Just before Christmas I sat opposite a young couple on a train who had a ten week old baby. Dad was looking exhausted and slept most of the journey. It had been Mum`s first day back at work and he had been looking after the baby. So I talked to Mum. It was easy to start a conversation because of her beautiful baby daughter who after a good feed was also sleeping. I was told that baby had been born in a tent in the garden and Mum said I expect you can get a Christmas talk out of that. Both Mum and Dad clearly just delighted in their beautiful baby but my conversation meant that when our journey ended I also understood why mum and baby got off the train but dad had to stay on.  Life can be hard and rarely straightforward and the economic climate in particular meant for this couple difficult times of separation.

It can be too easy for us to idealise the Christmas story of the birth of the baby Jesus and put its meaning outside of real life and real experience. But that can never have been the intention of the gospel writers. Luke gives us the shepherds, the outsiders, those who were mistrusted, the people on the edge as being the first visitors to the manger. Matthew gives us the visit of the Magi, the wise men, the sages from the East and a story of a fearful king Herod, of warning dreams, a terrible act of violence by the king and a great escape for the young couple and their baby. At New Year we watched a play with pieces of music, mainly from the Messiah, called Coram Boy and now as I think about it, I can recognise the elements of Matthew`s nativity that run through this dark but redemptive show about fear and violence, and of a baby who escapes death through the human courage of others.

500 years ago the artist Peter Brueghal painted many scenes of rural life and was brutally realistic about debunking ideas that rural life should be thought of as an idyll. He also weaved into many of his paintings the major events of Jesus` life, interpretations of parables and religious festivals. These take place against the backdrop of Flemish life in the 16^th century and often you have to look hard in the painting to find what is going on. In “The Carrying of the Cross” (left) for example the Cross is barely visible and in “The Census at Bethlehem” snow and ice so much fill the landscape that we can miss the man leading a donkey which carries the young woman.

Brueghal would probably now be called a humanist. He interpreted the gospel narratives more in terms of human beings and their experiences in the world, letting the gospel narratives really taking hold of people`s hopes and struggles in the world in which they lived with its joys and disappointments. His perspective is important especially if Christmas becomes all too neat and tidy with too much being invested in it about looking right, doing things right and relying on old traditions to magically put things right. Approaching Christmas like that can often lead to frustration and disappointment . There is something to be said for always facing Christmas afresh like the young couple would be doing with with their baby.

And so in our families and our communities we should be creative, innovative and thoughtful in the plans we make each and every Christmas and that includes in the church in the planning our worship. Contemporary nativities set in a garage and also having non- biblicaI poems and readings at carol services can work well. As for the bible readings we do have, I wonder how meaningful now is the selection of readings that were put together after World War One in the longer form of Nine Lessons and Carols. These readings ignore the Old Testament Wisdom tradition which is the background for much of our understanding of the story of the wise men, make no mention of the positive role of women in the Old Testament only referring to Eve, and for Abraham, the reading is the complex passage about the offering of Isaac.   

At the back of Church this morning is a painting by one of Brueghal`s sons, Jan the younger. His painting is more traditionally devotional than the work of his father but I find equally thought provoking. Great crowds of people are both inside and outside a small house and at the front Mary presents the baby Jesus to them. She looks at the baby in a way like that the Mum did on the train. (And Joseph looks a bit exhausted by it all). This Mary knows that her child is special and that it is he who is the focus of the crowd. In particular we find three wise men at the child`s feet who are presenting their gifts. This child will bring change for Mary and Joseph who will need to be very courageous, change for the Wise Men who will need to think as they have never thought before and also bring change for all people. In the painting these are not only the ones queuing to see the child but also the ones talking and carrying on with life in the background, where we also find that there are soldiers at every corner.

This is the Jesus that makes most sense for me at Christmas and Epiphany. The one born to a carpenter and a young women in an occupied land where people were frightened about the future and where for many life was always hard and getting harder. A couple who would be on the move and who did not have the luxury of knowing where their next home would be. A Jesus who first is recognised by the lost of society and the excluded because they not only have the time, but also the imagination and the faith to perceive who he is and the change that he brings. A Jesus who is also found by those who are prepared to seek and search and who does not conform to their own perceived expectations. A Jesus who is a threat to a leader whose authority is based on fear and the disunity of others.

The seekers and searchers, the Wise Men, bring their gifts which reaffirm faith in the god that Abraham had acknowledged as the God of all people and all creation. They find a king like no other king whose life will be lived out entirely for others and who will die because his message is too radical and life changing to be safe.

In 2012 can we take this message to heart as we seek to make sense of it for our world, a world of many faiths, 2 of which we share a common background , also a world where in the west there is much secularism often connected to materialism and consumerism that holds a grip on all aspects of life . And a world where Christianity has many faces and many idiosyncracies and yet means nothing if we do not live out and show the radical love of the Galilean peasant Jesus.  A world where too many people suffer illnesses that could be cured and where millions of lives are shortened because of the greed of others. Where then can we say that we are in this landscape and where might we journey to, in this new year?

It was the night in which Jesus, as he knew, was going to be betrayed.  Ever since Jesus had so determinedly begun the journey to Jerusalem, he and the disciples had known that their visit would end in a confrontation with official brutality.  It must have been almost overwhelming for the disciples, as they went each day into the Temple, to cope with their fearful apprehension and yet, to expect that Jesus would have some extraordinary plan of deliverance.  

Jesus did have a plan, and it was, and is, awesome in its essential humanity.  He would remain utterly human, the same Jesus he had been throughout his ministry, unyielding to the brutal pressures to become angry or be overwhelmed; to be, in Biblical terms, the ‘second Adam, who to the fight and rescue came’. 

And with this in his mind, what does Jesus do, to prepare himself and the disciples for the terrible culmination that he knew lay ahead?  It is staggeringly simple.  He made detailed arrangements for sharing a meal together, and he showed how he valued them by taking the place of the meanest servant and washing their feet.  The special Jesus response to violent destruction was human solidarity in sharing a meal, and showing that he still valued his friends despite their inability to understand his plan.  As Jesus faced the final crisis, the deciding battle between his lived vision of God’s intentions for human beings, how did he maintain faith in the dominance of the love of God over those around him, so that he could remain himself, calm, and uninfluenced by their apparent power?

The Jewish Scriptures, on which Jesus based his life’s work, are a treasury of faith in God, despite appearances.  Out of many available examples I want to read from the crux of the Book of Lamentations [3, 19 – 24], a Book which in former times was read by Christians in the closing days of Holy Week.  Lamentations consists of five poems, composed in response to the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, and the deportation of many of the population, leaving behind only the poorest and weakest, over 500 years before the time of Jesus.  Our text begins with a good hard look at the apparent reality that had to be faced.  Realism must always be our starting point; we don’t believe in comforting but fanciful tales.  Jesus faced disturbing reality boldly. 

 “The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood and gall!  My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me.  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning ...’”

We are not put to the test as severely as Jesus and the disciples were, but we are often cornered into depression by life’s acute disappointments.  We have to cope with our inadequate relationships with others, with our own mortality and that of those we love, and with our worldly insignificance.  When we face such disturbing realities, or the hostile rejection of Jesus’ values by others, instead of turning inwards on ourselves in despair, we should learn from his clear example of true humanity, and remember the supportive blessings of sharing with others, and of service which values others.   Like all of Jesus’ teaching and example, it is within the capacity of each of us to understand.  

Life in South Africa often gets a poor press, and so the Rector of a South African University decided to list examples of sharing and valuing, examples which relive Jesus’ example in so many different ways.  Here is an extract:

“My South Africa is the working class man who called from the airport to return my wallet without a cent missing.  It is the white woman who put all three of her domestic worker’s children through the same school that her own child attended. 

It is the politician in one of our rural provinces who returned his salary to the government as a statement that standing with the poor had to be more than just a few words.  My South Africa is the first-year university student who took all the gifts she received for her birthday and donated them – with the permission of the givers – to a home for children in an AIDS village.  ...  It is the little white boy who decided to teach the local black boys to play cricket, and to fit them out with the togs to play the gentleman’s game.  It is the two black children who put their money in the tin of a white beggar.  It is the pastor who opened his church as a place of shelter for illegal immigrants. 

My South Africa is [Nelson Mandela] who went to prison for 27 years and came out embracing his captors, thereby releasing them from their misery.  It is the quiet, dignified, determined township mother who during the years of oppression decided that her struggle was to raise decent children, insist that they learn, and ensure that they do not succumb to bitterness or defeat in the face of overwhelming odds.  It is the teenager in a wheelchair who works in townships serving the poor.  It is the pastor of a church whose [white] parishioners were slaughtered, who visits the killers and asks them for forgiveness because he had been a beneficiary of apartheid. 

My South Africa is not the angry, corrupt, violent country whose deeds fill the front pages of newspapers ...  It is the South Africa often unseen, yet powered by the remarkable lives of ordinary people.  It is the citizens who keep the country together through millions of acts of daily kindnesses.”

The way of Jesus is trodden by many.  Our coming together to share the symbolic meal in solidarity with Jesus, who went to such an extreme in asserting what was right against what was wrong, and our willingness to value each other and our neighbours, are the basis of Jesus’ Church, bringing the reality of what Jesus called God’s kingdom into human focus.  Let the simplicity of Jesus’ Last Supper introduce our thinking, as we share in the tragedy and triumph of the next three days of his life and death, so that we can better support our selves and our neighbours in the times of testing which would otherwise overwhelm us.  In this way we will learn to live fully,  and enter into what Jesus called eternal life.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which always falls during the season of Epiphany, began last Tuesday and, looking a little ahead, the first week of February has been designated by the United Nations as the week of Inter-faith Harmony.  I would like to consider these topics this morning in the light of our reading from Paul's First Letter to the Corinthians.

Paul wrote the letter from Ephesus, where he was staying at the time, somewhere around 54 AD, to a congregation that he had founded several years earlier in Corinth, the capital city of the Roman Province of Achaia.  Corinth, at that time, was a large and prosperous urban centre with an ethnically, culturally, and religiously diverse population.  The congregation there reflected this diversity and were largely Gentile.  A few were persons of local importance but most were of lesser means and lower social standing.  It is likely that they lived and worked in many different quarters of the city but came together regularly for a shared meal and worship.

In this morning’s reading, taken from the very beginning of the letter immediately after the customary lengthy salutation, Paul is appealing for unity amongst the congregation at Corinth.

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

The congregation at Corinth were squabbling with one another and rival groups were jockeying for control.
So engrossed had they become in arguing about details that they were failing to follow the way of Jesus.  As a result, some had become arrogant and indifferent to immoral behaviour, some were failing to support the disadvantaged amongst them and some were boasting that they had special religious wisdom or knowledge.  To use a modern expression, they were failing to see the wood for the trees.  Paul, taking full advantage of the wider perspective afforded him by writing from the other side of the Aegean Sea, used his letter to urge them to step back and see the greater picture and let love be the governing power of their community.

Of course, all that was over 2,000 years ago.  We’ve had plenty of time to learn from their mistakes haven’t we?  Surely there can’t still be groups of Christians that believe that they have some form of knowledge or understanding that somehow makes them better than other groups of Christians?  Surely not?

Unfortunately, we all know the answer to that question.  The situation has not got better, it has got worse.  Paul would be horrified to know the extent of the squabbling that still continues between different groups within the church whose mission, as we heard in his letter this morning, should be simply to ‘proclaim the gospel’ – the good news of Jesus Christ.

So what can be done about this problem?  Will groups of human beings ever be able to discard the notion that they have some exclusive knowledge that makes their point of view so much better than anyone else’s?  I have my doubts, but I would like to share with you two well-known stories which, between them, give hope that it may indeed be possible.

The first is a story that the children acted out for us in a Family Service a year or so ago about a group of blind men who came across an Elephant for the first time.  One reached out his hand and felt a leg and declared an elephant to be ‘like a tree’.  Another felt the trunk and said an elephant was like a snake.  ‘No No!’ said a third who had felt the tail:  ‘an elephant is like a rope’.  Each was convinced that he knew the truth about an elephant.  In one respect each was at least partly right, yet those of us blessed with the gift of sight can see that none of them had come close to describing an elephant

This story contains an essential concept that has to be grasped before progress can be made in bringing opposing groups together, no matter what the context.  There is no such thing as the truth or, if there is, it is not the lot of humans to know it.  There is my truth and your truth and both are equally valid.

For the second story we have no Family Service to think back to so you are going to have to imagine it for yourself.  Look, if you would, at the stained glass window over the high altar or, if you cannot see it from where you are sitting, close your eyes and imagine it.  Now imagine that the glass has become clear and you can see beyond, not Hall Yard, but a huge, tall conical mountain.  The top, for the moment, is shrouded in cloud, but the foothills can be plainly seen.  They are covered in thick, dense, impenetrable woodland.  Now, hold that picture of the mountain in your mind for a few moments and prepare yourselves to go on a journey.  As time is short, although it would be nice to walk, I’ve arranged for Scotty to beam us all into a clearing deep inside the wood on one side of the mountain.  I suggest you close your eyes for this bit if you would, but I promise it won’t hurt a bit.

Right!  You can open them again now. We’ve arrived and now it gets personal.  The woodland is even thicker and denser than it looked from afar and it is very dark.  You try a few steps into the undergrowth but there are briars and thorns that trip you up and cause great pain.  Fortunately, though, there is a well-marked path leading upwards from the clearing so your journey can continue.  A Guide tells you that this is the path that leads towards the light and gives you a book of directions.  He explains that there is a path all the way but sometimes you will struggle to see it because you are not looking in the right place.  Sometimes it will appear to go off at a strange angle and you will be tempted to take a short cut through the undergrowth.  ‘At such times’, he advises, resist the temptation, re-read the directions and stay on the path.

You study the book of directions and set off.  For much of the time the wood seems very dark but every so often it thins a little and you get a glimpse of the light somewhere way above you.  The first time it happens you don’t really believe it but after several more glimpses you become more certain.  The light is definitely there and you are moving towards it.  But then you come to a long dark patch and maybe you are not quite so sure. ‘Keep going’ says your Guide who is keeping step a little way behind you, ‘this path will take you to the place that you seek.’

Eventually the wood starts to thin and you can see the mountain itself.  Its summit is still shrouded in cloud for much of the time but it does appear to be thinning.  As you look to your left and your right you can see other people on other paths.  They too are seeking the light.  Looking back you can see that some of the paths had been running very close and almost parallel to yours.  Others had come from the other side of the mountain but all are now converging.

At the start of your journey, at the bottom of the mountain when you were the furthest from the light, you were also at your furthest distance from the people on the other paths.  Now, near the top, you can see quite clearly that they are seeking the same destination as you.  They started in a different place and followed a different set of directions but now, almost at the top, you are walking side by side.  The cloud has gone.  Your destination is clear.  Hold that vision for as long as you can because:

I forgot to say:  Scotty’s transporter is only good for 5 minutes so here we are again back where we started.  Our journey took a little longer than expected but there is just enough time to reflect upon what we learnt from it and ask some questions.

Did you recognise the path that Scotty beamed you onto?  Were you able to give names to some of the things mentioned like the light, the book of directions or the path itself?  What did you make of the paths which, when looking back had been running almost parallel to your own all the way?  Or those which had started from the other side of the mountain but which were now converging on your own?

And now, imagine that when Scotty energised his transporter you had been a Muslim or a Jew or a member of almost any one of the great religions of the world or even Richard Dawkins, and ask yourself the same questions.  In what ways would your answers be different and in what ways would they be the same?

Think on these things throughout the remainder of this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and onwards into the Week of Inter-faith Harmony.  Talk about them and pray about them for your answers are of the utmost importance.