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Midnight Hour

Possibly to be used in that crossover between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day:

when there is one foot in the day and one in the night
when one side faces the darkness and the other the light
when there is one moment in yesterday and another in tomorrow
in the crossover
is the birth place

when one foot is on this edge of the border and one in the other
when one side says ‘yes’ and the other ‘no’
when there is welcome on one hand and denial on the other
in no ones land
is the birth place

not in homes of the rich
or in corridors of power
not in banqueting halls of the wealthy
or in landmarks of affluence
but in gaps
in borderlands
in stables
as a displacee
is the birth place

when there is no longer time for past or future but only present
when there is no longer time for regrets or dreams but only waiting
when there is no longer time for Then but only Now
among us
within us
between us
today…
Christ is born

Chocolate Teapots (December 24/25th 2009) - Part 2

John 1:1-14

Behind the story comes John and his philosophical pictures. Poetry, which is the language of faith. It's as if all eternity becomes focused in one moment in time. Everything heavenly, which I suppose we coud picture existing outside time or within every time, get's tied down to one spot in time, something 4, 40 or 400 dimentional become 3 dimentional. 

But it is the earthiness of the passage that gets me. It's like 'How Clean is your House' backwards: it starts off all pristine and clean and perfect and celestial and the idea is to have it as chaotic as possible as if someone actually lives there. or suddenly there's a baby loose about the place and it all gets mucked up pretty quickly. Enfleshing something does that. Think of an artist who has this idea and then tries to turn it into an object. Its not going to happen in your front room that has to remain clean and tidy for all eventualities, but in the workshop where you are allowed and even expected to make a mess. This is incarnation. This is enfleshing. This is Word, idea, logos, becoming reality. Messy. Murky. Mucky. 

You can't get away with clean doctrine with this one. Someone has said John's Gospel starts with doctrine. Fair enough but it fairly quickly gets knocked about a bit and brought down to earth. I can understand earthy. I don't always get doctrine. But then, isn't that why the Almighty did birth in the first place?

Chocolate Teapots (December 24/25th 2009) - Part 1

This is in two parts this week

Luke 2:1-20

It's a great story but not one I'd go to the wall over the historical accuracy. It is just such a completely perfect God-picture. It oozes with image and meaning and faith. And it is stuffed full of one liners that we so casually forget and ignore: 'there was no place for them'; 'do not be afriad'; 'let us go now to Bethlehem'; 'they made known what had been told to them' to quote but a few. This is the way of faithfulness, of belief, not in historical accuracy but in meaning and what this story leads us to do and be: make room for the stranger, it's God!; fear not, just go!; go to the place at the heart of the story, God's there!; proclaim and make known, it's not your story to preserve!

Forgive us for preserving the victoriana of the nativity. But more than that, forgive us for leaving the incarnation out of Christmas when we keep mangers at the heart of things rather than the justice, the vulnerability, the fear and the heavenly risk this is, and all thes things are on God's part! God has let go. God who cradles life has let it go and set it, vulnerable and fragile, in the world to see what will happen to love.

Solstice Time

 

Well that we might light a light
for the night is almost at it’s longest
and the day but a fleeting memory

Well that we might light a light
for the winter solstice is upon us
and the darkness has stretched to it’s fullness

Well that we might light a light
for long shadows have silenced the land
as heaven sits on the brink of birth

the baby now stirring
the mother now quickening
the stable now welcoming
the world now waiting
the flesh now warming
and the dark now hesitating.

Well that we might light a light
for we stand against the darkness
knowing it has not got long to go

Copenhagen Petition

Avaaz.org have an online petition for Copenhagen. Already almost 13,500,000 people have signed. If you haven't already then go here to put the final pressure on our leaders to make a decent deal that is balanced to everyone.

Magnificat

I feel full of the good news
taking it’s shape within me

I feel God dance in me,
every step, a longing for life

God has looked upon me
and filled me with new life,
a blessing full of the most radiant light
I am the most fortunate person in heaven and earth

What God has done in me
will never be forgotten
the holy one
the creating one
has set my life on a new direction
so different from every other life in creation
and I will be their trust in the transforming one

God’s promise is restless within me
surging with expectation
labouring with heaven
and generation after generation will find their story
in mine

For this birthing will be God’s strength
here in me is the justice that will bring down the oppressor
that will laugh at the proud
and give the stolen kingdoms back to the poor
This birthing will bring together the hungry in celebration
round the banqueting tables of the rich
and leave the rich starved of their wealth

God has journeyed with landless people
and found in this birthing
where the longings of the ancients
have been heading
and will now be fulfilled

I am
Blessed by God
Blessed by God’s promise
Blessed by God’s promise broken open in me
in the screaming lungs of a child
born among us

Chocolate Teapots (December 20th 2009)

Luke 1:46-55

X-Factor has come and gone and everyone is fighting over who will be the Christmas number one. Last year we have three versions of Leonard Cohen's 'Alleluia'. That was a sensible choice. This year, who knows and I can't even remember the ones vying for the top spot. So shortlived!

Of course, the easy connection is with Mary's song. So long-lived. Why does a song of hope about what God is going to do becasue of incarnation, still make it high up there in the political top ten? It's been banned by governments, it's been used as the foundational document of Base Communities, it's been found on the lips of the poor for millenia. Even Mary wasn't the first to sing it. But it has been sung, and sung again and again and again. The Magnificat.

But what must it be like to live in it's echo? It's a song that never seems to be fulfilled. But people are no less scared to pick it up for that. It's not just aspirational. Surely not. Perhaps it is the song that the world sings deep down in the earth, in the flavelas, in the streets, in the rainforests and deserts, in the hurting oceans, in the ground, in the poor estates, in the fear-filled neighbourhoods, this is the world's song and we can't help pick it up and intuitively know its rythmn that beats out God's time and purpose.

I've always wondered...

...what kind of relationship Joseph had with his Mother-in-Law. Are there other relationships you've wondered about that the Good Book doesn't get round to exposing? Do tell.

We had a good Boys Bridage Carol Service last night and we've our own congregational carol service next Sunday. It's always a good service (so far). But I'm trying to find new ways of getting into the story. We'll have the traditional ways as well but a sideswipe at the story from another angle is always interesting so I'm handing over to you...

What interesting relationships could we do an exposé on? 

Or if that doesn't warm your stable, how about me starting the story and someone else continuing it, as if everyone has an object and they've got to get that object into the story.

Here's a list:

a mug
an iPod
a mobile phone
a stick of incense
a cabbage
a camera
a set of fairy lights
a candle
swimming goggles
an Abbotsford eco-bag

Now, if you can tell just a wee piece of the story and involve one of these objects then you are definitely going to heaven. It's the blogosphere version of I'm sorry I haven't a clue. Post them here and your version may be appearing at a carol service very near you (if you live close to Clydebank), or post them directly to me.

And the government shall be upon his shoulder

Based on our reading for Sunday (Isaiah 9:2-7). 

While the politicians talked and governments fought
a promise was spoken

While the planet grew tired and the people frightened
a child was named

While refugees wandered and trafficking became a business
a word was uttered

While right was not enough and might became an ethical option
a gift was announced

While poverty was rife and economy greedy
a light was revealed

While war became permanent and hunger a way of life
a son was given

and he shall be called:

companion of strangers
breaker of bread
crucified God
servant of peace

Most of the ideas and liturgical words are published in a free monthly mailing which anyone can subscribe to by emailing here.

Light

Quietly, the creeping of the light
conspires against the darkness
and with slow elegance
crushes the shadows
one by one.

And on the cusp of promise
the silence wilts with the burden of waiting
caught in the 'not yet' of incarnation.

It is a heavy silence
that bears the burden of war,
an exhausted planet,
a community that has lost its belonging.

But light cannot be caught by armies or by time
and in the first gasp of God,
it erupts and breaks free,
it's brightness cast across the universe,
wave on eternal wave,
never to be constrained,
and charging against the shadows
casts the darkness into the forgotten night.