Lydford Parish and Community Magazine
December 2012
Maybe Bethlehem was in a ‘deep and dreamless sleep’ when the carol’s original writer, Revd Phillips Brooks, visited there in 1865. But it is hard to imagine that was the case two thousand years previously, when the child his carol celebrates was born. Then, as now, Bethlehem was in occupied territory, with Roman forces terrorising the Israelites into submission and exploiting the land and the people for revenue. As Stephen Sizer writes, ‘It was the despised Roman taxation system which brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem on that first Christmas night. The census declared by Caesar Augustus was intended to identify the value of his assets in Palestine and increase the revenue for his empire.’ [2]
So on the night when the angels kept ‘their watch of wondering love’, ‘peace to men on earth’ would have seemed a long way off for Bethlehem’s occupants. In the light of this, it seems apposite to begin Advent with the words of the adult Jesus standing beneath the Jerusalem Temple and predicting its fall: ‘When you hear of wars and rumours of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come...’ (Mark 13.1-8). Those words do carry credibility, for they speak directly to a real situation, then and now. Furthermore they offer comfort to a people troubled by conflict and violence, in the promise of an end to all their suffering, the intimation of a new dawn.
Of course, you may be as unconvinced by those words as by the words of Brooks’ carol. For, almost 2,000 years after the fall of the Jerusalem Temple, the lauded ‘end’ seems no nearer. And there seems little comfort in Jesus’ words for the present occupants of the Israeli-occupied territories. But note carefully what Jesus is doing. In contrast to the politicians of his - and every - day, he is deliberately avoiding offering a short-term (and inevitably violent) ‘solution’ to the problems of his place and time. Jesus invites us to take our politics into a whole new arena, where change comes slowly, almost imperceptibly, but as definitely as comes a new-born child. ‘Nation will rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,’ he said. ‘There will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.’
Our troubled land, our aching world, is pregnant, Jesus says. Pregnant and expectant of the birth of a new kingdom in which war and its consequences (famines, disease) will be no more. He suggests to his followers that it is our task to nurture this new kingdom into being. We are to occupy the tension between the present, troubled, reality, and the new, transformed, world which he is bringing into being - through the way we live our lives.
To become midwives to this new creation we first have to recognise, repent of, and leave behind our present idolatries: our conviction that lasting political change can come through force, and that all we need to establish peace is a hero who will come to save us. The theologian Walter Wink, who died earlier this year, termed this obsession of ours the myth of redemptive violence - the idea that a final violent act can save the world for us. This myth permeates popular culture from James Bond to Tom and Jerry. Wink says that our modern world believes this myth more than any other. He says that ‘Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world.’ Our perpetration of this myth keeps our world spinning in a cycle of endless violence, of which Israel-Palestine is just one example. We can find many other examples in our own communities, in our own lives.
The myth of redemptive violence affects us all. But many are uncomfortable with it, many question it. Think of the many ex-servicemen deeply troubled by their memories of killing another human being. Picture, at the war memorial on Remembrance Sunday, the ex-serviceman standing there out of duty and respect but feeling deeply torn inside, burdened with unresolved guilt, recalling the consequences of their actions: ‘The tears in the eyes of veterans during the annual two minutes’ silence may not be for those whose names are etched on the memorial, but for those whose names they never knew’ (Ted Harrison) [3]. We herald such people as our heroes, but their hearts cry for a different and more substantial sort of atonement altogether.
Jesus challenged his followers to be very careful that they didn't get led astray by people who speak the language of heroism (‘saying ‘I am the one!’’), and to step back from the state of anxiety such language causes. The violent crises these ‘heroic’ leaders create will not redeem the world. They are in no way acts of God. Jesus wants his disciples to tread carefully, to dissociate ourselves from the myth of redemptive violence. The great questions of our day are easily answered by people championing violent means. What do we do about youth disorder? Lock them up and throw away the key; Terrorism? Bomb their countries; Asylum-seekers? Travellers? Move them on, send them away. But Jesus says, ‘beware that no one leads you astray’. He offers a different kind of moral leadership altogether.
Jesus urges us to disbelieve all rapid and dramatic solutions to the problems of the world. He urges us to embrace the good news that the kingdom of God will come - but will come slowly and almost unnoticed. And he invites us to contribute to its coming, for the kingdom of God will emerge through tiny acts of grace and love, through modest lives lived faithfully; it will develop by means of a community of faith whose members encourage and provoke each other to love and good deeds, it will grow each time we do something which demonstrates our love for enemies, each time we offer prayers for those who persecute. Through the gentle witness of Jesus’ followers the new kingdom will come, slowly and almost silently, to all nations.
The Christian watches for signs of God's kingdom emerging as we try to engage graciously with the hard questions of our time. The Christian is deeply privileged to be not only present at the birth of this new age when it comes, but to be actively involved in its gestation. Mary’s pregnancy and Jesus’ birth presage all this - and so this Christmas, will you, like that young mother, keep all these things and ponder them in your heart?
John Davies
In homage to the late Walter Wink, author of Engaging the Powers; Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination.
Notes
[1] Simon Leah, O little Town of Bethlehem, quoted in Sizer, below.
[2] Stephen Sizer, The dark side of Christmas
[3] Ted Harrison, Whom and what are we remembering? Church Times, 9 November 2012
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