Jesus in the midst of everyday life
11.00am, Sung Eucharist
Christmas Day 2023
Portsmouth Cathedral
Christmas Day, 11.00am Eucharist, 25 December 2023
When I was growing up, my parents had an unusual tradition for Christmas Day breakfast – ham and tomatoes. For their children, this meal was associated with both puzzlement and frustration as we had already been up for hours, and the opening of presents was not allowed until breakfast was completed. Last week I finally thought to ask my father why this was. He told me his parents used to have ham and tomatoes at Christmas, and although he carried on the tradition, he wasn’t sure why.
By the time I was married and had my own children, a very different pattern had emerged. A quick breakfast before church, with the presents under the tree out of bounds for much longer; until after lunch and the Queen’s Speech. All a good case study in Christmas traditions: there are a whole variety of them, some stay the same, some evolve, some fall away.
You will have your own family memories and ways of doing things. I wonder if they include a Christmas nativity scene? As is our tradition, we have one here in the Cathedral in front of the high altar. Francis of Assisi is credited with popularising these visual depictions of the birth of Christ, way back in the thirteenth century. This year I’ve been struck by how adaptable this centuries old idea can be in reflecting current realities.
I’m particularly thinking of a crib scene in Bethlehem in the Holy Land, the very town where Jesus was born. The centrepiece of this crib is the infant Christ, lying in the midst of a pile of rubble – a powerful reference to the appalling destruction currently taking place in Israel and Gaza. Such a contemporary reference emphasizes what Christmas is always about in any year: ‘God with us’ in Jesus Christ, sharing our humanity to the full, and what it means to live a human life. Both at Christmas and at Easter, God in Christ gives up power and control in self-giving love, experiencing both the light and the deep darkness of human history.
This is what all those nativity scenes, both in homes and churches and as depicted on cards, are meant to represent. Sometimes their very prettiness can get in the way of this ‘God with us’ message, and indeed there is a scholar named Ian Paul who argues that nativity scenes often distort our understanding of what God is revealing to us through the birth of Christ. He has his own Christmas tradition: restating each year why he thinks your standard crib gives a misleading impression. Note, for example, that our Gospel passage from Luke makes absolutely no mention of a stable. A manger, yes, but two thousand years ago in Palestine people nearly always kept their animals in their own home, not in a separate outbuilding.
As for that ‘inn’ in which there was no room, the underlying Greek work can mean either a lodging place, or a guest room in someone’s house. The traditional translation – that word again –is indeed ‘inn’, but as Ian Paul points out, ‘guest room’ is just as likely, and arguably more likely. Joseph, after all, was taking Mary back to his place of origin, where the strong culture of hospitality at the time meant even distant relatives would have felt obliged to take him in. But if the guest room was already full with cousins who had arrived earlier, then Joseph and Mary must stay with the family in the main downstairs room, animals and all. And it is in these busy surroundings that Mary gives birth, and the child is lain in a manger.
So yes, God with us, not separate from ordinary life in a stable over there, but born in a normal, crowded, warm and welcoming Palestinian home. Which might help to make it easier to imagine Jesus in the midst of our own homes, in the midst of everyday life in all its occasional noisiness and chaos.
Nowadays there is a Church of the Nativity in the Old City centre of Bethlehem, and less than a mile away at the other end of Arafat Street is the Chapel of the Shepherds’ Field. Both are in the Palestinian West Bank. And it was here Luke reports a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and proclaiming, ‘Peace on earth’. Today we grieve as we see and hear news horrendous destruction in that very region. To many such peace will seem an impossible dream or illusion, just as it did to the people of Jesus’s time, who lived in a land ruled with an iron fist by the power of Rome.
Many Christians in the Holy Land and elsewhere are struggling with the paradox of saying ‘Happy Christmas’ while Jesus’s own land sees so much bloodshed. I understand that of course, but in times such as these we need more than ever to celebrate the truth of ‘God with us’ in the Christ child. God wants a better future for all of us, and the birth of Jesus is the beginning of showing us how that future is to be achieved; the ways of living that will, by God’s grace, help us build a better world.
There are signs of God’s grace and the way of Christ even in Gaza at this time: even there community, kindness and hospitality, have not been wiped out. There are stories of people sharing food: of a solar-powered house with all the phones and laptops of the neighbourhood being charged in the living-room; of a five-seater car fleeing south with twenty one people in it, many hanging out of the boot, stopping to pick up an old man walking crying in the street; of university professors spending their time teaching children with no schools to go to.
I am aware that any speaking about what is happening to Israelis and Palestinians at this time is fraught with the possibility of misinterpretation. I recall a saying of the late Donald Nicholl, Rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute near Jerusalem, to the effect that anyone whose first response to a tragedy was ideological rather than humanitarian, should repent of this reaction. Across all the borders and boundaries of Israel and Gaza, there is a shared trauma, pain and hopefulness. The late Israeli novelist and peace activist Amos Oz, described the Israel/Palestine conflict as infinitely more tragic than a situation of right vs wrong, seeing it rather as a clash of two peoples, each with right on their side, each with deep wounds, fated to share same geographical location.
What we can say this day, however, is that God is with them as God is with us. The very world we live in exists because of the overflowing love of God, who has given us autonomy and freedom. In response to our terrible misuse of all that God has given, God has sent us the further gift of his very own Son. In so doing God invites us to be so caught up in the self-giving life of Jesus that we want to live this way ourselves.
In the manger in Bethlehem, in the frailty of the Christ-child at the heart of a crowded Palestinian home, we have seen that God is with us. So whatever your Christmas traditions, in this season and in all that is to come, we are invited to share in the life of Jesus, and to build on earth, in our local circumstances, in our nation and the wider world, the better future God is preparing for us. It is the light of God’s gift to us in Christ that I dare, for all that is going on in the world today, to wish you a joyful and blessed Christmas. AMEN
When I was growing up, my parents had an unusual tradition for Christmas Day breakfast – ham and tomatoes. For their children, this meal was associated with both puzzlement and frustration as we had already been up for hours, and the opening of presents was not allowed until breakfast was completed. Last week I finally thought to ask my father why this was. He told me his parents used to have ham and tomatoes at Christmas, and although he carried on the tradition, he wasn’t sure why.
By the time I was married and had my own children, a very different pattern had emerged. A quick breakfast before church, with the presents under the tree out of bounds for much longer; until after lunch and the Queen’s Speech. All a good case study in Christmas traditions: there are a whole variety of them, some stay the same, some evolve, some fall away.
You will have your own family memories and ways of doing things. I wonder if they include a Christmas nativity scene? As is our tradition, we have one here in the Cathedral in front of the high altar. Francis of Assisi is credited with popularising these visual depictions of the birth of Christ, way back in the thirteenth century. This year I’ve been struck by how adaptable this centuries old idea can be in reflecting current realities.
I’m particularly thinking of a crib scene in Bethlehem in the Holy Land, the very town where Jesus was born. The centrepiece of this crib is the infant Christ, lying in the midst of a pile of rubble – a powerful reference to the appalling destruction currently taking place in Israel and Gaza. Such a contemporary reference emphasizes what Christmas is always about in any year: ‘God with us’ in Jesus Christ, sharing our humanity to the full, and what it means to live a human life. Both at Christmas and at Easter, God in Christ gives up power and control in self-giving love, experiencing both the light and the deep darkness of human history.
This is what all those nativity scenes, both in homes and churches and as depicted on cards, are meant to represent. Sometimes their very prettiness can get in the way of this ‘God with us’ message, and indeed there is a scholar named Ian Paul who argues that nativity scenes often distort our understanding of what God is revealing to us through the birth of Christ. He has his own Christmas tradition: restating each year why he thinks your standard crib gives a misleading impression. Note, for example, that our Gospel passage from Luke makes absolutely no mention of a stable. A manger, yes, but two thousand years ago in Palestine people nearly always kept their animals in their own home, not in a separate outbuilding.
As for that ‘inn’ in which there was no room, the underlying Greek work can mean either a lodging place, or a guest room in someone’s house. The traditional translation – that word again –is indeed ‘inn’, but as Ian Paul points out, ‘guest room’ is just as likely, and arguably more likely. Joseph, after all, was taking Mary back to his place of origin, where the strong culture of hospitality at the time meant even distant relatives would have felt obliged to take him in. But if the guest room was already full with cousins who had arrived earlier, then Joseph and Mary must stay with the family in the main downstairs room, animals and all. And it is in these busy surroundings that Mary gives birth, and the child is lain in a manger.
So yes, God with us, not separate from ordinary life in a stable over there, but born in a normal, crowded, warm and welcoming Palestinian home. Which might help to make it easier to imagine Jesus in the midst of our own homes, in the midst of everyday life in all its occasional noisiness and chaos.
Nowadays there is a Church of the Nativity in the Old City centre of Bethlehem, and less than a mile away at the other end of Arafat Street is the Chapel of the Shepherds’ Field. Both are in the Palestinian West Bank. And it was here Luke reports a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and proclaiming, ‘Peace on earth’. Today we grieve as we see and hear news horrendous destruction in that very region. To many such peace will seem an impossible dream or illusion, just as it did to the people of Jesus’s time, who lived in a land ruled with an iron fist by the power of Rome.
Many Christians in the Holy Land and elsewhere are struggling with the paradox of saying ‘Happy Christmas’ while Jesus’s own land sees so much bloodshed. I understand that of course, but in times such as these we need more than ever to celebrate the truth of ‘God with us’ in the Christ child. God wants a better future for all of us, and the birth of Jesus is the beginning of showing us how that future is to be achieved; the ways of living that will, by God’s grace, help us build a better world.
There are signs of God’s grace and the way of Christ even in Gaza at this time: even there community, kindness and hospitality, have not been wiped out. There are stories of people sharing food: of a solar-powered house with all the phones and laptops of the neighbourhood being charged in the living-room; of a five-seater car fleeing south with twenty one people in it, many hanging out of the boot, stopping to pick up an old man walking crying in the street; of university professors spending their time teaching children with no schools to go to.
I am aware that any speaking about what is happening to Israelis and Palestinians at this time is fraught with the possibility of misinterpretation. I recall a saying of the late Donald Nicholl, Rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute near Jerusalem, to the effect that anyone whose first response to a tragedy was ideological rather than humanitarian, should repent of this reaction. Across all the borders and boundaries of Israel and Gaza, there is a shared trauma, pain and hopefulness. The late Israeli novelist and peace activist Amos Oz, described the Israel/Palestine conflict as infinitely more tragic than a situation of right vs wrong, seeing it rather as a clash of two peoples, each with right on their side, each with deep wounds, fated to share same geographical location.
What we can say this day, however, is that God is with them as God is with us. The very world we live in exists because of the overflowing love of God, who has given us autonomy and freedom. In response to our terrible misuse of all that God has given, God has sent us the further gift of his very own Son. In so doing God invites us to be so caught up in the self-giving life of Jesus that we want to live this way ourselves.
In the manger in Bethlehem, in the frailty of the Christ-child at the heart of a crowded Palestinian home, we have seen that God is with us. So whatever your Christmas traditions, in this season and in all that is to come, we are invited to share in the life of Jesus, and to build on earth, in our local circumstances, in our nation and the wider world, the better future God is preparing for us. It is the light of God’s gift to us in Christ that I dare, for all that is going on in the world today, to wish you a joyful and blessed Christmas. AMEN