Sermon for Midnight Eucharist
I’ve been attending a lot of carol services this year! I must say I love a ‘good sing’ so it’s been no hardship. After a recent NSPCC carol event, a man on his way out of church commented on how wonderful it all was but was disappointed that at an evening when we were particularly focused on children, we hadn’t sung ‘Away in a manger’. It reminded me of my uncle. ‘Away in a manger’ was also his favourite carol and so after he was tragically killed on Good Friday one year, we had to sing it at his funeral. It seemed rather strange in the Easter season and yet it did rather make sense of the whole story!
What is your favourite carol? A childhood favourite for me was ‘O little town of Bethlehem’. I enjoyed the tune and the idea that the gift of God to his world had broken into the silence of a small insignificant town bringing light and uniting both hopes and fears for the future. I haven’t sung it this year….yet! Perhaps Bethlehem feels far from a still and tranquil place today.
The Church Times has asked for a sentence from some key figures as to their favourite. Several liked ‘Hark the Herald’, one because he could sing it loud and proud and no one would know he was out of tune. Archbishop Justin is among several who like ‘It came upon the midnight clear’ because he says “it puts hope and confidence in God at the centre of Christmas.”
David Cameron goes for ‘In the bleak midwinter’ because it was the first solo he ever sang! I rather like it too but for different reasons. For me Christmas should be snowy as the first verse describes however I don’t think that will happen this year! It’s the last verse however that strikes me most:
‘What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb
If I were a wise man, I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give him – give my heart’
Many of us will be going home tonight to hang stockings, wrap presents and stuff the turkey. And yet do we find ourselves missing the central point, are we making sense of the whole story? How might we respond to a God who has broken into the darkness of this world with a wonderful expression of hope, light and love?
Luke tells of the birth of a child, proclaimed by angels to humble shepherds going about their business who go to seek out the truth of the tale they have heard. We can imagine them gathered around this improvised baby’s cradle, drawn by the noise? The light? And discovering a small baby, vulnerable to the climate, to the will of others;unable to exercise his own autonomy, instead wholly reliant on those around him. How can God be seen most powerfully in this?
Many of us will have created crib scenes at home, or visited churches, such as St Cuthbert’s here in Wells, displaying crib scenes from around the world. One Christmas I used our Christmas morning worship to build our own scene at the manger, dressing the adults and children to fit the figures as we asked the question ‘what’s missing?’ We ended up with a multitude of all sorts of people and creatures as people’s imaginations took hold! However it was all very ‘nice’, sanitised and domestic, far from the mess and squalor of a room shared with animals…. until my son brought out the pair of rats he had received for Christmas…. And then I emptied a sack of mud and manure on the floor…. (I had very tolerant church wardens!)
I think it made the point. God took the risk with his very own son to send him into a world of danger and dirt because he could see our need and he loved us too much to leave us in the mess, alone. But wanted to ‘be with us’ (Emmanuel = ‘God with us’) in our predicament.
Perhaps the most poignant manger scene this year is that in San Anton, Madrid which replaces the model of the baby Jesus with Alan Kurdi, the refugee child found drowned on the beach in Greece.
There are thought to be a total of twenty million refugees across the world in this year alone. Nine million Syrians are estimated to have fled their homes since civil war broke out in 2011. This week we heard from the Commons that 50 Councils across the country have agreed to house some of those refugees. In Bath we have seen the arrival of a few and Taunton are also preparing to welcome some guests. I was so heartened to attend a recent meeting of 60 or 70 people, of all faiths and none, who wanted to offer support and welcome. It was a little signal of something of that self-giving love that we see in the gift of God this Christmas.
Jesus is one who understands what it means to need temporary accommodation, having travelled in vitro with his family from Nazareth at the demand of others. I’m sure they would rather have stayed at the home they knew if that were possible. The welcome wasn’t exactly warm and inviting, but rather grudgingly offered as space with the animals, not really fit for human habitation. And then they couldn’t stay long as they found themselves subject to the suspicion, persecution and hatred of Herod and had to flee to Egypt. Does this all sound familiar? If anyone understands the plight of the refugee it is he who has been one too.
I’ve had another rather delightful visit this past week or so, to take pressies to some of the folk left temporarily homeless after the floods on the Levels of 2013 / 2014. We had tea at Sally’s house. Her family have lived there for 100 years and she has spent almost two years in a caravan whilst it has been refurbished. This Christmas, instead of squashing 17 people into a cramped caravan, she can have them around her table at home. And as we talked we were also fully aware that those in Cumbria and Lancashire were even then experiencing similar trials. This week some in the Lake District are flooded out for the third time in a month.
It’s hard for those of us who haven’t experienced such despair to fully understand the plight of flood victims, refugees or others made homeless through no fault of their own. And yet God does. He has been there too in the person of Jesus.
So this Christmas night how might we share in the understanding? What might we give the new-born Jesus this Christmas? The Cumbrian flood victim, the Syrian refugee, the homeless one on our street?
‘What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb
If I were a wise man, I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give him – give my heart’
The carol reminds us that we can only give what we have. Is your heart big enough to give?