Christmas 2020 St Richard’s Midnight Mass & Presentation Christmas Day

Christmas 2020 focus of joy and sorrow the world over. 

These two human realities are merged into our celebration tonight/today just as Jupiter and Saturn have been brought into conjunction in the heavens.

In his orchestral suite The Planets Gustav Holst presents Jupiter as jollity and Saturn as bringer of weariness. Compared with the buoyant music for Jupiter, familiar to us as tune for ‘I vow to me my country’ Holst’s music for Saturn is slow and unsettling.

Weather permitting you may have seen the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the night sky this week. It happens every 20 years but this year’s has been their closest approach since 1623 and closest observable since 1226. There is talk of the grandest conjunction being the source of the immense light appearing as a guide ‘when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the King’ (Matthew 2:1,2)

The events of that night bring joy and sorrow to godly focus in such a way as to inflame the faith, hope and love that burn in our hearts tonight/this morning.

Of this focussing Thomas Merton wrote: ‘As a magnifying glass concentrates the rays of the sun into a little burning knot of heat that can set fire to a dry leaf or a piece of paper, so the mystery of Christ in the Gospel concentrates the rays of God's light and fire to a point to set fire to the human spirit’.

The movement of Jupiter and Saturn to conjunction lifts our physical eyes into the sky at night. The conjunction of God and the world in Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, sets fire to our spiritual perception building faith, hope and love in the face of the sorrows of 2020.

We find faith in a God who, having made us and put us at risk in the cosmos, brings knowledge of his love for us and for all things to light by taking flesh from the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Child Jesus builds our faith as ‘he concentrates the rays of God’s light and fire to a point to set fire to the human spirit’. ‘He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’.

We find hope in the Christmas Feast and not just for 2021. If, as the psalmist writes, ‘this is the day that the Lord has made’ so is tomorrow. Tomorrow also is God’s, and ‘tomorrow, and tomorrow unto the last syllable of recorded time’. Many ask where we find hope at this season. Others say the pandemic has underlined the value of religion as keeper of the flame of hope. 

It’s not a matter of where there is life there is hope but where there is hope there is life, life worth living, life with fullness beyond fullness of years. People with hope, especially those caring for others this year against the odds and at risk to themselves, bring to focus what matters ultimately.

We find faith, hope and thirdly love, which is of ultimate significance, kindled tonight/today. As Jupiter and Saturn draw close in the sky, joy and sorrow are united in the humble Crib of Bethlehem - God is made one with us.

To see this we must take the step of receiving and believing invited at the start of John’s Gospel: ‘God in Christ was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God’.

I can set forth arguments for the existence of a God who is love but arguments will only go so far. The story of Jesus in the Gospels is accepted as historical by scholars in a way that is impressive compared to the qualifications they make about the historical claims of non-Christian religions. Even Christ’s resurrection is said by non-believers to have an enigmatic ring of truth. To move from the ring of truth to entering truth, living in faith, hope and love, is a matter of ‘receiving him… believing in Christ’s name… and welcoming power to become children of God.

One of our leading theologians, Rowan Williams, said last week that believers who strive to make rational arguments for the faith in conversation with secularists should have more modest aspirations. Our humble role is to keep a “foot in the door” until a saint comes along. Williams offered the example of Malcolm Muggeridge, a celebrated British journalist and satirist who was attracted to Communism in his youth and later converted to Christianity under the influence of St. Teresa of Calcutta. I quote, ‘it was not argument, but seeing something fleshed out that did it, but Muggeridge wouldn’t have committed without steady engagement over the years with the arguments’.

Christmas 2020 is the focus of joy and sorrow across the world. The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sky symbolises the bringing to himself God desires for every human being. Our role as believers in advancing this is advanced as our faith, hope and love are refreshed into overflow tonight/today.  

God bless each one of us as we set forth to our circle the argument for Christ and pray for them to embrace what he brings – belonging for the isolated, purpose for the lost, empowerment for the overwhelmed, forgiveness for sinners and direction for those who’re feeling lost. ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth’.

St Bartholomew, Brighton Trinity 8 (16B) 22.7.18

The Lord’s prayer opens up Christianity as a place of belonging, purpose, empowerment, forgiveness and direction.  Reflecting on this Sunday’s readings I find they illuminate each clause of the prayer Jesus taught us. We’ll go for these five headings as a way to understand today’s scripture, as a framework for reflecting on the Lord’s Prayer and as a reminder of the main blessings we possess as Christians: belonging, purpose, empowerment, forgiveness and direction.

First belonging. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Our first reading from Ephesians stated that we believers have access in one Spirit to the Father. To be a Christian is to belong to God as Father and to one another. The Church is God’s never ending family. Sunday by Sunday we come to say ‘Our Father’ - not my Father but Our Father for the God and Father of Jesus is your God and my God. Jesus died to gather together the scattered children of God and that gathering occurs through baptism and through faith.

Someone asked that heroine of Calcutta’s slums Mother Teresa how she prayed and she answered I just say again and again ‘Our Father’. When we pray we affirm our belonging both to God and to our neighbour. Hallowed be thy name - Jesus leads us in contemplation of God as his Father and ours. Today’s Gospel is a striking example and reminder of our need to set time apart day by day to contemplate God and to say the Our Father. Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while, Jesus says. How can we take up that invitation in our own daily routine? To contemplate our belonging to God and bring to our loving Heavenly Father in prayer the sisters and brothers he has put on our hearts?

Second purpose. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done That purpose, that will is stated in the New Testament. Its a purpose for the cosmos and for the church, one stated in Colossians of bringing all things together in Christ and in today’s first reading stated as one of growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God. As Christians we’ve a purpose in life: drawing the world together. I think of how iron filings randomly scattered form up beautifully when magnetised. You and I are here in Church to be magnetised by the love of God shown us through word and sacrament in Jesus Christ. We leave Church that bit more assured of God’s love and that bit better instruments of healing and reconciliation in a broken world.

I was preaching last Sunday in Bordeaux and quoted this saying from the Abbe de Tourville: Say to yourself very often about everything that happens, ‘God loves me! What joy! And reply boldly, ‘And I truly love Him too!’ Then go quite simply about all that you have to do and do not philosophize any more. For these two phrases are beyond all thought and do more for us than any thought could do; they are all-sufficing. We sometimes make Christianity more difficult than it is - its purpose, our purpose is to welcome the fact we’re loved and hand on that amazing truth to others.

Third empowerment. Give us this day our daily bread - being Christian is counter to self-sufficiency. We’re called to live in the love of God with an eternal perspective. In other words living in the here and now, in the present moment - for God is there and nowhere else. We don’t find God or life in the mental constructs of the past or future but in the present. And the present has a present! Give us this day our daily bread. This phrase has all sorts of interpretations, here at the eucharist for example when the Lord’s prayer is said as preparation for receiving Christ’s body in the form of Bread.

Christianity ultimately is empowerment. They found that empowerment in Jesus Christ from the very start as we heard in today’s Gospel. Jesus we heard had compassion for them... A God who answers prayers, who gives us the Holy Spirit. They laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed. It may be as you sit in Saint Bartholomew’s this morning you sit with a weight of care. Ask the Lord to empower you by taking that burden from you, to free you to be his more effective servant. He will do - if you ask!

Fourthly forgiveness. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Some say Christianity’s heavy on guilt. Its precisely the opposite because the Holy Spirit that impacts us from the Cross of Jesus delivers every penitent heart from guilt. As we heard in the first reading: in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace… Jesus has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility caused by unrepented sin.

To know your sins are forgiven is knowledge the whole world would quickly seek if only it knew it was on offer in Christianity. We come to church to receive that assurance in Jesus’s Hour, the hour of Sunday Mass which irradiates us with God’s love and mercy. Let all that is on your conscience be given to him this morning - prepare for the new start forgiveness offers week by week, hour by hour if need be!

Fifth and last direction. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. If Christianity brings belonging, purpose, empowerment and forgiveness it lastly provides spiritual direction. As we heard in the Gospel how many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and Jesus began to teach them many things. That teaching is handed on by the church through a network of spiritual directors with gifts of listening and teaching relevant to discerning the forward course in life set by the Holy Spirit. Did you know Anglican Communicants can be put in touch with a spiritual director by their clergy or by a phone call to the diocesan office?

To pray the Lord’s prayer is to set yourself against sin, temptation and evil. Jesus himself we know was impermeable to these but he left a prayer for us with a couple of phrases irrelevant to him. Since Our Lord came into the world to provide the remedy for sin the prayer he taught is a realistic prayer for us. We so often find ourselves going in a direction away from the prompting of the Holy Spirit through nameless fear, anxiety, inappropriate sadness, self-centredness, the tendency to see endless snags ahead or through a basic lack of hope. These feelings can prevent us doing what’s best and we need to counter them and seek help from God and maybe other Christians to do so. Our clergy are here too to help with guidance.

To sum up, the Lord’s prayer displays Christianity as a place of belonging, purpose, empowerment, forgiveness and direction. Ours is a deep, hopeful and forward looking religion.

The Lord bless us as we pray the ‘Our Father’ prayer of belonging and contemplate God day by day, as we pray and act according to his purpose with the empowerment of his Spirit, seeking forgiveness and spiritual direction.

For thine, Lord, is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.