Heaven in Ordinary

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 9:2-7, Titus 2.11-14, Luke 2.1-14

If you want the standard Christmas sermon from dull vicars, they’ll tell you how that, for all the children’s Nativity is pretty, picturesque and charming, the real Christmas was tough, poverty-stricken and painful. They’ll point to the occupied state of Israel, the arduous journey, the trauma of childbirth, Meek and Mild, Dear and gentle, Not a word of it. The birth of our Lord was bleak, bloody and brutal. We’re all too safe and comfortable to really experience Christmas. And we’ll all leave feeling a bit ashamed of ourselves, And the turkey will be like ash in our mouth.

I think the Gospel writers are more concerned with the ordinariness of it all. It’s not that it was the worst possible situation. We certainly have the impression his parents loved him; but it was an event much as would have been the birth of you or I.

I still remember Oberon’s birth in Frimley Park, and I would guess that all births remain terrifying, painful and fraught, and that’s just for men – Aside from Humphrey of course. Safe pair of hands there. And everyone is always travelling at Hanukkah right? Hotels get booked. It’s cold; the donkey won’t start.

The point is that this special birth took place within this most ordinary, universally shared, framework. And this goes to the essence of Christianity. The disciples, fishermen, tax collectors, ordinary men and women; simple people who are still talked about thousands of years and thousands of miles away. It’s just loaves and fishes, but somehow there’s enough for everyone. It was the most ordinary death, an execution, a common fate for the unlucky, but it changed the course and meaning of history.

You might say the meaning of the Incarnation is what is divine, Godly, coming down and taking in what is ordinary, human. You might equally say the meaning of the Incarnation is taking what is ordinary, human and making it divine, Godly.

There’s a Richard Crashaw poem that reads:

Welcome all wonders in one sight!
Eternity shut in a span. Summer in Winder,
day in night; heaven in earth, God in man.
Great little one whose all-embracing birth
Brings earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.

And that is our worship, even on Christmas Day: celebrating the presence of God with us in Tesco’s Every Day bread and wine. Other brands are available. The most ordinary acts of hearing the old stories, singing the old songs and eating and drinking together as God is made known.

So should we be starstruck with the meteoric movements in the shining heavens, or should we see the divine gift in a poor girl surviving her first child’s birth with everyone intact? Should we be listening out for the angelic voices? Or admiring the quiet faithfulness of the shepherds? Should we be bowled over with the glamorous arrival of the kings? or reflect that where two or three of us are gathered as a church, as a family, there God is also.

The Gospel is all about overturning our expectations. The birth of the King of all creation happens in a stable with the animals. God reveals it not to celebrities, the wealthy or powerful, But to the least of all of us. And Jesus comes to bring in a new kingdom, But it’s not of this world. He is a king, But with a crown of thorns.

The people always want signs and wonders, They want a bit of glamour; christmas magic; but God chooses to appear in those difficult and normal experiences that all people are heir to: what makes us human.

Our communion service comes to a climax at the moment of the fraction. Here the bread, the body of Christ, is broken; and we all share in this broken bread. God is not aspirational. The body of Christ is not flawless. We can’t be a part of it until it is broken again for us. God does not meet us in perfection. Not in choirs of angels singing perfectly, Not in kings in their untouchable lifestyles. Not in the perfect Christmas dinner with all the trimmings. God meets us in the ordinariness of life. God meets us in broken bread, not caviar or a well cooked souffle. And usually it’s only when we recognise that we share that brokenness: that we have not done as we ought; that we can’t manage on our own; that, as we are, we’re incomplete; that perhaps we are barely getting by; that God speaks to us. that we’re open enough to hear him.

It’s only when we can recognise God in the newborn child, the executed criminal that we will actually grasp that God is love; And that’s not about the power and the glory, But the compassion that we have for the world.

So happy Christmas. I hope you did hear sleigh bells last night. And in your time in church I hope you feel a little Christmas magic. But when you get home, whatever you’re going home to, In the familiar walls, the person, animal or even the quiet that you walk in to; not transcendent, not terrible, I hope you find God there; As ever the Immortal Word, waiting to be heard. And born today in Bethlehem. Amen.