For many of us, notwithstanding our celebration of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the highlights of this, and every Christmas will be the giving and exchanging of gifts. And that is, quite rightly, a highlight of our Christmas celebrations. It’s always nice to receive a gift and it’s even nicer to give a gift to those we know and love because we know that it’s something that makes them happy. And of course, as Christians, the giving and receiving of gifts is something we do as a reminder of the Christmas story. We do it as a reminder of the gifts the Magi brought to Jesus, and perhaps most especially, we do it as a reminder of that greatest of all gifts of Christmas, God’s giving to us his Son to lead us into the fulness of life; earthly life lived according to God’s own truth, and eternal life lived with God in his heavenly kingdom.

But having said how nice it is to receive gifts, I’m sure that, at times, we’ve all received a gift, or gifts, that have made us think, or perhaps even say,

“Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.”

Because we do, at times receive gifts that we don’t particularly need, or perhaps really want, or gifts that we’re not even sure are really for, don’t we? That’s not to say we’re ungrateful for these gifts, we probably are grateful to receive them, it’s just that we’re not really sure what use we can put them to.

I have met people over the years who are ungrateful in situations like this. I’ve met people who have opened presents and actually said something along the lines of,

“What am I supposed to do with this? I’ve got no use for it; I might as well give it back to you or put it in the bin.”

That kind of response to receiving a gift obviously says much more about the person who received it than the one who gave it, doesn’t it? It doesn’t so much speak about their ingratitude and insensitivity towards others, as shouts it from the rooftops. But isn’t it a fact that most people treat the greatest Christmas gift of all, God’s gift to us of his Son, in just these ways?

In our readings this, and every Christmas, we hear the song of the angels,

“Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

We know from the Gospels that for God to be pleased with us, for his favour to rest on us, as other translations say, we must believe in the one whom he sent, his Son, Jesus Christ.

In other words, to enjoy the benefits of the great gift God has given us, we have to accept his gift with thankfulness and joy. We have to accept God’s gift as something we really need and want. And we have to accept it as something we can put to use in our lives. But how many people don’t accept God’s gift in this way? How many people won’t accept God’s gift at all and say, if not in words then certainly in deeds,

“What use is this to me? I don’t need it, I don’t want it; for all the good it is to me, you might as well not have bothered.”

And how many people, whilst they don’t reject God’s gift out of hand, only receive it in a half-hearted way, people who perhaps aren’t really sure that they either want or need it in their lives, but who’ll accept it any way, just in case it does come in for something, sometime? People who, to all intents and purposes, say of God’s gift,

“Oh well, it’s the thought that counts.”

But when we think about this great gift that God has given us, we have to remember whose thought it is that we’re talking about. It’s God who thought that we needed this great gift, and as Scripture tells us, God knows us better than we know ourselves. So if we think we don’t need God’s gift, it’s not God’s thinking that’s at fault but our understanding of what’s needful that’s wrong. If we don’t want God’s gift, it’s not God’s thinking that’s at fault but rather, it’s us who want the wrong things. And if people refuse to accept God’s gift, it’s not God who’s at fault for giving it, the fault lies in the ingratitude of those who refuse it.

And all this is true because, if we think about the gift God has given us, we can’t doubt that it is the greatest gift that any of us have ever received. The gift is God’s Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and he was given to us to lead us to God. But it seems that many people don’t want to be led to God, they’d much rather be left alone to make their own way through life, wherever that may lead them in the end. Jesus was given to us to show us how to live so that we can enjoy the benefits of God’s great gift. But it seems that many people don’t want to be shown how to live, they’d much rather adopt an ‘It’s my life and I’ll live it as I choose’ attitude and approach to life, regardless of the harm that may do to them and to others. And Jesus was given to us to teach us God’s own truth. But it seems that many people don’t want to listen to any truth but their own, regardless of the consequences of that for themselves, their neighbours and the world.

And there are consequences, dire consequences for us, our neighbours and the world if we won’t accept God’s gift or don’t use it. We only have to look at the world around us, and what does go on, and is going on in the world to see that.

God’s gave his Son to us on that first Christmas Day to show us a better way. God’s gift was to give us the means to live in peace, both with him and with one another through following the teaching and example of his Son, his Word made flesh, Jesus Christ. And he gave us this gift, not as people often give gifts, so that they’ll receive a gift in return, but simply to make us happy, simply because he loves us. And that, in essence is what God’s gift of his Son at Christmas is; the gift of his love.

God’s gift to us at Christmas is the gift of his love for us, made visible in human flesh. It’s a gift that shows us the nature of God’s love for us, a self-giving, self-sacrificing love that thinks and asks nothing for itself, but thinks only of love’s recipient. It’s a gift that shows the depth of God’s love for us, the love of a God who is the creator and ruler of all things and yet who would stoop to come to us in the humblest of ways; to live as one of us and to die for us and, in the process, to show us what it really means to love and to show and give love.

As we look at the world around us, whether the world thinks it or not, what could be more needful to the world than this gift of love? Whether the world realises it or not, what is more wanted by the people of the world than this gift of love? And whether the world wants to accept it or not, what gift could be more acceptable than this gift of knowing what love is and understanding how to show love ourselves; how to give love to others and how to receive it from others? How much better and happier a place might the world be if only more people would accept and use this great gift that God has given us?

Our Advent preparations for Christmas have been, and always are, about self-examination in the light of Christ’s teaching and example. Advent has been a time to look at ourselves in the light of Christ to see how we might need to amend our lives so that we can be more like him. We could say then that our Advent preparations have been about looking at ourselves to see the extent to which we’ve welcomed and received God’s great gift of his Son. They’ve been about looking at ourselves to see to what extent we’ve understood our need of this gift and have wanted it in our lives.

They’ve been about looking at ourselves to see to what extent and how well we’ve used God’s great gift in our lives. We could say that our Advent preparations for Christmas have been about looking at ourselves to see just how loving we are.

Now that Christmas is here once again our preparations are over so let’s take time out to celebrate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ and to give thanks to God for this great gift of love that he’s given us. But let’s not forget what we may have learned through our Advent preparations and let’s try to show our gratitude to God for his gift by accepting it, not in a half-hearted,

“Oh well, It’s the thought that counts.”

kind of way, but fully, thankfully and joyfully as something we both know our need of and truly want. And let’s show that by trying to give in our lives just a little more of the love towards one another that God gave to us in the gift of his Son at Christmas.

Amen.

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The Propers for The Nativity of the Lord, 24th and 25th December can be viewed here.

In my sermon on the first Sunday of Advent, I spoke about three people whom I called ‘the great figures of Advent’, the prophet Isaiah, the Blessed Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. I said then that, during Advent, we’d hear from and about all three of these people as we’re called to prepare for the coming of Christmas, the celebration of our Lord’s Incarnation, and as we look forward to his return in glory. And so we have. But today we heard about another person who’s central to the story of our Lord’s Incarnation, but one who’s often somewhat overshadowed by the others and can be overlooked because of that. And that person is Joseph.

We might not read so much about Joseph in the Scriptures as we do about the other three, but I don’t think there can be much doubt that he was chosen by God to fulfil the role he played in the story of our Lord’s Incarnation just as were Isaiah, Mary and John chosen to fulfil their roles in the story. Because what if Joseph had been a different sort of man, a man who’d acted differently than he actually did?

Our Gospel reading this morning tells us that Joseph was unwilling to make a public example of Mary, but what if he’d been so upset, so angry when he found out that Mary was pregnant with a child that wasn’t his, that he’d decided to make a fuss, to go public and divorce her? Mary could have been stoned to death and that would have been the end of the story almost before it had begun wouldn’t it? Even if Mary hadn’t been put to death for adultery, she probably wouldn’t have gone to Bethlehem to give birth, why would she? It was Joseph who was of David’s line, he was the one who had to go to Bethlehem for the census. We’re not told that of Mary herself, and how then would the Scriptures have been fulfilled that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem?

But we’re told that Joseph was a righteous man, in other words, he was a man who did what was right in God’s eyes. As such he was a man who would have feared the Lord, a man of wisdom who knew the right thing to do and wasn’t afraid to do it, regardless of what others thought. And so, Joseph considered what the right thing to do in this case was, and as he did, an angel appeared to him bringing a message from God telling him to take Mary as his wife because her child was of the Hoy Spirit. And Joseph, being a righteous man who feared the Lord, did what God wanted him to do, just as Mary had done when the angel visited her with a message from God.

We can see in this story, the story of a woman and a man doing what God asked them to do, the story of Adam and Eve brought full circle.

When we speak about the story of Adam and Eve, we often speak about it as the Fall of Man, or Adam’s Fall don’t we? We say that it was through Adam that sin entered the world. That’s fine so long as we remember that Adam means man in a general way rather than thinking of Adam as an individual person. But if we think about this story as the story of two individual people, the first human beings, who actually committed the first sin? It wasn’t the man, Adam, but the woman, Eve. It’s Eve who commits the first deliberate act of disobedience towards God, the first sin. Eve eats the forbidden fruit, and then offers some to Adam who also eats, and sin and death enter the world.

The Church often speaks of Mary as the second Eve, by which we mean that through her obedience to God, Eve’s disobedience was undone. But Joseph played his part in undoing that disobedience too because his obedience to God, his willingness to join Mary in her obedience, is crucial to the story of our Lord’s Incarnation. We could say that, as Mary’s obedience counteracted Eve’s disobedience, Joseph’s obedience counteracted Adam’s disobedience. In both cases, the woman acted first and the man followed. And so, just as through the joint disobedience of Eve and Adam, sin and death entered the world, through the joint obedience of Mary and Joseph, the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life, was allowed to enter the world.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve been hearing from and about these great figures of Advent and what we’ve been hearing all falls under the central theme of Advent which is to Wake up! To get ready and be ready to meet and greet the Lord when he returns. To stay awake, so that we’re always ready for the Lord because we don’t know when he will return, and it could be at any time. This is what we see in Isaiah, Mary, Joseph and John. None of them knew that the Lord would enter their lives when he did, nor in the way he did, but because they were righteous people, people who feared the Lord and who looked to do his will in their lives, they were ready when they did meet him and so they were able to do what he asked them to do.

We could say that the great message, and the great challenge for us during Advent, is to make sure that we’re like these people. Or perhaps that we’re less like Adam and Eve, and more like Mary and Joseph. If we remember the story in Genesis, Adam and Eve weren’t ready to meet the Lord when he came looking for them in the garden, and so they hid themselves from him.

Mary and Joseph, on the other hand, were ready to meet the Lord when he entered their lives. They didn’t try to hide or run away, no matter how unexpected or frightening that was when it happened, and no matter how troubling and dangerous the message they were given was. And so they were able to do what God asked of them.

So as we look at ourselves and our lives, to whom do we most compare, Adam and Eve, or Mary and Joseph? The truth is that we’re all a mixture of the two, but who are we most like? Sadly, I think we can be a lot more like Adam and Eve than we might want to think or admit. None of us are truly obedient to God in our lives. We all sin, and encourage others to sin, to be disobedient towards God; we do that merely by being sinful ourselves. And we’re all too easily swayed to be disobedient towards God by others.

One of the things I’ve spoken several times about during Advent is church attendance and the need for people who say they’re Christians to show that by coming to church regularly. And yet one of the most common ways we show ourselves to be like Adam and Eve is through our attendance at church, or rather the lack of it.

It’s Christ’s own example to worship God on the Sabbath and so it should be our practice too. In the Eucharistic Prayer which we pray at every Eucharist, we speak about our worship of God as  ‘our duty and service’ to God, as our ‘spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving’ to God for all he does and has done for us. And yet, when it come to actually performing that duty and offering something back to God for all he does and has done for us, how many people prefer to do something else instead, or think something else is more important? Just think of the reasons people often give for not coming to church. The service is too early (or too late). It’s too cold, it’s too dark; I’ve got to walk the dog, feed the neighbour’s cat, water the neighbour’s plants (and yes, I have been told that on more than one occasion as a reason why someone couldn’t come to church). And then there’s the very common one around this time of year, I can’t come because I have to wait in for a delivery.

Or we hear things like, I’ve got into this story on Eastenders, or Coronation Street, or Emmerdale, or whichever soap it might be, and I don’t want to miss how it ends. I can’t come because United (or City) are playing and it’s on the tele. I won’t have time because I’m going out later and I need to get ready (and yes, I’ve heard that one more than once too). 

And we can so easily encourage other people, to do these things, and be so easily swayed into doing them ourselves. For example, on a pre-ordination visit to the parish where I was going to serve my first curacy, I overheard a conversation between a couple of ladies. They were talking about whether to go to my ordination service at Blackburn Cathedral the following Saturday morning and the conversation went like this.

“Are you going to that service at the cathedral next Saturday?”

“I don’t know. Are you?”

“No, I’m not going. I’m going to a band concert on Saturday night. I’m not going to a service at the cathedral on Saturday morning as well.”

“Oh. Well I was going to go with you.”

“Well I’m not going.”

“Oh well, if you’re not going, I’m not going either.”

We might not think these things matter because, after all, if we don’t go to church it’s only 1 or 2 people not going. But they do matter. They matter because if people see Christians not going to church for these reasons, why should they think that going to church is in any way important. If Christians won’t go to church if it’s early or late or cold or dark, why should anyone else? If the dog, the neighbour’s cat and plants, waiting in for a delivery, what’s on the television, or getting ready to go out partying are all more important than worshipping God to Christians, why should anyone else think it’s important to worship God?

These things matter because they can have a very, very detrimental effect on the Church. Many people will remember, I’m sure, when Evensong was sung in every parish church, every Sunday. These days, it’s hardly ever sung in any parish church and the blame for the demise of Sunday Evensong has been laid squarely at the feet of a television programme, The Forsythe Saga. That programme was first shown on Saturday evenings in 1967, but when it was repeated on Sunday evenings in 1968-9, congregations at Evensong were decimated because people stayed in to watch The Forsythe Saga rather than going to church. And, in the vast majority of parishes, those congregations never recovered and neither has the tradition of Sunday Evensong in the Church of England.

But this is just one of the ways we can be more like Adam and Eve than like Mary and Joseph. If we think about our lives honestly, I’m sure we can all think of many ways in which we disobey God because it’s easier than being obedient to him.

I’m sure we can all think of ways in which we’re unfaithful to God because being faithful means putting him first and our own pleasure second. And I’m sure we can all think of ways in which we’ve encouraged others to be disobedient and unfaithful by excusing disobedience and unfaithfulness in ourselves in their presence.

The Advent message and challenge is to Wake up! To be ready to meet the Lord when he comes, whenever that might be. What would we do if the Lord were to suddenly come into our lives? Would we, like Isaiah, say “Here am I, send me.” Or would we say,” Sorry, I’ve got something else to do, can’t someone else do it?” Would we, like Mary, say, “Let it be to me according to your word.” Or would we say, “That sounds a difficult and dangerous, can’t you make it a bit easier? I’ll do it then.” Would we, like Joseph, do the right thing regardless of the consequences for us, or would we do what was easiest and most convenient for us, regardless of the consequences for others? Would we, like John, born into a priestly family, give up a life of comfort to be about God’s business, or would we only be prepared to do God’s will so long as we could do it when and where we want to, and so long as it doesn’t interfere with our everyday lives?

Amen.     

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The Propers for Advent 4 can be viewed here.

In my sermon last week, I spoke about the problem of people who call themselves ‘Christians’ but who don’t come to church, and I want to stress again today that by that, I don’t mean those who can’t come because of ill health or work and so on, but those who could come and don’t, whether those people have stopped coming to church and won’t come back or they simply don’t and won’t come at all. Today I want to talk a bit more about why people stop coming to church and won’t come back and why they won’t come to church at all because this is a problem, and a question that links very easily to this morning’s Gospel.

In last Sunday’s Gospel, we heard that when John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness,

‘…Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him…’

and this morning, we hear Jesus speaking about John, and as he does so, he asks the people a question:

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see?”

And I think we can ask a similar question of those who have stopped coming to church, and who won’t come to church today; ‘What do you come to church to see? What do you, or did you expect to find in church?’

I think that is a very pertinent question to ask because I’m sure that one of the great problems we have in getting people to come to church and to stay in the church is that so many don’t see or find what they expect to. But if people come to church looking for what they want, then in many cases, perhaps most cases, they’ve come to the wrong shop. The problem isn’t with what they see and find in the Church and in church, the problem is with what they want from the Church and from coming to church.

How often have we heard someone who used to come to church say that they stopped coming because they weren’t getting anything out of it? The usual response is to ask what they were putting into it, and the answer to that question, on the whole, is probably not very much – they were simply turning up and expecting to get something from it. But what is it they were expecting to get?

From the many conversations I’ve had with people like this, and with many other people in the Church over the years, I think the answer, and the problem, is that so many people come to church expecting nothing more than comfort and reassurance.

Not the comfort and reassurance that we can and do find when we come to church, the comfort and reassurance that comes from faith in Christ and trust in his promises, but the comfort and reassurance that comes from being told that they’re nice people, good people who lead good lives, that they’re a bit better than people who don’t come to church and so, by extension and implication, that they don’t need to do anything more or change anything about themselves and their lives to be right with God and assured of heaven.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean. I was once taken to task by a churchwarden because people had objected to something, or perhaps a few things I’d said, in my sermons. The problem wasn’t that people disagreed with what I was saying from the point of view of theology or faith, but because my sermons were ‘too pointed’, they were too challenging for people and made people feel uncomfortable. He said that people didn’t want to come to church to be challenged and go home feeling uncomfortable, they come to church to be told how good they are already so that they could go home feeling good about themselves and that that’s what I, as a priest, was there to do. He actually said that he thought I’d missed the point of what being a priest is all about!

People don’t want to be challenged; they want to be told how good they are so that they can feel good about themselves. Well, if that’s what people who come to church want, they’re not going to find it and so they’re not going to get anything out of coming to church. The Gospel is the most challenging thing we can ever read, let alone try to live out. The Gospel was so challenging to those to whom Jesus first proclaimed it, it made them feel so uncomfortable, that they nailed Jesus to a cross so that they didn’t have to hear any more. And if the Gospel is not proclaimed in church, if people don’t want to hear it because it’s too challenging and makes them feel uncomfortable because they don’t live it out well enough then, I’m afraid, that it’s they who’ve missed the point because the only people who won’t be challenged by the Gospel and who won’t feel uncomfortable about what they read and hear in the Gospel are those who’ve perfected their faith and who live out the Gospel to perfection.  And how many people like that do we know? I know of only one, Jesus Christ himself.

It must be said that not everyone in that parish I’ve just spoken about felt the same way as that churchwarden and those who’d complained to him about my sermons. One person there once said to me that he came to church to be challenged; that he didn’t come to church because he thought he was perfect or because he thought it made him better than those who don’t go to church; he said he went to church because he knew he wasn’t perfect and that he wasn’t any better than anyone else and that he knew he needed help to be better.

And so he came to church because he knew that’s where he’d find the help he needed; my help, as a priest, and above all, God’s help. And that brings us to a second problem with what people expect to see and find in the Church and don’t.

To hear them speak, most people expect the Church to be full of perfect people who always live out their faith perfectly. But if that’s what people expect to see and find in the Church then, again, they’ve come to the wrong place. If you want to see perfection, go to an art gallery and look at statues. They’re perfectly formed and never do anything wrong, but that’s because they never do anything. If you want to see perfection in a human being, you can find that in church, but only in the Gospel, in the person of Jesus Christ. If you expect it in the people who make up the Church and come to church then you’re going to be disappointed.

We know that people in the Church argue and fall out. We know that these disagreements and arguments cause people to stop coming to church and they’re often given as the reason they won’t come back to church. We also know that those outside the church see these things and call us hypocrites because of them. They call us hypocrites because we don’t practice what we preach. But these things don’t necessarily make us hypocrites.

The word hypocrite is thought to stem from the Greek word for a stage actor, so a  hypocrite is someone who is pretending to be something they’re not. We call ourselves Christians because we’re disciples of Jesus Christ, but we also confess that we’re sinners. So when we act in ways that aren’t in keeping with the Gospel, when we act in un-Christian ways, so long as we confess to doing that, we’re not being hypocrites, because we’re not pretending to be something we’re not. What it makes us is weak, flawed, but at least truthful, human beings. If we call ourselves Christians but act in un-Christian ways, so long as we own up to what we’ve done, what we’re really saying is that we are Christians, because we try to follow the teaching and example of Jesus Christ; but we’re not always as good at doing that as we could be and should be; we don’t always get things right; we make mistakes. What would, and does, make us hypocrites is if we say that we’re Christians whilst making no attempt to be Christians. We’re hypocrites if we say that we’re Christians and wilfully act in un-Christian ways; if we plot and scheme to deliberately carry out un-Christian deeds. And we’re hypocrites if we act in un-Christian ways and deny it because that is to deny our sinfulness and, as St John says in his first letter,

‘If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from

all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.’ 

But if we say we have no sin, who are we trying to deceive? Not only ourselves but others too, surely? So, if we can’t own up to our sins, our failures to live out the Gospel, we’re deceivers, we’re not really Christians but simply people pretending to be Christians; actors playing a part, hypocrites.

So what do people come to church to see? What do they expect to find? If they come to church looking for that burning truth that God calls us to live by, which we call the Gospel, then they will find that, and if they don’t, there’s something gone very, very wrong in that church. But if people come simply looking to find comfort and assurance from being told how good they are so that they can go home feeling happy about themselves and carry on living their lives in the same way they always have done, they won’t find that where the Gospel is proclaimed because the Gospel challenges everything the world says about goodness and what leads to happiness. Where people hear the Gospel proclaimed they will be challenged and they will often be made to feel uncomfortable, deeply uncomfortable at times. And if people look at the Church and come to church expecting to find and see perfect people who are perfect examples of Christian discipleship, they won’t see or find that either, apart from in the pages of the Gospels. But neither will they see a Church or a building full of hypocrites. Only those who call themselves Christians and who make no attempt to be Christians are hypocrites and, in my experience, those who call themselves Christians but who won’t come to church, or won’t come back to church because of what they see as the hypocrisy of the people in the Church, could do a lot worse than take a good look in the mirror and call to mind these words of Jesus;

“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

The Church is not full of perfect people but those who do come to church are, at least, willing to be challenged by the Gospel to be better than they are. They’re not afraid to be made to feel uncomfortable by their failures to live out the faith they profess, and hopefully they’re willing to see themselves as sinners in need of repentance and forgiveness as they try to become and be better. And if what I’ve said today has challenged you, good. If it’s made you feel uncomfortable in some ways, so be it, you know what to do about it. But I hope what I’ve said has also helped you and made you feel a bit better about yourselves because you and I, and all Christians are still sinners, but that doesn’t necessarily make us hypocrites.

Amen.

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The Propers for Advent 3 can be viewed here.