Christmas Eve
He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, & decide with equity for the meek of the earth. (Isaiah 11:3-4)
A boy is murdered because he is black and his mother does not want revenge. She did ask for justice & she also maintained she would not hate those who killed her beautiful, talented son. His name was Anthony Walker & he was murdered by two racists earlier this year. His mother’s Christian faith was just utterly humbling.
I remember a man called Wilson who offered forgiveness to those who killed his gorgeous daughter, a nurse, who was on duty at the Remembrance Day Service in Eniskillen a number of years ago & I wondered what kind of man is this who could take on board such a blasphemous atrocity as the murder of the innocent?
I sit in wonder & admiration for men like Nelson Mandela & Desmond Tutu as they speak of forgiveness reconciliation & hope when the very people they would be reconciled to had denied them dignity & peace for many, many years not that long ago.
This year I have witnessed the outpouring of kindness on the part of millions who gave generously to the Tsunami appeal which was broadcast immediately after the earthquake that rocked the sea bed in the Indian Ocean & which sent hundreds of thousands to their death.
This year also so a remarkable event in the history of this country as hundreds of thousands of people marched in Edinburgh just prior to the G8 summit at Gleneagles demanding that Poverty be eradicated in the Make Poverty History campaign.
I was gladdened that many if not almost most of that march was organised by the Christian churches in this land who have become the conscience of the world politicians & their ineffectiveness to challenge the destructive cruelty of poverty so many of the planets population. Here in this congregation within the last two weeks something like 12 large black sacks of gifts were donated to local charities that many people who have nothing will have just a little this year. If you were to look at most of the volunteers who run the Save the Children shops the Oxfam shops the WRVS tea rooms in hospitals up down the land the bulk of prison visitor volunteers & many, many more charitable endeavours in this land never mind those directly related to churches such as youth organisations, lunch clubs & all that goes with a lively kirk today you would discover people of faith: men and women who as a consequence of having faith in this Christ whose birth we celebrate at this time make the world a kinder, better place.
Funnily enough one of the few things that is frowned upon in this modern sophisticated liberal society we inhabit is faith. Secularism rules, Christmas trees are banned by nice liberal all inclusive councils & we have happy holiday cards rather Christmas cards.
Those modern secularists who would rather we had nothing in the name of inclusion could well do to learn a lesson from my very decent Sikh neighbour who every year sends me a Christmas card & explains something of his belief every time I display my ignorance.
Faith is not the enemy of modern society. In many cases on matters from the question of whether wars are just & should be fought to asylum seekers & how we treat refugees the faith has become the conscience of society & in many, many instances the guardian of decent modern society. Modern society needs faith.
When communism collapsed in Soviet Russia the church emerged as one of the winners not because she brought down the tyranny of godlessness but because in the chaos that ensued from state sponsored nothingness she held out a beacon to those who believed in decency, dignity, hope, compassion. The church won because she offered what humanity needs: a route out of the self destructiveness of greed, oppression & cruelty.
The problem with faith is it is seen in terms of fairy tales & this marvellous wondrous tale of a virgin birth is held up as an example of such a view or seen as being dangerous because we have all too often left faith or the public expression of it to the lunatic fringe & the extremist & in this Christianity is not alone.
We need this story of the birth of Christ because it is a neat theological expression of what the church was trying to tell the world two thousand years ago about this man Jesus of Nazareth who had recently been crucified & who had spawned a new movement called Christianity. For the modern mind it raises too many problems not the least of which is our basic knowledge of anatomy & gynaecology contradicts this possibility. We must look at this tale as metaphor a pointer to something far more wonderful & mysterious than a story which has all sorts of characters making appearances like some episode of EastEnders with a hint of the exotic.
The faith of the church is expressed sometimes in ways the modern mind finds rather confusing & for this the church must take responsibility if people are uncertain about what she believes or what is “real” but in other ways the faith of the church is expressed by simple direct forms which are all too simple & dare I suggest it equally confusing.
When Brian Wilson offered forgiveness to the men who killed his daughter I struggled. I was confused. How could he be so good, so generous, so decent. Because he was brought up in the faith which started with this story that expressed the inexpressible uniqueness of Christ by way of describing him as being born of a virgin.
When Anthony Walker’s mother offered to pray - & did on one occasion publicly outside the court for her son’s killers I couldn’t begin to take it on board. I was confused. She had to pay the price for belief in the reality of forgiveness & it meant forgiving the racists thugs who destroyed her sons life.
When I read that Dietrich Bonhoeffer the protestant German theologian & martyr celebrated holy communion for his guards the day the Nazis executed him just weeks before the end of the 2nd. World war I was incredulous.
When Archbishop Desmond Tutu called for the creation of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission to be established in the wake of the collapse of apartheid in Sth Africa I hung my head in shame that he could seek such reconciliation & forgiveness when I struggled in many minor instances.
The story of this world is filled with people, who, because of faith make it a better place. It may not always be a fair place & the person of faith will suffer as much as others because God doesn’t offer them an insurance policy against life but it is a better place.
Imagine your world without the make poverty history marchers, the volunteers & workers for Oxfam, Christian Aid, & SCIAF. Imagine your world without compassion & those who have heard the story of the Good Samaritan.
Try, if you can, to think of the one who said we can touch the leper, embrace the unclean, engage with the person who is different because of creed, nationality, or sexual behaviour; share your meagre amount of bread with the starving crowd & have more than enough & more, hate your enemy, tell the poor that one day they will be rich & you come back to this wondrous tale.
It may be hard for the modern mind but so are all the other instances I have listed & we have no problem with them.
Thank goodness we have this wonderful tale of young unmarried couples shacking up in a lean to with dirty, marginalised shepherds & exotic mysterious visitors from the east.
We may find it hard to believe but isn’t the prospect of a mother praying for her son’s killers, a father forgiving his daughter’s murders, released political prisoners seeking reconciliation rather than revenge?
Of course they are difficult to believe but we live with them because we have
seen them to be real in our world & all would suggest they were motivated by
faith in the child born in Bethlehem.
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