Tonight I am leading a carol service for one of the residential homes near Dibley.  The link is tenuous - via Penties and the next Anglican Parish but I am the only available 'Rev' person it seems.  I am looking forward to it, not least because the residents have chosen the carols which means I don't get to feel guilty over choosing the ones I like or obliged to have the ones I cannot abide - although of course both feature in this service!

I am happy, though, because someone called John has chosen my all time favourite, and this is going to be the centrepeice for my 'talk.'

'In The Bleak Midwinter' gets a lot of stick for being Victorian pietist mush, which is a real shame because I think it has immense depth as well as plenty of 'nostalgia appeal'

Verse 1 - is in part a Christmas card image - deep snow, rosy cheeked children etc, but also a reality that even in Victorian times for many winters were pretty bleak unless you were wealthy.  It does not say that Jesus was born in an English winter, though I guess you can imply that if you so choose, it just says that winters were pretty similar 'long ago' to what they experienced 'today'.

Verse 2 - this is God's omni-everythingness, it is eschatological, it is powerful stuff: the God who cannot be contained by heaven, whose reign will see the end of all things that currently are.  And this God is the same God who, in Jesus, way back then, was satisified with a stable for shelter.

Verse 3 - being rediscovered, and seen by some as 'too much information' with Mary breastfeeding Jesus, is utterly incarnational and speaks volumes on kenosis; the basics of life are sufficient for God incarnate.

Verse 4 - mystery, which writers such as Mr Kendrick try to express in 'Meekness and Majesty' etc.  Never mind angels singing their socks off (if angels have socks of course) the true beauty and worship is seen in the kiss of a mother for her new-born son.  Wow!

Verse 5 - forget the Sunday School nativity play and the layers of tradition and glitter, this verse is about a response.  OK, so now we've heard the story (again) what are we going to do?  Not as blatant as a Billy Graham altar call or Catriona banging on about mission but 'what are you going to do?'

If I wanted to write a carol that said all that needs to be said, then this might be it.  It affirms the place of Christmas card nostalgia within a deep understanding of the nature of God, the coming of Christ and the demand for a response.

Tonight I will endure 'O Come all ye Faithful' and 'Away in a Manger' but I will enjoy Christina Rossetti's finest! 

Today was Baptist Head Count Sunday, that great festival of the first Sunday each December where we generate the statistics that the Baptist Union will use for some purpose or other in determining our health.

I handed my treasurer a piece of paper on which I'd drawn a grid for him to record our demographics, omitting the boxes we definitely would not need.  I was not too optimisitic - at 2:59 there were no more people there than on a normal Sunday despite the fact that D+1 were joining us and one YFC volunteer had returned for a second visit.  At 3:02 we were listening to the notices as late comers ambled in and had to sit at the front.  At 3:05 I noticed two noses pressed up against the French windows and asked someone to let in the two lads looking in at us.

All went well, but I had to smile when it got to the Communion and the two deacon-servers (is that tautology, it probably is) returned with trays each holding only one wine glass; I was glad I insist that they put some in the chalice (I have a thing about picking up empty chalices!).  Enough for all to share but none left over - that felt good.

In conversation, it emerged that the lads had seen our banner on the school fence and come to investigate.  They were very polite and courteous only giggling quietly during the more wierd bits of our rituals, and I was glad that one of our members sat with them and explained things as we went along.  I was glad that they felt comfortable enough not to stand to sing just becuase most of us do and delighted when they stayed for a cuppa and several biscuits before they left.

So, my head count data now reads

Under 14    Males 2     Females 0

14 - 21       Males 1     Females 0

22 - 50       Males 1     Females 4

51 - 65       Males 4     Females 6

65+           Males 6     Females 17

 

With a total of 41 attending rather than the usual ~30 it is artificially high, with three under 40's it is miraculous.

The BU collects the data, Catriona preaches on 'my strength is made perfect in weakness' ... and in heaven is heard the hearty chuckle of divine laughter.

Now I have my nice long list of books to read, and now they have started to land with a reassuring 'thud' on my doormat, I have also started reading them - from the sublime to the ridiculous in as many days, first reading a fairly complex journal article on the writing of histories of religions and then starting an undergraduate text on historical method.  As is the way of things, a lot of what they say is much the same, just the length of words varies!  And, as is also often the way when I read such things, it is sort of stuff I already intuitively felt anyway but had never got round to expressing - and would have needed six times as many words to do half as good a job.

Anyway, apart from the need to be good and reflect on why I think it is OK for me to read 'level 1' history whilst being miffed at being offered what feels like 'Level 1' theology (my aim with this reading on history being to have a DIY crash course from zero to competent in about 4 weeks!) I have discovered one person's working defintion of history which, with a bit of tweaking could fit almost any discipline I know of, but then the author admits a similarity to a defintion for literature.

So, Keith Jenkins in Re-Thinking History, identified as an A-level/1st year undergraduate text says

History is a shifting, problematic discourse, ostensibly about an aspect of the world, the past, that is produced by a group of present-minded workers (overwhelmingly in our culture salaried historians) who go about their work in mutually recognisable ways that are epistemologically, methodologically, ideologically and practically postitioned and whose products, once in circulation, are subject to a series of uses and absues that are logically infinite but which in actuality generally correspond to a range of power bases that exist at any given moment and which strucutre and distribute the meanings of histories along a dominant-marginal sprectrum.

 

Could this be minimally altered to say

Theology is a shifting, problematic discourse, ostensibly about an aspect of the world [or maybe, human experience], faith, that is produced by a group of present-minded workers (overwhelmingly in our culture salaried theologians) who go about their work in mutually recognisable ways that are epistemologically, methodologically, ideologically and practically postitioned and whose products, once in circulation, are subject to a series of uses and absues that are logically infinite but which in actuality generally correspond to a range of power bases that exist at any given moment and which strucutre and distribute the meanings of theologies along a dominant-marginal sprectrum.

 

I think it could.  Indeed, notwithstanding the claim of pure science to stand outside ethical judgements and solely be concerned with facts, it could pretty well be applied to them, and certainly to applied sciences, too. 

The next question is, of course, while it is good to have a working defintion - even if it's a sub-university level one at this stage, what do I then do with it?  I can critique it, I can accept it, in theory I could reject it, but actually I have to find a way of working out how I relate it back to using history within theology.  That should keep me quiet for a bit!!

Maybe I am easily pleased, I do not know, but I am feeling happy this morning having just ordred some shiny new books from Amazon.  Well, actually slightly grubby secondhand books from Amazon market place, but the feel is still good!

This week I had an intial meeting with one of my prof. doc. supervisors and am looking forward to meeting the other tomorrow.  The first meeting was good - productive and enjoyable (I promised I'd say something nice ;-) ) and I came away feeling clearer about the way ahead with this year's work.

Since then I have spent all of about 2 hours playing with library catalogues, 'Athens' to access journals and yummy Amazon to find books to buy.  I am a happy person, waiting for the postie to bring my books and lots of interesting reading ahead.

And now that my PC is fully upgraded, and Norton 2007 finally behaving properly, my next thrilling task is to investigate the 'Endnote' software which allegedly makes doing bibilographies a breeze...

We are now almost at the end of our series on Jesus' 'mother roots,' the women in the Matthean genealogy.  I have enjoyed working with the stories and discovering new insights from them.  It was one of those series that could have gone in umpteen directions, perhaps depending on the aims/preferences of the preacher.

If your thing is (social) justice there is plenty to go at - Tamar being treated like baggage, Rahab and the issues around prostitution, sex tourism and trafficking, etc, Ruth (or at least Naomi) with economic migrancy and (im)migrant labour and finally Bathsheba with all manner of things around marriage, family, adultery.  Indeed any/all of the stories raise intriguing questions about society as a whole and faith communities in particular.

If your thing is God working beyond our expectations, beyond the church or even beyond professed faith, it's all there.  Foreign women, adulterous relationships, decption - you name it, they do it along the way. 

You could also use these stories to question some of our nice churchy attitudes - I even found one commentary that said it was fine that people lied, so long as it was for God's purposes - interesting!  Oh, and of course one church member re-defined Rahab's occupation in a way beyond even what Matthew Henry does so unconvincingly! 

In part, I chose to consider how knowledge of these umpty-great grannies might have influenced/foreshadowed Jesus' own attitudes to marginalised people.  The woman in adultery, the woman at the well, the Roman centurion, the lepers, the tax-gatherers... If you know that your forebears were (or relatives/friends are) refugees, migrants, 'sinners' etc, maybe your attitude is different?

Now, as the series draws to its close, and because I am running out of time, I am looking at links and parallels between Bathsheba and Mary and between David and Joseph.  Bathsheba does not even get named in Matthew 1, Mary is (according to tradition) 'ever blessed.'  Both women knew great personal suffering, including death of their first born sons.  David, the man 'after the Lord's heart' acts like a right **** while Joseph takes on another 'man's' son.  I'm not going to push the connections too far, that's silly, but it is interesting.

Gods' "choice" of Grannies for Jesus is as fascinating as you could wish for.  I am glad Jesus' forebears are diverse and 'colourful', I am glad that they include people of many races and statuses, I am glad that they challenge our nice churchy norms.  I am glad, above all, that God is not constrained by our theology, doctrines or expectations.