Vigeon Post

                    FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT
(preached at St Barnabas Dudley 2002 . This was a farewell address to a church which I had been "helping out" in the absence of a Vicar of their own.  It was one of thos heroic little churches in an unfashionable area of a run down industrial town.  Its lay minister was a Ward Sister at the local hospital.  Its Churchwardens [also ladies] kept everything up to the mark very efficiently; and they so wanted to be able to maintain their Anglo-Catholic eucharistic tradition .  It is a blow to such communities when they are told they do not rate a minister of their own.. But I would rather have ministered there than in many another church with greater resources)

First the Joke you have come to expect.
There was a meeting of Bishops and one of them made a long speech which went on and on to no great purpose. Over coffee another Bishop said to a friend.  What did you think of Algernon's speech. Oh said his friend it reminded me of the peace and the mercy of God - like Gods peace it passed understanding and like his mercy it  endured for ever.
    As you know, this looks like being the last time I shall be with you though I do hope it will NOT be the very last time. So it is an occasions for some farewell words - and this mornings readings are full of them. We are only a few days  from Christmas and this means that for most people we cannot see further than next weekend. What then may the Holy Spirit have to say to our hearts as they swing from eager anticipation to wondering how on earth we are going to fit every thing in and how we are going to cope. It is a terrible thing to read that more marriages break down during the Christmas holiday than any other time of the year - simply because of the stress of families being thrown together sometimes in times of awful weather and are unable to do anything except get on one another's nerves ! so let us  try to make something of the words we have heard this morning and that may get things into proportion.
        The Gospel is showing us that eager mood of anticipation with which the people of his time awaited the coming of the Jesus the Messiah, the liberator, the saviour.
We see his cousin John conducting his mission of preparation. His message is a fierce one, a tough one, not what we would call a very Christmassy one. But then we have romanticised Christmas. we have turned it into a sort of fairy tale in which so much of the typical nativity play conveys facts that are not to be found in the Bible ! John on the other hand is telling his audience that the turning point of history is about to break into their lives. So lets stop day dreaming and thinking that it's going to be all right because God is on our side. In our terms John is saying to the crowds, when the day comes it will be no use you saying that you were baptised when you were a baby, that you were confirmed at St Barnabas , that you went regularly to Sunday school and to church in the expectation that that alone will get you a good clap on the back from God ! No the  question will be are you in a fit state to be a citizen of God's new world. When John says that if you have two coats you must share with someone who has none, we are not just talking literally - we are hearing him ask those of us who have any more than we actually need how we are going to respond to the needs of the homeless and the hungry of this world today. In fact the three encounters which Luke tells us of are all concerned with the morality of money. Share your coat; be honest in your business dealings, and don't throw your weight about but be satisfied with what you have.
    In a word, as we come up to Christmas I suspect the Holy Spirit is reminding us forcibly that no amount of Christmas carolling is any substitute for practical Christian help for those whose Christmas may be very different from ours. The Good News that John preached was not a glossy message saying that everything is going to be all right - it is saying the Good News is that God is going to put right the world's injustices. An old lady once said to me "I am so looking forward to the Day of Judgement ; I'm sure there will be things I will have to pay for but won't it be grand to see so many wrongs put right." That is far nearer the good news of Christmas night than what most people think and we rejoice and are merry precisely because that IS  the good news.  So what are you going to do about Christmas apart from running your family party ?
    That's the tough side. But turn to St Paul's set of mottoes for his friends. These words have been traditional for centuries as part of the run up to Christmas.
Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. [so we are picking up where we left of with St Luke and his good news]. The Lord is at hand. Christmas is at hand. Do not be put off, do not be apprehensive; do not be asking yourselves how on earth your are going to cope with that very long weekend. What we must NOT  be doing is to be worrying.  The old translation said "Be careful for nothing" .
So listen to the saint's advice. "In everything by prayer and supplications with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God"   In our simpler kind of language perhaps we would simply say "Put all your busy ness into the Lord's hand"  That is the secret that those who day in and day out spend some quiet time with Him.  We all suffer from panic stations from time to time - and there is a terrible temptation for Vicars to be rather like Corporal Jones and to go about in a very stressful way shouting  'DON'T PANIC ! DON'T PANIC!'
I always remember some forty five years back at a Mothers Union rally, Sally's mother - at that time a Diocesan President -  telling the tale of how once she was beginning to panic  about something and telling her husband "But Tommy I don't have the time !" and Sal's father said "Marjorie, God will give you all the time you need."
    So here is the promise - perhaps even better to say the assurance - that the Spirit delivers to us this morning. They are words which you hear each week of course - and you are so used to the words that you probably never realise that they are words from the Bible rather than some nice sentiments that somebody thought up with which to end our service.
"The peace of God which passes understanding shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus"  You cannot grab that peace of mind and heart which you long for; the more you try to capture it the more it will elude you.  But live with the promise in your heart and there will be a moment when its truth steals gently into your thoughts. Yes, the peace of God is keeping guard over my soul. Peace doesn't mean doing nothing. Though overworked housewives will often think sympathetically about the 19th century farmers wife who had on her tombstone "Don't grieve for me now, don't grieve for  me never;
 I'm going to do nothing for ever and ever."  
A priest friend of mine who was also an engineer used to say that the most peaceful thing he ever knew was a Rolls Royce are engine ticking over - all that power and yet seemingly so gentle and stress free. That is the peace that passes understanding. Not as the world gives, said Jesus about his peace. But it is always his gift and when we have received it it surpasses any other gift we may receive at this Christmas season.
So as I take my leave of you, dear Friends, perhaps you may remember something which I think I have been trying to say in all sorts of ways in my sermons here. That to be a Christian is to know two great things
One is that God's good news challenges us all radically to the very depths of our being
The other is opposite - that God's good news is exactly what each one of us really wants to hear deep down in our hearts - for in this overcrowded and stressful world of ours it truly is
"GLAD TIDINGS OF COMFORT AND JOY

    ADVENT 4 ALL SAINTS BROMSGROVE
Many of us here, including of course myself, know what it is like when your wife is nearing the date on which she is expecting her child to be born. You will have seen that BT commercial on Tele where a young husband urgently phones a taxi, gently helps his wife downstairs and puts her into the back seat of the cab; and then sends her on her way to the maternity ward while to her horror he goes back to watch the soccer match on the tele. That's quite a good parable of the way the nation observes Christmas. It spends endless time and fortunes getting ready for the festival; but on the day it ignores the birth and goes back to what it is comfortable with - Father Christmas Turkey and booze.
    But for you and me, it is not a tv commercial; we now face 36  hours of expectancy till we rejoice in the birth of Jesus our Saviour. Not any old saviour, not any old baby; my baby, your baby, your saviour and mine. So we wait. Our religion is very often a waiting religion. Advent is a waiting season. It reminds us of the very important factor that you cannot DO very much about your wife's giving birth unless you take Granny's advice and suggest a double gin and a ride on the big dipper.  You have to wait for things to happen. And usually they will if you are patient and the body's wonderful chemical reactions are working normally.  You have to wait and leave it to God. And Advent has been telling us that in the big sense we always have to wait and leave it to God. For in his good time he will speak to us; in his own good time he will judge us; in his own good time he will save us from destruction and the disintegration of our lives.
    So today is a quiet day, a sort of brooding and expectant day; because to us Advent Four is nowhere near important as Christmas Eve. But I always feel there is a certain magic about it - if only because the devoted core of our congregation are here. Hangers on don't come on Advent four!
    Our scriptures today are provided so that we can know what we should be looking forward to; so that we should know who it is whose birth we are about to celebrate .  The OT and Gospel you probably can relate to. I doubt if the epistle of Paul to the Romans is as familiar. So let us stop there for the moment. Paul is writing to a church community he has never met; but he expects to visit them so he writes this letter, the most closely argued and cogent of all his letters; a veritable theological tour de force. And here he begins to introduce himself to these Christians in the capital of the world empire. He is, he says, a servant of God, called to be a messenger of God's  good news about his Son. It is what he says about God's Son which is fascinating. Bear in mind that these words were written perhaps twenty years before the publication of St Luke's Gospel and perhaps Matthew's too.  He was, Paul tells us, as a human being descended from King  David.
If we  were listening carefully enough we would then immediately switch to the gospel reading where Matthew tells his version of the story of Jesus birth. St Luke tells us of angelic visions to Mary and the shepherds; Matthew tells us of dreams to Joseph. And how does God address Joseph in his dream. "Joseph you son of David, fear not to take unto you Mary your wife."  As you savour those words you might be led to take on board some remarkable things. For our Christmas Story, our Nativity plays have had all sorts of layers added to them.  There is a lot of spin in them. Nowhere are we told there were three kings, only an undisclosed number of astrologers and magicians. Nowhere are we told of a brusque unfriendly inn keeper and his kindly wife.  No harm in these spin-offs at all. but there are things which are hidden.  We romanticise the Bethlehem story. Countless authors, and carol writers have emphasised the deep poverty of the holy family, they tell us that Joseph and Mary were one with the poor and the dispossessed. But Joseph we are told was a member of the Jewish royal family - he was an aristocrat. Yes a carpenter in deed; but it was then as it is generally now the fact that all Jews had a trade to ply. It is one of the secrets of how the Jewish nation has survived down the centuries. They all had a skilled trade which they could take with them wherever they went. Typically the Jewish tailor needs no more equipment than his needles and thread and more reacently his hand sewing machine. Paul was a tent maker and earned his living as he travelled. Joseph was a carpenter. And if you think for a moment; in the old fashioned village community anywhere, the aristocrats of village society are the skilled tradesmen.Wheelwrights, carpenters;blacksmiths and the like. They need not be wealthy - but compared with the farm labourers working on a small days wage they are far more prosperous.  The same thing goes for the Galilean apostles. People who should know better talk about the ignorant rustic fishermen eking out an existence on this inland sea. The truth is that the family fishing firms had a prosperous international trade . Their salted dried fish was exported all over the Roman Empire and was considered a delicacy. Peter and James and John and the others were far more like your typical Round Table small business man than a primitive fisherman. And they would be educated - for all Jews were educated in their synagogue schools. Perhaps the roots of our Christian faith are more nearly middle class than we have been led to believe.
    That may be interesting - but even more important , do you see what we are finding out ? what St Paul is telling us ? After the flesh - by which he meant in human terms, as the world saw him, Jesus was regarded as the son of Joseph the descendent of Israel's hero king. Jesus was in other word seen as a sort of Crown Prince. Not just a fancy theological title; not just a character imagined by theological spin doctors; but in a real sense someone qualified to be the Christ, the Messiah who comes to liberate his people.  When Dorothy Sayers wrote her series of  broadcast plays fifty years ago about the life of Jesus, she gave them the title "The Man born to be King". And so he is. At the human level, at the historical level that was what Jesus was when he was born in Bethlehem the city of his ancestors. He was a candidate for kingship, he was a born leader  and he loved his people. But the real wonder is how Jesus was revealed to be so much more - so very much more. For the campaign which he led as Messiah was not what so many of his fellow Jews were looking for - that of a political revolutionary leader who would set them free from oppression of a foreign race and power. His resurrection from the dead after his execution was , Paul tells us, the way by which he was recognised as so much more than that. He was declared to be the son of God with power. His reign, his regime was not that of a political power, his kingdom he would say is not of this world. But he came to release humanity from the thrall of  human power and the disobedience which rejects love and the evil which betrays and infects even human motives at their best. For if the human race would not only listen, but endeavour to follow the Jesus way our world would be transformed. The kingdoms of our world, (thunders the last book of the bible), shall become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever. Jesus was a King among men. He really was.  They knew that at his birth. Shepherds and Magi knelt before the infant child and instinct told them this was what was right and proper.
    So now we have been informed about all that was significant about Jesus as a human being. But on Christmas Eve we shall remember that his early identity as a man Jew of royal stock is now irrelevant, For we shall be singing:-
God of God, Light of Light, Very God begotten not created. And that is the true mystery of Christmas  -  that the Christmas Child is the very embodiment of God. In Church we frequently use the word "Incarnation"  - but I think there are many times when it would be helpful to use the word "embodiment".  For in fact it very nearly means the same - only Incarnation is a Latin word and English speakers understand what "embodiment" means.
So now - 36 hours away from the deadline - all anyone could do - all we can do is to look forward in hope that we may share in the blessedness of this time; and that we may be able to rejoice with glad hearts because the baby once born in Bethlehem is born again in the depths of our hearts.
To wait for the birth of an eagerly expected child to be safely born is one of the deepest human experiences. Nor is there anything more divine.