Diocesan News
Archbishop Neill's Christmas sermon
"THE GIFT THAT CHANGES RELATIONSHIPS"
Sermon by the Most Reverend Dr. John Neill, Archbishop of Dublin
Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin
Christmas Day 2004
Christmas and Christmas gifts go together. The worst poverty that any parent can face is not to be able to give their child a gift at Christmas. This is not mere materialism, it is something right at the heart of human nature. We might even say that it is a reflection of the divine spark in every human being, created in the image of God. We all too easily forget that the living God is the God of love ? or as it is richly expressed in one of the early Christian letters preserved in the New Testament - God is a God of ?goodness and loving kindness?. Listen to these words from the letter to Titus:
?When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared,
he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done,
but according to his mercy?? Titus 3:4,5a
At Christmas we glimpse something of that goodness and loving kindness reflected in the world around us ? in the people around us. But God?s goodness and loving-kindness is seen both in all its glory and all its simplicity in Jesus.
Sometimes at Christmas we receive generous gifts from the most unexpected quarters that embarrass us and we do not really know how to respond, without in some manner demeaning the gift that we have received. This may be because we feel under an obligation that we would rather avoid. We feel that we have not earned the gift. But gifts are not earned. A generous gift is received most graciously in humility.
It is the truly unearned gift that really has the power to change a relationship. Christmas is the unearned gift that changes relationships ? or rather the Jesus of Christmas is God?s gift that changes our relationship with God ? and indeed goes on to change all our human relationships.
It is almost strange the way in which for this last week or two of each year, we greet people that we usually hardly notice, we contact people whom we never see (and perhaps squabble with our nearest and dearest!). It is as if all human relationships are for a brief time held under scrutiny. To be really honest, our relationship with God is by some of us given a passing nod at Christmas even if hardly think about it at other times! But is this what we really want out of Christmas ? a sort of brief reversal of the rest of life so that we can then go on as if nothing had really happened?
The true joy of Christmas is realised only if we are prepared to allow Christmas to make a difference. It is actually all about the way in which a generous gift is received. Remember the gift:
?When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared,
he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done,
but according to his mercy??
This is the truly generous and unearned gift ? the gift of Jesus ? through which we are saved from the pointlessness and emptiness that is so much of mere existence, and given the opportunity of living a life that is utterly different attuned to God?s way of love, of joy, of peace. To receive God?s gift is to receive Jesus at the very centre of life. Yes this takes humility, and the realisation that God is calling us into a renewed relationship marked not by distance but by closeness, not be self-will, but by obedience, not by independence, but by taking our place in God?s purposes.
And yet what happens after Christmas? I am not referring so much to the kilos that have to be shed, or to the January sales, or even to the credit card bills that will come in a few weeks. What I am remembering is that thirty years ago when chaplain of a psychiatric unit, I noticed that January was the busiest month. A great deal of the admissions related to family pressures, breakdown in human relationships, to say nothing of the bleakness of the winter weather. It was more than post-Christmas blues, but there was something of that too. Christmas may have been enjoyed but nothing else had changed.
The celebration of Christmas is very shallow in meaning unless it really begins and strengthens within us a process of change that reaches into every aspect of life, but above all into human relationships where there is mistrust, antagonism and suspicion.
The fact that God took human nature in Jesus of Nazareth makes the Christian message very much a message about all human relationships ? and about the quality of life that others enjoy or indeed fail to enjoy. The creeping racism in Irish society is one of the most evil aspects of our national life today. The widening gap between rich and poor is a symptom of a disintegration of the very idea of community. These are challenges to the very core values of this nation and indeed of our Christian heritage. We need a national programme to combat racism, and this is perhaps an area where there could be real co-operation between the State and the Churches.
But how can we ourselves make a real difference through the experience and gift of Christmas? How can the gift that we have received, Jesus the Christ, truly change relationships?
- Christmas makes a difference if we begin to notice and really see those who should be close to us but whom we keep at a distance because of something that happened long ago.
- Christmas makes a difference if we begin to notice and really see those who are longing to be noticed and valued by us.
- Christmas makes a difference if we begin to notice and really see those of other cultures, other colours, other faiths living in our midst.
- Christmas makes a difference if we begin to notice and really see those whom everybody else takes for granted.
- Christmas makes a difference if we begin to notice and really see those who are hurting and feeling on the outside, and whom we can welcome in.
- Christmas makes a difference if we pause and look at our own lives and wonder whether we have allowed God?s gift to really change us.
- Christmas makes a difference when we begin to notice and really see Jesus calling us to a new relationship of love and trust with him.
Diocesan Communications Officer, Dublin & Glendalough
087 2356472
Contact Details
Lynn Glanville
[email protected]