Christmas DATE 25 th December 2016 (Year A) PREACHER The Revd Gill Rookyard In the name of the Christ, Saviour of the world. Amen Nativity Plays are often the epitome of Christmas. Full of excitement and preparation. Elaborate sets, costumes and drama. And, invariably, chaos and disaster. Youtube with the little girl angel shouting her part Nothing ever goes to plan when you combine children, a script and possibly animals with a serious religious story. In fact, it s often doomed for disaster. Yet we love to rehearse the nativity. We warm to our children s attempts to unfold a 2000 year old story for us. We set up our nativity sets at home and at Church. And we check out the stunning stable and manger displays in the shops we visit.
It doesn t really matter how well we do the nativity. Or even how accurate it is. The carols, the imagery and the memories we have tied to the Christmas story all warm our hearts. They are precious to us even when the reality is perhaps less than perfect. And for those of us most closely connected to the faith story behind all of this well - we are drawn each time into the remarkable story of God s incarnation; God s coming to earth as one of us to show us how to love and how to live. Most of us have heard the Christmas story more times than we could number. We know its details off by heart. We have heard many, many sermons, read many reflections, attended many studies - all looking at what all of this means for those who see in this infant, Emmanuel the Saviour of the World. Which makes what I am about to share with you somewhat risky. It flies in the face of those long held and warm associations with the nativity that we all share, as well as many centuries of religious art and writing. Not to mention more contemporary movies and songs about that first Christmas. But before I do that, let s remind ourselves of what tradition has taught us [Italics on PP 3 slides] Its census time, so Joseph takes Mary to Bethlehem. Upon arriving, they discover there is no room for them in the inn. They retreat to the stable where, in the presence of the animals, Mary gives birth to a son, and names him Jesus. The child is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in the manger. Angels announce his birth to shepherds, who come to see for themselves.
A bright star leads Magi from the east to his place of birth, and they pay him homage with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The insight we re about to uncover all hinges on the place where Jesus was born, and subsequently who was (and wasn t) around. It may seem like a minor detail, but it has profound implications for how we understand, and appreciate, the beautiful story of Christmas. To get there we need to do two things: We need to learn a new Greek word, and we need to challenge the assumptions we hold around this story. Let s start by learning a word - kataluma. PP Kataluma is the spare or upper room in a private house [ ] where travellers received hospitality and where no payment was expected. A private lodging which is distinct from a public inn (which, by the way, has its own Greek word). Then we need to remove our assumptions about how livestock is managed. You know - where they are kept in a separate enclosure as far away from the house as possible. Unless you re a crazy cow-loving person that is. When we add these together we discover that in biblical times things were significantly different. Private homes were built not just for their human occupants and visiting guests, but also for their livestock. Most families would live in a single-room house, with a lower compartment for animals to be brought in at night, and a kataluma for visitors which was either a room at the back, or space on the roof. The family living area would usually have hollows in the ground, filled with straw, right in the living area, where the animals would feed. The English word here is manger.
It may have looked something like this So the kataluma is where the guests would stay when they were visiting your home. And the animals were stabled in the same dwelling where you could keep an eye on them. Not in some cattle shed or stable far from the house. So Let s get back to the Nativity story In verse 7 of Luke s account of the nativity we read: PP 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the [kataluma]. As we ve discovered, kataluma is the spare or upper room in a private house. Disappointingly, most English versions of the NT have mistranslated this as inn. But it wasn t an inn that had no room. It was the kataluma, the guest room in the private family home belonging to one of Joseph s relatives. Most likely the place was already full to the brim with other family members who d come to Bethlehem for the census and who had arrived before Mary and Joseph did. There was no room in the guest room for these latecomers from Nazareth.
And so, given that the kataluma is already occupied, Joseph and Mary must squeeze in with the family itself, in the main room of the house. And it s there that Mary gives birth. In what was most no doubt an over-crowded and full-to-capacity family living space. Personally, I can think of nothing worse!! And the most natural place to lay the baby is in one of the straw-filled depressions one of the mangers - at the lower end of the house where the animals are fed. It s a very different nativity scene than what we are used to. It flies in the face of centuries of art and sermonising. But what is more astounding is that what I have shared with you is by no means a new discovery. William Thomson, a Presbyterian missionary to Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, wrote in 1857: It is my impression that the birth actually took place in an ordinary house of some common peasant, and that the baby was laid in one of the mangers, such as are still found in the dwellings of farmers in this region. And Kenneth Bailey (the most influential Biblical scholar in this regard) comments that the idea that they were in a stable, away from others, alone and outcast, is grammatically and culturally implausible. In fact, it is hard to be alone at all in such contexts. Bailey amusingly cites an early researcher: Anyone who has lodged with Palestinian peasants knows that notwithstanding their hospitality the lack of privacy is unspeakably painful. One cannot have a room to oneself, and one is never alone by day or by night. I myself often fled into the open country simply in order to be able to think. What all this leads to is a very different image of the holy family and their first Christmas. In the real Christmas story, Jesus is not sad and lonely, some distance away in the stable, needing our sympathy. He is in the midst of the family, and all the visiting relations, right in the thick of it and demanding our attention.
I can see you re asking yourself with some trepidation what does this mean then when we sing with gusto of the draughty stable with an open door, or the lowly cattle shed? And what about our church and home and shopping centre nativity stable scenes with only the animals as witnesses to the birth of the Christ-Child.? Does this really debunk or ruin Christmas for us, or does it offer us a fresh perspective? My hope is that it is the latter, for there are at least three gifts in this fresh perspective offered to us by scholars who look beyond assumed traditions and take the Biblical narrative seriously. 1. Firstly, we re invited the challenge of constantly learning and re-evaluating our assumptions; to have a flexible faith; to look beyond not just the hallmark images on our Christmas cards, but to the whole gambit of what is supposedly Christian, and see it with new eyes and an open heart. 2. Secondly, and more directly related to the Christmas we celebrate we re invited to hear a whole new and powerful message about the way God works in the lives of ordinary women and men. God meets us as we are, where we are, in the hurly-burly of whatever our lives look like. Nothing is off-limits, nothing is hidden, nothing is too boring or ordinary for our God. As we are is as he loves us. So let s be energised this Christmas with a whole new take on God s engagement with the world at this sacred moment. For it s in the midst of our everyday that God is revealed and comes to redeem the whole of our lives. As we heard from the letter to Titus It is he who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify for himself a people of his own who are zealous for good deeds. Christmas is far more than a feel-good, warm n cosy holiday. It s the fulfilment of the rubber-hitting-the-road promise of redemption. 3. Thirdly, and most importantly, let s hear what is unchanged. Jesus is placed in a manger. Not in a luxurious palace in a crib draped in soft linens, but right there in the lowliest of homes with very ordinary people. It s there that the Divine plan unfolds. It s there where the Christ was discovered and it s there (in our homes and every day places) that the risen Christ will also transform and shape us.
Because after all, he is the Child who was born to save us, the child whose manger always lay in the shadow of the cross. The child who came to bring light to the world, and hope to humankind. After all, the Christmas manger means nothing without the Easter Cross. PP And if you re still not convinced about house vs stable, here s one final thought - The problem with the stable is that it distances Jesus from the rest of us. It puts even his birth in a unique setting, in some ways as remote from life as if he had been born in Caesar s Palace. But the message of the incarnation is that Jesus is one of us. He came to be what we are, and it fits well with that theology that his birth in fact took place in a normal, crowded, warm, welcoming Palestinian home, just like any other Jewish boy of his time. This Christmas, whatever we re doing and whomever we re sharing it with, may we each find Christ in the heart of our homes. Not leave him forgotten in the draughty stable or the cutesy nativity scene. For while there is much I don t know and understand, one thing I am certain of is this Christ is here. He is here as we gather; he is here as we open our gifts; he is here as we share hospitality; he is here as we remember loved ones who have died; he is here in the frenzy of family gatherings; and he is here in the solitude of a quiet home. He is here he is with us he is the Christ and he is born to be our Saviour. May his blessing rest upon us, this Christmas, and all the days of our life. Amen