What is in Kelvin's Head?

Sermon preached on Christmas Day

25/12/2016

And they were terrified. But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid’

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

That people were afraid is a bit of a repeating theme in the Christmas story. Whenever angels turn up, the first thing that they tend to say is “Do not be afraid”.

I’m not sure whether it is the flapping of wings or the volume of the singing or the sheer unexpectedness of seeing an angel where you least expect one that leads to this repeated refrain.

I suspect though that there was a bit more to it than that. For there is much to be afraid of in the world. There always has been. And some feel that fear more than others. Those who are most vulnerable often have the most to fear.

But as we face Christmas 2016 it doesn’t feel so difficult to enter into the story this year.

For we end this year with many people feeling apprehensive about what is to come. This has been a year in which expectation was upended. The world of politics seems to have been turned upside down and no-one really knows what is coming next.

In such circumstances, it is not surprising that people feel fearful.

Looking back at the Bethlehem story this year, there is much with which we will be familiar.

The story begins with a demand that the people had to return to their own towns across the empire in order to be registered.

In most years that I’ve read the story, I’ve tended to think of this as a bit of a glorious census like our censuses that take place every 10 years. Just a way of counting people so that services can be provided.

But as I read the story today and see in my mind’s eye the holy couple making their way to Bethlehem to be registered just at the most inconvenient time for them when the birth was nigh, it is difficult not to think of the recent political promise on the other side of the Atlantic to insist that all Muslims should be registered and accounted for. Somehow the census that insists that Joseph and Mary hurry off to Bethlehem feels a little more sinister.

The Christmas Story takes place in a particular context. People have asked often enough why then? Why them? Why her?

The particularity doesn’t matter so much as the context I think.

It doesn’t matter that much which year it was – the point is that it happened when Big Men ruled the world.

Whether we focus on Emperor Augustus or Quirinius the Governer of Syria or King Herod there is no avoiding the reality that God came into the world when big men were in charge (or thought they were in charge) and had no intention of losing their power to anyone.

There are all kinds of things that are part of the Christmas tradition that have little or no mention in Scriptures. There’s no ox and ass lowing in the bible stories. There’s no certainty at all that there were only three wise people who visited from the East and no mention of them being kings at all. The manger and the straw and even the time of the birth (at midnight) which seem so much a part of the story are not really there when we look for them in the bible.

But what is there is that God chose to come into a world where big men were in charge. And the angels cried, Do not be afraid.

It feels today as though Big Men with an unhealthy interest in power are taking over again.

But Herod didn’t manage to kill the Christ child, didn’t manage to kill hope, didn’t manage to wipe out love either.

And neither will Trump. Nor Putin. Nor any of the putative far right big men (or big women, that’s not impossible either) be able to wipe love out either.

Love always wins.

Those are the rules we play the game of life with.

I’ve a feeling that the time that God came into the world was a bit of a happenchance. But the context wasn’t. God’s message appears from the very beginning to have been that the kind of power that rounds people up, detains them, registers them, makes them take great risk in order to find safe refuge is not the kind of power that God was ever in the business of getting involved with at all.

And the angels said do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid because real power does not lie with big men.

Do not be afraid, because real power does not inhabit palaces or presidencies.

Real power is the power to love and be loved.

That’s what we are celebrating amidst all the tinsel and the glitter and the razzmatazz of the season

And it is worth celebrating.

Here in this church we’ve been busy for the last few months – there have been more people in church than we expected. It may be that people are looking for places to connect to a message that is timeless – that love is the name of the only power game worth winning.

Christianity is a challenge, one of the challenges to political systems of tyranny and oppression.

It hasn’t become that way – it is our very dna. It is what we were born with.

From time to time, faith colludes with power. But that way leads away from God not towards God.

The truth that God gave us at the beginning of our own faith is that all that is holy would not be born in a palace and would not wear the robes of power but be born in a manger and wear humble swaddling bands.

And it is our task to take up the song of the angels and to sing out to a needy world – do not be afraid. Glory to God in the highest and peace to God’s people on earth.

For God’s love matters and matters a great deal in the world in which we find ourselves.

And love wins.

Tyranny never does in the long run.

Love always wins.

For after all, love trumps fear.

That’s what we believe.

That’s the Christmas message.

Love always trumps fear.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Love trumps fear

7 responses to “Reclaiming the web”

Paul Hutchinson

14/10/2015

Thank you for making me think in a different direction just before pausing for lunch. I have never had a blog, so came quite late to Internet social discourse, and have engaged more since joining one major network in 2010 and another in early 2014 – normally using those networks rather than a comment box such as this. Not all of us are natural creators of substantial original content, but like to be thoughtful in brief exchange, and so both those major networks, though cursed with many difficulties, serve those brief exchanges quite well. I do agree that the endless recycling of links (on both of them) can be wearying, and I do wish that some old friends would be a little more self-critical. But the price of any kind of social discourse is that one is vulnerable to the otherness of the other.
I feel I ought to be writing a more substantial comment here, but hope that this is enough. The time is not always there to offer deeper reflection: but sometimes a blogger needs to hear at least a small splash from the stone thrown down the well!

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  14/10/2015
  
  Thanks for the comment, Paul. I’m aware that not everyone is a content creator, but perhaps what I miss is the sense of discovering different communities online and keeping the comments more or less in one place helps with that.
  
  The glory days of 50 or more comments on a post are probably over. I suspect I mourn the sense of community being created even more than I miss the interesting reflections of others. Retweets and shares are always welcome – but they are the means of amplification. Becoming loud isn’t the same as becoming wise, nor the same as becoming connected.
  
  Reply
Seph

14/10/2015

It’s a damnable shame—and mostly the fault of Facebook. Twitter at least has an etiquette of sorts, wherein it is considered impolite not to respond to the original tweet, which is usually made by the blogger in question.

Facebook, in short, is the scourge of the Internet. I have often been in groups which have decided to do all of their organizing on Facebook, despite my protests that I’m not on Facebook and don’t want to be, and really an e-mail list would be just as easy, and would they like me to set one up. This inevitably leads to my marginalization within the group, as no-one bothers to keep me abreast of the discussions to which I am not party.

Can you tell I’m upset about this?

Reply
Daniel Lamont

14/10/2015

I am only an occasional user of Facebook but I know what you mean, Kelvin. And indeed, I never read the comments ‘below the line’ on newspapers like ‘The Guardian’. You offer some useful advice. I read yours and one or two other blogs on a regular basis but don’t always comment. However, I can see that the author of a blog would like some feedback. I would be sad not to have the blogs that I do read because they do give me a sense of what people are thinking and an odd sense of community.

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Father Ron Smith

14/10/2015

My own contribution to the blogopshere is, I’m afraid, Father Kelvin, limited to comments I make on other people’s blogs (such as ‘Thinking Anglicans’ and ‘Anglican Down Under’ – a local NZ forum; plus my own blog ‘kiwianglo’, where i pluck articles that interest me personally from the web and provide my own commentary. This still interests me, personally, and provides my few readers with information they might not otherwise be bothered to glean for themselves. Like you, I am no longer an avid Facebook fan.

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David Campbell

16/10/2015

Hi Kelvin – thoughtful as ever – and yours is invariably the first blog I turn to each day. That you bring pressing issues to a wider audience and to people who know, or used to know, the church you serve is a great thing. I’m still blogging relatively strongly, but it’s certainly a different blogging experience when work is set in a very different context and especially community from previously, writing these days mainly for myself about things that interest me, although not quite at the address you have in your Blog Roll. http://www.limpingtowardsthesunrise.com is where it’s “all” happening.

Reply
1. Kelvin
  
  16/10/2015
  
  Thanks David – nice to hear from you. I’ve amended the link.
  
  I don’t think many people use blogrolls to find blogs these days but whenever I remove it my mother complains…
  
  Reply