It takes a village

Some years ago now, R and I went to Avignon for a holiday during the first week of January. As holidays go, it was a dismal failure, because I had flu, the hotel was horrible, and it snowed! But one thing was very good, and that was that in the Town Hall, they had a Christmas crib.

On Monday, you may remember, K showed us some pictures of various Christmas cribs, and there was an exhibition of them at Clapham church a few weeks ago. But in Provence they do things a bit differently, as this picture shows: It’s a whole village. It’s not a very high-resolution picture, but there are lots of little figures, not just the Holy Family, although they are there, too, but all the villagers going around their daily business. I took this picture, which is a much better resolution, at an exhibition of cribs in a church in Alsace a couple of weeks ago.

It doesn’t show the village in quite the same detail, but just look at all the people! You’ve got the Holy Family, of course, and then there is another stable with what looks like pigs in it – improbable, really, as Jewish people don’t eat pork or pig products. But you have all the villagers going on with their lives. I couldn’t spend as long as I wanted looking at it, as time was getting on and we needed to catch a bus back to our campsite, but it’s one of those things that the more you look, the more you see. There’s someone with his cart, and someone setting out to go fishing or sailing in a dinghy, and lots of people just standing around and chatting; a water-carrier is going over the bridge, and so on.

I love this Provençal tradition. You see, unlike many crib traditions, it reminds us that Bethlehem was, and is, a village, and Mary and Joseph were not isolated. We tend to think of them as travelling alone – just Mary, Joseph and the donkey – but of course they would have gone to Bethlehem with a group of other travellers; it wasn’t safe, else. And realistically, the manger would have been on the step separating the animal part of the house from the human part, and there would probably have been a great many women, mostly relations, helping Mary with the birth and afterwards. We don’t think of animals as sharing living-space with humans, as we only do that with our pets, but of course the cattle and horses or donkeys would have helped keep the house warm in the winter, and was the norm back in the day.

Yes, there were signs that this wasn’t just another human baby being born at a most inconvenient time. Yes, the shepherds came to visit – but they might well have been family, don’t you think? And yes, Anna and Simeon did respond to the promptings of God’s Spirit, and knew that they had seen their salvation. But from the human point of view, Mary and Joseph were just doing what all Jewish families did – they had their son circumcised at eight days old, and then, at forty days old, they took him to the Temple to redeem him from God – the first and the best of everything belongs to God, so that parents would redeem him by paying a small sum and having ritual prayers said over him, these always invoking Elijah. Everybody did that, if they could.

And then they went back to Nazareth – again, travelling in a party for safety – and Jesus would have grown up in an extended family, lots of aunts and uncles and cousins around, and, in due course, brothers and sisters. He would have learnt to roll over, and to sit up, and in due course to stand and walk, and talk, and be potty-trained; he’d have had to learn when not to talk, and when he needed to sit still and listen. He’d have gone to school with the other kids his age, and learnt to read and write, especially the Scriptures. He’d probably have hung round Joseph, and learnt basic carpentry – and probably some interesting words to say when he hit is thumb with a hammer!

And each year they would go to Jerusalem, to the Temple. Again, they would travel in groups and caravans. At first Jesus would be carried on his father’s back, and then kept close to his parents, but as he grew older, he’d be off with his friends, running ahead and being told not to go out of sight, or lagging behind and being told to keep up. They’d gather round the camp fire in the evening and sing the traditional songs.

And then the kids were coming twelve years old. Now, in Jewish circles, you were considered a man at the age of 13, and from then on could be asked to read, and comment on, the Scriptures at any time. These days they have a ceremony called a “Bar Mitzvah”, or a “Bat Mitzvah” for girls, where the child in question reads a passage from Scriptures, translates it, and then preaches on it – my daughter went to a friend’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah last term, and was very impressed by her performance. They also have a party, either immediately afterwards or later the same day.

In Jesus’ day, they didn’t have the ceremony, but every boy – not girls, back in the day, alas – every boy approaching his 13^th birthday knew he could be called on at any time after his birthday. Their teachers would have been focussing on this during the school year, and probably some of the boys were getting nervous.

That year, they all went up to Jerusalem as usual, and attended the Passover festivities, and then gathered together to go home again. And it wasn’t until next day they discovered that there Jesus wasn’t! His parents had assumed he was off with his friends as usual, but suddenly, horrifyingly, nobody had seen him. His parents rushed back to Jerusalem – they didn’t like to go on their own, but this was an emergency – and found him still in the Temple, deep in discussion with the scribes.

You see, as Jesus had studied the Scriptures, he became engrossed in them. God helped them become real to him. And, of course, Jesus had endless questions. I'm sure his parents did their best to answer him, but perhaps they didn't know all that much themselves. And his teachers, perhaps, didn’t have the time they would have liked to answer his questions – or perhaps he wanted to go more deeply into these things than they cared to do in an academic environment. And when he reached Jerusalem that year, he found all that, for then, he was seeking with the scribes in the Temple. They knew. They could answer his questions, in the way that the folks back home in Nazareth could not. They could deal with his objections, listen to him, wonder at his perspicacity at such a young age.

I hope the scribes didn’t laugh at him; it's not clear from the text, but they might have. But probably not, if his questions were sensible and to the point.

And Jesus, typically adolescent, totally forgets about going home, forgets that his parents will have kittens when they find he's not with them, forgets to wonder how he's going to get home, or even where he's going to sleep – or, perhaps, thinks a vague mention of his plans was enough. Anyway, Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Zach will put him up, he’s quite sure.

And when his parents finally find him, like any adolescent, he says “You don’t understand!” And, rather rudely, “I have to be about my Father’s business!” Poor Joseph – not very kind, was it?

We aren’t told what happened next, whether they hurried to catch up with their original caravan, or had to wait until the next one was going in that direction. We aren’t told whether Jesus was grounded for a few days when they did get home, or what.

Come to that, we aren’t told whether he actually knew anything about who he was. He’d probably grown up in the normal rough-and-tumble of village life, but then, when they started studying the Scriptures in good earnest, something came alight in him. He began to catch glimpses of God, of That Which Is, of the Thought that Thought the World… and he longed and longed to know more. Later on, of course, he would realise that searching the Scriptures was not enough. Remember what he said to the Pharisees: “You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf. Yet you refuse to come to me to have life."  He knew that you needed more than just the words on the page – but at twelve years old, this was what had intrigued him, fascinated him, to the point of ignoring anything else.

But why does this matter? For me, it’s about Jesus being human as well as divine. He didn’t come fully formed from his father’s head, like some of the Greek or Roman gods are alleged to have done. He didn’t grow up in splendid isolation, just with his parents, and later, with his mother alone. Even if, as it appears from Matthew’s gospel, the family had lived in Bethlehem until they had had to flee into exile, they would probably have resettled in Nazareth because they had family there, rather than just choosing it at random. The thing is, he grew up in the midst of other people. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and Jesus grew up in that sort of village! He had lots of examples to follow, both of how to behave and of how not to. I hope he didn’t know how special he was, not until much later. But he did grow up loving God.

It’s not always easy, at this distance, to see the human Jesus, is it? We see him as divine – and so he is, but he is also human. His experiences may not have been exactly the same as ours, as he grew up in a very different culture. All the same, if he was 13 years old today, he’d be glued to his phone, getting WhatsApp messages from his friends every few minutes, spending hours making a 12-days-of-Christmas chocolate calendar for his parents, grumbling that he and his friends aren’t allowed to go to Camden Town without a grownup – oh no, wait, that’s my 13-year-old grandson, but you get the picture! And I do think it’s important to see Jesus as human as well as divine, because it makes him – at least, I find it does – much more approachable, much more real, much more able to empathise with me, and plead my cause with God. He’s not just the baby in the manger; he’s not just the adolescent boy following his obsessions to the exclusion of all else; at that, he’s not even the still figure on the Cross. He is any and all of those things, and he is our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

Searching the Scriptures

The trouble with Luke's telling of the life of Jesus
is all the things he has to leave out!
Of all Jesus's childhood, adolescence and, indeed, young manhood,
we only get this tiny glimpse.
And there is so very much we don't know,
Which makes it very awkward, at times,
to know what to make of this glimpse of an adolescent Jesus,
such a tiny glimpse.

When my daughter was adolescent,
I spent a lot of time with this story!
It was so encouraging to know that Jesus, too, in his time,
had gone off to do his own thing without reference to his parents,
and when they had remonstrated, he was like
"You just don’t understand!"
And sometimes people said
"But, of course, it was different for Jesus!"
But was it?

You see, we know so very little.
All we are really told is that they went to Jerusalem every year for the
Passover, and that this year, Jesus was twelve.
And that is significant.
You see, from time immemorial, Jewish boys have become,
at the age of 13, a man.
They are required to keep the commandments,
and they may take their place in the synagogue,
taking their turns at reading the Scriptures.
Their presence helps to make up the "minyan", or quorum,
that is required before Jewish people can have a service.
And so on.
Nowadays, this transition is marked by a ceremony known as a Bar
Mitzvah, where the boy in question reads a passage of Scripture during a
special service in the synagogue, and makes a speech, and then there is
a bun-fight afterwards.
In Jesus' day they didn't do that, but the rising-13s would have expected
to be called upon to read the Scriptures in public any time after their 13m
birthdays.
So I am quite sure that those who taught the classes of 12-year-olds
really concentrated on the Scriptures,
to ensure that the boys knew their Bibles really thoroughly,
and would be able to make a good showing
whatever portion they were asked to read.

So Jesus, at 12, was engrossed in Bible Study.
And, for him, it became more than an interest,
more than something he had to Study at school
if he was to get good marks and avoid trouble.
It became a passion.
Now, here is where we get a little stuck,
because it simply isn't clear how much Jesus knew about who he was,
when he was 12.
We don’t know whether Mary and Joseph had told him anything about his
conception,
Or that Joseph was not his natural father.
We don’t know whether he knew there was anything special about him at
hope he didn’t.
I hope he had a really happy childhood,
quite untouched by these things.
And probably he did.

God, after ail, had chosen Mary to be his earthly mother,
and Joseph to act as "Dad" on purpose.
But nevertheless, as Jesus studied the Scriptures,
became engrossed in them.
God helped them become real to him.
And, of course, Jesus had endless questions.
I'm sure his parents did their best to answer him,
but perhaps they didn't know all that much themselves.
And his teachers, perhaps, didn’t have the time they would have liked to
answer his questions -
Or perhaps he wanted to go more deeply into these things than they
cared to do in an academic environment.
Who knows?
Once again, we are not told.
But we do know that when he reached Jerusalem that year,
he found all that, for then, he was seeking with the scribes in the Temple.
They knew.
They could answer his questions,
in the way that the folks back home in Nazareth could not.
They could deal with his objections,
listen to him,
wonder at his perspicacity at such a young age.

I hope the scribes didn’t laugh at him;
it's not clear from the text, but they might have.
But probably not, if his questions were sensible and to the point.

And Jesus, typically adolescent,
totally forgets about going home,
forgets that his parents will have kittens when they find he's not with
them,
forgets to wonder how he's going to get home,
Or even where he's going to sleep –
or, perhaps, thinks a vague mention of his plans was enough.
Anyway, Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Zach will put him up, he’s quite sure.

And his parents thought he was with the company –
they would be travelling with a group of people, probably mostly from Nazareth.
It wasn’t just so safe to make that journey other than in a caravan of people, donkeys, merchants, and so on.
This gives us a glimpse that Jesus was, at that time, a normal human boy.
He was probably off with his friends –
they would tended to walk together, away from the grown-ups,
and then in the evening they’d all sit round one fire, singing, perhaps;
maybe a different parent each evening.
He’s fine, they thought.
He’s with the others.
And then they found he wasn’t…. panic!
So they went rushing back to Jerusalem –
not the safest thing to do on your own, but needs must. And there he was, safe and well.

No, his parents didn't understand;
of course they didn’t.
How could they?
It was, perhaps, the first glimpse they had had that he was somebody
very special.
Maybe Mary remembered the events surrounding his birth.
In any event, they were not aware of what he was talking about.
I expect they were livid with him, but then, that curious “I must be about my Father’s business” –
hurtful, to Joseph, but then, when have adolescent kids ever really thought about other people’s feelings?

Of course, later on, Jesus knew that searching the Scriptures was not
enough.
Remember what he said to the Pharisees:
search the scriptures because you think that in them you have
eternal life;
and it is they that testify on my behalf.
Yet you refuse to come to me to have life."
He knew that you needed more than just the words on the page –
but at twelve years old, this was what had intrigued him,
fascinated him,
to the point of ignoring anything else.

Jesus was fascinated by the Scriptures, but then – so what?
What has this got to say to us, this dark and dismal Christmas so unlike any other that we can remember?
Some of us may have teenage children or grandchildren and much of this story resonates with us!
But even if we don’t, it’s lovely to see that Jesus, growing up, was a normal human boy.
All too often, we forget that he was human, as well as divine.
The passage from the Epistle, which we didn’t read,
emphasises his divinity rather than his humanity:
“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
For in him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible,
whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities;
all things have been created through him and for him. 
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
And he is the head of the body, the church;
he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether things on earth or things in heaven,
by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.”

Well, yes, but that passage, from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, emphasises that Jesus was divine.
He was.
He is.
But also human –
and this little glimpse of him growing up shows that.
It gives us a Jesus of flesh and blood, if you like;
a Jesus who played and sang with his friends,
who could get engrossed in a new interest to the exclusion of all else…
For me, it makes him more real, more approachable.
I hope it does for you, too.

I was interested to see that the story was paired with the reading we heard from Isaiah –
one of my favourite passages in the whole of Scripture!
And could anything be more appropriate for us right now?
“The desert and the parched land will be glad;
    the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom;
    it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
    the splendour of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
    the splendour of our God.”
and so on and so forth – wonderful words of comfort. It’s not now, it’s a one day, but one day…. One day. Maybe one day I will be able to hug my grandsons again. Maybe one day we’ll be able to travel. Maybe one day we will be able to sing “Joy to the World” and “Christians, awake!”

And the picture at the end of that passage, of the redeemed walking across the desert highway, singing as they go –
perhaps that was what Jesus experienced walking to Jerusalem with his friends and family.
And one day, we will, too. Amen.

 

St Nicholas

Once upon a time, long, long ago, in a – well, not in a galaxy far away, as this story takes place on this earth, but certainly in a country far away, a little boy was born. No, not Jesus of Nazareth – this birth took place a couple of hundred years later, and the little boy grew up to be one of Jesus’ followers. He was born in the city of Patara, in what is now Turkey, and you will remember from your reading in Acts that this was one of the places that St Paul visited during his travels, so it’s quite probable that his parents or grandparents were either converted by St Paul, or by the church he established there. His parents were rich, by the standards of their day, and when they died when the boy was quite young, he inherited all their money. But because he loved Jesus, he didn’t think it right to keep the money for himself, and began to give it away to the poor and needy in the area.

He dedicated his whole life to God, and was made Bishop of Myra while still a young man. One famous story about him tells of a poor man with three daughters, whom he could not hope to marry off as he had nothing to give for their dowries, something that was considered vital back in the day. And the future for unmarried women back then was bleak – slavery was probably the best option. So this young Bishop, anonymously, threw three purses of gold, one for each daughter, through the window of their house, and the purses landed in the shoes the girls had put to dry by the fire.

There are lots of other stories about this man – some probably legendary, as when three theological students, traveling on their way to study in Athens were robbed and murdered by wicked innkeeper, who hid their remains in a large pickling tub. It so happened that the bishop, traveling along the same route, stopped at this very inn. In the night he dreamed of the crime, got up, and summoned the innkeeper. As he prayed earnestly to God the three boys were restored to life and wholeness.

There are several stories of his calming storms for sailors, and one story tells how during a famine in Myra, the bishop worked desperately hard to find grain to feed the people. He learned that ships bound for Alexandria with cargos of wheat had anchored in Andriaki, the harbor for Myra. The good bishop asked the captain to sell some of the grain from each ship to relieve the people's suffering. The captain said he could not because the cargo was "meted and measured." He must deliver every bit and would have to answer for any shortage. The Bishop assured the captain there would be no problems when the grain was delivered. Finally, reluctantly, the captain agreed to take one hundred bushels of grain from each ship. The grain was unloaded and the ships continued on their way.

When they arrived and the grain was unloaded, it weighed exactly the same as when it was put on board. As the story was told, all the emperor's ministers worshiped and praised God with thanksgiving for God's faithful servant!

Back in Myra, the Bishop distributed grain to everyone in Lycia and no one was hungry. The grain lasted for two years, until the famine ended. There was even enough grain to provide seed for a good harvest.

The Bishop, of course, was made a saint when he died. And the stories of his miracles didn’t stop coming. One very early story tells how the townspeople of Myra were celebrating the good saint on the eve of his feast day when a band of Arab pirates from Crete came into the district. They stole treasures from the church to take away as booty. As they were leaving town, they snatched a young boy, Basilios, to make into a slave. The emir, or ruler, selected Basilios to be his personal cupbearer, as not knowing the language, Basilios would not understand what the king said to those around him. So, for the next year Basilios waited on the king, bringing his wine in a beautiful golden cup. For Basilios' parents, devastated at the loss of their only child, the year passed slowly, filled with grief. As the saint’s next feast day approached, Basilios' mother would not join in the festivity, as it was now a day of tragedy. However, she was persuaded to have a simple observance at home – with quiet prayers for Basilios' safekeeping. Meanwhile, as Basilios was fulfilling his tasks serving the emir, he was suddenly whisked up and away. The saint appeared to the terrified boy, blessed him, and set him down at his home back in Myra. Imagine the joy and wonderment when Basilios amazingly appeared before his parents, still holding the king's golden cup!

This man became the patron saint of children, and the patron saint of sailors, too. And as the years and centuries passed, he was revered in Christian countries all over the world, both Orthodox and Catholic. In the 11^th century his remains were moved from Myra, now called Demre, which was under Moslem rule, to a town in Italy called Bari, where he is venerated to this day. Nuns started to give poor children little gifts of food – oranges and nuts, mostly – on his feast day. And his cult spread right across Christendom.

You will notice that I haven’t said his name! Who knows who I have been talking about? Yes, St Nicholas, Bishop of Myra. And now, these days, transmogrified into Santa Claus.

It all happened, really, because of the Protestant reformation! No, seriously. Because if you were Protestant, you didn’t revere saints, so you couldn’t possibly have St Nicholas giving you oranges and nuts on his feast day! Moreover, Christmas observance was seen as inconsistent with Gospel worship. Here in England, with our gift for religious compromise, our folk traditions changed to include Father Christmas and yule logs and things, but in many Protestant countries, particularly the USA, it was considered “just another day”. But it seems that German colonists (probably not the Dutch, as they were hyper-Calvinist back then) brought the St Nicholas tradition to the USA, and gradually he became the “jolly elf” of the famous poem. And, of course, the illustrations for the Coca-Cola advertisements began to settle his image as the fat old man we know today. A far cry, really, from a young Bishop in ancient Turkey!

But what, you may ask, has this got to do with us? How does it affect us on this last day of the year? For me, it’s about legitimising Christmas. Every year, you hear people chuntering on about putting Christ back in Christmas – as if He had ever left it! And every year, the separation between the secular festival, encompassing Santa Claus and presents and greed, and the celebration of the Birth of Christ, seems to grow wider and wider. But does it? If we remember that Santa himself was one of Jesus’ most faithful disciples, doesn’t that make a difference?

Yes, Christmas is very commercialised. Yes, it’s been secularised. But in a way, that makes it better, as everybody can celebrate, whether or not they are Christian. But the roots of the secular festival are deeper in Christianity than we often realise. Next week, we will be celebrating the Epiphany, the coming of the wise men that Matthew talks about. The time when Christ was “manifest to the Gentiles”, as they say – in other words, it was made clear that Jesus was for the whole world, not just for the Jews. And we all know that today the wise still worship him. Even Santa Claus! Amen.