The bishop's Christmas Sermon 2009
The Christmas story is a love story. It is the story of how God so loved the world that he sent Jesus to be born in Palestine and to live among us. But it is not just a love story to make us feel good about ourselves; it is a love story that should also inspire us to love the world. If we get the relationship between Creator and creation wrong, then we are lost.
For God so loved the world that he sent his only Son and we need to remind ourselves that the Greek word for world was cosmos – the entire created order – Jesus did not say God so loved human beings - but God so loved the whole of creation. If then God so loved the world and we are called to be like him, how can we love this world – this cosmos – that we inhabit and of which we are stewards?
I would suggest that here are various ways in which we can love the world. We have recently seen the world leaders and environmentalists meeting in Copenhagen to try to find a solution to reduce climate change which will have a catastrophic impact on many of the poorer nations. Sadly, the outcome was disappointing and they did not reach the agreement and set the targets that many had hoped for. We are called to ‘love thy neighbour’ and I have no doubt that there are the technological and political solutions to address climate change but as always greed and pride get in the way.
Zimbabwe was once the ‘bread basket’ of Africa and produced food for export. Today, it is in the grip of long-term poverty and starvation caused by massive inflation, the destruction of agriculture and a brutal regime. It has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world.
Today, in the Holy Land, there is a security wall which separates families from one another, people from their jobs and farmers from their fields. Arguably, it has deterred suicide bombers although if Mary and Joseph had been travelling from Nazareth to Bethlehem today they might never have been allowed through the road blocks and check points. The inequality between Israel and Palestine is obvious to all who visit the birth place of Jesus.
A recent study* has shown that Britain is the third most unequal society in the developed world and the study shows how inequality leads to greater crime, homicide, teenage pregnancies, obesity, mental illness, illiteracy and drug and alcohol addiction. Unequal societies lack justice and produce unhappy people. In more equal societies people are less greedy and competitive and more constructive and happier.
For Jesus, justice was at the heart of his message about God’s love for the world. Jesus said, Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice and then everything else shall be given to you. When Jesus cleansed the Temple it was not Sabbath trading that angered him, but the fact that poor people were being cheated by the money changers. What angers God is injustice and the exploitation of the poor by the rich.
When Mary learned that she was to be the mother of the Christ child, she sang a song. We call it the Magnificat and someone once said that we have set it to beautiful music so that that the music masks the words because the words are too revolutionary for most well heeled Christians to stomach. Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. He has put down the mighty from their seat and has exalted the humble and meek. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty.
I do not believe it is the task of the Church to tell economists or politicians how to do their jobs, but I do believe it is the task of the Church to remind them of our moral obligations, that is, of what we believe God wants for his world which is justice – or to use an old fashioned and biblical word ‘righteousness’ – being right with God and with one another.
So, the challenge to all who follow the teachings of Jesus must be to put love into action through prayer, protest and example because if God so loved the world, then so should we. Jesus was born to proclaim the message of God’s kingdom, a kingdom marked by justice and peace, so each of us needs to ask what we can do about it – and it may be as simple as buying Fairtrade goods, supporting projects and questioning politicians before the General Election, but each of us can do something more and help make a difference to build God’s kingdom on earth.