Christmas Mailout

Father George’s Weekly for 25 December 2022

Dear People of God

Grace and peace to you.

Just in case it had escaped your attention, today is CHRISTMAS DAY, so to begin with, let me extend to each one of you my best wishes for a happy and holy Christmas and a joyous New Year. I know that 2022 has been a difficult year for many of us: some are living with grief still raw, others are surrounded by the uncertainties of serious illness: some are estranged from family and some are seriously concerned about mortgage repayments which seem to spiral endlessly. Whatever our individual circumstances might be, Christmas reminds that that God is not some distant, uncaring deity who does not care whether we flourish or perish: we believe that God is intimately concerned for God’s Creation and expresses that love for this part of it by coming to the middle of it without privilege or status to show us the Way to reconciliation and purpose. Sydney Carter, a 20th century writer of sacred songs (think “Lord of the Dance”) wrote one hymn which spoke of God’s intimacy with us which included verses such as “Who can tell how many bodies he has taken for his own/I will praise the King of Heaven, brother of my blood and bone” and “Who can tell how many angels, far beyond the Milky Way/sing another King of Heaven on another Christmas Day” with the refrain “God above, man below, I will praise the Name I know.” St Athanasius wrote “He became what we are, so that we might become what He is” and so whatever our circumstances it’s worth remembering that and rejoicing in it.

And when we come to New Years Eve, it’s worth staying up until midnight JUST TO MAKE SURE THAT 2022 LEAVES!

It was a pleasure to have Bishop Sonia in the parish last week for Confirmation. My special thanks to her for her ”extra duty” in covering Thornton as well (yes, I know that when she makes one of her periodic Episcopal Visits she goes to each service of the morning, wherever it may be) but since I was laid low with Covid …… The good news is that I am now clear of the virus and I expect that Pam will be clear by Friday (I am writing this on Thursday). We will welcome her again at midnight Mass for Christmas. This is not for a formal “episcopal visit” but because she gladly accepted the offer of an altar for Christmas, just as she did last year when she helped out with a “service relief” at Thornton for the Pageant. As a priest who has spent a number of years in “retirement” or in extra-parochial ministries, I know how important it is for a priest to have an altar for days like Christmas and Easter. It in an enormous privilege to be priest and to preside at the Holy Mysteries: a privilege that none of us should take lightly!

This will be the last letter and its accompaniments for the holiday period. I will be around next week but from 1 January I will be on leave for the month. I may not even get out of bed! (well, I really will, because a Certain Party will remind me of all the things I need to be doing (“OK, I know I said I’d attend to that: there’s no need to remind me every six months!”)). Gail will take Pastoral calls and Mthr Beatrice will take the Sunday service and any other priestly requirements for the month.

Once again, my thanks for everyone :musicians, greeters, servers and Sacristans, office managers, SRE teachers, study group members, Wardens and Parish Councillors, OpShop workers, grounds and garden people, handypersons, cleaners, recyclers, Intercessors, and people who attend and participate in worship week by week, and those who are unable to attend church but nonetheless share in the life of our community… Together we are the People of God who make this parish work. Thankyou and God bless us all.

The Lord be with you

Fr George

gmainprize@bigpond.com 0410 586 119

PROPERS FOR CHRISTMAS DAY

Sentence

This child will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. (Lk 1:32-33)

Collect

Almighty God, who gave your only begotten Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of the Virgin Mary: grant that we being born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit: through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the same Spirit, ever one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Readings

Isaiah 9:2-7 Promise of light, justice and peace

Psalm 96 Rejoice

Titus 2:11-14 Christ makes us his own

Luke 2:1-20 Luke tells of the birth of Jesus

Sermon (Fr George)

I doubt that even the most cynical atheist doesn’t stop to wonder at the baby in the stable: sneers cover a lot of secret admiration. Christmas is indeed a time to stop and wonder at the wonder of what God was about in calling Mary to be the Mother of the Incarnate Word, however that might have come about, and the loyal steadfastness of Joseph in standing by Mary instead of disowning her: of accepting the “shame” of someone else’s child, and so on. It’s wonderful stuff and has inspired Christians, musicians, artists and philosophers (and they are not mutually exclusive categories by any means) across the centuries. It doesn’t matter that Luke and Matthew have different account of how this all came to be, or that Mark doesn’t even mention it at all in his Gospel. Stables, innkeepers, angels, shepherds, wise men, wicked rulers, prophets and so on…they are all a part of the tapestry of God’s leap into the very middle of human existence. It’s a wonderful story indeed.

The trouble is that we have tended to romanticise it so much that it runs the risk of robbing the story of its central purpose. Richly arrayed mothers simpering over a baby, portrayed as weighing about 50kg, in our shopping centre “nativity scenes”, surrounded by creatures in unrealistically sanitised animal shelters, detract from the wonder of what is happening. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not for a moment decrying proper celebration of the Nativity of Jesus of Nazareth: but I do regret it when sentimentalisation or commercialisation shift the whole focus away from what God is about.

St John, who is writing at a time when the infant Church has had opportunity to reflect on what is happening in this person Jesus, goes to the heart of the matter. John is the theologian of the gospel writers. That shouldn’t be news to you: you will have heard that time and again from this pulpit from me and from just about every other priest who has been in this place. He doesn’t mention anything about angels, shepherds, wise men or even Bethlehem. If you are at all familiar with the service of Nine Lessons with Carols, recently celebrated in countless churches around the world, you may be familiar with the timeless introduction to the final Lesson, which the reader announces as “Saint John unfolds the great Mystery of the Incarnation”. If you don’t remember that start to the Gospel, don’t worry because I’m going to read it to you at the end of this service.

Christmas is about two things: the Nativity, the Birth, of Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary and Joseph, and about the Incarnation, the Enfleshment, of God in the Incarnate Word. Incarnation doesn’t risk leaving Jesus in the manger, as so much “popular religion” tends to do when it focuses on “gentle Jesus meek and mild”. It tells us of God taking the fulness of humanity upon Godself, showing that it is indeed holy and, in Jesus the Incarnate Word, showing the way back to God.

Christianity is unique. Other religions talk about ways of holiness. Christianity says that God does not stand apart but enter fully into that which he has created so that that which he has created may become what he is.

Thanks be to God.

INTERCESSIONS

I’m not writing a separate set of Intercessions this week, but I do urge you most especially to pray for Bethlehem, surrounded by a wall so that Bethlehemites must queue for hours to get to work in Israel, where Christian and Moslem live together in friendship and co-operation under the gaze of Israeli border guards, and where, not too many years ago the Moslem bell-ringer was shot dead by over-zealous guards on his way to ring the bell over the Church of the Nativity. Pray for peace in the Land of the Holy One, for the light and hope that took flesh there 2000 years ago might shine brightly in a world of suspicion and hostility.

Pray for the witness of the Christian community of all traditions, Eastern, Western, and Oriental, that the Enfleshment of God in the Incarnate Word might burn brightly to draw nations and races together.

Pray for the Church in this land, this Diocese, and this Community, that the message of peace and reconciliation might be lived out in our very midst in many and various ways.

Pray for your families, especially for those from whom you may be estranged

Pray for all people in special need: the sick, the lonely and the unloved, those who are deprived of work and livelihood, and those who live without hope.

Pray with those upon another shore and in a greater light, whose hope was in the Word made Flesh, and with whom, in the Lord Jesus, we are one for evermore.