Vicar’s sermon. Whorlton Carol service

The gas man had come. He wasn’t overly happy. Head office had cancelled a visit to St Thomas Stanhope and slotted in St Mary’s Barnard Castle: the paperwork hadn’t caught up with the change and his SatNav had been fed the wrong post code (by him we should add, not head office). Anyhow, the Gas Man had come from Barnsley to Barnard Castle via Stanhope. He was running late for his next appointment in Whitley Bay and set to work changing the metre in the boiler room beneath the church.
Ana and I shifted chairs. There isn’t a module for this at theological college but it is a major part of parish life. A series of visitors came into church to stand, look and leave. Two gents from Stockton wanted to talk. ‘Where’s that accent from?’ said the one. Whilst chairs were shifted Ana explained and the conversation began to take in the merits or otherwise of the current Russian President.
‘I don’t believe in Him’ said the one gentleman ‘but have a word with Him upstairs and tell Him to come and sort the world out. It’s not us ordinary folk who are the problem but them that make the rules.’
What a thing to say. So much theology in just 2 sentences. Of course, it wasn’t the time or the place to have a humdinger of an argument. Our visitors headed off to mooch around town. The gas man appeared from the boiler room down below, the meter had been reconnected and boilers fired up: time to go home, time for lunch.
‘Tell Him to come and sort the world out.’ I do…. But usually invite people who tell me to pray to say their own prayers too. Do you pray for a different world? It really does need sorting doesn’t it? A couple who had come into church earlier had travelled from Woodhouse Close in Bishop Auckland and wanted to pop in to thank St Mary’s for donations to the FoodBank there. ‘We used to have just a shelf of goods at the back of church to give to people who were struggling’ they said, ‘but we’ve had to add an extension to the building to meet the needs around us.’ Wherever we look things seem tough and it will be a struggle to change them.
And then we look beyond our shores. So much is broken. So many people live in intolerable conditions. Another winter, another year of war in Ukraine. Utter desolation in Gaza. Anti-Semitism on the rise, terrorism, violence against women and girls (1 in 8 women a victim in this country let alone the use of rape as a tool of war in Sudan).
‘Tell Him to come and sort the world out.’ Isn’t that Christmas? Isn’t that what Christmas does? Isn’t Christmas the answer to our prayers: He comes. But His method of sorting things out is not ours. We think we want heads cracked, lightning flashes to zap the wicked, a magic wand to transport us from dismal black and white to wonderful Technicolour. The old gods would have obliged: Mars (the bringer of war) would lay waste to those who opposed him, Thor would swing his hammer. Fine, I suppose, if you worship power and violence. But a God of Love doesn’t work this way, can’t work this way for to do so would be against His nature.
Instead His coming is an invitation. There is no compulsion. The answer to a broken world, the solution for broken people, lies in the manger. God’s presence, hidden from most people but revealed to a few.
Our Christmas cards put Him centre stage, but pull back the lens and the manger in the stable disappears amidst the busyness of the village, the concerns of a nation ruled from Rome and the upheavals of the Empire as the Emperor does his thing and tells everyone to shift for his census. In this worldwide context the Christ child’s presence, God’s coming, is hidden like the leaven in the lump. He is unseen like the salt of the earth or like a seed sown in a field. He is as small as a mustard seed of faith, as insignificant as five loaves and two fishes: and yet…and yet, like a light set on a bushel, he transforms everything around Him.
‘It’s not us that are the problem but them that make the rules.’ No. That’s not true. Those with power will have to account for their use of it but we are all ‘the problem’. ‘The problem’ lies within us. ‘The problem’ is the human heart. ‘The problem’ is Sin, a failure or a refusal to recognise our Creator and, instead, to place ourselves at the centre of the world. We need putting right. He comes to save the world. He comes to save us. He comes to save you. He comes to mend and heal and shape and change us so that we can become more like Him.
‘To as many as received Him he gave power to become children of God’ – that’s what the Christmas gospel says – and the world cannot but change as more of us make room for Him in our lives.
‘Ask him to come and sort the world out’ Not a bad prayer. But not enough, for before you pray it, ask Him to change you.