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What presents have you
had from Father Christmas…?
If you've had presents it means you must have been a good person. Everyone
knows that Father Christmas only gives presents to people who are good
- I've kept overhearing parents telling that to their children round
the shops this last week.
It does start early, doesn't it? The idea that gifts are a reward for
goodness - and therefore God's gifts are given to the good, holy and
deserving people. Even in the face of the evidence that it's not true.
One of the trade secrets of ministers is that their get help for their
sermons by reading books about the Bible: let me quote you a passage
from one such commentator, a staunch evangelical writer called Leon
Morris, writing about Luke's story of the angels and the shepherds.
He says this:
'As a class shepherds had a bad reputation. The nature of their calling
kept them from observing the ceremonial law which meant so much to religious
people. More regrettable was their unfortunate habit of confusing 'mine'
with 'thine' as they moved about the country. They were considered unreliable
and were not allowed to give testimony in the law courts. [In other
words they were regarded as our society regards travellers today - not
to be trusted. So what conclusion does Leon Morris draw from this?]
'There is no reason for thinking that Luke's shepherds were other than
devout men, else why should God have given them such a privilege? But
they did come from a despised class.'
How do we know the shepherds were uncharacteristically good? Because
God gave them a gift, and they must have deserved it. And that's how
a lot of religion works - it makes us behave; as we sing in the carol,
'Christian children all must be mild, obedient, good as he.' Father
Christmas and God only give good things to people who are good - so
good religion says.
Thanks be to God that the Christian faith is not good religion, not
in that sense. This is the heart of Christian faith, the Christian story
which Jesus comes in order to make possible, the amazing drama of salvation:
the story of a God who gives it all away to us, the gifts of his Son,
his life, his love; the God who gives, not to the good, but to everyone,
good and bad alike, without distinction or discrimination, a God who
is loving and lavish and totally over the top.
Thanks be to God for being so much more ungrudging than we are! It's
so hard for us to believe it. We know, don't we, that it's the good
people who go to heaven, the good who deserve it, the good who get gifts
from Father Christmas.
So as good religious people we hedge and halter the free gift of the
gospel, we take the good news of God's saving love for all and make
it conditional on living up to our own expectations - with us generally
on the right side of being good, of course.
My friends, there's only one condition God puts on his love, his gift
of acceptance, and it's not that we have to be good. It's far more demanding
than that. It is that we have to receive his love: that we must be grateful.
Not grovellingly grateful, but simply thankful, receptive, glad to be
loved, not taking anything for granted.
What's the scene on your Christmas Day? Is it about what you get, or
what you receive? The child or the adult who eyes up their pile of presents
and rips off the paper, hardly registering who gave them what with a
muttered word of thanks before moving on to the next package - they
have got their gifts. But the child or the adult who stops to savour
what they've been given and who the giver is, the child or the adult
who is touched by the love that the gift represents - they it is who
have received their gifts indeed.
I've got a Christmas present to show you this morning - this piece of
tree root. It was given to me by my first colleague, a vicar in London.
He took an old root and sanded it, smoothed it, rubbed and polished
it to show the natural beauty within, and then he gave it to me as a
gift of his time, his skill, his patience, himself. And all I saw when
he first gave it to me was a bit of old stick. It's taken me years to
receive the gift he gave me 25 years ago.
A child lies in a manger, and what do we see? Nothing very much? A childish
fantasy? A religious myth? A good, old story? Or do we receive it? this
gift of God's love, God's humility and glory, in this child who becomes
a man who loves and suffers and dies and rises from death that we might
know, that we might receive, this gift - that God loves us with a love
which is greater than all our badness, all our mistakes, all our sins
and sorrows.
The 17th century priest and poet George Herbert prayed like this in
his poem "Gratefulness":
Thou
that hast giv'n so much to me,
Give one thing more, a grateful heart….
Wherefore I cry, and cry again;
And in no quiet canst thou be,
Till I a thankful heart obtain of thee:
Not thankful, when it pleaseth me;
As if thy blessings had spare days:
But such a heart, whose pulse may be thy praise.
Here this Christmas
let's receive the love of God for us. See, be glad, be grateful and
make it your own. For here is the greatest gift of all, greater than
anything Father Christmas brings: and it's not for those who are good,
but for those who are grateful.
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