Christmas Morning: Interested Love
Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: The Angels appear to the Shepherds
There is an episode of Friends, the most popular show of the 1990s, in which Joey states that there is no such thing as a selfless deed. Phoebe contests such a negative worldview and helps a neighbour, gets stung by a bee and then phones in to donate money to charity, but each time Joey is able to find a way in which the action has helped her and so is, in some way, selfish. “I will find a selfless good deed. 'Cause I just gave birth to three children and I will not let them be raised in a world where Joey is right.” For many people this sort of “disinterested love” - where you do good deeds purely for other people – is the best thing you can do – the definition of what it means to be a good person. If Joey is right then that’s because humans are actually nasty, brutish little creatures incapable of thinking beyond themselves. As Samuel Johnson said: “I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.”
I’m not really sure this selfless worldview is right though. It goes hand in hand with a philosophy that looks to always be objective, to find the God’s eye view as it is sometimes called. This has at times been very popular especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It’s all a little cold, logical, and bureaucratic. And the main problem is that it’s also led to the worst human behaviour. While Fascism had its faults, inciting nationalist fervour, and trading on emotive concepts, it was Stalin with his science of socialism that killed – sorry liquidated – more people. When people become numbers on a sheet, terrifying things happen. Take even a simple objective question – who are of more worth 10 people or 20 people? It’s seems easy to the objective eye. But what if the 10 people are the ten best medical researchers in the world? What if the 20 are at death’s door, or teenagers? Who can possibly say if one life is worth more than another? We don’t have quantitative means of valuing the most important aspects of our lives and relationships. And the same is true of ethics. Why should the best possible action be one that I don’t gain from? Why should a good deed be disinterested? If Star Trek has taught us anything it’s that James T. Kirk made better decisions than Spock. So don’t worry if being good makes you happy. It’s not a zero-sum world. Some things are win-win.
And this is what Christmas is all about. We have the fidelity and perseverance of Mary and Joseph, the gift of a child. And to this celebration come the angels, the shepherds and the kings in the sharing of joy and gifts - with the other worldly, the poor and uneducated, and the rich and learned. And none of it is disinterested. The most quoted verse in the Bible does not run: God was so level-headed about the world that he made an excellent, well thought-through to decision to send his only son.
A mother’s love is anything but disinterested. She cares and later she will begin making demands. And the visitors all came with their excitement and interest – taking selfies and enjoying some Bethlehem punch. And in this little scene is a little picture of heaven. If you think back to all those charming nativity plays you’ve seen - at the end everyone comes together in the mutual joy of company, singing ‘Away in a Manger’. It’s not a miserable pious crush of people falling over to themselves to serve other people and ensure that they themselves have a miserable time.
As we get older we change roles in the nativity story. Oberon, last year, was Jesus, the special child. This year he is perhaps a waif off the streets of Bethlehem, or a young shepherd boy toddling down the hills. Again this year, we’re with the exhaustion of Joseph and Mary, in pregnancy and as young parents; others may identify with the wise elders sending gifts to the new generation. The news is simply full of Herods plotting mischief and massacres! If we can imagine Christ being born in each generation we may see how much we and the world still need redemption, and how much it still needs hope; that after two thousand years of wrong, the angels’ strain can still be heard. This won’t be achieved by the few who manage to martyr themselves by selfless deeds, and that’s if they manage to prove Joey wrong. But it will be improved by a Christmas where people are kind to those that they love, and see that love spill over to rich and poor, the shepherds and kings who pop by each of our stables for a socially distanced call. Cicero wrote that “Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.” That seems like a good aim for this Christmas; a win-win holiday where we bring a little joy to the people around us and set ourselves up for a brave new 2021. A year that’s going to need a whole lot of joy to get us back on track. Amen.