Sermon: 1st Sunday after Christmas

My sermon for the 1st Sunday after Christmas is available in video format this week, and can be accessed at https://youtu.be/lxx9DcO-IMI 

It is based on Colossians 3:12-17 and Matthew 2:41-52

Christmas Greetings

Dear Friends 

A blessed and joyous Christmas to you all as we end another difficult and trying year. On a positive note, we have at least “just” had to handle more of what 2020 threw at us, and we have become that much more proficient at holding unexpected change and all the heartache and hardship Covid-19 continues to cause in our world. I am thankful for the strength and resilience of each one of you, and for God’s healing and life-giving presence in our midst. 

My personal thanks to our Churchwardens, Debbie and Janine, and to our Parish Secretary, Bev, for their ongoing selfless dedication and commitment to us all at St Andrew’s; and to Stephen, Bishop Geoff, Elizabeth (Confirmation) and Penny and Diane (Children’s Church), along with the Layministers and Parish Council as we have adjusted to a hybrid world of both online and in-person worship and gatherings during the course of this year. 

May we all experience God’s deep peace in Jesus as we enter the New Year, one that we know will still demand much of us, but also one in which we seek to throw off the shackles of isolation that Covid-19 has cloaked us in, and learn to live afresh, with greater confidence as we embrace the reality of this time. 

“Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.” (Isaiah 49:13) 

With our love, Mark and Dawn

Sermon: Midnight Mass

 Sermon: Christmas Eve

24 December 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Isaiah 62:6-12, Psalm 97, and Luke 2:1-20; NRSV 

Tonight’s Gospel reading begins with a reminder of the power of secular Government: “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered[,]”[1] a decree that in Luke’s account disrupts the lives of people throughout an entire Empire, and has a peasant population in Galilee and Judea (and doubtless elsewhere in the Roman Empire) needing to use scarce resources to travel to their home region to register. You and I meet online tonight for Midnight Mass because of a Government decree that requires we close any gathering by 11pm in order to ensure the midnight curfew is fully observed, a decree that for a second year running disrupts our worship life as a Parish. There is something particularly beautiful, and again missed, about gathering in-person late at night to welcome the Christ-child as one day ends and a new day begins. 

The disruption to our lives tonight is minor in comparison to the disruption taking place in Joseph and Mary’s life and many of their compatriots in Luke’s narrative, but the broader disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic globally and the variety of National regulations that have governed our lives since March 2020 are perhaps comparative. Such disruption creates uncertainty, even fear, for what this may mean for the future, and what economic impact it will have on our resources. Joseph and Mary would have been in no doubt that the only meaningful impact of the census would be an increased tax burden on their already scarce resources, and we know that Nazareth – their actual home – was a small, struggling village reliant on subsistence farming for any income.[2] It is not difficult to imagine the uncertainty, even fear, and the growing anger of Joseph and Mary’s broader social context. 

We join the narrative tonight as Joseph and Mary reach Bethlehem, not out of choice, but because it is required. It is a costly inconvenience and doubtless also a health risk for a young woman reaching the end of her pregnancy. Luke mentions no donkey,[3] despite the tradition, and it is likely a heavily pregnant Mary has walked the 150km distance. It is no surprise that the Christ-child is born the evening of their arrival. 

While Luke introduces the birth narrative in the context of Rome’s power over the people of a distant land on the edge of the Empire, he also weaves into in another story, a more ancient story, and we hear that, “Joseph … went … to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David.”[4] Luke began to weave this story in at the annunciation, the Angel Gabriel informing Mary that the child she will bear, “… will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.”[5] We discover that “God’s story [is] interwoven with Caesar’s power right from the start”[6] and Zechariah, the husband of Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, confirms this when he prophesies after John’s birth and before Jesus is born that “[God] has raised up a mighty saviour for us in the house of his servant David.”[7] “From the might of Caesar to command the whole world, to the swaddling of a newborn in a room shared with the household’s animals, Luke leads us into a world, our world, where we discern God’s power at work to keep all the promises cherished by Mary (Luke 1:46-55) and Zechariah (Luke 1:67-79),”[8] promises as we have heard reflect hope in the midst of uncertainty, and joy in the midst of growing social discontent. In the midst of the harsh reality of life and Empire two children are born: John to Elizabeth and Zachariah, Jesus to Mary and Joseph; John, the prophet of hope; Jesus the Saviour of the world.[9] 

As we continue in Luke’s narrative this hope is reflected in the visit of the angels to the shepherds and the shepherds’ joy in finding the child and discovering the message they have been given is true. I have been quite harsh in my portrait of the shepherds in previous years, indicating that they were considered social outcasts, but in fact more recent scholarship[10] indicates “They were indeed among the “lowly” (1:52), but in their diligent work modeled the way of God with God’s people.”[11] Luke informs us that the “The shepherds put things together well enough to become jubilant. They’re promised a baby, they see a baby, and they recognise that the rest of what they have been told is true.”[12] The shepherds return to their fields and responsibilities, and by implication they return to their social reality, to the uncertainty, the fear, the growing anger among the Galilean and Judaen peasants, with a transformed outlook; they “… returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.”[13] 

Our faith calls us to ongoing transformation through our faith in God and our trust in Jesus, the Christ. The temptation is always to spiritualise this journey, to disconnect it from daily reality in order to ease the discomfort of the change it demands of us. The Christmas Gospel, the Christmas Good News reminds us that our faith and daily life are intricately intertwined, and that while a relationship with God includes a deep personal aspect, God is concerned with the fullness of life. Luke’s introduction this evening to Jesus’ birth reminds us that the secular and the sacred are interwoven, and that God is always concerned with the daily nature of life and the human condition. Luke reminds us that despite the disruptive power of the secular, the sacred continues to undergird our lives and gives us a concrete hope for salvation. 

How does this speak to us, to you, in the context of life as we experience it today? What are the anxieties and fears that disrupt and constrict our daily experience? What is the nature of the hope and salvation we require in this moment? How do you see this reflected in the lives of people around you? Are we awake (perhaps not an ideal question close to midnight) to the hope and salvation God may be offering? And even more than this, are we like the shepherds willing to make the effort to look at the salvation we are offered, are we sufficiently courageous to share what we are hearing, and does it fill us with jubilation? 

That’s a lot of questions, and doubtless our answers are varied and even conflicting; and that is ok. Luke reminds us that, “… Mary treasured these words and pondered them in her heart.”[14] We, too,  need time to reflect, and allow what God is asking of us and calling us to to grow in us. Jesus was nurtured in Mary’s womb for a period, and then forcefully ejected into the reality of human life. While we ponder and nurture God’s word in us, a time will come when it is also ejected into the world and into the reality of daily life. This Christmas marks those birth pangs, and 2022 will see its birth. You and I, like Zachariah and Elizabeth, Joseph and Mary, bear God’s purpose; and like John we are called to be prophets of hope in our world, and like Jesus we are called to be the source of God’s salvation to others. 

Let us draw strength from Luke’s narrative this evening, let us trust that God always prepares the road ahead of us, that the angels are close, and that God’s Spirt is present. 

A closing prayer by Pádraig Ó Tuama, Irish Poet and Theologian. Let us pray, 

God of fear,

God of the night,

God of the expectation,

You visited shepherds in the night

with songs and sights of joy.

In all our nights, turn us

towards hope, because

hope might just

keep us alive.

Amen.[15]

---

[1] Luke 2:1; NRSV

[2] Reza Aslan, Zealot: the Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

[3] Sarah Henrich, Commentary on Luke 2:1-14 [15-20], https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/christmas-eve-nativity-of-our-lord/commentary-on-luke-21-14-15-20-20

[4] Luke 2:4; NRSV

[5] Luke 1:32; NRSV

[6] Sarah Henrich, Ibid.

[7] Luke 1:69; NRSV

[8] Sarah Henrich, Ibid.

[9] Pray as You Go, Friday: 4^th Week in Advent – A Real Hope

[10] Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke

[11] Sarah Henrich, Ibid.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Luke 2:20; NRSV

[14] Luke 2:19; NRSV

[15] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community (Day 1)

Sermon: 4th Sunday in Advent

 Sermon: 4^th Sunday in Advent

19 December 2021 – Archdeacon Mark Long

Micah 5:2-5a, Luke 1:46-55 (in place of the Psalm), and Luke 1:39-45; NRSV 

Today we begin the fourth week of our Advent journey, and accompanied by Luke’s Gospel we are reminded that the Advent journey is a prophetic one in which we move  progressively from a broad vision of the future towards a more specific focus on Jesus’ birth, which we will celebrate in our Christmas services at the end of this week. 

We began our Advent journey with Jesus’ prophetic words of his second coming, encouraged to be awake to the signs of God’s presence in our world, to be expectant and – despite the overwhelming nature of these signs – to be hopeful. The past two weeks have focused on John the Baptist as the one who both prepares the way for what God is doing and who calls God’s people to turn from disobedience to lives of loving service.[1] 

Today we are presented with Elizabeth and Mary, an encounter marked by Elizabeth’s joyful affirmation of the special blessing of God’s presence with Mary and the child she carries. It is an encounter that elicits a prophetic song of praise from Mary, which we know as the Magnificat and which has taken the place of the Psalm in today’s lection. Mary’s song of praise is intriguing in terms of our understanding of prophesy, which we often expect to be about what God is going to do, as Mary actually reflects on what God has already done, activity that Jesus’ birth and subsequent ministry will affirm. Mary’s song is prophetic in that it asserts God’s nature, and does so in a way that is likely to leave us discomforted when we look carefully at what Mary proclaims. It is not a comforting message for those who are privileged and resourced, “… the Mighty One has … scattered the proud … brought down the powerful … and sent the rich away empty.”[2] The Good News is reserved for the lowly and hungry, and we hear that “…the Mighty One has … lifted up the lowly … filled the hungry with good things …”[3] 

Mary’s song is, however, more than just a comment on privilege and poverty as it also embraces faithfulness: our faithfulness to God and God’s faithfulness to us and to his promises. We hear that God’s “… mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation”[4] and that God “… has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever”[5]. For me this is an important and critical point of connection, and I find myself asking, “What does this mean for me as a person of faith, as a person who seeks to be faithful and yet is privileged and resourced?” I ask it also for us as a community, and you may have asked this question at some point, too? I am aware that I all too easily mould an answer to deflect my unease, and I do wonder how much of our theology avoids this question? 

What Mary’s song does do is solidly root the injustices of the day in the awareness of God and calls the faithful to ensure that their experience of God’s mercy is lived out in just action. Stephen[6] reminded us in his sermon last week that comfort, joy, hope, and peace are what we share as we wait together for the coming of Christ, and we need to reflect on what these gifts look like in the context of the Magnificat, in the context of what God has already done and in the context of what God has affirmed in the birth and ministry of Jesus. For you and me it is the need to reflect on how we translate our privilege and resources into just action in lifting up the lowly, in filling the hungry with good things, in ensuring that these gifts of comfort, joy, hope, and peace are equitably shared in our world and contain meaning beyond our own desire for freedom from constraint. 

None of this is easy, and perhaps that is the first necessary step: acknowledging that it is difficult to be vulnerable, difficult to step away from our desire to protect our privilege and resources, difficult to truly acknowledge the needs of others in such a manner that their need is justly addressed. John’s baptism required honesty from God’s people, a willingness to move from being self-serving and thoughtless towards others to being loving and caring in service of others and of God. Can you and I find the courage for such honesty? And beyond such honesty, what is the depth of our desire to see our world healed? The gift of the pandemic has been the manner in which it has highlighted so clearly the rifts in our global society, and we cannot claim in any form or manner to be unaware of these fissures in our social fabric; as Elizabeth and Mary would not have been unaware of those of their own time. Today the Gospel of Luke invites us to join with Mary and Elizabeth in acknowledging and celebrating that God looks on us with favour, and calls us to build a more just and merciful society where comfort, joy, hope, and peace actually mean something because they are supported by the just actions of faithful people. 

In closing, a brief anecdote and challenge from my personal guru, Irish Poet and Theologian, Pádraig Ó Tuama: 

There’s an old anecdote that an order of nuns were expelled from a certain country because their morning recitation of the Magnificat was deemed to be a challenge to a dictatorial government. It’s probably not entirely true, but I think there’s truth in it nonetheless. Many orders of religious women have spoken truth to power and have found their home in the Magnificat, a prayer they pray by heart every morning. Recite the Magnificat and consider how it’s a psalm of challenge, of resistance and of hope for a changed order.[7] 

And likewise, a closing prayer by Pádraig. Let us pray, 

God of the ground,

in Mary’s words

we hear a vision that could change the world

and through Mary’s life you changed, too.

Give us the imagination to believe

that even though we are not mighty

you can raise up songs from the dust

that change powers for good.

Because you did this

through the yes of one woman.

Amen.[8]

---

[1] The Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Lectionary: Advent 2021 to December 2022, Year C, page 8-9

[2] Luke 1:49-53; NRSV

[3] Ibid.

[4] Luke 1:50; NRSV

[5] Luke 1:54-55; NRSV

[6] Stephen Middelkoop, 20211212 advent joy SM

[7] Pádraig Ó Tuama, Forth Sunday of Advent, https://www.spiritualityofconflict.com/pdfs/readings/341_fourth-sunday-of-advent.pdf

[8] Ibid.