Christmas Sermon 2019

On Thursday afternoon, Izzy and her Dad rode the bus to Kirribilli House. Izzy is 13 years old and, after breathing smoke for days on end, she wanted to demand real action on climate change from our leaders. She and her Dad joined the peaceful protest outside the gates, where obviously the Prime Minister was not in residence because he was in Hawaii. As the day wore on, and after the speeches and chanting, 25 armed riot police showed up in a van and started targeting leaders, arresting them and taking them away. One police officer approached Izzy to demand that she leave. He threatened her with arrest, and told her that ‘force may be used’ if she didn’t comply. The interaction was filmed, and it shows a large, loud police officer standing over this small-framed girl who nevertheless maintained eye contact, and refused to be intimidated. It is a powerful set of images, as this young woman clutches her home made sign, holding back tears but stoically holding her ground.

It has been a year for strong young women. When I attended the first School Strike for Climate this year on the steps of our Cathedral, it struck me that it was predominantly the young women leading the way. And of course, looming over this year has been the haunting presence of Greta Thunberg, the voice of a generation and the conscience of the planet. A young woman so strong, that powerful men have done everything in their power to drag her down, while she glares fiercely in response, growing more compelling with every insult.

It is fashionable in some quarters to claim that the youth of today are dilettantes, self-absorbed and spoiled. Of course, this lazy accusation has been made by every generation about those who succeed them, and it’s an obvious power play. But when I see St Cuthbert’s Youth, marching behind a banner that reads ‘We all live under the same SCY’ to show their compassion for refugees, and when I see the young people of Hong Kong putting their bodies on the line for freedom, and when I see young people across the world stepping up to speak and act for justice, I don’t see precious, privileged princesses. I see the spirit of Mary Queen of Heaven, Mary Star of the Sea, Mary Mother of Workers. I see young women (and men) of no rank or status who respond to a call, and bear what must be borne for the good of the world.

Mary the theotokos, the God-Bearer, is too often portrayed with alabaster skin and a delightfully clean frock and veil, gazing vaguely into the middle distance as if she were merely God’s taxi to get Jesus from heaven to earth in one piece. Her supposed purity has seen her appropriated as an unattainable model for women, as though her worth and their worth derives solely from a lack of sexual intimacy. In the process, although she is often called upon to heal and help, she too easily becomes a handmaid, there to be exploited then forgotten, safely off to one side as a decorative Christmas motif.

Yet the Mary portrayed in the gospels is anything but demure and gentle. Standing side by side with her older cousin Elizabeth, she sings of a God who scatters the proud, who casts down the mighty from their throne and lifts up the lowly, who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty. When an angel comes with news of a baby to born, she doesn’t meekly accept as some carols would claim, she is confused and perplexed and demands answers from God’s messenger. She was, inevitably, a physically strong woman. She had to be. She was not some sylph-like beauty queen with sparkly eyeshadow and pink leggings. Mary was peasant stock, who lugged water jars and cooking pots, and cared for livestock and younger siblings. She was tenacious, courageous and a little outrageous, and we celebrate her on this day as the catalyst of our salvation. She not only bore the Christ Child, she taught and formed Jesus into the man he became.

Yet the image of a pure, timid virgin gazing serenely on her perfectly clean baby persists. And her virginal status, rather than being a sign of Christ’s divinity, is seized upon as a justification for the enforcement of purity standards on women. Oh, men are supposed to be pure too, but really it is the women’s bodies who need to be policed. And so it is that Mary becomes a pawn in the great culture wars of our time. Divorce, abortion, birth control, sexual expression, and gender and sexual identity – scratch the surface and Nice Sweet Mary is right there, loaded into position and ready to be fired at anyone who fails to conform.

Next year, if all goes according to plan, the Federal government will introduce so-called religious freedom legislation which, in spite of all the bleating, is designed to help churches keep The Gays out of schools and charities. Not so long ago, pregnant teenage girls were sent for a holiday in the country and their babies taken away before they could form a connection. We are marginally more civilised now, but only just. Nowadays it is the gay and lesbian teachers, parents and students who must be ‘disappeared’ to preserve the pretence of purity. Just as the image of gutsy, articulate Mary has been erased, so too those who fail to comply with the dominant religious culture are expunged. All in the name of so-called purity. One might almost think the religious infrastructure is so weak, so fatally flawed, that any departure from its enforced norms will shatter the whole edifice. But what would I know?

So this year, I wish you a grubby Christmas, full of weirdness and surprises. May your Christmas and the year ahead be infested with feisty young women who stare down cops and speak scandalous truths. And may Mary, who bears justice in her womb and nurtures peace at her breast, haunt you with enough discomfort, anger and foolishness that you too may hear God’s call and answer with a trembling voice ‘Here am I, the Servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word’.

The Lord be with you