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One week has gone by, a week that should have been one long celebration of thanksgiving and joy, with song and dance and enjoyment of the company of one's sisters and brothers. One week since a father and son duo made sport of shooting into a crowd of people murdering 15 and wounding many more - for reasons I will not try to guess beyond seeing them as "others".
There is an astonishing amount of blaming going on, accusing others of failing to stamp out anti-semitism, but little attempt to understand what motivates Islamic State extremists. There is an almost tangible avoidance of any mention of the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank as motivating public demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. To his credit the Israeli ambassador made first priority education, parents holding conversation at the dinner table to teach their own chioldren that we do not resort to violence to solve our differences. Beyond the current alignment of prejudices and pseudo-religous justificatioins for murderous behaviour on a massive scale, there is a human trait that is worth some investigation if we are to educate ourselves to take the next step towards our human destiny and genuinely treat one another with respect and love.
Fear of the other, the stranger, is deeply ingrained in the human make-up. It is in fact a primary instinct in the animal world where most species have an "enemy" who will make a meal of them given half a chance. To be wary, defensive, ready to strike first or to flee are qualities to be cultivated. The instinct is alive and well in the human animal, the thinking, feeling, choosing, deciding animals who find they have the responsibility to master that instinct and not let it rule them blindly, for we are not to feed off each other but to treat every other as we would like them to treat us.
By the time social groups had formed and made their homes in defined areas, the instinct to treat every other as an enemy had become ingrained habit. It was to free us from this enslavemewnt to prpimitive self-protection that God acted, first through Abraham, and most recently through the Christos whose birth we are celebrating.
One week has gone by, a week that should have been one long celebration of thanksgiving and joy, with song and dance and enjoyment of the company of one's sisters and brothers. One week since a father and son duo made sport of shooting into a crowd of people murdering 15 and wounding many more - for reasons I will not try to guess beyond seeing them as "others". Together with our Jewish sisters and brothers we will not forget those who were killed, the vitims who were injured, the heroes who did heroic things and in some cases gave their lives for their others.
I had his writtten before Bondi, but the fact is I wowuld not know what to add for our community.
People of many religions are under pressure on many fronts, today as always. At Christmastime in particular we are challenged by the pervading secularism which, not content with criticising the churches for overreaching their role in society, quite aggressively preach their own gospel, that it's all myth anyway, and sooner forgetten the better. It is intimidating. Is there any one of us who doesn't find it difficult to talk about their relationship with God beyond a very small circle?
Over the years in this forum we have worked through the various ways myth is misunderstood. The longer I live the more clearly I see that the gospel writers were master craftsmen putting together their accounts of this mystery of "God-with-us" so effectively and with such coherence that it speaks loudly of divine inspiration. As any good scientist would say: Let the facts speak for themselves.
For people to be awaiting a "messiah", one who would be a great leader who would save the nation, is very common. What the Christmas story emphasises is not common. This is a leader whose birth was foretold centuries before. "Unto us a child is born" proclaimed the preacher/prophet Isaiah. "The people who lived in darkness have seen a great light" he says, his prophetic vision placing him in some future era. The theme is already set: This is God at work; it is a Divine Initiative, an intervention in human affairs, for God's own purposes.
This is the messiah born not in the house of people with money and powerk but in poverty to a nobody family.
In the second reading we find Paul looking back to those prophetic promises "about his Son, descended from Adam according to the flesh but established in power according to the Spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." Are we sometimes too shy to talk plainly about this? This birthday of Jeshua is important because it is the start of liberation, as was foretold again and again over centuries. God is at work here, and all that is asked of us is the "obedience of faith".
Everyone who has had the awesome experience of holding their newly born baby in their hands knows what it means to say a Child is born to us, a baby human being is given to us to care for, through the years and through the tears, until he goes out alone to change the world. This is God's work. We bow in awe along with Mary and the faithful obedient Joseph.
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For the Messiah to be born in poverty is a strategic master-stroke. This new baby, this vulnerable child is accessible to everyone. Poor illiterate shepherds belong here; kings and the wealthy are welcome, but they do have to bend low and perhaps even to crawl in if this is a shelter for lowly sheep. Leave your crown at the door.
The "obedience of faith", that's what we find so hard. To believe I have to surrender not merely my wisdom but my common sense. Aah, there's the rub. That's what the rationalist finds irrational. They say you can't believe in what makes no sense, but in fact to believe is to make a leap of faith beyond common sense, in the dark, in blind obdience - the obedience of faith. It is so humbling to say yes to that.
The poor may find it easier to surrender to the obedience of faith because having nothing to lose they already know what it is to be dependant and to trust only in God. The high and mighty on the other hand have to lay aside their self-esteem, and this seems so undignified that it hurts. It makes no sense - until you've done it, and then you discover the hidden bread and the white stone with your new name on it. "To those who prove victorious I will give the hidden manna and a white stone - a stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it." (Rev 2:17)
The thing we have to conquer is our pride... That's all!
The trouble with pride is that it obscures our real value, our basic worth, behind a false inage of self. It is pride that is undignified, like cheap wall paper covering cracks in the wall. This is why the poor have it over the rest of us. Whatever little pride they have, they cannot lord it over anybody because they are the ones at the bottom.
I've been wondering lately just how poor the holy family were. Possibly a lot poorer than we usualy imagine. When we read the gospel accounts through the eyes of comfortable middle-class people we imagine Joseph and Mary just ran into a spot of bad luck when they arrived in Bethlehem to find the hotel already booked out. But perhaps they weren't middle-class folk at all. The gospel is open to this interpretation.
It seems that Joseph was penniless by the time they reached Bethlehem and found the hotel booked out. If you had any money at all you'd have used your last dollar to bribe the porter into letting your wife have a corner of some room to give birth to her baby in some kind of clean and sheltered space, but as it was they were sent around the back where they might find some protection from the winter cold if they crawled into the animal shelter. There is no mention of a 'stable' in either Luke or Matthew. This shelter consisted of a few planks of wood across the corner where two stone walls met. Intended only to shelter sheep and goats, this roof would have been too low for an adult to stand. The manger was no pretty crib with crossed legs and clean straw, but a board across the corner with some remains of straw and grain. It was so unlikely a place for a baby to be that "lying in a feed-box" was sufficient sign for the shepherds to know where to look for the new-born Saviour-Messiah.
By the time the wise men from the East arrive they are in a house, and probably wondering how they would pay the rent. Perhaps the gifts were of immediate use and even financed their long treck to Egypt. When they returned, Bethlehem was Joseph's choice but something told him it was still not safe and they went on to Mary's town of Nazareth instead. There's nothing to say Joseph was a local. It seems likely he wasn't at that time.
Nazareth was the pits. Possibly a town where drifters and refugees ended up, which might be why they chose it. We all know towns and suburbs we wouldn't choose to live in, and we know why. Later on we'll have one of the disciples say he considered Nazareth one such place. As it turned out, it was also the place that rejected Jeshua outright and even came close to lynching him. I can't help thinking this says something about Mary too. Even the way she spoke would have marked her wherever she went.
We are accustomed to think of carpenter as one of the nobler trades, especially if it includes crafting wood for furniture, for tools, for carts, and even yolks for oxen. But then if might also mean odd-job-man, the one who can turn his hand to anything from fixing a gate to repairing a stone fence or a broken rooftile or sweeping the yard. The difference would be in the ease a decent wage could bring against the insecurity of waiting in the line of labourers for someone to hire you for a few hours work. It is possible Jeshua's family never knew the comfort of having their own home and some standing in the town. When they asked: "Isn't this the carpenter's son?" it may be that he had never been seen as 'one of them'. When later he said: "The son of man has nowhere to lay his head", he may have been speaking of his life-long experience, as when someone says: "We moved ten times before I was eight years old."
By being poor Jeshua was able to reach everyone. And to be that poor, you just have to trust yourself to the Father's care. "Something will turn up." Often it doesn't, of course, and then you die slowly of hunger, but hopefully, without resentment. Like when you become a social stirrer and die in shame, executed as a criminal - and still without resentment.
I wonder can we really trust the Father to sort out our mess. We know by now not to look for the quick fix.This is a very long work in progress and we might all yet be called to join the suffering millions.
In the second reading we find Paul looking back to those prophetic promises "about his Son, descended from Adam according to the flesh but established in power according to the Spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord." Are we sometimes too shy to talk plainly about this? This birthday of Jeshua is important because it is the start of liberation, as was foretold again and again over centuries. God is at work here, and all that is asked of us is the "obedience of faith".
We see around us other peoples who celebrate their faith in God openly in the family and in the community. They share their religious ritual and spiritual experience amongst old and young, family and friends and the passing stranger who will be welcomed too. But my concern is not that we should be "keeping up with the Joneses" but that, to do justice to this festival and to ourselves, we need to allow our faith to be seen. We need to talk about the meaning and the reverence with which we celebate this great Gift, and to let it be seen that we reach out to others in the Spirit of this Saviour. Every gift we give might well be accompanied with the greeting: "In the name of Jesus, the Father's greatest gift"
Living alone these days it is easy to not bother with Christmas decorations in the house. But last week the one who comes to give me "care" every Monday brought up the question, and together we started to unpack the boxes and set about decking the house with joyful colour. Centrepiece is a hand-made nativity set (by Sue), a light shines from a starry starry night, and an aura of mystery vibrates in the air like angels singing. This is God With Us, right here in my old home.
Everyone who has had the awesome experience of holding their newly born baby in their hands knows what it means to say a Child is born to us, a baby human being is given to us to care for, through the years and through the tears, until he goes out alone to change the world. This is God's work. We bow in awe along with Mary and the faithful obedient Joseph.
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy;
they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest,
as they are glad when they divide the spoil.
For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder,
the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.
For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult
and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it
with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. (English Standard Version)
One of the treasured joys of Christmas has long been the text of Isaiah 9 which is read at midnight Mass. The prelude sets the tone for the extraordinary announcement to come:
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned.
You'd love to stay with that image through the long dark night, waiting for the dawning of the great light. The UNhave jsut announcedtha4t they have added the Hindu Diwali, Festival of Light, to the International Culturwal Heritage. The symbolism ofthis metaphor is open to everyone
The prophet in this case has his feet on the ground. He goes on to sketch the restoration to come from this new dawning to the lands extending from the Via Maris, the "way of the sea", east to the Sea of Galilee, north to Mt Hermon and the Syrian border. Galilee of the Nations, it was called.
The people who dwelt in darkness
How do we experience this 'great light'?
For me , it's been a very gentle dawning with many phases, and still growing in clarity and meaning. Lately, with the question of what does it mean to say Jeshua was Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh, human like us, one of us. In one way it seems to set him apart, but that the opposite to what's intended. How are we to understand God-with-us?
Gently, gradually, the light is dawning, spreading, getting into dark places where I like to hide away, unstoppable. It's basic that we are "in the image of God"; i.e., we already mirror the Divine in our particular way as the pinnacle of creation, the intelligence of the universe, which is what we are to be.
Now a child is born to us, a child of promise, another one of us but his one is more than the image of God. This one is the Actual, the Divine Word of the Father. This mirror does not reflect back to its origin; it focuses the light outwards to us. The idea of the great lenses on a lighthouse comes to mind. This Mirror throws the focus on something we know but scarcely dare to admit: that we are all articulations of the Divine. We are, each of us, the Word made flesh.
There is a paragraph in John's gospel, ch. 10, that is worth some reflection today.
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods” ’ ? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.
You might like to stay with that and think about it in the light of this idea that we are all the Word of God made flesh. Instead, for me, I want to look at one of those "works of the Father" that Jeshua said were testimony that he was the one the Father sent. I am referring to the way he embraced the poor by identifying with them, living their kind of life. What's so great about being poor?
Whatever Joseph's earlier situation might have been, by the time he reached Bethlehem on that fateful night he was pretty well penniless. Any man with cash in his pocket would never settle for his young wife to give birth to their first baby in a shed out the back of the pub. If he had the means he'd bribe the porter to allow them to stay indoors or, failing that, he would knock on doors all over town until he found someone who would accept his cash in exchange for decent accommodation. Jeshua was born into extreme insecurity. The best they could do was to shelter from the cold among the animals in a shed out the back. There has to be a reason for this.
What does it teach us about values?
They stayed a while in Bethlehem but, when it became known Herod was going to slaughter all the babies and toddlers in the district for fear one of them might grow up to challenge his hold on power, they had to flee for their lives and became political refugees. We can picture what that entails: weeks on the road, stop-overs in makeshift camps, depending on hand-outs day by day to keep going, hot days trekking along the Via Maris right through to Alexandria where they could blend into the large Jewish population, and Joseph could find work.
The trip back was easier. Bethlehem was Joseph's choice until he had some warning that it was still not safe, and decided to take his family back to Mary's home town, Nazareth. There's nothing to say Joseph was a local, and I think probably not. Nazareth was the pits . Possibly a town where refugees ended up, which might be why they chose it. We all know towns and suburbs we wouldn't choose to live in, and we know why. Later on we'll have one of the disciples say he considered Nazareth one such place. As it turned out, it was also the place that rejected Jeshua outright and even came close to lynching him. I can't help thinking this says something about Mary too. Even the way she spoke would have marked her wherever she went.
It's amazing that the gospels make a virtue of poverty. Poverty stinks, but the Word of God made flesh chose it as a way of life. He was born into it. Why?
It's a question that troubles the Church down the centuries to the present day, one of the burning issues in its failure to readily compensate victims of abuse by clergy. What bishop could risk the church being stripped completely of its cash reserves and its properties - left powerless and poor?
It is also an issue in the way Christians view their role and mission. Some see the mission as being to work for the liberation of the poor by lifting them out of their crippling poverty. Relief work of every kind and action to achieve a fair share of the common wealth for the underprivileged, whether by more just wages or more adequate government support for the needy, these should be the priorities for Christians.
The trouble with this priority is that it was not Jeshua's priority, Far from seeing poverty as the bane of society, he chose to be born into poverty and to live as a poor person. What is it about living in poverty that is a positive value for us. Is it one we find so contrary to some basic instinct that we make ourselves blind to it? If Jesus chose to be born into poverty as a first step towards liberating us and as an example to be followed, what does his example teach us?
The poor are insecure. or in danger of being thrown out onto the street, the worst of it. Whether one is on the brink of starvation, or threatened with eviction from the rental, or in danger of falling ill and having nothing in reserve... In that insecurity there is a lesson to be learned of a value that gets a good run in the gospel: the value of trust, of living day by day, and for those who can accept it, the lesson that our Father/Mother, caring God is to be trusted in everything.
How do I feel about that? Not long ago we were asked in one of these reflections whether it was "practical" to sell all your possessions and follow Jeshua in his aimless wandering. Likewise, is it practical to live poorly, trusting God, instead of building up a reserve for the inevitable rainy day.
While there are some outstanding examples of people who have done it, for the community at large the right road is the middle way, not too much and not too little. The point is that either way we must learn trust.
The gospel is not so unrealistic as to suggest that poverty can be eliminated from this world. There's always going to be someone less well off, less talented, less able to keep up. To stand with them in friendship is to show respect to counter the unspoken disdain they regularly experience.
In a long forgotten mythological past, in the days of Merry England celebrating its Merry Christmas with carols and feasting, it was common to provide for the poor as an integral part of celebrating Jeshua's birthday. Boxing Day was spent boxing up the left-overs from the feasting at the manor house - for the poor of the village. It all seems very patronising to us and there are plenty of examples of equivalent caring today which are not patronising - just generous giving.
The greatest gift is in the Father "sending" his Son to us. We should not be shy of such expressions; they come directly from the gospels and the letters of the apostles. They are part of our lingua franca. When we give gifts within the family and to friends we are honouring that great gift, and responding to the Father's example.
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