On Monday, St Mary's welcomed all sorts of primary school children in to Experience Christmas, a series of interactive tableaux to investigate the story of the first Nativity. Needless to say, these six tableaux are all in the way of normal church business. Making my way down the aisle in the dark trying to find the light switch, I tripped over the pine branches and candles set out for Preparation. In the chancel I could hardly take the Eucharist for the obstructive, intrusive presence of a manger, surrounded by tea lights, some of which had been accidentally kicked over by a small girl so that we spent a while with an iron and greaseproof paper and thanking God the carpet already had a speckle pattern in it…
But that's Christmas. You put up a tree and the furniture has to go somewhere. Sofa over there, grandma's chair in the corner, tables squashed in the middle and Dad sent off into the back room until Twelfth Night. Christmas intrudes. It's darned inconvenient (says the man who doesn't have a tree).
In fact the only thing more intrusive than a Christmas tree is that other (slightly more important) mainstay of Christmas. I mean Jesus. Having a baby means child-proofing, and painting the nursery and moving all your back issues of Doctor Who Magazine somewhere else (and no we can't get rid of them!). Babies take up quite a disproportionate amount of space. You try going on holiday with one: you need one people carrier per child to fit in all the nappies, luggage, cot, travel-mat, colic mixture and gin.
No, not like that. And the gin is for me.
Christmas trees… baby Jesus… and adult Jesus too. You let him into your heart and you'll really have to move stuff round, throw stuff out, set fire to some of the bits that really are incompatible with life as one of his followers.
Levi knew this (somewhere in Luke 5). He followed Jesus by turning his back on the corrupt business of tax collection. Ditto Zacchaeus, who knew as he slithered down the sycamore that one of his first actions with a new master would have to be repaying the people he'd swindled.
John Newton - he wrote Amazing Grace, remember? - became a Christian, and he wrote in his journal of his struggle to give up a habit that he immediately saw as ungodly. What was it? Swearing. He spotted without much prompting that a pottymouth was inconsistent with his new faith. Oddly, it took him a number of years to spot that slave-trading was also a bit of a no-no in this new life.
My Old Testament reading this morning featured Dagon, a somewhat fishy god of the Philistines. A statue of him stood in a temple in Philistia ages back, when the Philistines had soundly routed the Israelites in battle and half-inched the Ark of the Covenant, a rather holy artefact which some believed signified the presence of God. They were rather pleased with the holy booty and left it overnight in their temple with Dagon. This, it transpired in the morning, was a mistake.
Dagon (we think)
When they returned, the statue of Dagon had fallen over (you can read all about it in 1 Samuel 5. Go on!) as if bowing down before God. The Philistines righted the poor fellow and left him alone with God again for another night. And in the morning, there was Dagon again, flat on the floor, but this time with his head and hands broken off. Oh dear.
But that's what happens. Some things are just incompatible with God and a living faith in Christ. Jesus himself was very clear that you can't serve God and mammon. It wasn't a commandment, it was more a law of physics. It's impossible. Don't try.
In Dagon's temple, in a clear match between a real God and a made-up merman, it's obvious who'll win.
In my heart, in a match between God and the things I won't move out to give him room - unforgiveness, bitterness, pride - who wins? This time it's whatever I feed the most. It's my heart and God won't ride roughshod over my wishes if I prefer playing Minecraft or sleeping around or snorting drugs or accumulating possessions to praying to him. If I won't let God be God in my heart, then he's as powerless as an armless headless merman.
Christmas (and Levi and Zacchaeus and Dagon - what an embarrassment of sermon material) reminds us that Jesus is no mere add-on. He holds up our habits and attitudes to scrutiny and invites us to discard all that is anti-Christian or sub-Christian or simply incompatible with the brilliant calling he's offered us. So as you move chairs (and relatives) to accommodate that needle-dropping indoor tree, ask yourself what needs moving out of your heart, your habits and your home.
And don't assume that having been a Christian for years exempts you from this. Don't imagine everything must be rosy in the garden because you've just passed the half-century mark with Christ. make sure you've not fallen into a rut. There will always be more to question. Some of the longest-standing believers I know have also been the most underhand, homophobic, intolerant people on the planet. If Newton had huge things to learn even years after his first moment of faith (and giving up swearing before trotting back off to the slave trade wearing a crucifix), then so do we.
Use Advent well. We all make mistakes. We all get bad habits. Look at your life and question everything. And if something sits badly with this faith in a brilliant Jesus, a kind Jesus, then you know what to do with it. Do a Levi and walk away from it. Do a Zacchaeus and make it right. Catch any people who need an apology and make things right before (a) Christmas comes and (b) Christ comes again.
No comments:
Post a Comment