The cloth of love

 The attraction of the Boxing day sales is often too much for people. They dive in to find new inexpensive luxury clothing that would otherwise not be purchased. The sales are a good time to make these changes, although one wonders if in reality you are getting a bargain or is it that the store is ridding itself of old stock at a healthy markup. The question is, as we reflect immediately after the frivolities of the season, do we need to find new styles of clothing that we should be wearing as Christians in the coming year? It seems a silly question but what we wear does say a lot about a person. Especially, when we are assessed by others by our outer clothing and how we stack up in a society that is focused on fashion. The writer to the Colossians says "Put on, then, garments that suit God's chosen and beloved people" (Col 3.12),

We occasionally take Paul and St Patrick's stiff armour of God a little too seriously and are caught out of time and place. So, let's take a look at some of the older fashions that we like and exchange them for some newer fashions, which are more attractive. Modern garments are somewhat more flexible, although older styles are still glamourised or over indulged by Christians. The stiff laces and whalebone corsets are often much admired as we focus ourselves on things that cannot change in our eyes or are seen as the traditional manner in which to comport ourselves. The inability to be open to the newness of God's life often renders our attitudes old fashioned and stiff. This does not mean to say that we should never look at old clothing but rather recognise that it is sometimes inappropriate for our closets. However, openness and a free flow is not always appropriate either in clothing. The fit and style needs to go with the circumstances of our lives as Christians and in some senses the basic style should not change but our presentation of them should, so that they are a compliment to the age in which we live.

Are we conscious of what we wear on the outside as Christians?

Perhaps, its because we think that our clothing needs to be cut from truth but actually our clothing should be love that is woven with truth. This gives our clothing a remarkable resilience in the face of abuse. If we prepare our clothing only with truth we are liable to become very stiff, like the breastplate and we get caught out wearing last year's armour. If, we have the main fabric as love then we are well on the way to showing the world how we can pleat it with compassion and hem it with humility. It allows us to be tolerant when others change the design slightly so that they can wear a more practical cloth for the work that they do in the community. This acceptance of the other brings joy into the hearts and minds of those we minister to rather than confronting them with stiffness and formality as we try to develop clothing only made out of our truth.

Of course, the cloth made of love that is threaded with truth is like teflon and kevlar, so that the stains of other's words against us do not penetrate and are easily removed with forgiveness. This clothing is unlike any other that is worn today as many people still wear the garments of hatred and anger such as found in 1 Samuel (2.26). Modern garments are light to wear and enable us to have a spirit of joy and laughter in our hearts. We wash them and care for them as we come into God's presence. We do not have to be brash about it but like Christ we do need to be in communication with God at all times (Lk. 3.49). In away this is what makes our clothing unique because it comes to us free when we are constantly in the presence of God and opening ourselves up to God's presence through prayer, worship and praise..

Do we see the love or the tradition?

 In our portrayals of the Christmas story we tend to forget a few things. The first and foremost thing we forget is the setting of the story as we have been blinded by the imagination of a western tradition of inns and stables. The second and perhaps more important thing that we forget are the dramatis personae i.e. those taking part and their relevance to our understanding of the whole. Lastly the final thing that we often forget about, and this is in reality because we do not want to consider it, is the driving force behind the story and who it was addressed to and for what purpose. In addressing the last of these we have to recognise that it was to a 'young' movement who had little idea with regards the Christ or any of the story that surrounded the crucifixion. In some respects the Lukan pericope of the birth and the events leading to the birth are probably fictitious rather than factitious. It along with the conflicting elements found in Matthew are purposively created for the new followers so that they have an understanding as to the theological back story tied into Christ. This helped the understanding of the initial readers of the text, or rather hearers, to come into faith. Does the fictitious nature of the story detract from it? The answer for our purposes, as we celebrate tonight and tomorrow is no. It sets a theological scene by which we come to understand the importance of the incarnation in our lives much as it did for the original listeners to the tale. Yet, we need to remind ourselves that this is its purpose and not over inflate our ideas.

For us as we hear the story told this night and in the morning it opens up our imaginations as to the possibility of God's presence in our hearts. The actors and players in the drama are just as important as these imply that a whole community is one that accepts disparate and reviled members alongside the fortunate and, in the long term, the rich and famous. It is this that we celebrate tonight the formation of community around something that is new and refreshing in times of trouble. New birth is always celebrated but too often we maintain that celebration in house so to speak and only leak it out gradually. In the ancient past the birth of a child was celebrated by the whole community not just a small part of it. We have forgotten in today's world that new life should be celebrated and is not something that is forgotten within hours as we get back to our daily lives. It is a time of joy and peace that brings people together in community rather than dividing. This is the reality of the incarnation in this place at this time. It has an ongoing meaning as we struggle in our own lives seeking that initial joy and love as the world impinges on our own and God's will.

Adoration of the shepherds - do we adore the art or the actuality?

What about place? Is there a significance about the place this action takes place over and above the intended theological significance of David and David's line? Once again in looking at this we have to delve past the Western ideological elements that have coated the story since its translation into Western languages. These have so overwhelmed the actuality of the setting that we have lost sight of its fuller meaning. Translators had no other word or rather could not conceive of a more appropriate word to use in translation but inn. Thus we have meandered of the real setting of the story and its theological push towards divine love. The inhospitable or compassionate (depending on your view) inn keeper who shoves the distressed couple to the barn is very European in concept and artwork. The reality is a small family home that is typical of the ME with an attached room for the animals that provides warmth to the remainder of the house during the cold months. The main room is separated from the animals by the mangers that provide food for the animals within easy reach of the human occupants. The guest room (translated as inn) obviously already filled by grannies and aunties due to the influx as a result of the census. The baby comes in the midst of this love of human warmth and reception.

What do we take away? Well perhaps what we are meant to...that love comes in all forms from the family to the community and it is accepting of all peoples in the wider context of the time and within our own time. It points us again and again towards the incarnate love that is present in all human souls should we begin by loving ourselves  our neighbours and our God (however we may conceive that word).

Love is the culmination of it all

  This is the last step on our journey towards the incarnation and the celebration that we as Christians commit to on a yearly basis. It is not the Xmas of commercialism that has become the tradition. It is not the paraphernalia of expensive gift giving and rites that have been debased to a frenzy of anxiety and fearfulness in the eyes of many. Rather it is a gathering together of the faithful in a celebration around the Christ Mass in its simplicity and welcome that reveals at its heart love rather than division, anxiety, loss and hate. Today we celebrate that love and renew it in our hearts so that we may join together once more to celebrate the coming of Christ into the midst of a world churned by violence and divided by hatred.

Community is about accepting the other into our hearts with love

Love is an ideal or at least we idealise it for ourselves. However, we need to fathom what it is for ourselves and how we can make it an actuality within the lives of, not just ourselves, but also those around us so that we can form better communities. I do not know about you but I am dreading the in coming Trumpian era as much as I have been repulsed by the paucity of truth coming out of the minds of his selections. The reason I am dreading this new Trumpian era is the total lack of respect and truth that will be peddled in our direction over a period of the next few years. It has inevitably kicked of early and brings a wet blanket to the joy we should be seeing this Christmas. If we are to have people lead us and the world, whether it is at local, state or federal or on the world stage, then they should by rights reflect our normative behaviours and the community's from which they come from. At present most politicians, or at least the ones striving for leadership and renown, I would not have in my backyard as a result of the lack of love, righteousness and peace they exude. Most particularly if they claim any form of religious belief.

Paul in his letter to the Corinthians lays out precisely what love should be and how it is to be expressed in the community. If we cannot begin at the basic level of honest communication and honest reflection of our neighbours then we should not be representing any faith community. At the heart of all faiths is this key concept of respect and love for the other over and above ourselves. The issue is that we often interpret things to our understanding and not align ourselves with God's understanding. It becomes more and more important for us that what we think is right is right. Thus, when we consider love of neighbour we often tack on a proviso tacked onto the end of the thought, "except...". No matter who we are we fall into this fallacy that love of neighbour means those that we consider worthy to be our neighbour. But as both Paul and Christ point out love is above our pettiness and covers all people made in God's image and all life made from God. How can we not include love for and protection for our environment if we love our neighbour?

If we lack the basic understanding that we need to both respect and acknowledge our neighbours point of view we also are unable to begin to express God's love for us. Even John in the womb recognised the other and leapt in joy and love when Mary entered the home (Lk 1:39-45). In preparation for next week we need to understand the basic fundamental of God's redeeming love is available to all despite what we, individually, may believe. Christ is incarnate as a human being not as a some extraordinarily different person or species. No, God incarnate that we celebrate next week, is a reflection of humanity as a whole. If  a single person in an age that was filled with violence and greed, just as today is, with petty politics and the grubbing for power, just as today is, can exhibit a love for each person they meet then so can we as human beings. It is not a hard thing to do but it is a hard thing to overcome the conditioning that the world has fed us over the many years of our lives. In our last week of reflection before we come before the Christ child to honour and praise God we need to understand this love that God has demonstrated to us in Christ. It is only when we can clearly demonstrate that love amongst ourselves that we can become a transforming community of God's love to the world. It is in that very community that we gather the strength to show love as without the support that each of us gives we will degenerate back into the selfish lives that we so often manage to demonstrate to the world.

Joy needs to be worked for

  It may seem strange that we talk about joy in the face of the reading from Luke that seems to emphasise the evil in people with their reward of fire and brimstone (Lk. 3:7-18). Yet it is sometimes that out of terror we find joy in a world that is beset by pain. In the last two weeks we looked at our faith journey in terms of hope that springs from the darkest moments in our lives and the peace that is brought as we journey in the midst of the desert. In the face of adversity and the horrors of violence comes moments that transcend everything around us and bring joy pouring into our hearts. One such moment is when we see the incarnation and the joy that the Christ child brings. This joy stems from the expectation that we all have when there is new life in the offing.

For many of us we just have to think back to the joy we experienced with the birth of our children to imagine the joy that comes with new life. Yet, we are talking about scripture that speaks of winnowing and threshing both violent and separating events. If we superimpose this on the violent and caustic world in which we live we can begin to entertain some of the understanding that must go with these two concepts. If we have too much concern over the violence we will miss the opportunity to find joy in the beginnings of new life. Even in the worst of situations there is often an overabundance of joy. I can remember touring one of the impromptu residential camps outside of Pretoria. Created not only from an overspill of people from other areas but also as a result of continual development pushing people further and further from the urban population areas. Whilst there was a lot of political resentment, this was in the new South Africa, there was also a lot of joy in the camp. From the birth of new children to the organised chaos of the resident children running and playing after what schooling was available. Despite the poverty and the poor conditions there was joy in and around the life that was lived.

Relax and understand God in our hearts

It is the acceptance of what we have been given by God that allows us to fully experience the joy that is in life. This takes courage (Zeph. 3:16) to live up to and exceed, even in the toughest of conditions, God's presence in our lives. It is God's delight in our lives and acceptance of Christ within them that brings joy not only into our hearts but the hearts of those who are part of God's community. It is often at the bottom of our lives that we really begin to understand God's presence and it is at that time that we begin to dwell in the joy that God's love brings. This is where the peace we spoke of last week comes as we embrace the presence of God in the worst of conditions. Being human there is a draw back to all this lovely talk about joy and that is that we tend to be anxious over every small set back in life that we have (Phil. 4:6). No matter what the condition is that has created our state it only increases our own anxieties as we have no understanding as to what the future has in store for us. It is only when we have God's love in our hearts that we tend to find joy in our context and allow our anxieties to melt away into the wind of chance.

We are each and every day encouraged to indulge in our anxieties. To exaggerate them until such time as they overwhelm and defeat us. In doing so we lock out the joy that should be present in our hearts when we take up Christ's burden and love ourselves and our neighbours in God's presence. It is only in looking forward continually and listening to the voice from out of the wilderness that is our hearts to we begin to appreciate the joy that is ever present around us in creation. We seldom look beyond our angst and anxiety riddled life that we can experience the joy that is close to our hearts. In leaving the things that concern us behind we achieve the fulfilment of our hearts. It is like going on a long expected holiday and actually taking time out to relax. We take holidays but we seldom actually relax. Many will be going off at this season to be with family whom they have not seen for sometime. Yet, I know that that will not necessarily be a time of putting away the concerns that trouble us. Nine times out of ten there will be concerns raised over kids and grand kids that will add to the concerns and anxiety. Rather we need to let those disappear, let our families relax and not burden us with the pettiness of life that raises our anxiety so that we can truly let go and let God.

Peace - our hope

 We spoke last week of prophecy and prophets which move us on in the Advent cycle to the candle that symbolises our yearning for peace and the journey into a place of new beginnings, Bethlehem. John cried out in the wilderness to a people who had lost their faith and were living in a time of violence. A prophet at a specific time and place calling in a setting bereft of life to bring new meaning and new life into the lives of the people of the covenant. A call from the deserted places of our lives to incarnate a faith that glows with the power of love and peace. In moving towards the incarnation we recognise that our faith journey often ends up in the wilderness. The wilderness of disappointment and solitude. A wilderness that is founded upon our own deserted dreams and aspirations burnt to dust by the grind of daily life in an era that does not understand faith and its fulfilment in our lives. In looking at John's call from the wilderness there is a point where we need to understand that the call that comes from God often comes from a wilderness experience.

The present day is perhaps very similar to the Middle East at the time of the incarnation in terms of violence and division. The nations of the world are divided in terms of how or what peace means; on how to manage or support environmental change and other needs that affect all peoples' peace. There is no possibility of dialogue within the true meaning of listening but rather a continual babble of wants and desires that affect the world's abilities to respond together as humanity; rather than individual needs and requirements for advancement or perceived progress in wealth and prosperity for a few. There are numbers that call from the devastation of their lives who live in deserts created by selfish others who look only to profit from the misery of others. We are more concerned with the desires of our own corners of the world in local politics, in national desires and in our work benefits.

Future peace lurks beneath the barrenness of our lives

In the deserted places of our hearts we have no peace and we yearn for something to fill the emptiness. Our hope that we carried over from last week is a nascent shoot in the middle of nothingness that we supply with our faith to help it to grow in a manner that brings peace rather than confrontation. God calls us towards peace not towards violence and as people who journey in faith we need to understand that our relationships need to be built on peace. Our current age allows and encourages us towards confrontation by giving us binary decisions to make, rather than seeing new beginnings in an atmosphere of listening and understanding. The desert allows us to remove all the clamouring from our lives and allows us to listen for the persistent voice that is quietly calling us to freedom and peace.  A call that has resounded through the ages and is culminated in the incarnation of Christ who shows us the way forward through acceptance and dialogue.

We ourselves cannot be complacent when we hear God call to us and just accept the status quo. Rather we must actively seek God's blessing upon us so that we can embark towards new ministries and new ways of doing things for God's rule. Only when we manifest God's love in our lives and open the dialogue that is necessary to bring reconciliation and healing between peoples in our communities will we begin the enact God's call. It is all very well for us to pray and speak about how wonderful God is but without changing how we act in our lives we will be no closer to bringing God's peace and encouraging our faith to burgeon and lighten the load that is on the community in which we live. We face a new world out there, one that has been forged in the fires of COVID and denial of change, resting on our past fears. In facing that new world we need to place our faith in God's presence and listen to God's voice leading us towards God's peace.

Hope is in God

 Today is the start of the new year for those who involve themselves with the liturgical church. The start of the year four Sundays away from Christmas. A time when we need to start looking forward into a new year of Christ's revelation and looking back to determine what we missed when Christ came past. The readings for this Sunday reflect somewhat this looking forward looking back. We look back as we turn to Jeremiah the prophet of lament (33.14-16). We look forward towards an unimaginable future with Christ (Lk 21.25-38).

Looking forward looks too much like the rear view unless we have faith

The problem is or rather the challenge is that when we are creative in our looking forward looking back we need to ensure that we are not captured by the one or the other. In looking back we may find ourselves looking into the face of Medusa and become paralysed so that we cannot turn towards the future but remain constantly looking back petrified in reminiscence. In looking to the future the same challenge presents itself but more uniquely as it turns us back to the past because of our fear of God's purposes in our future. We are once again petrified because of our uncertainty as to the future with an inability to place our faith in God's presence but rely solely on our own contrivances. The purpose of looking back is to understand where God has been and to remind ourselves that it is we who have missed the opportunities that God presents. Sometimes it is in our petrified fear that we cannot grasp what God calls us to and so we refuse the joy that would come in God's presence.

The missed opportunities that we need to look for are those times when we did not give joy for others to receive. When we were to wrapped up in our own miseries that we were unable to spend a few minutes with an other to perceive their pain and walk along beside them. How often have we failed to ask the question, so much so that we have to have a day dedicated to it, "Are you OK?". How often have we been a visible face of Christ to those in pain and we have missed the opportunity of receiving the joy that comes when Christ's love is expressed in the lives of another person? As the writer to the Thessalonians puts it "It is the breath of life to us" (1 Thess. 3.8), for this is where the joy is found. This seems awfully negative but when we look to the past it is to discover the missed opportunities so that we can ensure that we do not repeat them because if we do, then yes it is joyless, yes, it is depressing and yes, it is petrifying for we are not growing in faith, in love and in joy.

What then of the future? Is it as depressing as we believe or have we the ability to rise to greet Christ and find the joy of God's presence? Christ's apocalyptic words do not appear to be encouraging (Lk 21.25-36). Yet, the warnings are warnings of the past for if we recognise those moments that we have just relived we will have the opportunities of sacrificing ourselves for the other and find Christ's presence. It is only when we do not learn that the effects of dissolution and disappointment begin to effect all that we do. We look to the future with faith, constantly in prayer and recognising God's presence around us. We strive for the community to which we belong and sacrifice our own needs for the needs of the other. We refuse the enjoyments that we are used to and find ourselves with the joy of Christ as we minister and labour for the justice and peace to bring a community out of despair into Joy. We are the harbingers of Joy as Christ becomes manifest in the incarnation but only if we ourselves become joy bringers.

I look forward with faith, knowing God's presence in my life. I rely on God's guidance in the face of tragedy and I try to bring that faith into being as I minister to family, and community, friends and strangers. Only when we truly believe these statements, only when we manifest them to the greatest of our ability, only when we live as Christ will we begin to bring the changes that God demands of all God's people.