12.12.2016
Joyful Celebration at International Carol Service in St George and St Thomas’s
Continuity and diversity were celebrated at the annual carol service for the international community and the parish in St George and St Thomas’s Church, Cathal Brugha Street, yesterday (Sunday December 11). The service was led by the Rector and Chaplain to the International Community, the Revd Obinna Ulogwara, and Archbishop Michael Jackson delivered his Christmas message to the international community.
The service featured wonderful music from the Zamar Ecumenical Choir, Discovery Gospel Choir and St George’s Brass Band and the lessons were read in Irish, French, Swahili, Igbo, Hungarian, Malayalam/Hindi, Japanese, Filipino and English.
In his sermon, Archbishop Jackson focused on Light and Darkness and their particular resonance at Christmas. “From his earliest days, therefore, Jesus Christ is at the heart of light and darkness. He is challenging the world to follow the light and to be led in the light. The simple shepherds follow the light and the glory of God and they find faith. The Eastern intellectuals follow the light and they find a new type of king. The old guard of religion and politics simply bide their time to have him nailed to a tree – and the world goes dark,” the Archbishop said.
He spoke of convention – what we have become used to – and tradition – the heartbeat of our identity. He suggested that in the stable in Bethlehem we met a traditional homeless family in Mary, Joseph and Jesus. However, he said they were also a radical family. “At the heart of every Christmas Card lies a radical tradition: God is doing new things; God is changing perceptions and building new communities at Christmas not of human stock, not of the physical desire of a human father, but of God. (St John 1.13),” he said.
The Archbishop continued: “And such people, such communities do not only reside on Christmas Cards. Dublin and Ireland has more families who are without homes, individuals who have nowhere to sleep, refugees waiting and needing to find security and new life than we ever expected, anticipated or envisaged. The homeless family, the refugee family, the rejected family and the new family, in so many new forms and manifestations, are part of the weave of life in Ireland today. These families are members of our communities and contributors to our identity as a people. They are children of God. It is our calling to bring them to baptism and to community and to Christ”.
[The text of the Archbishop’s sermon is below.]
Bringing the service to a close the Rector paid tribute to the musicians who had brought such life to the service. St George’s Brass Band is 80 years old this year and he said they were an inspiration to all who followed them to “keep going”. He thanked them also for their generous support of the parish. St George’s Brass Band, Discovery Gospel Choir and Zamar Ecumenical Choir all meet weekly in St George’s and St Thomas’s. They are all Christians but from different traditions and the Rector said they showed what could be achieved when everyone works together to worship God.
Photo captions:
Archbishop Michael Jackson, the Revd Obinna Ulogwara and his wife Chika with:
Top – St George’s Brass Band.
Middle – Zamar Ecumenical Choir.
Bottom – Discovery Gospel Choir (below).
CHRISTMAS SERMON 2016
St George and St Thomas, Advent 3, December 11th 2016
St John 1.9: The true light which gives light to everyone was even then coming into the world …
LIGHT AND DARKNESS
It is hardly surprizing that Christianity should use the language of darkness and of light and offer help to people to move between both of them. One of the times when this is at its clearest is at Christmas. It is particularly clear to us because at the time of year when we mark Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere, late December and in mid–winter, there is the least amount of natural light. The interplay of light and shade, darkness and glow at this time of year gives a whole new range of meaning to colour itself, if we have the patience to stick with it and enter into the relationship of colours themselves with light and darkness. Colours, of course, change. The cycle of the year gives us a chance to observe these changes in colours and to marvel at them. Light is also used in a wide range of meanings. We hear of the light shining on a situation where things are not going too well; we think of someone shedding light on a problem that seems to be beyond everyone who has been living inside the difficulty for far too long to be able to see any creative way forward. St John’s Gospel opens with a very clear and strong echo of creation and the equally strong belief that The Word of God was present at the creation and involved in the work of creation itself. It is at this point that we first hear of light: In him was life, and that light shines in the light of humankind (St John 1.4) The Gospel writer goes on confidently to assert that: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never mastered it. (St John 1.5) This particular light means business! This is the connection which matters most to St John. This is the connection the world, as he understands it, has been waiting for. This is the connection that protects the world from futility. This is the world for which Jesus shows his love in St John 17. 15: I do not pray you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. This is what keeps us hoping and hopeful at Christmas. This is why happiness that is immaterial is every bit as important as happiness that is material. This is what connects creation and conscience; and motivates people the world over to do acts of wonder and of mercy for their neighbours, their friends and their enemies. From his full store we have all received grace upon grace. (St John 1.16) These are the gifts of light that God gives us in Advent and at Christmastime.
THE BIRTH OF JESUS
Alongside the account of the coming of Christ in St John’s Gospel, there are the warmer and more human accounts of the birth of Jesus in St Matthew and St Luke. Light is present in both of these wonderful stories too – and in the varied and subtle ways we see further worked through in the Gospel of John. There are the shepherds in the fields by night tending their sheep; they are surrounded by the glory, the light, of the Lord. They too take up the theme of glory because, after they go to Bethlehem to see with their own eyes what the Lord had told them, they return to their fields glorifying and praising God for what they have heard and seen. (St Luke 2.20) The Wise from the East followed a light, a star into a world of political and religious intrigue and darkness in Jerusalem. St Matthew tells this story well. The Wise, as intellectuals and diplomats, courteously present themselves at the court of Herod in Jerusalem, telling him in total innocence: We observed the rising of his star, and we have come to pay him homage. (St Matthew 2.2) They, however, have a different and an inner light. After following the star to Bethlehem, an inner light dawns on them and they Wisely decide to go home by another route and to sidestep King Herod and the Jerusalem Court and Temple. From his earliest days, therefore, Jesus Christ is at the heart of light and darkness. He is challenging the world to follow the light and to be led in the light. The simple shepherds follow the light and the glory of God and they find faith. The Eastern intellectuals follow the light and they find a new type of king. The old guard of religion and politics simply bide their time to have him nailed to a tree – and the world goes dark.
THE CHALLENGE OF JESUS
How is it that Jesus is able to do this? It all happens right from the beginning of his life on earth and the prophets have been predicting it for centuries. It is part of what the Gospel writers want us to know about him. It is also the consistent thread and flowing river of his being The Son of God and The Son of Man. It is for reasons such as these that the life of Jesus Christ on earth unfolds and discloses in the ways that it does throughout his earthly life. Within the legally and ritually appointed time, Jesus will have been brought by his parents Mary and Joseph to The Temple to be presented and circumcized He stands foursquare within his tradition. He will accept and rejoice in the name Rabbi/Teacher even beyond the grave when he and Mary Magdalene meet in the garden. Every firstborn male shall be deemed to belong to the Lord. (St Luke 2.23) To my mind this sesne of tradition and innovation, of knowing who you are, where you come from and where you are going, is part of the continuing delight of Christmas and one that we could do well to explore a little more and a little more energetically. This brings us to the heart of who Jesus is and why people in their millions still follow Jesus. The widening chasm within our church between an understanding of contemporary self and a grasp of inherited faithfulness is something deeply disturbing. We have insufficiently addressed this break–up and so each aspect can easily be played off against one another in such a way as to erode spiritual confidence and devastate the hard–earned capacity that Christianity has long had to speak into the public realm. Many people rightly speak of Jesus Christ as radical. This is correct in that Jesus went to the roots of faith in God for the whole of humanity and for the whole of creation and he could do so because he was God. Just for a few moments I want us to look at it in this way: the relationship between the traditional and the conventional and what this might teach us in these final few days before Christmas.
TRADITION AND CONVENTION
Tradition and Christmas go together in the same way as turkey and stuffing or carrot and parsnip. In many ways we have allowed the conventional to take over from the traditional in our dynamic understanding of Christmas and the gift of salvation that Christmas offers to all. And so the traditional has become the predictable. Many families worldwide seek to come together or make special efforts to keep contact at Christmas. It is a lot easier than it used to be in Ireland in the older days when excited grandchildren were summoned to the one phone in the house to talk to granny and tell her ‘what they got for Christmas.’ At the same time as the tradition was being built up in the Little Town of Bethlehem, traditions were being formed and conventions were being changed. The convention is by and large what we have become used to, comfortable with; the tradition is the powerhouse that is the heartbeat of our identity; it is tradition that changes things from the roots. And so, perhaps to our surprise, we find that the tradition is, in and of itself, radical. This means that you and I need to know what we are talking about and we need to be able to give an account of our faith to any who decide to come and see for themsleves if we are to go to the roots and bring them to the roots.
In the Stable in Bethlehem we find ourselves meeting a traditional homeless family in Mary, Joseph and Jesus. In The Holy Family we find ourselves meeting a traditional refugee family fleeing hastily from the double tyranny of religion and politics as so astutely spotted by The Wise from the East. The Gospel of John introduces us to a Son of God who is rejected by his traditional family: He came to his own, and his own people would not accept him. (St John 1.11) So he created a new and radical family: But to all who did accept him, to those who put their trust in him, he gave the right to become children of God. (St John 1.12) And this new and radical family is now the tradtional and frequently too conventional church of whom we are part and to whom we belong. At the heart of every Christmas Card lies a radical tradition: God is doing new things; God is changing perceptions and building new communities at Christmas not of human stock, not of the physical desire of a human father, but of God. (St John 1.13)
CHRISTMAS CARDS AND DAILY LIFE
And such people, such communities do not only reside on Christmas Cards. Dublin and Ireland has more families who are without homes, individuals who have nowhere to sleep, refugees waiting and needing to find security and new life than we ever expected, anticipated or envisaged. The homeless family, the refugee family, the rejected family and the new family, in so many new forms and manifestations, are part of the weave of life in Ireland today. These families are members of our communities and contributors to our identity as a people. They are children of God. It is our calling to bring them to baptism and to community and to Christ.
St Mark is also traditional. His Gospel tells us nothing of the birth of Jesus or the coming of the Christ. It begins simply and starkly like this: The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God. (St Mark 1.1) This is where we too are called to begin our tradition, our discipleship and our service every day of the week and every week of the year. St Mark invites us to start afresh with the seeds of faith, the hope of salvation and the love of neighbour.
St Mark 1.3: A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord; clear a straight path for him.