Homily for Christmas 2010

In recent times I have heard it said that to believe in God is to believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden. So Christmas is but a fairy tale that warms the hearts of adults as they play the Santa game with their children.

Could you humour me if I share with you some cappuccino theology! Some things I have reflected on while having a coffee down town at times! In the back of our minds we carry an unspoken image of what Christianity is all about. It often goes something like this. A long time ago God in heaven decided to create the universe. Maybe God was feeling lonely and wanted to share his love. On the earth he put human beings and all the things they would need to live a full and happy life. But they stuffed it up by disobeying God. What could God do? He tried to patch things up by sending prophets and holy people to ask people to change their disobedient ways. But to no avail. In the end God decided to send his own Son to show once and for all how much God loved them by dying on the cross and rising again. By his death we are saved and at Christmas we welcome that Saviour. That is one image we have.

There is also another not so common way of telling the story. This one reflects John's Gospel which begins, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." In this version of the story it was always God's intention that the Incarnation take place irrespective of the goodness or sinfulness of God's creatures. The Incarnation was not just an after thought or a band aid to fix a broken creation. Because God is not just up there and creation down here. We are not pantheists believing God is identified with creation. No, God remains utterly transcendent. God is utterly other than a creature. Precisely because of this difference God can be intimately involved in all of creation without disturbing it. God does not need to come down out of the sky because God has always been here. God never comes from the outside because God is already on the inside. We cannot say God is over there and we are over here at all. God is not just another being like us who lives in space and time. God is always loving and sustaining in existence what God has made. It just so happens that human beings have sinned and rejected the light as John's Gospel says. Sin makes it harder to see the truth. And the truth for a believer is as clear as the birth of a child into a family.

We don't believe in fairies at the bottom of the garden. Nor do we believe in the fairy tales told by our society and much of the media that happiness is to be found in the selfish pursuit of my pleasure. We do believe in a very real child, born in a very real place, at a very real time in the long evolution of our world. A child moreover, who is subject to all the same limitations of ourselves and our relationships. The Christmas story is fundamentally about love. It is about God being intimately, lovingly, present to us always and forever.

In a message over the death of dozens of asylum seekers off Christmas Island, Archbishop Antonio Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers in the Vatican, sent a letter to the Australian bishops, in which he said, "With deep sadness I learned the news of the tragic shipwreck, on the morning of December 15, of the boat carrying the hopes of dozens of brothers and sisters seeking asylum, tragically sunk on the rocks of Christmas Island."

"I assure you of my prayers for these souls lost at sea and for the survivors. In the meantime, I encourage you to keep on with your generous and passionate work in favour of migrants and asylum seekers. You may always rely on my support and esteem." What is Christmas on Christmas Island like? God is born in our midst not as a powerful figure on the world stage. But as fragile as a child. As vulnerable as any refugee on the high seas. That helplessness brings out the best in us as we saw the residents and naval personnel of Christmas Island trying to rescue the refugees. We all were once helpless children. Which is perhaps why we try to reach out to family and neighbour at Christmas.

The mystery of God and of life is well captured in the poem called "Five Days Old" I have quoted a couple of times before from Australian Catholic, Francis Webb. He is reflecting on the birth of his own child after the nurse placed the newly born child in his arms. He connects that mystery with that of Christmas when he says,

"Christmas is in the air.
You are given into my hands
Out of the quietest, loneliest lands.
My trembling is all my prayer.
To blown straw was given
All the fullness of Heaven......

In the sleeping, weeping weather
We shall all kneel down together."

From Francis Webb, "Five Days Old" (For Christopher John), in "Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry," ed Les Murray, 1986.

Fr Graham