Walk Away

Sermon for the Advent Carol Service, 2005 December 18, St Mary Magdalen, Sheet

[This talk followed a puzzling Christmas sketch]

Well, what was all that about? Bit of a weird sketch, don’t you think? What was that all about? That question features a lot in Christmas, doesn’t it? It’s a question you might ask after the family party when everyone has got a bit frayed around the edges, or the day after a work Christmas party where a bit too much booze brought simmering rivalries out into the open. It’s certainly a question you might ask in those dark January days when the Christmas tree gets cut up for recycling and the credit card bills roll in. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself – that’s very unfair. But none of those scenarios is more mysterious than the Christmas story itself. Let’s face it – what was all that about? Whenever we ask that question, it’s when we’re leaving the scene or when we have a moment soon afterwards to take stock.

And that question is not only for us, but has to be asked by the people in the story itself. If you read the Christmas story in the Bible in the books of Matthew and Luke, it’s remarkable that throughout the disjoint parts of the story that there’s a lot of walking away going on. You really can’t make them stay put. It’s like trying to gather children together for a group photograph. There’s always someone, somewhere, walking away from the scene. Gabriel visited Mary to tell her that she will be the mother of Jesus, and we read in the Bible "Then the angel left her". Mary visited her cousin Elizabeth, they shared in each others’ joy, and then Mary left to return home. The shepherds saw wonderful things and then left the manger to return to their sheep, glorifying and praising God for all that they had seen. The wise men, warned in a dream not to go to Herod, left the scene and returned to their country by another route. And then Mary and Joseph and Jesus himself had to escape to Egypt, and then eventually return to Israel. Of course, we know all these departures had to happen but it’s really quite amazing that the Gospel writers mention it specifically every time. As if it give us spaces in the story, to imagine every one of those people wondering "What was all that about?" as they walk away, and to ask the same question ourselves..

I believe these words about walking away go deeper than that. They are prophetic. They are God calling us to walk away. Which might contradict what we think we want to do. Because we do want to stay put. There are many reasons not to walk away – locks on the stable door if you like. Let me suggest three things that might act as those locks.

The first is that we live in an age when we want answers. We want to know what is going on and why. Well, maybe it’s always been true, perhaps it’s human nature. I can’t help feeling that if the events in that stable had taken place tonight, then by tomorrow morning there would have been that blue and white tape saying "Police – Do not cross" and hordes of forensic scientists would be on the scene looking for evidence of what really happened. For many people it wouldn’t be enough to just go back to the fields praising God, or like Mary ponder these things in our hearts. We want to know what happened. We want a public enquiry. We want – and here’s a favourite word – "closure". Last week a court in Australia reached a verdict and found a man guilty of murdering Peter Falconio. For his family this was obviously a great step forward but it’s not enough. They will not have closure unless and until Peter’s body is found. This anguish must have been repeated for many victims of the tsunami. And so on. We want to draw a line. We want closure.

It would be nice to have closure in this mysterious story of Jesus. To get to the bottom of it and understand what it was all about. Well, that is certainly what the authorities wanted when Jesus became too much of a threat. They wanted closure literally – sealing his dead body in a tomb. Sorted. Done and dusted. No more trouble from him or his followers! But it was not to be. It’s the same in the Christmas story, any attempt to pin it all down is doomed to failure. We are not allowed to stick around until it’s all sorted out. We have to walk away and keep asking that question "What was all that about?"

Here’s a second lock on the stable door: The Nativity scene is wonderful, magical, captivating. See our Nativity play this morning, or look in the Petersfield Post at the lovely pictures of children acting out the story. The tableau, the set piece. Don’t you just want to capture it on film, or bottle it – yes, that’s it! bottle the Nativity? As a child I certainly wanted to do that, to capture the magic of Christmas.

When Jesus was a man he took his friends up a mountain and they had the most wonderful enchanting experience, meeting Moses and Elijah. What did they want to do? They wanted to put it in a bottle, in fact to put up tents and stay there. But no, that was not where their destiny lay. They had to come down the mountain, there was work to be done, and what happened to them on the mountain didn’t really mean anything until they came down and Jesus suffered. It’s the same for us with the Nativity scene – we have to come away from it before it can make any sense.

And a third lock – a third reason why we want to stick around. We may feel we have an important part to play and this mustn’t be upset. It does matter, the part we play in the story, the part we play in the community. We don’t want our children to be icicles – or lobsters, for that matter. Neither do we want to be insignificant. In a closed community we can be important, and that suits us.

But that is not God’s way. In fact the Nativity is the moment in history when God made it clear that that was not his way. A big theme running through the Old Testament is that of the holy city, Jerusalem, and the big vision even for the future is of a shining edifice with people flocking to the city. An important place, capital of an empire if you like. But the birth of Jesus brought something new, and it starts with all these people who have to walk away. Go out into the world, go and spread God’s love abroad. Who is our role model in the Christmas story? Herod sitting in his palace, worrying about the erosion of his status, or the wandering wise men, following the star? No prizes for that one!

So yes, God is calling us to unlock the stable door, to walk away. And that means going back to whatever we were doing before. And yet nothing will ever be the same again. It is transformed. In the same way that Mary treasured the events and pondered them in her heart, we need to take the inspiration with us wherever we go. Happily the Holy Spirit is not a heavy load to carry; she is wind and wild fire.

But we do come back. We come back every year to Christmas, or every week to worship in church. And God gives us this gift of the cycle of the years and the seasons, months and weeks so that we can return, but we are not returning to hear the same old story. To hear a new story every time and to take the new story away with us. This is a hard but joyful and free life God desires us to have.

So, baby Jesus is in the manger not for us to make sense of everything and sort it all out, not to give us a comfortable club or headquarters to hang out in, and not to give us importance and status to sit on. Instead, and very strangely,

then the more those things we were not looking for do appear in unexpected ways.

This is called seeking the kingdom of God. Like the shepherds and wise men and every worshipper at the manger we will find the first hint of the kingdom of God here but – look, it went that way, and that way. Walk out of here – that’s where the kingdom is being built. Oh, but do have a mince pie first!