Spreading hope

Hogmanay is filled with reflection
with nostalgic delights and longings
with friends old and new
giving thanks
noticing growth
and acknowledging loss
all with one common theme
- hope for the future.
Causing me to ponder
the privileged life I inhabit
where all of my friends
and contacts
near and far
can enter a new year
buoyed up with optimism
however fragile
and with the confidence
that the future
is, in some measure,
in our hands
and within our sphere
of influence.
In that realisation
comes awareness
that this is not
the experience
of so many
in our world
in our nation
and in our neighbourhood.
May our hope
and our power
and our privilege
bring responsibility
to broker change
to share the love
and to create opportunity
for all those
who enter a new year
with dread
or with the expectation
that nothing good
can come their way.
Blessings shared
are blessings multiplied.
May we light a beacon of hope
for others along the way.



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The slaughter of the innocents

Matthew 2:16-18
The Massacre of the Infants
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

Survivor's Guilt
Warned in a dream
to escape the wrath of a king
who saw his evil tyranny endangered
his fragile tenure of power threatened
Gods son was bundled up
and smuggled to safety.
But as he grew
surely he and his family
must have encountered
other families
whose homes held a space
that could never be filled
whose hearts nursed a wound
that could never be healed.
Mothers glancing enviously
perhaps even resentfully
at a family complete,
not torn asunder
as was theirs.
Was that another sorrow
for the mother of God to bear?
The knowledge that the child she carried
and delivered into a hostile world
was the cause of searing loss
for others.
And did he learn, as a child,
that his infant body
should have been dashed on a rock?
And when he, too,
child of his mother's womb
endured the agony of a cross
did those families feel avenged?
Or did they know
that justice can never reign
while humans seek power
and while love is bartered
and sold for a pittance?
That the incomprehensible
wrongs of this world
can only be healed
by a divine love
beyond our imagining
Snatched from a manger
and hung on a cross.



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Out of chaos?

Children’s voices plaguing adults
to come and see
before it is even light.
Bleary eyes and befuddled heads
trying to keep track of gifts.
Piles of crumpled wrapping paper
ready for recycling.
Mere hints of the chaos into which
God birthed new hope for the world.
We praise you, O God,
that into a dark world
you birthed glorious light.
We praise you
that you did not delay
until conditions were favourable.
But chose to enter a messy world
not to bring order
but rather to bring love.
We praise you
that still we find you
in all our mess and chaos,
bringing the promise of light and hope,
fulfilled in the birth of a child.



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Christmas Day Worship

We’ve prepared food, unwrapped presents,
pulled some crackers, checked out the TV schedule.
Our day is planned,
busy or quiet,
and now we come to worship, to slot in the Jesus bit.
Then we can get back to our fire sides
and get on with our celebrations.
So accept this our worship, O God,
and make us feel good that we’re here—
for you know what a busy time this is.
Confront us, if you must,
with the reality of our privilege
and of our riches,
but let us put off until at least tomorrow
our desire to share what we have
with the hungry and the homeless
and the grieving and the lonely.
Because today,
we want it to be simply about you.

Pause

We simply can’t avoid it, can we?
Not even for a day.
Still on Christmas Day we find you
in the hungry and the homeless
and the grieving and the lonely.
Still giving yourself
and calling us to be giving too.
Make us midwives today,
birthing your love in the world.
Amen.


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A prayer for Watchnight

Tonight, we will not find you, God,
in high and lofty places,
not even in the heavenly choir of angels,
but instead in the straw of a manger,
kept warm by the breath of cattle,
lulled to sleep by the bleating of lambs.
We will not find you
in the tinsel and stars adorning our trees,
but in the torn and discarded wrappings
that litter our streets,
sleeping in doorways,
covered over by cardboard.
For you came not for the
high and the mighty,
but for the poor and the lowly.
May we stoop down
and look you in the eye,
take your hand and raise you up
and walk beside you through our world,
attuned to what you see
and how you love,
alert to serve you
in those we meet along the way.
Vulnerable God,
be born in our hearts this Christmas,
so that we too can reach out
with vulnerability
to serve our world with love.
Amen.


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Call to worship

With mobile phone in hand
and contacts list at the ready
to share the good news
at the moment it happens—
come and be part
of the greatest Social Networking Revolution:
updating the Facebook status,
priming the Twitter Feed,
the text already written: “It’s a boy!”
It’s an old, old story
freshly edited for today’s world,
and you are part of the story tonight.
Upload your photos of your friends gathered here,
angels and shepherds for now.
Then break into song—
a flash mob right here—
with a message to share with the world:
“Peace on earth!
Goodwill to all.
Tidings of joy for today.
A candle of hope
to light up the dark
as we wait for a new Christmas Day.”



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Birthing God's son

For Mary the mother of God—
no shared moments
with other mums-to-be;
no antenatal classes,
no relaxation or breathing exercises,
no gas and air or epidural,
just the cold reality
of pushing a fragile life
into a hostile world
the way women have done through all the generations.
And what of Joseph?
Was he banished as men folk often are?
Or were his the only
helping hands available?
The only hands to catch the Son of God
as he was evacuated
from the safety of the womb
into a world unprepared for his coming?
And would it be any different today?
Or would God’s son still be born
round the back and out of the way,
visible only to those
who pause and ponder
and kneel down and worship?


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