Sermon for New Year’s Day – 1 January 2023: NUMBERS 6:22-27, LUKE 2: 15-21

HOLY HABITS NEW YEAR A CIRCUMCISION AND NAMING

 

May God be on my lips and in all our hearts.“

Happy New Year ! How do you feel entering the year of our Lord 2023? Christmas is over – done and dusted you may feel but Epiphany season and the Baptism of Christ  looms large. Last year was a significant one in terms of world events and their impact on us all and the ripples they caused are still reverberating around the world.

The Good News is that of Jesus Christ, who did not come to earth just at Christmas, but is with us all year round and everywhere through His resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. And I have even more good news, if you are not a fan of New Year and its accompanying traditions,  our new liturgical year started at Advent. I don’t know about you but we usually have a quiet new year with traditional family food and phone calls to friends who are celebrating their name day Vasso, Vassilis. After or during lunch we settle down to listen to the New Year’s Day concert from Vienna. What traditions do you have and how do you manage to keep them in changing circumstances both personal and social?

Today in the church calendar we are celebrating a major feast, the Naming and Circumcision of Christ. Despite everything the Holy Family had been through they didn’t neglect their Jewish roots and traditions, just like his cousin’s family John whose naming and circumcision we are told about at some length in  Luke 1: 59-66. I suspect that tradition is important to many of us especially after the pandemic years we went through.

For Mary and Joseph this ceremony is a fulfilment of the promise to name the baby boy Jesus, the saving one, not so much in line with the family roots but of His role as Messiah as we heard in our reading from St Matthew’s gospel two weeks ago in Advent. Today we return to the gospel of Luke and think about Mary and her pondering and ponder anew on what she and we store up in our hearts after we have celebrated the birth narrative and upon entering a New Year. Christmas is not just one day of festivities now begins the work of putting our faith into action.

So let us reflect again on the story of the shepherds and the part they play. Come and see, they were instructed so you are invited to come up to the crib afterwards and see the characters anew and identify with a character or animal in this wondrous scene. Last year, I took the story from Mary’s point of view, this year I am focusing on the shepherds probably because of the preparation for today but also, because I am incredibly fortunate to live in a rural area with flocks of sheep and goats accompanied by their shepherds and sheepdogs. My granddaughter and I go regularly to visit the animals and recently we were allowed into the pen to stroke the tamer ones!

 

A nativity play just would not be the same without the shepherds, would it? A motley crew with tea towels tied round their heads with a cord or belt from a dressing gown as often as not. You can picture the scene. But on the hillsides of Bethlehem not far from Jerusalem this lowly yet holy flock-keepers may well have been in charge of animals mainly destined as offerings at the temple. They were necessary to the running of the place but still marginalised as their hands were sullied by the work they did outside and with the very nitty gritty of dealing with the animals they reared and kept safe. Therefore, they could not go to any purification services and were regarded as being literally and spiritually unclean. Now what on earth are they doing being visited by angels welcomed to the stable and becoming the first disciples to kneel at the manger? More things to ponder for Mary and Joseph and for us too. Here is a foretaste of a different kind of sacrificial lamb, the Lamb of God

Throughout the gospel of Luke, as we saw in our readings last year, there is a slant to sharing the Good News to everyone including the marginalised and the Gentiles. Today we recall Jesus’ and his family’s obedience to Jewish Law and the fulfilment of that in his naming and circumcision but we also recall that His birth was for all and the salvation of all. The shepherd, who let my granddaughter and myself into the fold, was an outsider, an agricultural worker from India, Bangladesh or Pakistan as are most of the workers around where I live. They work diligently to send their wages back home, for Greece is a relatively rich country which employs others to do the menial work. These good people are necessary to the economy just as their income is vital for their families’ survival back home.

 

It is the shepherds, the invisible in society, who are chosen to see not one angel but a whole heavenly host. Maybe they were visible to all, but others could not see and hear the angels because they were not attuned to them. The herdsmen heard, saw and believed immediately and rushed off to worship the babe (the Greek verb is spefdo). Wonderful indeed. If we were to rewrite the nativity for modern times who do you think could play the role of the shepherds? Refugees maybe, the homeless, addicts and unwanted that contemporary society shuns. Who sees and hears God nowadays when insiders fail to pick up on His message?

After the rushing about of Christmas, it is good to take time to weigh things up, sinebalo and maintain sintiro are the Greek verbs for treasure and ponder in translation. We need to acquire these holy habits as individuals and as a church and there is no better time than at the beginning of the year – much better than New Year’s resolutions which are impossible to keep up.

We come to worship week by week, in a spirit of expectancy, eager to taste of the kingdom’s food, hungry for refreshment and nourishment. We are often disillusioned with the world. And we know we will return and we pray we find our place in this community for no one is rejected in the house of God, there is a ministry and work for everyone as equals. Our journey together, as disciples continues. I wonder how the shepherds’ discipleship panned out and what they did next and for the rest of their lives?

As we step into the New Year let us commit ourselves to being a gospel community here in the centre of Athens and beyond, giving thanks for all the blessings of last year and expressing our commitment to one another, through our willingness to get our hands dirty, through learning from each other and working together to serve God. AMEN

You have been given a label to tie on the Christmas tree after the service when you come up to contemplate the Nativity scene. You may like to write a wish or hope for our community, a prayer or for a situation or person of concern and on your heart or which is weighing you down. This is anonymous and confidential. Pens are available. There is also a box of wishes from Aei Ferein for you to take one at the end of the service and take home. I will remind you again and explain later on in the service.