charles Causley describes him as someone who’d “hold your hand/ and bring you to land/ and wash your fears away.” John preaches about a God to whom each one of us matters, and who sends his Son knowing that he will face the worst human beings can do to him, to show us just how much each one of us matters.

 

That kind of love and commitment is what, in the end, changes people towards the good. Fear can’t do it. Force can’t do it. Only love can really transform us. Once we know that we are loved by God, that we matter to him, we can never entirely unknow that. It will glow in a corner of our hearts to be discovered on even the darkest day. And if we believe it for ourselves, we have to believe it for others too, so it will change the way we treat them too.

 

And that is our cause for rejoicing. As Paul sits in his prison cell, he knows that he is not alone, that God is right there with him in the darkness and the fear, and right there, too, in the hearts of the Roman soldiers who are guarding him, leading them to wonder how this prisoner manages to find joy even in the midst of terror and maybe, for some of them, enabling them to find that joy for themselves. And it can do the same for us.

 

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. Amen

Rejoice! Advent 3

 Audio version here 

Philippians 4.4-7, Luke3.7-18

 

Today, the third Sunday in Advent is sometimes called Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means “rejoice” in Latin, and it’s the opening word of the first reading we heard, which has been been read on this day right back into the Middle Ages.. “Rejoice!” says Paul to the Philippians. In fact, he says it twice – “and again I say rejoice”. We light the pink candle on our Advent wreath in church because today was traditionally a day when the Advent fast was relaxed. “Are we nearly there yet?” Yes, we are. We’ve nearly made it to Christmas

 

The reading is a wonderfully joyful one...unless, of course, your life has just gone pear-shaped, you’ve got a chronic illness, you’ve lost a job, you’ve been bereaved, you’ve fallen out with a friend or family member, or encountered any one of the many disasters that life can throw at us. It that’s the case, then Paul’s cheery words can just  feel like a kick in the teeth. It’s like when someone says “cheer up, it may never happen” - but it already has. “Turn that frown upside down” people say – well, no, sometimes we can’t, and we shouldn’t.  It’s all very well for Paul, we might think. Life was obviously going swimmingly for him. If he was in our shoes, he wouldn’t be so irritatingly jolly.

 

Except that if we read the whole of his letter to the Philippians, we find that isn’t so at all. In fact, when he writes these words, Paul is under arrest. We know that because he tells us so at the beginning of the letter. He’s been imprisoned by the Romans, and is being guarded by Roman soldiers, and that’s never good news. Paul knew that sooner or later his message would probably get him into trouble, and it did. You don’t tangle with the might of Rome and get away with it. Eventually he was executed for his faith, and it’s not hard to see why. He was preaching about another kingdom, the kingdom of God, and that sounded like rebellion to the Romans. He followed another ruler, and to add insult to injury, it was Jesus, who they thought they’d got rid of on the cross, but who Paul insisted had been raised from death. They couldn’t be doing with people who made trouble like that.

 

Even as Paul writes to the Philippians, he knows that the writing is on the wall for him.  

And yet, still he says “rejoice”.

 

But of course, he doesn’t just say “rejoice” and that’s the key to understanding this passage. He actually says “rejoice in the Lord”. When it’s all going wrong, when the sky feels as if it’s falling on our heads, simply being told to rejoice is an insult. We have to have something to rejoice about, some reason for rejoicing, something to find joy in, and for Paul, the cause of his rejoicing is Jesus. His resurrection was the proof for Paul that nothing, nothing could defeat God’s love. No army in the world, no disaster, not even death on the cross had the last word; the last word belonged to God.

 

The resurrection wasn’t just an amazing miracle to Paul; it was the proof that in the end, love wins, that it is stronger than hatred. He didn’t think that God would prevent bad things happening – after all, God hadn’t swooped down and saved Jesus from dying – but his resurrection showed that even though sometimes love seems wasted, goodness seems pointless, they never are. Their effects are eternal, and spring up in the most unexpected times and places. At the beginning of his letter to the Philippians, he says that what has happened to him – this cruel imprisonment - has actually helped to spread the Gospel, because his message has now come to the imperial guard, the soldiers who are guarding him, and that it is changing lives even among them. When he calls the Philippians to rejoice, he isn’t calling them to forced cheerfulness, he is calling them to see that in all times and all places, God is at work, that, as he puts it here, the Lord is near.

 

In the Gospel reading today, John the Baptist also preached about God’s nearness,  but in a much starker and less comfortable way. He doesn’t mince his words with those who come to him. I’ve never called people a “brood of vipers” from the pulpit, and I don’t plan to start doing so - I think you’d probably be complaining to the Bishop if I did, and with some justification. But we do all need shaking out of our complacency sometimes. There are times when we need to change. We know there’s no quick fix to problems like the climate emergency. There’s no superficial answer. We can’t just hope that clever scientists or politicians will come up with a magic wand which enables us to go on living as we do; we know that all of us will have to learn to live differently if there’s any hope of the human race living at all.

 

Whether it is big things like that, or the many smaller, but just as devastating problems we face individually, it is easy to wallow in blame and guilt, or just to try to close our eyes to them. One of the reasons we do that is because, deep down we don’t really believe that anything can change. But John’s words, stark as they seem actually lead us out of that despair. He preaches about the possibility of change, calling people to share what they have, treat others fairly, do their jobs with integrity, whatever they are. He preaches about a God who loves his people enough to want them to be transformed, washed clean in the waters of baptism, able to start again. He doesn’t abandon us or give up on us. In a lovely poem about John the Baptist, Charles Causley describes him as someone who’d “hold your hand/ and bring you to land/ and wash your fears away.” John preaches about a God to whom each one of us matters, and who sends his Son knowing that he will face the worst human beings can do to him, to show us just how much each one of us matters.

 

That kind of love and commitment is what, in the end, changes people towards the good. Fear can’t do it. Force can’t do it. Only love can really transform us. Once we know that we are loved by God, that we matter to him, we can never entirely unknow that. It will glow in a corner of our hearts to be discovered on even the darkest day. And if we believe it for ourselves, we have to believe it for others too, so it will change the way we treat them too.

 

And that is our cause for rejoicing. As Paul sits in his prison cell, he knows that he is not alone, that God is right there with him in the darkness and the fear, and right there, too, in the hearts of the Roman soldiers who are guarding him, leading them to wonder how this prisoner manages to find joy even in the midst of terror and maybe, for some of them, enabling them to find that joy for themselves. And it can do the same for us.

 

Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice. Amen

Names... Advent 2 (with baptism)

 

Philippians 1.3-11, Benedictus and Luke 3.1-6

 

Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas and Caiphas. Judea, Galilee, Ituraea and Trachonitis, Abilene…

Today’s Gospel reading was full of names of people and places – a bit of a challenge to read. But my guess is that most of them meant nothing at all to you. Anyone want to tell me who Lysanius was? Anyone able to point to Trachonitis on a map? (Without googling them, which is what I had to do). Pontius Pilate and Herod might have stirred a memory, and maybe you recognised Galilee, but my guess is that there were quite a few names there that were a complete blank. It’s really tempting to skip over the opening lines of this reading. After all, what have these obscure people and places got to do with anything?

 

But of course, the point is that although these names and places are obscure to us, they wouldn’t have been to the people who first heard Luke’s Gospel. These were people who had been big in the first century world in which Jesus ministered, the ones who had power. Luke wrote his Gospel forty or fifty years after Jesus’ crucifixion, but these would still have been names and places that were remembered, that came freighted with memories and emotions. It would be a bit like me saying  “in the time of Margaret Thatcher” or “when Tony Blair was Prime minister ”. That would trigger a whole raft of associations for us, either from our own memories if we’re old enough to remember those time or from the stories of others. It’s the same with places too. If something happens in a place we know, where we used to live or still do, we sit up and take notice. We might feel a sense of pride. “It’s put Seal on the map” we say,. Or we might feel a sense of shame and surprise. “You don’t expect things like that to happen in your own backyard,”

 

Lysanius, Trachonitis and all the rest were as familiar and as emotive to the people Luke wrote his Gospel for as our own politicians, celebrities, or familiar place names are for us. They locate the story he writes in a particular time and place. It isn’t “long ago and far away”. He’s not writing about some abstract idea. He’s writing about something that happened to people and in places that his hearers might have known or known of. They were famous.

 

And yet it isn’t them who this story is really about. Listen to that first sentence again. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis , and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiphas, the word  came to John son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.” John who? It was a very common name in first century Israel. John, the son of Zechariah. Zechariah who? Oh, just some old priest who worked in the Temple now and then, no one anyone would ever have heard of. And what territory does this John rule over? None at all – he lives out in the wilderness.

 

All that build up, through all those names, but it turns out that a scruffy unknown preacher is the central character in Luke’s story. And the reason for that, of course, is that he is the one who announces that God is on the move, that the Messiah, the leader God had promised is coming, who points the way to Jesus, another apparently obscure person, just a carpenter from Nazareth, with no army to command, and yet between them – John the Baptist, as we know this John, and Jesus – they would change the world. It’s their names which ring out through history, their impact which has lasted, when poor old Lysanias is long forgotten.

 

Names matter. Today in church we’re baptising Harry Benjamin Fuller. He’s not quite five months old yet. I have absolutely no idea what he’ll do when he is grown up. Even his parents are only really starting to get to know him, discovering his personality, his likes and dislikes. So much about little Harry is, as yet, unknown and unknowable, like the many thousands of children who have been baptised here before him. But what we do know is that he is unique, that he comes into the world with gifts to give, blessings to share. He may never be world-famous. He may not find a cure for cancer, or fly to Mars, or play football for England, but he will have an impact on those around him, just as we all do. When we baptise him I will ask for his name, just as I always do, and use it, not because I need to tell God who he is – God already knows– but to remind us that here is someone who the world has never seen before and will never see again, a life that is unique, just as all our lives are.

 

It doesn’t matter whether we are kings or emperors – Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, or Lysanias, whoever he was.  God can, and does, work through anyone, including unconventional desert preachers like John the Baptist, and carpenters from backwater towns, like Jesus, and a whole range of others; ordinary people, odd people, broken people, people whose lives have gone off the rails or hit the buffers or who seem to have nothing much to offer, fishermen and tax collectors and women who are looked down on and despised, All of these, and many more, will turn out to be vital to the story Luke will tell in his Gospel, a story of God’s love for us all, just as all of our lives, whoever we are, whatever we achieve, or don’t,  in the world’s eyes, are vital to God’s work now .

 

So today, whoever we are, whatever our name, whether we are famous or not, the Gospel tells us that we matter. The word of God came to John. The word of God comes to each of us, calling us to prepare the way of the Lord, to sow seeds of love and hope and joy and peace, to play our part in creating communities where people are welcomed and can thrive, filled with the life of God.

Amen.

Names... Advent 2 (with baptism)

 

Philippians 1.3-11, Benedictus and Luke 3.1-6

 

Tiberius, Pontius Pilate, Herod, Philip, Lysanias, Annas and Caiphas. Judea, Galilee, Ituraea and Trachonitis, Abilene…

Today’s Gospel reading was full of names of people and places – a bit of a challenge to read. But my guess is that most of them meant nothing at all to you. Anyone want to tell me who Lysanius was? Anyone able to point to Trachonitis on a map? (Without googling them, which is what I had to do). Pontius Pilate and Herod might have stirred a memory, and maybe you recognised Galilee, but my guess is that there were quite a few names there that were a complete blank. It’s really tempting to skip over the opening lines of this reading. After all, what have these obscure people and places got to do with anything?

 

But of course, the point is that although these names and places are obscure to us, they wouldn’t have been to the people who first heard Luke’s Gospel. These were people who had been big in the first century world in which Jesus ministered, the ones who had power. Luke wrote his Gospel forty or fifty years after Jesus’ crucifixion, but these would still have been names and places that were remembered, that came freighted with memories and emotions. It would be a bit like me saying  “in the time of Margaret Thatcher” or “when Tony Blair was Prime minister ”. That would trigger a whole raft of associations for us, either from our own memories if we’re old enough to remember those time or from the stories of others. It’s the same with places too. If something happens in a place we know, where we used to live or still do, we sit up and take notice. We might feel a sense of pride. “It’s put Seal on the map” we say,. Or we might feel a sense of shame and surprise. “You don’t expect things like that to happen in your own backyard,”

 

Lysanius, Trachonitis and all the rest were as familiar and as emotive to the people Luke wrote his Gospel for as our own politicians, celebrities, or familiar place names are for us. They locate the story he writes in a particular time and place. It isn’t “long ago and far away”. He’s not writing about some abstract idea. He’s writing about something that happened to people and in places that his hearers might have known or known of. They were famous.

 

And yet it isn’t them who this story is really about. Listen to that first sentence again. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis , and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiphas, the word  came to John son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.” John who? It was a very common name in first century Israel. John, the son of Zechariah. Zechariah who? Oh, just some old priest who worked in the Temple now and then, no one anyone would ever have heard of. And what territory does this John rule over? None at all – he lives out in the wilderness.

 

All that build up, through all those names, but it turns out that a scruffy unknown preacher is the central character in Luke’s story. And the reason for that, of course, is that he is the one who announces that God is on the move, that the Messiah, the leader God had promised is coming, who points the way to Jesus, another apparently obscure person, just a carpenter from Nazareth, with no army to command, and yet between them – John the Baptist, as we know this John, and Jesus – they would change the world. It’s their names which ring out through history, their impact which has lasted, when poor old Lysanias is long forgotten.

 

Names matter. Today in church we’re baptising Harry Benjamin Fuller. He’s not quite five months old yet. I have absolutely no idea what he’ll do when he is grown up. Even his parents are only really starting to get to know him, discovering his personality, his likes and dislikes. So much about little Harry is, as yet, unknown and unknowable, like the many thousands of children who have been baptised here before him. But what we do know is that he is unique, that he comes into the world with gifts to give, blessings to share. He may never be world-famous. He may not find a cure for cancer, or fly to Mars, or play football for England, but he will have an impact on those around him, just as we all do. When we baptise him I will ask for his name, just as I always do, and use it, not because I need to tell God who he is – God already knows– but to remind us that here is someone who the world has never seen before and will never see again, a life that is unique, just as all our lives are.

 

It doesn’t matter whether we are kings or emperors – Tiberius, Pilate, Herod, or Lysanias, whoever he was.  God can, and does, work through anyone, including unconventional desert preachers like John the Baptist, and carpenters from backwater towns, like Jesus, and a whole range of others; ordinary people, odd people, broken people, people whose lives have gone off the rails or hit the buffers or who seem to have nothing much to offer, fishermen and tax collectors and women who are looked down on and despised, All of these, and many more, will turn out to be vital to the story Luke will tell in his Gospel, a story of God’s love for us all, just as all of our lives, whoever we are, whatever we achieve, or don’t,  in the world’s eyes, are vital to God’s work now .

 

So today, whoever we are, whatever our name, whether we are famous or not, the Gospel tells us that we matter. The word of God came to John. The word of God comes to each of us, calling us to prepare the way of the Lord, to sow seeds of love and hope and joy and peace, to play our part in creating communities where people are welcomed and can thrive, filled with the life of God.

Amen.

Be alert at all times: Advent 1 2021

 

1 Thess 3.9-13, Luke 21.25-36

 

“Be alert at all times!” says Jesus in the Gospel reading.

Oh Lord! Do we have to…?

I don’t know about you, but at this time of year I just want to go into hibernation, to curl up like the bears and the hedgehogs and sleep till the spring!

I don’t suppose I’m the only one who feels like that.

Can’t we just be left to slumber?

 

That isn’t an unreasonable question. Many people these days get far too little rest, working all hours to make ends meet, juggling to meet their commitments, under pressure to do more with less, or struggling with chronic illness or disability. There’s often no simple way to ease up, but it’s important to recognise when “enough is enough”, and allow ourselves to stop. The Bible doesn’t advocate burn-out. Quite the reverse: rest is sacred. We’re told to keep a Sabbath, a regular time for doing nothing. And in case we’re tempted to think that might have been easier back in Biblical times, let’s remember that God gave that commandment to keep the Sabbath holy as his people were trekking across the desert towards the Promised Land, when their lives must have been almost impossibly harsh and demanding. Even then - especially then – in the fact of all that it was vital that they learned to rely on God, not on their own anxious efforts, which were never going to be enough in any case. We can’t do it all, no matter how hard we try.

 

If the Advent call to wake up, feels like just another demand sent to hound us, another burden to bear, more stuff we ought to do, then there’s something wrong with the way we are understanding it. Jesus doesn’t call his followers here to be busy, but to be alert, and that’s very different. In fact, busyness can make us less alert. If our minds are literally pre-occupied – already full - with our to-do lists and our worries, it’s much harder to pay real attention to the things that really matter.

 

And that’s what the Advent call is; a call to pay attention to what really matters, and most of all to pay attention to God, to look for his presence, to notice him at work in ourselves, in others, in the world around us. The promise of the Bible is that if we can do that properly it will bring us the true rest we really need.

 

Jesus expresses this call to pay attention in very dramatic language – signs in the sun and moon and stars. He reminds his hearers that it may not come in comfortable ways – it may feel like the heavens are shaking.  All this apocalyptic imagery can sound very alien to us. Did Jesus really believe that that this was literally what was going to happen? The answer is probably yes. He was a man of his time, just as we are of ours. His followers certainly believed that the end of the world as they knew it was just around the corner.

 

Two thousand years of history have shown that they were mistaken, but the underlying message Jesus gave them is still worth hearing, because it wasn’t, first and foremost about when and how the world would end, but about how to live in a world that felt constantly as if it might tumble around their ears at any moment, as our world so often does to us. The people of the first century lived under the shadow of persecution, disease, war and famine; they knew they might be swept away at a moment’s notice. For many people today that is still true. The migrants who lost their lives in the channel this week, and the many thousands desperate enough to take similar risks around the world, bear witness to that. But we have all been reminded of the fragility of human life over the last year or so. The end of the age, in some cosmic, universal sense, might not be around the corner, but the end of the age for each of us personally can still come on us completely unawares.

 

How do we cope with that? We could try to build defences against every possible threat, but no amount of money, power or influence can protect us completely.

 

We can’t stop bad things happening, but Jesus words remind us that we have a choice about how we respond to them. And the key to responding well, he says, is to be alert, to pay attention, not just to the problems, but to the ways in which God is present in the midst of them. “When these things take place” says Jesus, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Look at the fig tree, he goes on, whose unfurling leaves tell you summer is on the way. In the same way God’s kingdom is growing among you. Pay attention to its small beginnings and nurture them, he says.

 

What might that look like in practice? It might mean paying attention to the word of God, reading the Bible, spending time in prayer and reflection, so that we can learn to see ourselves as God sees us - eternally loved and of infinite value.

It might mean learning to see him at work in others too, though. 

 

In our first reading, Paul gave thanks for the Christians he was writing to in Thessalonika, for their love, which gave him strength and courage. The love of the Christian community mattered greatly to Paul. This was the man who’d once hated and persecuted Christians, until, on the road to Damascus, he’d had a dazzling vision of Jesus. But it wasn’t just the vision which changed his mind and heart, it was the fact that when he got to Damascus, blind and confused, one of the very people he’d been persecuting, a Christian called Ananias, had come to him – the enemy – prayed for his healing, taken him in and welcomed him into this very community he had been hell-bent on destroying. No wonder he later wrote so glowingly about the love which “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” He knew it for himself, and he wanted others to know it too, to pay attention to it, to draw on the strength that a community of loving people can provide. I see,  day to day, the quiet, often unsung care that people give each other in this church, and which spreads out to those around us too. It’s easy to take all that care for granted – but the love which notices people and helps them in the small things of life is something which many today are desperately hungry for, we should never underestimate how important and precious it is.

 

No one has a magic wand to wave away the sorrows of the world – the heavens do shake, there is distress among nations – it is part of life. But within all that trouble there are also the seeds of love and hope and joy, growing stubbornly amidst the wreckage of the world. Our job this Advent, and all year round, is to pay attention to those fragile seedlings wherever we find them so that they will grow into the kingdom God wants us all to enjoy.

Amen

 

Be alert at all times: Advent 1 2021

 

1 Thess 3.9-13, Luke 21.25-36

 

“Be alert at all times!” says Jesus in the Gospel reading.

Oh Lord! Do we have to…?

I don’t know about you, but at this time of year I just want to go into hibernation, to curl up like the bears and the hedgehogs and sleep till the spring!

I don’t suppose I’m the only one who feels like that.

Can’t we just be left to slumber?

 

That isn’t an unreasonable question. Many people these days get far too little rest, working all hours to make ends meet, juggling to meet their commitments, under pressure to do more with less, or struggling with chronic illness or disability. There’s often no simple way to ease up, but it’s important to recognise when “enough is enough”, and allow ourselves to stop. The Bible doesn’t advocate burn-out. Quite the reverse: rest is sacred. We’re told to keep a Sabbath, a regular time for doing nothing. And in case we’re tempted to think that might have been easier back in Biblical times, let’s remember that God gave that commandment to keep the Sabbath holy as his people were trekking across the desert towards the Promised Land, when their lives must have been almost impossibly harsh and demanding. Even then - especially then – in the fact of all that it was vital that they learned to rely on God, not on their own anxious efforts, which were never going to be enough in any case. We can’t do it all, no matter how hard we try.

 

If the Advent call to wake up, feels like just another demand sent to hound us, another burden to bear, more stuff we ought to do, then there’s something wrong with the way we are understanding it. Jesus doesn’t call his followers here to be busy, but to be alert, and that’s very different. In fact, busyness can make us less alert. If our minds are literally pre-occupied – already full - with our to-do lists and our worries, it’s much harder to pay real attention to the things that really matter.

 

And that’s what the Advent call is; a call to pay attention to what really matters, and most of all to pay attention to God, to look for his presence, to notice him at work in ourselves, in others, in the world around us. The promise of the Bible is that if we can do that properly it will bring us the true rest we really need.

 

Jesus expresses this call to pay attention in very dramatic language – signs in the sun and moon and stars. He reminds his hearers that it may not come in comfortable ways – it may feel like the heavens are shaking.  All this apocalyptic imagery can sound very alien to us. Did Jesus really believe that that this was literally what was going to happen? The answer is probably yes. He was a man of his time, just as we are of ours. His followers certainly believed that the end of the world as they knew it was just around the corner.

 

Two thousand years of history have shown that they were mistaken, but the underlying message Jesus gave them is still worth hearing, because it wasn’t, first and foremost about when and how the world would end, but about how to live in a world that felt constantly as if it might tumble around their ears at any moment, as our world so often does to us. The people of the first century lived under the shadow of persecution, disease, war and famine; they knew they might be swept away at a moment’s notice. For many people today that is still true. The migrants who lost their lives in the channel this week, and the many thousands desperate enough to take similar risks around the world, bear witness to that. But we have all been reminded of the fragility of human life over the last year or so. The end of the age, in some cosmic, universal sense, might not be around the corner, but the end of the age for each of us personally can still come on us completely unawares.

 

How do we cope with that? We could try to build defences against every possible threat, but no amount of money, power or influence can protect us completely.

 

We can’t stop bad things happening, but Jesus words remind us that we have a choice about how we respond to them. And the key to responding well, he says, is to be alert, to pay attention, not just to the problems, but to the ways in which God is present in the midst of them. “When these things take place” says Jesus, “stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” Look at the fig tree, he goes on, whose unfurling leaves tell you summer is on the way. In the same way God’s kingdom is growing among you. Pay attention to its small beginnings and nurture them, he says.

 

What might that look like in practice? It might mean paying attention to the word of God, reading the Bible, spending time in prayer and reflection, so that we can learn to see ourselves as God sees us - eternally loved and of infinite value.

It might mean learning to see him at work in others too, though. 

 

In our first reading, Paul gave thanks for the Christians he was writing to in Thessalonika, for their love, which gave him strength and courage. The love of the Christian community mattered greatly to Paul. This was the man who’d once hated and persecuted Christians, until, on the road to Damascus, he’d had a dazzling vision of Jesus. But it wasn’t just the vision which changed his mind and heart, it was the fact that when he got to Damascus, blind and confused, one of the very people he’d been persecuting, a Christian called Ananias, had come to him – the enemy – prayed for his healing, taken him in and welcomed him into this very community he had been hell-bent on destroying. No wonder he later wrote so glowingly about the love which “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” He knew it for himself, and he wanted others to know it too, to pay attention to it, to draw on the strength that a community of loving people can provide. I see,  day to day, the quiet, often unsung care that people give each other in this church, and which spreads out to those around us too. It’s easy to take all that care for granted – but the love which notices people and helps them in the small things of life is something which many today are desperately hungry for, we should never underestimate how important and precious it is.

 

No one has a magic wand to wave away the sorrows of the world – the heavens do shake, there is distress among nations – it is part of life. But within all that trouble there are also the seeds of love and hope and joy, growing stubbornly amidst the wreckage of the world. Our job this Advent, and all year round, is to pay attention to those fragile seedlings wherever we find them so that they will grow into the kingdom God wants us all to enjoy.

Amen