Thursday 27 December 2012

Homily for Christmas Night


St. Andrew’s Church in Blackhill has a board with writing in large letters outside the building - what used to be known as a “Wayside Pulpit.” It’s a sort of static sandwich board on which the church can put up words for people to ponder as they go past. At the moment the board reads, “Christmas is not about our presents - it’s about Christ’s presence.” Something to think about - perhaps

Christmas is about God coming into our world, the presence of his Son with us in human flesh just like our own. But we shouldn’t get too solemn about it and certainly not curmudgeonly. If we don’t enjoy the presents which people give us, then we’re rather missing out on the celebration. Whatever the gift may be, we’re to receive it with gratitude. If it comes as a surprise, our response shouldn’t be, “Oh no, I don’t get them a present.” It should be “thank you - how kind.” And if you want to put a religious spin on it, the gifts we receive point us to God’s great gift to us in Jesus. If we think we haven’t earned it, well that’s the whole message of Christmas - God comes to us and loves us, even though we don’t deserve it.

At this point I need to take a look at what I’m saying. Lamenting to a friend that I hadn’t wrapped any presents or even opened all my cards and that I  still had a sermon to write, he replied: “I haven’t written one either, but it’s not as though people come for the sermon.” Well, maybe you have… But I’m encouraged by something I saw somewhere which sang the praises of carol-singing: “Carol services are a corrective to clerical over-interpretation of the Christmas story.” In other words people will find what they are looking for as they sing and worship - and clergy need to be aware that they might be trying to find things in the story which are simply never going to click. Just be open to the joy of Christmas - and share it.

So don’t get too serious... That’s the only encouragement I need to share with you some terrible Christmas jokes, though they may be better than the ones you get in your crackers.

What’s brown and creeps around the house?
Mince spies!
 
What do you drain Christmas dinner brussel sprouts with?
An advent colander!

Have you heard the one about the Microsoft Advent Calendar? 
It crashes every time you open the windows!

Around Christmas time each year my dad used to work in a tiddlywink factory. But he didn’t like it. He said it was counter productive.

What's the most popular wine at Christmas?
‘Do I have to eat my Brussel sprouts?’

What did the bald man say when he got a comb for Christmas?
Thanks, I'll never part with it!

Mum, Can I have a dog for Christmas?
No you can have turkey like everyone else!

What happens if you eat the Christmas decorations?
You get tinsel-itus!

Mother bought a huge turkey for Christmas dinner.
'That must have cost a fortune!' I said.
'Actually I got it for a poultry amount,' she said.

Doctor, Doctor I'm scared of Father Christmas.
Doctor: You're suffering from Claus-trophobia.

 [Jokes courtesy of Grove Books December email - and I didn't use them all!]

That’s enough of those, I think. The great thing about a joke is when you don’t expect the punchline. It just takes you by surprise. The Virgin Mary expected that she would live out a quiet, hopefully contented, life in Nazareth with her husband-to-be, Joseph the Carpenter. They didn’t know that their whole lives would be disrupted by the message of the angel. Shepherds looked after their sheep by night - another cold night on a Judaean hillside, until they are roused by a chorus of angels. The message of the birth of God’s Son is given not to the priests of the Temple but to pretty rough-and-ready men who lived on the edges of respectable society. And when wise men in the East decide that a star in the sky means something special is going on, the surprise for them will be that the new-born King is not to be found in a palace in the capital city - he’s in a very ordinary dwelling in the humble backwater village of Bethlehem.


What is God’s surprise for you? St. John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus is the Word of God and the Light of the world:

10 He was in the world, and the world came into being through him;
yet the world did not know him.
11 He came to what was his own,
and his own people did not accept him.

That’s the tragedy of the human story. That God’s love is held out for us as a gift, but so many of us think it can’t possibly be for us. Perhaps we think it will put us under some sort of obligation. Perhaps we just can’t believe that we’re good enough to receive it.

But the truth of Christmas is that God’s love is for all - for you, for me, for our families and friends… and for the people we don’t get on with as well, and even our enemies. God’s love is bigger than our presumptions, prejudices and sheer inability to comprehend. And it’s so big that it comes to us in one as small as a tiny baby.

Thursday 20 December 2012

Christmas at St. Cuthbert's

Sunday 23rd December          
4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT
10.30a.m. Sung Parish Eucharist
                 - an All-Age Service with Holy Baptism

Monday 24th December         
CHRISTMAS EVE
 
6.00p.m.    Carol Service with Christingle – join us for this lovely service with candlelight and Christmas bells.
11.30p.m. Midnight Mass of Christmas
 
Tuesday 25th December        
CHRISTMAS DAY
9.30a.m.     Parish Eucharist with Carols
                   - a service for all ages.

Sunday 30th December        
1st  SUNDAY OF CHRISTMAS
10.30a.m. Sung Parish Eucharist

 Tuesday 1st January                       
NAMING OF JESUS
11.00a.m. Eucharist
                 - with Prayers for the New Year

Sunday 6th January                        
EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD
 
10.30a.m. Sung Parish Eucharist


May the joy of the angels & the peace of the Christ Child

be God's gift to you this Christmas!

 

Monday 3 December 2012

Cause for Good News…


This is the "View from the Vicarage" article which appears in our new Parish Magazine - now online:
 
 
We know how much we need news we can be glad about. In making notes for what I might put in this edition of the parish magazine, I found myself writing about the defeat of the Church’s attempt to bring forward the Consecration of Women as Bishops - and about Bishop Justin leaving us so soon to be Archbishop of Canterbury. That’s all rather depressing. You can read about it elsewhere in this magazine.

But here I need to remember that this is the edition of the magazine that covers Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. These are the seasons that tell us that there is Good News even when everything might seem dark. Don’t jump too quickly into Christmas mode… First there’s Advent, the time of waiting for Christ’s coming. It’s about knowing there is good news ahead, but we have to make sense of it in the here and now. Then there’s Christmas - God touching us as he comes in the fullness of our humanity as the Child of Bethlehem. And then Epiphany is about the recognition of what God has done - that his glory is there to be revealed in Jesus.

God calls us to trust him - and the sign of his trustworthiness and enduring love is revealed in Jesus.
 
Archbishop Rowan had more cause than most to be disappointed at the failure of the legislation on women bishops, but as ever he rose to respond with charity and deep wisdom. As he made his farewell speech to General Synod, he quoted St John of the Cross, who said: ‘Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.’ For the word “love” he suggested we could substitute the word “trust.” What can you say when someone tells you, ‘I don’t trust you anymore.’? ‘Where there is no trust, put trust, and you will find trust.’ ‘Where there is no love, put love, and you will harvest love.’I heard those words of John of the Cross preached by someone else a few days later. I asked her if she’d been inspired by hearing what Archbishop Rowan had said. In fact she hadn’t heard or read the speech at all. They were words which she already knew and which sustained her.

Where there is no love, put love, and you will harvest love.’ That’s our calling. And at Christmas we see that God has already done just that.

Martin Jackson