|
From our last reading, the beginning
of John’s Gospel:
“He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.”
(‘or his own home’).
Although Jesus was born into a Jewish community, he was not accepted by
them and that’s why the Christmas story ends with the Easter story.
He was rejected because he wasn’t the sort of Saviour, the sort of
Messiah they were looking for. The Jewish religious experts had very firm
ideas on a job description for the Messiah and the carpenter’s son
from Nazareth didn’t fit it. Being born to a simple peasant couple
in a backwater town was, for example, not a good start. And when He grew
up, His teaching was not orthodox enough for them. Their own fixed views
prevented them from seeing the new thing God was doing in their midst.
They failed to meet the true Jesus because he wasn’t what they expected
him to be. And before I condemn them smugly, I have to remember that I
do the same. I too can make quick judgments about people, and may miss
understanding who they truly are.
In the days when I taught RE part of the GCSE syllabus was called ‘Prejudice
and Discrimination’. I remember trying to help my students understand
the terms. ‘Stereotype’ means a fixed way of looking at someone,
seeing them as a ‘type’, i.e. putting them in a category. ‘Prejudice’
means pre-judgment – i.e. making a judgment on someone before you
know their full story or character. ‘Discrimination’ based on
prejudice means treating someone according to your stereotype of them,
not as they truly are. To help students get the feel of this, I played
a game, only didn’t tell them it was a game. At the end of a lesson,
I described a new student who would be joining the class next time. This
girl had been come from another school in the town and had been permanently
excluded from it. She had been in fights after passing on gossip about
other girls. I said it was only fair that they were warned that she was
not to be trusted, but at the same time I wanted them to give her fair
treatment and make a clean start. Of course, because of what I had said,
that was not possible – they had already formed a judgment on her
and would probably avoid her. So it was just as well she was a fictional
character; and although they were not pleased with me when they found
out, they did get the point about prejudice and stereotyping.
Last week, at a fund-raising dinner, I was delighted to find myself sitting
next to a stranger who turned out to be a JP. It gave me a chance to ask
her about the role. I was impressed by two things;
1)She emphasised how important it was not to make quick judgments about
the people who appeared before the bench. She said, until you hear their
story, you don’t know what has brought them to this place.
2)She clearly hoped that those who had broken the law would be shaken
into reforming. When I asked her what was the most rewarding thing about
being a magistrate she said: “Feeling that on the odd occasion your
decision with regard to a person’s life has actually made a difference
to them and turned their life around.” And she went on to tell me
about a young man who looked very different from when he had appeared
before her some months earlier – he had clearly worked hard at cleaning
up his act. So she asked him why. He said: ‘Well it was you lot and
what you said to me last time, I knew I had to do something.’
So this evening I want to applaud the work you do as magistrates and thank
you on behalf of the people of Bradford and its surrounding district.
We do pray for you here at the cathedral and for all who work in the judiciary.
We know you have difficult decisions to make, and yes, you do have to
make judgments. But you know better than any that they will be good decisions
if they are not based on stereotyping, not on prejudices but on meeting
the real person (as far as you can). Only that way can there be understanding
of them as human beings and as individuals. And in treating them like
that you are doing a godly thing. Christianity claims that God does not
stand removed from us in judgement. He doesn’t look at our weaknesses
and failings and then condemn us for them. Rather, he understands why
we are who we are, then comes alongside and helps us move towards where
we want to be. Writing further on in the Gospel John says this: “God
did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order
that the world might be saved through him.”
Christmas is about celebrating a God who has put skin on – The Word
made flesh as St John puts it in the opening to his Gospel. Never again
will God not understand the human condition with all its struggles, because
he has lived among us. How tragic then that when Jesus came “He came
to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.” But
even more tragic is when that happens today. When instead of taking the
time to find out who Jesus truly is, people pre-judge; they say, ‘I
know who Jesus was: he is in the category of ‘Good man, wise teacher,
but not the Son of God and therefore, not to be taken too seriously.’
That’s not the claim of Christianity, nor of the Bible.
‘The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory
– it is the glory of a father’s only son.’ In other words,
if we want to know what God is like we only have to look at His Son, come
in the flesh at Christmas. John’s Gospel goes on to say: ‘No
one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s
heart, who has made him known’.
So may we put away our preconceptions and allow God to make Himself known
to us this Christmas. As He truly knows us as we are, may we meet Him
as He truly is, and so welcome His Glory, into our lives and into our
world. God bless you and yours this Christmas time. Amen.
|