“The Spirit of God is on me, because I have been
anointed to proclaim good news to the poor. I have been sent to proclaim
freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the
oppressed free.”
For most of us, Christmas is
a time we associate with family, friends, good feelings, food, wine, laughter, a
time of reflection, celebration, affirmation, joy, whether or not we are
religious. They are all positive emotions, and for most of us, they put us in a
more generous and better frame of mind, we are little more open to others, a
little more patient - we come a little closer to what Christmas is supposed to
be about, and what we are called to be about.
Now Christmas is almost upon
us. For some, this will be a time of great joy, with family home -
grandchildren and maybe even great grandchildren. For some it will be a time of
great sadness - a loved one gone, no food on the table, no gifts for children,
fractured families, anger and hurt, illness, loss of work. The ghosts of other
Christmases come to haunt - just around the edges, a lingering loneliness,
remembering times as a family when we ourselves were children.
Dreams are strange things. We
can do things in dreams that we can’t do during our waking hours. When I worked
in World Outreach at the national UC office, one of my roles was computer
management, I often solved problems while dreaming, went to work the next day
and tried out the solution. Musicians tell stories of memorising pieces of music
in dreams, or composing in dreams. Our minds keep on working while we are
asleep. Dreams tell us things about ourselves that we aren’t always able to
face otherwise. There are lots of logical explanations, but it is still
miraculous what the mind can do, and how it can help us see ourselves. And the
line between dreams and reality is often negligible.
Charles Dickens, at the
beginning of the industrial revolution, wrote stories about the abysmal
conditions in which many people lived. “A Christmas Carol” is probably the best
known, and its message is timeless. For Scrooge, Christmas Eve might have been
described as a nightmare. He certainly thought it was a nightmare, at least at
the beginning. Had the visitations stopped after Marley, or maybe after the first
of the three “spirits”, he would have written it off as that particular piece
of mouldy cheese he’d eaten earlier in the evening with his thin gruel - and
nothing would have changed. He would have gone back to sleep, no different.
But those ghosts – Christmas
Past, Present and Yet to Come – do make their appearance, and Scrooge is
confronted with his own life in review.
The Ghost of Christmas Past, a spirit of age,
yet appearing young – and shining with a light so bright Scrooge cannot bear
it, and asks for it to be covered. Truth can be hard to look upon directly.
``What!'' exclaimed the
Ghost, ``would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it
not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and force me
through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow!''
So we travel into Scrooge’s
past. We see a small boy, sitting in a classroom at boarding school, while his
classmates go home for Christmas. His mother died giving birth;, and in grief,
his father rejected the baby. A little bit of this boy hardens up and closes
away.
The same boy, older and more
mature, stands alone in the same schoolroom. His sister comes to tell him he
can come home for Christmas. “Father is so much kinder than he used to be” she
says “that I wasn’t afraid to ask him once more if you might come home.” We find hints of abuse, of deep anger and
hurt, we never quite know exactly, but the suggestions are there. This sister
died, giving birth to Scrooge’s nephew. And Scrooge rejects the nephew as his
father had rejected him.
A Christmas party – every
year Scrooge’s employer closed down the business early, pushed all the chairs
out of the way – a feast was laid on, and there were fiddlers, singing and
dancing – and Christmas celebrations. And finally we see him, confronted by the
woman he has loved, as she lets him free of his promises to her. Another
idol - one of gold – has replaced her.
It is telling that when she leaves, Scrooge lets her go, not having the will to
let go his obsession with money.
Christmas Present is a spirit
of great energy, generosity and compassion. “You’ve never seen the likes of me
before, have you?” he asks. In the Albert Finney musical version of the movie, Scrooge
finds himself getting quite giddy on a drink the spirit offers him – he says
“I’ve never tasted the likes of this” to which the spirit replies “Yes, I
supposed you haven’t. It’s called the milk of human kindness”. As the Spirit
goes down the city streets, sprinkling Christmas water from his torch, Scrooge asks
the Spirit if there is any special flavour in the water. The spirit answers
that there is a special flavour in any meal kindly given, but especially a poor
one. When asked why a poor one, the spirit responds ”It is needed the most.”
We see how little Scrooge
knows even about his clerk, Bob Cratchit - that Bob had children, one of whom
was ill. When Scrooge asks if Tim the child will live, he is given back his own
words “If he’s going to die, he should do it, and decrease the surplus
population.” As this spirit moves on, he leaves Scrooge with one particularly
pertinent message. Under his robe huddle two scrawny, thin and sickly children
with hands like claws. “This one is Ignorance” says the ghost “and this is
Want. Beware both of them, but particularly beware Ignorance.” Asking if there
are no services for them, the ghost answers with Scrooge’s words “Are there no
factories, are there no poorhouses?”
It never ceases to strike me
how relevant this message is even today. We all know people who have been hurt
by life, through no fault of their own, but who carry the grief, who close
themselves off, or make something else more important. Scrooge is not, in fact,
a particularly complicated man. He has simply reacted to the hurt and
disappointment in his life by building protections for himself.
The interesting thing about
Scrooge, is that he punishes himself as well. He piles up money, but spends
little. He lives in virtual poverty, both of body and of soul. The money itself
isn’t important. In his pursuit of the accumulation of security he shuts out
everything which could touch him - even losing the woman he loves because she
is content to live on a modest income, and be of service to others. He has no
idea of the causes of poverty and trouble around him; he even resents that he
is taxed to support institutions for the poor and destitute. Yet he has more
than he ever needs for himself, beyond all comprehension.
Remember Jesus reading from
the scroll of the Torah, the words of Isaiah, “The Spirit of God is on me, because
I have been anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. I have been sent to
proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set
the oppressed free.” Remember Scrooge’s first encounter with the ghost of his
friend and partner, Jacob Marley. Remember the long, heavy, ponderous chains
Marley dragged - and the length and weight of the chains Scrooge had forged for
himself in life - and those were the words Marley used - forged in life. Is
this not exactly the message of the Gospel - “it is required of every person”,
says Marley, “that their spirits must go forth into the world in life”, and if
they don’t, they are chained and crippled beings, prisoners of their own
making, blind by their own hands, weighted down and oppressed by the chains
forged in life.
The last visitation,
Christmas Yet to Come, demonstrates the consequences of not being aware, not
being attuned to the world around, not being engaged in the world. A father
walks slowly home from a graveyard; a small chair sits empty, with a small
crutch beside it. It is not because of anything Scrooge did that the boy died,
but precisely the opposite - he didn’t do anything. He minded what he thought
was his business and the rest of the world minded theirs, or so he thought.
Along the way he lost track of the world - the poor and marginalised, the
hungry and mentally ill, the sick and bereaved, the lonely and hurt - they are
precisely our business - Ignorance and Want are our business.
Scrooge sees a man dead, and
someone stealing the very slippers off the body’s feet. He sees his belongings
being sold off by his own housekeeper. He finds himself in a graveyard, seeing
his own name etched on a gravestone. The reality of his existence comes
crashing in on him: “I am not the man I once was, I am a new person, I will
keep Christmas in my heart. Tell me these are not the shadows of things that
will be, but the shadows of things that may be”. Whatever we do or don’t do -
either by action or by inaction - there are still consequences. Cause and
effect - everything has some kind of consequence, some kind of result. We
cannot be disengaged from the world if we are Christian. We cannot be Christian
and not take action. To be Christian means to be involved.
I can’t help but align these
three spirits with the words we sometimes use in the service of communion – the
mystery, and the hope of our faith: “Jesus has died. Jesus is risen. Jesus will
come again.” Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Yet to Come. What we were,
what we are today, and what we may yet be.
Christmas in all of life, the
birth of the child in our hearts, and what may grow. Thanks be to the one who
calls us into life. May it be so.
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