St Nicholas

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 61:1-3; Psalm 85:7-end'; 1Timothy 6:6-11; Mark 10:13-16

The stories concerning St Nicholas are difficult to tell to children. Like many of the stories of saints, and most folklore, they’re full of gory details. Most famously, as a rich young man, he stepped in to save three girls who couldn’t afford dowries. The detail we sometimes skip past in Sunday School is that the stated alternative those girls faced was a life of prostitution. Probably shared with all the scumbags and maggots you usually find in the drunktank at Christmas.

Another favourite medieval tale is his resurrection of three boys who had been chopped up with an axe by a wicked shopkeeper and pickled in brine. Such stories don’t lend themselves naturally to a show and tell suitable for 6-year-olds, (Though they are certainly no worse than many classic fairy tales by Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson.) And we haven’t even got to that very modern tale of adultery and deception involved when mummy is finally caught kissing Santa Claus. What a laugh it would have been if Daddy had only seen? Hardly. But because of these stories, which over time pass into folklore and charming customs, St Nicholas became the patron Saint of children, and identified with that chief Christian virtue of generosity. Signified to us by ‘a little round belly/ That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.’

We live in an age that finds it hard to accept the possibility of sainthood. Movements in the last couple of years like metoo, BLM, together with an insistence on judging history by the morals of our own age, with an added pinch of cancel-culture, make us quicker to pull down heroes than to put them up. We delight in celebrities’ fall from grace, and even the great heroes of our recent past, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill, Gandhi, Tiger Woods – are quickly qualified with their various faults — If it happened today, that whole team of reindeer would be sacked for bullying Rudolf, faster than Yorkshire Cricket Club coaching staff. Public recognition given to anyone today usually unleashes an outcry from some group of students; the toppling of statues, which is a very literal form of no platforming. The lives of saints, though, have been a traditional teaching tool, and despite our increased levels of literacy, I think this is still useful. Many of the stories of saints are quite obviously folklore and apocryphal, adding colour to some of the faded characters of history.  We’re not the first to notice this and it’s important to remember that these stories were always also told for entertainment and with a pinch of salt. Much like Hello Magazine.

But the stories draw out Christian virtues and priorities, and act as illustrations of what we should take with utter seriousness. Today’s Gospel is nothing short of a command to include children in the work and ministry of the Church. Something it all too frequently forgets, And for which St Nicholas, patron saint of children, should prove to us both a reminder and a helpful tool. Though he is also a patron saint of Russia, which is less useful to us.

Our playgroup has had over 50 toddlers and babies in recent weeks.  We’ve started singing Silent Night and Away in a Manger, so I think it counts as what the Church of England calls a “fresh expression of church”. Our Sunday School, on the other hand, has been rocked by illness and pandemic.  We’ve gone through three boy bishops in the last week! In all, the greatest damage done to churches in the last two years has been inflicted on Sunday Schools.  Mrs Clause was at our Christmas Fayre yesterday, checking on the naughty and nice list, but even with her august presence numbers in the grotto were down on 2 years ago.

But even more than reminding us of the spiritual life of our children, St Nicholas has become an embodiment of generosity that the whole world understands. Through every Christmas movie, from A Christmas Carol to Miracle on 34th Street,there’s an acknowledgement of the truth that there is more happiness to be found in generosity than in the accumulation of wealth. Although we might today lament his hefty carbon footprint.

So saints are symbols of the priorities of the Christian life and virtues. Even while the stories about St Margaret of Antioch are rather fantastic. It’s rather difficult, for example, to prove that she was swallowed or later spat out by a dragon. She can still remind us of the fortitude and courage of the early church, and that Christians today still suffer and die for their faith. And that girls are still forced to marry against their will.

Happily, St Nicholas is a rather more jolly figure that we can all get behind. That little round belly, right. But while many fear the pagan elements of our society, or lament the acquisitiveness and materialism;  It’s disenchantment in our culture that presents the greatest threat to faith.  Children are naturally alive to wonder and have a certain resistance to the cynicism and materialism that later acts as an irresistible gravity to the imagination. One of the wonderful things about being a parent is seeing the return of that wonder through the eyes of your children — This will be Oberon’s first true Christmas, and judging by his interaction with Mrs Santa, will be full of wide-eyed delight, and alive to the magic of the most wonderful time of the year. Like any normal child he asked her for a “toy church” for Christmas!  And snow.

So while St Nicholas will continue to remind us that it is to children that the kingdom of God belongs, and that the love of money is the root of all evil – I don’t want a lot for Christmas – But even more importantly he reminds us of that need for wonder. To look at this world and see adventure, and mystery, that divine spark of joy and peace, like some magic left over in an old felt hat; and with it all the meaning that bubbles over when we’re able to see and take each day as a gift.

St Nicholas should recall us to look on the world as children do, and believe that there is purpose and justice, to not be naughty but nice,  And with the children, in this holy season of Advent, to again wait with expectation for the Holy night that is to come. Amen.