Advent 3

It is only because of the gospel of Luke and Matthew that we have the celebration of Christmas. Between these two writers we have the stories that make up a myriad nativities across the county in churches and schools. The Gospels of Mark and John choose to tell us nothing of the birth of Jesus Christ, but instead choose to begin at another point in time

 Last week we read the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ recorded by Mark, and Mark chooses to begin with words of prophesy spoken some 400 years before the birth of Jesus and with the appearance of the enigmatic figure of John the Baptist.

For the writer of the gospel according to John, the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ was aeons ago, in the very beginning, when Jesus was part of God’s activity in creation, in the first words of the bible recorded in the book of Genesis.

In this third Sunday of Advent we are given a familiar image to reflect upon as we prepare for Christmas, the image of light and darkness, of day and of night.

These days we can turn night into day, almost, at the touch of a switch. King’s Cross or Trafalgar Square, Canary Wharf or the  new glass and steel towers of the city are lit up night and day, they are alive with people around the clock.

In New Testament times, in an agrarian economy, the night was the time when no one could work, not when your only light was a candle or a small oil lamp.

So we find writer after writer in the Scriptures calling us to be people of the light and not of the darkness, and telling us what that means. The Bible has hundreds of references to light, using 20 different words in the Old Testament and 16 different words in the New Testament to make the meaning clear, to remind us that we are children of the light: we have received a revelation from God and we have also received the spiritual capacity to see the light and to live in the light.

John proclaimed, ‘The light has come, I have come to testify to that light’. So what are the dreams of darkness? Surely they include power, money and sex – the power that corrupts, the money that talks, the sex that lures people with power and money to their destruction. Our papers and news bulletins are filled with their stories. Worldly success and social status and physical beauty ... the things that so often perish even before we do.

These are among the dreams of darkness in our time.

Yes, the great faiths do have some common teachings about how we should treat each other, we even share some of the same imagery but For us as Christians what sets us apart is the idea, the truth,  that Jesus is the light that enlightens everyone for Jesus is God. This is the core meaning of Christmas and the people of Christ, we are called, not to control, but to be the servants of all.

Some times we in the church need to be reminded of this that we are not here to control but the serve as indeed our Lord himself said I have not come to be served but to serve. And we are called, not to take refuge from the world, but to engage with the world, to challenge principalities and powers, as John did and as Jesus did by his actions and in his teachings.

John the Baptist was called to be a witness to the true light which enlightens everyone who accepts Jesus as Lord. And so we too are challenged to do this in our lives – and in particular ask ourselves what this might mean for our preparations in Advent.

So what does the image of light say to us? Three things at least:

We begin with a puzzle. John testifies that Jesus is the light of the world. Jesus says that we are the light of the world. How can this be? We must reflect the light of Jesus as the moon reflects the light of the sun. The first chapter of Genesis tells us that the fourth day of creation God separated the light he had created: God appointed the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. We now know that the lesser light is a reflection of the greater light. The Christian community can bring light into a dark world, we can give others light for their life’s journey, but only if we reflect the light of Christ. Otherwise we are as much in the dark as they are.

Secondly-- we, like John the Baptist, are called to point to the greater light. We cannot say ‘look at me’ – we cannot glory in our possessions or our appearance or our achievements. We are called to say ‘look at Jesus’, look at his glory, look at his love, look at his healing power. We are all called to testify to Jesus the Christ, and we are all given the opportunity, in what we say and in how we live. We are not all called to preach, but we are all called to witness. So John testified to Jesus and Jesus testified to the Father.

Thirdly, when we call ourselves Christians, followers of Christ, our identity is linked with his. Have you noticed how often we are identified by our relationship to other people? So I am Desiree’s husband, or Roschelle and Jodies father, or Jesse’s grandfather, depending on who I am with. This is true for all of us and it should be true of each of us as Christians where we are one another’s brother and sister.

The early church called itself the people of the way, but the people around them called them ‘Christians’; people who said their different life-style came from following in Jesus’ steps. Their way of life revealed something of the nature of Jesus. And so should ours.

John knew that he, too, had been called to bring good news to the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, as Isaiah had been called to do. But he was emphatic that he was not the Messiah, nor Elijah the prophet come back to earth, nor the god-like prophet promised in the book of Deuteronomy.   How John identified himself is how we are called to identify ourselves -- as heralds, as people who bring the Good News of Jesus Christ into the lives of others.

And this is true not just for us as individuals, who pray and read our bibles in the warmth of our homes but should be true of our life when we come together as a community and work together as a parish. If we all lived as today’s epistle calls us to live: if our own light shone a little brighter – if we prayed a little more, and gave a little more, and loved a lot more, if we gave thanks to God in all circumstances, more people in this community would see the light, and want to cast away their own dreams of darkness. So many things St John’s and St Matthias could do are left undone because so few people offer to do them.

Again, we can learn from the contrast between the ministry of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus. John called the people to come to him. Jesus went to them, he went out among the people, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.  Most parishes are still stuck in a John the Baptist style of ministry – ‘Come to us’, they say ‘ We will welcome you’.

Not many people respond to the invitation, so the churches can easily become spiritual ghettoes, like-minded people who care for each other, who support each other, but they do not engage with the community.

Only a few parishes care enough to follow Jesus, to go out among the people and proclaim the good news of the kingdom, as we are called to do. In two weeks time, we will celebrate the birth of Jesus – God with us – Jesus is the God who comes to us. If we take the Christmas story to heart, we will want to follow his example: we will want to go to others, to reflect the light of Christ into their lives, to help them cast away the dreams of darkness, which can so easily become nightmares. They, too, are called to be children of the day.

Christmas fair at St Matthias

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Advent Begins - 25 days of shopping left!

I am not sure of the number of complaints that have been raised in response to the Christmas adverts this year all telling us Christmas is coming, that we need to prepare for the day, with the help of John Lewis, Morrisons, Lidle, Aldi, Sainsbury, Tesco or M&S, all who hold out the promise that with them it will be a magical and special day.

Preparations for Christmas are certainly now under full steam. The first advert I saw was back in September in Jamaica – to be fair it was not a Jamaican advert it was an American advert that was trying to be clever by saying it was not really an advert for Christmas but Christmas is coming none the less…

On Friday I woke up to news of crowds, fights and even the hospitalisation of shoppers caught up in another American import that it seems we will have to get used to “Black Friday” or maybe it should be called Riot Friday, or Fools Friday. I was one of countless hundreds or maybe it was thousands who travelled to Bicester village to get a long list of presents for family and on the whole I am glad to report it was incident free – queues Oh yes plenty of them, my wife and playing like a tag team to cut down the waiting time – but no stampede or anger just resigned patience that in my case was nearer to despair most of the time.

Certainly there was an air of surreal irony with a beautifully attired choir put on by the retail village serenading the shoppers with the carol In a bleak mid winter “What shall I give him, Poor as I am ” standing outside a Alexander MQueen’s shop where his frocks begin at £1K (and that discounted remember)

 

But let me return to the Adverts for Christmas this year. John Lewis appeared to be leading the saccharin stakes last week, but Monty the Penguin has been eclipsed by Sainsbury’s mighty campaign harking back to World War 1 according to the article in the independent yesterday.

Certainly the Sainsbury’s advert has caused the most controversy, the ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) have received 250 complaints compared with one person being offended by John Lewis’ exploitation of penguins.

However on the plus side of the Sainsbury Advert, celebrating 20 year of support of the Royal British Legion is selling 500 bars of chocolate every minute so raising considerable funds for the legion’s work.

The extra ordinary events around the first Christmas of the 1^st world war of course do give us something to think about in the days of preparation for our celebration of Christmas 100 years on.

What is it that touches you most when you see the 3 minute film and when you reflect on the events leading to Christmas day1914 on the Western Front?

Is it the motivation of those men who dared to leave their trenches and enter no mans land in the days before Christmas in 1914? It was sadly never repeated and maybe it was the final gasp of Christian influence in Europe that has over the last 100 years since that Christmas waxed and waned.

Is it the testimony to the risk involved of putting away the business of war for a moment and acknowledge the shared interest and identity, yes common humanity  through football, a handshake, a picture of a girl back home.

High on my list is the demonstration of our humanity that for a moment shone in the silent night when the stars were allowed to guide the human heart to God and there be released from the thrall of those in the halls of power that were locked in a desperate and futile struggle for dominance and earthly empire.

The Christmas story, when rescued from the saccharin and nonsense of the consumer driven exploitation, is one of humanity; one that touches our humanity in a unique way; of God who for a moment chose to become one of us, a child born of a woman. For our Christmas celebration that we now look to in these four precious weeks holds out the truth that God became a human being and in this daring and risky venture leads us to change the way we live not just for one day but the whole of our lives.

The Christmas story that we now try and prepare for against a backdrop of shopping frenzy, parties and excess is one that reminds us that because of God’s decision to become a human being every human life is precious to him and should be to us.

So the question remains for you and me today as we embark on the season of Advent : what will be the ways in which we seek to put aside all that entrenches our lives and seek out that which will encourage us to leave behind the old or even secure certainties and reach out to share the love of God that we have in our hearts with those around us?

Advent is a time when we cry out “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” a time when we look for the return of our Saviour Jesus Christ’s return, a time when we acknowledge our own frail humanity and our need for God to come and “disperse the gloomy  clouds of night and deaths dark shadows put to flight.”

Congratulations to iara who was baptised today at St. John's 

Christ the King

The bible is full of stories about Kings and their kingdoms  - there are two books called the book of King’s. But a quick look at the drama’s of these kings is to see a list of men with feet of clay and whose antics turn many away from religion and feed on the myth that religion is the cause of war.

Although it is only on the cross that Jesus is referred to as a King – and that was clearly indented to be an insult by one Kingdom, Rome, to another the Jewish nation, the fact is that Jesus does use the image of kings and Kingdoms on a number of occasions in his parables.

There are good kings – David

There are wise kings – Solomon

there are Bad kings – Ahab

and there is a Mad king – Nebuchadnezzar

But to day we remember a different kind of king – Jesus

who had no standing armies to enforce his will

who was not born in a palace but a manger

who never rode a horse into battle – but did ride a donkey in to Jerusalem

who was not the leader of a nation or empire but a motley crew of 12 men, and some women who defied convention.

Of course I am a priest of a particular generation who has never had to sing the anthem God Save the King and who has only sworn oaths to a Queen, whose head has adorned the currency and stamps of my lifetime

Looking at the experience of monarchy in the 21^st century west is utterly unlike that which we would have encountered at the time of Christ.

Our monarchs are essentially powerless figure-heads, whereas there was nothing nominal about royal power then, and the character of the king was so integral to the ethos of the kingdom that it was almost as if his DNA was written, into the fabric of his realm.

His word was law – and a great deal more besides, so that the everyday life of his subjects was affected, for good or ill, by the royal priorities, the royal agenda. What the king says, goes.

So does the idea of celebrating Christ the King have a place in our modern lives?

Is this the kind of King we celebrate today?

is Christ the King some powerless figure head or despotic leader of a corrupt ideology?

There is another version of King and Kingdom that we find in the bible and in ancient Israel – shepherd and sheep. It is an image that even God himself uses of himself. A very contrasting image to that of the war lord and all powerful figure in charge of millions of human beings.

The prophet Ezekiel underlines this as he proclaims God's promise to search for the wounded and the straggler – as much as to judge between sheep of his charge.

However we must not make the mistake and think that because we can think of God as a shepherd that he is only the gentle leader, cuddly and woolly as the sheep he leads.

No the shepherd when searching for the lost or wayward sheep will of course also be an agent of justice and judgment. Yes God like a good Shepherd will love his sheep but sometimes there will be the need for tough love, When called upon he will wrestle with those forces that seek to destroy his flock even to the point of giving his own life. If we are to survive and if we fail to listen to the voice of the one who loves us there will be judgment as surely as there are consequences for our actions.

To look at Christ as king can be perilous. There is a danger that this celebration of Christ as king will distract us or lead us on another path that will never bring us near to the one we seek.

Think of the Magi, eyes fixed on the star, dazzled by its brightness into calling at the obvious place – the royal palace of Herod – while the king they seek, like a subversive character from pantomime, waits in the least likely shelter....

Think of the Palm Sunday crowds who seem to speak prophetic truth as they shout “Hosanna to the Son of David” but whose expectations of uprising and messianic triumph are disappointed by the events of Good Friday.

Then think of the ways in which Jesus chooses to explain the kingdom – a mustard seed, a hidden treasure, some leaven mixed with dough – Power yes but not the sort we associate with Kings ands Kingdoms

Christ the king is not a matter of bright lights and Power and majesty after all....but of recognising the king where he is always to be found – with those on the edge.

Suddenly the question of judgement and choices comes close to home...as we realise that it is our judgements, our choices, that will make all the difference.

And those judgements, those choices, will be governed by our allegiance – to Christ the king or to other rulers, other ways.

To love our King is to love what he has made...children, men and women, happy, broken, hopeful or despairing...

To love our neighbours is to love the One in whose image they and we, are made...and to recognise the divine image not on stamps or coins but in their faces, wherever we encounter them.