Sermon for Midnight Mass 2018

Sermon. St Mary’s, Little Ilford

Luke 2

Santa Claus needs a sex change! Father Christmas should become Mother Christmas! Debate about this has been one of the Christmas controversies this year. A new one on me, and, to be honest, not one I have strong opinions on, really. But in truth, there are a fair number of controversies about Christmas every year. Every year some newspaper article pretends to discover some supposedly shocking news that the birth of Jesus did not happen quite like the conventional story tells it. A sample:

• ·       The three kings were not kings, and there’s no reason to think there were three of them.
• ·       Shepherds don’t stay out with the flocks over night, at least not at this time of year.
• ·       Stars don’t move and then stop.
• ·       In the gospels, there is no mention of a stable.

It happens that this year I have been reflecting on a lengthy criticism of the idea that Jesus was born in a stable. It is indeed perfectly true that the gospels make no mention of a stable. In fact, in the East, the tradition – the ancient tradition - is rather that Jesus was born in a cave. And that does fit. Bethlehem is in hill country, and there are caves aplenty; there are grottoes. It would also be natural to house animals in caves when the weather was bad. So there may well have been – there will have been - a manger in a cave.

But the person who was criticising the stable-claim also did not think Jesus was born in a cave. His argument was this. When the Romans held a census, they did not require people to go their ancestral home, or the territory of their tribe. That makes no sense. When you take a census, you need to know where people live now - or where people have property. So you can tax them. You tax them, both to raise money, but also so that people know their place, know that they are the occupiers and you are the occupied people.  

So - the argument continues - that Joseph must have had some property in Bethlehem. That is why he had to show up there – to be available to pay council tax! He was working in Nazareth, maybe living and working in Nazareth, maybe at home in Nazareth in the normal sense, but still with a place in Bethlehem, which he had other family members living in. But the census really messed things up. With Joseph and a very heavily pregnant Mary back in town, the house was packed.

You also need to know that the word traditionally translated “inn” (to kataluma) has a wider range of meaning than that. It is a rare word in the New Testament. It is, tellingly, in Mark and Luke, also the word used for the place where Jesus had his last supper. There we traditionally translate it as “upper room”, not as “inn”. And that does neatly summarise the meaning.

It comes from a verb meaning “to loose”. So it might mean a place where you loose animals, or where, by extension, you loose yourself and relax. When we remember that in the Holy Land in the first century it would have been quite normal to have animals in one room or one part of the house, then we can see that the word might be referring to an inn, or more simply, to a living room, a lounge, a best room, the room in the home set aside for entertaining, for guests.

The final piece of the argument says that if Joseph did have family back in Bethlehem (which is what would make sense of the journey in the first place), then it is inconceivable that those family members would not have put him and Mary up. That would be such an affront to the codes of family life and hospitality. Of course, of course, you make room for your own flesh and blood, and don’t send them to an inn, where they are paying guests. So, in context, the more likely translation is “the living room/the reception room”.

I think this is a reasonable argument; it may well have been like that. Or rather, that may be what Luke wanted us to understand. And you know what? Neither of our nativities, our cribs, actually features a stable. So I could pretend that was deliberate, to make this very point. I am though not going to pretend it is so (it would be a fib). But, you know what, I am going to say that the Western tradition that Jesus was born in a stable, even if it can’t be historically verified, still makes a good point symbolically.

You see, what the text - what Luke - does say is important. It says there was no room for them, for the family, for Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. Ouk en autois topos. There was no place. No place. When Jesus was born, he had no place. He was pushed out. It matters little where he was pushed out from, or where he was pushed out into. A stable can stand for the place that just had to do, because Jesus and his parents were pushed out.

It is worth stressing this; I think Luke intends us to understand this: that Jesus had no room at this birth, was pushed out, because it sets the scene well for the story of Jesus that is to come. It is not the story of comfort and privilege, of a king in his palace, but of a wandering – well, I think I will say it – a wandering nobody, without any particular status. Don’t get me wrong: a gift for healing and teaching, sure, and so a reputation. But not status. Not riches. Not security. No place.

And of course from that it follows that we as Christians should pay attention to those in our life, in our world, who have no room, no place, who are pushed out. You know this; I do not need to labour the point.

It also means that we can take real comfort when we are pushed out of things – it happens to us all in various ways (unemployment, illness, whatsoever) at some point in our lives. Then we can be confident that then Jesus Christ is especially close to us, in solidarity.

I might also say it means we can with safety pay attention to the parts of us (our behaviour, our personality), which we push out of view, which are just too painful to attend to. We can – with the help of others, maybe – look lovingly at the hurts and pains we carry in us, which we try but fail simply to push away, to give no room to.

There was a place for Gd in Jesus’ day. There was a place that was called the Place (with a capital P), meaning the place of the presence of Gd. And that was the Temple, and by extension, Jerusalem. It happens that Luke the gospel-writer has good things to say about the Temple and about Jerusalem. But he knows that it was not the place of Gd’s coming into the world.

That was not grand Jerusalem, but little Bethlehem. And within Bethlehem, it was not the grand hall, but the other place, the second-best place, the place that just had to do. A place for animals and those pushed out. Gd’s will to be with us is so strong, that Gd knows this is what we do, and Gd comes to us anyway. Gd comes to us, at the first Christmas, and, if we are willing, now. Amen.