God With Us: Seeing the Christmas Stories with Fresh Eyes - Paula Gooder (2019)

a very warm welcome to the cathedral this November evening my name is Andrew Carwood and I have the privilege of being the director of Music in this wonderful space which has always been a place for worship and debate for faith but more importantly for questions I'll introduce our speaker in a moment but for those of you who have not been to one of these events before let me just explain how it works in a moment Paula gooder will reflect on the mind-boggling message of Christ's birth and how the familiarity of the Christmas stories can mask just how revolutionary it is the last part of the evening will then be devoted to answering your questions the harder the better I didn't write that it's been written in my script but we do encourage you to be brave and come forward with your questions sometimes in a building like this people can feel a little intimidated it's good and necessary to question and you should feel free to ask if you have a question please write it on the back of your program and then hold it up and it will be collected from you will collect questions until about 7:35 and then I will be able to discuss them with Paula and they will appear on the laptop on the table just in front of me here we would ask two things of you that you keep your questions relatively brief and to the point and most importantly legible so any GPS in the audience please make sure that it's legible we are also taking questions via twitter using the hashtag god with us the hashtag God with us all one word so if you want to send your question through your mobile just private in include that hashtag and we will find it we also have a little bonus for you this evening um some of my good friends are sitting over here with my colleague Simon Johnson the organist have some balls and they are going to provide a little early Christmas present for you in order to help reflect on what Paula is saying we will end at 8 o'clock and at that point there's a bookstore over here where you are very welcome to purchase books and Paula has kindly offered to sign them as well and that will happen on the table over there just behind where the singers are sitting we're delighted to be able to put events like this on it's very important for us to involve everyone in the questions of faith and we do it for free but therefore there will be a retiring collection on your way out and it would be wonderful if you could be as generous as you could with that now I was delighted when I was asked to chair this event with this special person sitting on my right principally because I thought it would give me a chance to sing a selection of Christmas medleys which had become dear to my heart little did I know that really this is going to be about getting behind the real message of Christmas and the narratives in the Bible dr. Paula gooder is Chancellor of some Paul's Cathedral the first lay person to hold that role when her appointment was announced earlier this year we were congratulated with warmth that made it clear not only had we made the right appointment but just how much respect and affection she is held in she is simply one of the best known New Testament scholars and teachers of our time her numerous academic and popular books of biblical theology include journey to the major exploring the birth of Jesus and the meaning is in the waiting the spirit of Advent but even more than this she has a rare combination of gifts she is not only a scholar of depth but a person of faith and a brilliant and generous communicator who uses her gifts to illuminate the problems of our time she also has a wonderful appreciation of music it's very good to have you here as a colleague and friend Paula and we're delighted that for her first official event for adult learning she is going to talk about the central mystery of our faith will you please now give her a very warm welcome thank you it is lovely to be here with you and it's a great treat to be able to spend a few minutes reflecting on Christmas as Advent homes interview on Sunday we have the chance to take a time some time to think to reflect and to ask ourselves what Christmas means to each one of us so I hope this evening you will go away with something that you can reflect on during the Advent period but before we get there I wonder who you think the real Christmas baddies are you know the arch villains of Christmas if you're a fan of dr. Zeus you might say it was the Grinch if like me you're a fan of It's a Wonderful Life it's surely old man Potter if you read your biblical narratives of course Herod must get a look in but I discovered about 10 years ago that there's another candidate for Christmas body and that candidate is the New Testament scholar me I'm the Christmas body and I discovered it in a most distressing manner for me when I was little my greatest goal my greatest dream was to get a Blue Peter badge and even better than that maybe to get on Blue Peter if you are blessed with being very young blue Peter was the flagship children's program on television it's just possible my children are slightly bemused by Blue Peter but ten years ago Blue Peter rang a researcher rang and she said to me would you like to come on Blue Peter and I would yes I would love to go on Blue Peter I said um stupidly I didn't ask her what she wanted me to do so X sited was I by the prospect of going on Blue Peter so a month later she called and said well our idea is that what we will do is get a local primary school to come in and do a Christmas tableau and then you will come in as the New Testament scholar and tell us what's wrong with it it'll surprise you to know that I wasn't able to make that booking on Blue Peter and all of a sudden my diary got busy on that day and I was unable to go but what that revealed to me was that actually we New Testament scholars have probably deservedly a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to Christmas we come along and we look at your lovely nativity play and we say are well you can't really have shepherds and wise men all at the same time you know there wasn't a donkey in the story you know that the Angels appeared the Shepherd's on a hill and not at the stable so the shepherd the angels aren't allowed um you know don't you that actually there probably wasn't a stable or an inn or an innkeeper or an inn keepers wife or an inn keepers Lobster if you watch Love Actually um so what blue Peter wanted me to do was to be a normal new testament scholar and tell them what you couldn't have the problem is I don't agree with that form of New Testament scholarship in a way it's fun it provides us with some interesting insights but what you end up with are some sad shards of a nativity play at the end sad primary school children looking at you in kind of bemusedly asking why am I not allowed to be a wise man in the Newton negativity play if the Shepherd's are there actually I am one of the world biggest fans of Nativity plays and the reason why I am is because Nativity plays whatever form they take are a joyful community traditional retelling of a story that we know and love bring them on I say I love a nativity play and frankly if you did have a New Testament scholar direct your local nativity play it it'd be over in about 30 seconds because I'd have to choose which gospel it came from and then you could only have absolutely what was in in a moment you'll see than actually Matthew's Gospel has hardly anything that counts as the birth of Jesus um so we need them they're important for us and one of the reasons they're important for us is that they engage our imagination they say come into the text and imagine what you can see out of the text the only problem is that if you forget that they are an act of grand community traditional in imagination then actually you do genuinely believe that there was a donkey in Luke's Gospel that the angels were there at the stable for me the nativity play drives us back to the story and says let's have the nativity play as we have it but then let's also chew on it a little bit what do we discover from the text what's important in the text that we can see the other thing that a nativity play does is that it engages in an act of translation one of the things we often forget is that we think that if you take a text in its original Greek like I do and you put it into English your translations done all sorted you don't have to do any more translation actually we do massive acts of translation every time we read a story and imagine what it looks like and what happens in our nativity plays is we don't just translate it into English we translate it into a form that makes sense to our Western modern minds I say that's fine um you know in an ideal world you would all read the New Testament in Greek of course but you don't you read it in English because it makes more sense to you so why not also be aware that we translate it in different ways we translate it into things that make sense for us so let's just pause for a moment with one little detail which is for me an interesting little detail and reflect on how that is a grand act of translation but before I tell you it remember I'm fine with the traditional version you can go away and have a stable as much as you like as far as I'm concerned but there probably wasn't one and you may know this already but it's worth just noting that's the whole tradition about Jesus being born in a stable comes from a single line in Luke's Gospel and the single line reads like this and she Mary gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger because there was no place for them in thee we'll come on to that in a moment but out of that you get the whole reconstruction so she was Jesus was laid in a manger where do you keep Manges you keep manger Zin stables so therefore they must have been in a stable there was no room for them in thee let me explain about that word because that word is a really interesting word the Greek word I can't do this without telling you the Greek word the Greek word that is translated then normally as in is the Greek word cattle uma and the Greek word cattle uma means something like a lodging place so we in our Western tradition when we read lodging place go ah clearly and in makes a vast amount of sense actually it doesn't make sense in the first century world interestingly there is another word for in that is used also in Luke's Gospel and if you want to play trivia for the evening you can try and work out where it is or I could just tell you which might be more straightforward but give you just a moment to see if you can get there and then I will tell you it's in the parable of the Good Samaritan in the parable of the Good Samaritan after the man has been found on the road by the Samaritan they take him the Samaritan takes him to an inn and you might be saying if you are interested in these kind of things oh I wonder if that's the same word as he's used for in in the birth narratives you'll know I'm going to say no don't you because that's the whole point actually it is not the same word that's used the words that's used in the parable of the Good Samaritan is the word panda Qian and actually it's a lovely word for an inn pan means all or everyone and dokyun means welcome so the Panda Qian is the place where everybody is welcome isn't that a great word for an inn I think we should have panda Kean's around in England but the reason why that was a panda Qian is because it was in the middle of nowhere you need an inn in the middle of nowhere it was between Jericho and Jerusalem there was nowhere to stay when you are travelling on the road what do you need you need a place to stay you go to a panda Kian but Bethlehem was not the middle of nowhere Bethlehem was a small town village and if you went to stay in any middle-eastern small town or village probably until recently then actually you would have been welcomed into somebody's home that was how it works the rules of hospitality dictate that if somebody comes into your village or town then you would welcome them in your house so therefore in Bethlehem you have no need of a panda Qian because you would welcome people into individual houses especially if you traveled to Bethlehem to be with kin people who were family members then you would expect to be welcomed into people's houses so back to the cattle uma what therefore does the word cattle uma mean it means the place in your house where you welcome guests it's the guest room really so you might better translate that little verse that we know and love and laid him in a manger because there was no space for them in the guest room the guest room was already full the other thing you need to know which I think makes this interesting is in Galilee at that point the way in which houses were set up were that they had a mezzanine level where people lived and on the ground was where the animals were so imagine an ancient in their Eastern house they were crammed on the mezzanine level you've just got a tiny baby what do you not want your tiny baby to be happen to it to have it crushed so you put it down on in a safe place in the manger with the animals so probably no stable probably no in probably no innkeeper definitely no innkeepers lobster but what that gives you is a much different sense of what the narrative was about and actually I think suggests a different piece of theology and the reason why I suggest it to you tonight is because the piece of theology I think is really interesting if you start with an innkeeper who makes no effort to make shove up a little bit to allow some guests in then the innkeeper is making a deliberate refusal saying no you are not welcome and you may even know that Christmas Kamel no room for the baby it Bethlehem's in the idea being that they are deliberately turning him away but think what different feeling it gives you if you simply say actually there was just no space it was so crammed that there was no space for Jesus and I think that's a really interesting piece of theology that today often in our world it's not that we make a deliberate choice and say no you are not coming in we just say we're really busy we're full up there is no space it resonates I think in a different way and gives you a different insight before I leave my cattle Umar's alone let me just tell you one other feature which i think is absolutely fascinating there's another cattle umma in Luke's Gospel and it is in a really significant place right at the end of Luke's Gospel Jesus has need of a cat Illuma again the Last Supper took place in a cat Illuma and what's rather delicious about that is right at the beginning of Jesus's life he had need of a cat Illuma and there was no room at the end of his life he had need of a cat Illuma and he booked ahead so that he would guaranteed a space he sends his disciples off to go and find it but just stop for a moment and think what Luke is asking you to think about when you think about that that Jesus came in search of space as a baby and at the end of his life when he's looking at the greatest sacrifice he's going to make he does it in a cat Illuma at the Last Supper I just I find it a spine-tingling thing to notice way better than an inn if you ask me so for me the points about asking these questions is asking the question about theology what do they tell us what do we learn from the stories that we can actually bring things into new life keep your stables keep your innkeepers but at the same time just remember the cattle uma when you're watching the Nativity this year the other thing I just want to say to you which i think is so vitally important for understanding the birth narratives is that often we miss the point of what they're trying to do and it's a catastrophic missing of the points which is what often causes New Testament scholars to pick the test text apart and it's simply this what the Gospel writers were trying to do were to demonstrate to an ancient audience a Roman and Jewish audience that what they were saying was true and so they pulled on all the evidence that they could that would prove to an ancient audience that what they were saying was true now here's the rub what proves to an ancient audience that something is true is the opposite of what proves to a modern audience that something is true and that's where we have the problem so for a modern audience if I want to prove to you that something is true I will prove to you that it is it's not happened before I've not pulled on anything from the past I will give you multiple evidence so I'll give you a source from here and a source from there and a source from over there all independent to demonstrate to you that it is in fact reliable but it will be new it will be exciting it will be unusual and that will tantalize you and grab your attention if you went to an ancient audience and said to them I've got something to tell you that is completely and utterly new you will never have heard of this before it will change the way you view the world entirely they will say get away from me you mad person they do not like in the ancient world news what they like is old stuff if you want to prove in the Roman world that something is true you need to show that its historical that it has its roots far back in history so just think about the birth narratives they all start going we can trace this back to Adam to Abraham to Moses to David and they say we know that you will know that this is true because we can show you how old it is so the first thing is that it needs to be really really old the second thing is that needs to be long foretold that people expected this event it's not new people knew that it was happening our problem is that if I tell you of something that has great long antecedents and has been long foretold and I proved it by citing a whole load of Old Testament checks to you you'll say you're just making that up and that's where we have the rub with the birth narratives and the modern world is what they were doing to prove that something was true to us proves that it's untrue and that's where we really struggle with reading the birth narratives the other thing just to have in your head is the Jewish understanding of history and the Jewish understanding of history is actually really very important indeed and again is completely different from our understanding of history I hope I can do this without confusing the person who's filming too much I'm gonna move so imagine that we're thinking about history so over here with mr. Carr word is the dawn of time I'm sorry about this and we move forwards in our idea of history um in a line and we continue onwards until I fall off the stage and we get to the end of time it's a linear understanding of history you start at one point you move to the end Jewish history is not like that Jewish history is cyclical it round and round and round if you know your Psalms at all you will know that sometimes when you're reading the Psalms you're saying what event is this is it creation or is it the Exodus or is it the wilderness wanderings or is it the return from exile or is it another event I don't know anything about the answer whenever you find yourself asking that question is yes yes it is all of them it's really really important that within the Jewish understanding of history they understood God intervening in the world in exactly the same way again and again and again it changed it had a different event but they would go oh yes I've seen that before so I know it's true I can point back to the past so I know it's true so when the birth narratives come along and say here is a new Moses a new David a new prophet a new Elijah what they were doing is saying you know it's true and what I like to do in talking about the Jewish idea of history is to call it the snowball of history for me it works nicely as an image imagine you're standing on the top of a hill and you've made a little snowball and you make a mark in your snowball and then you push the snowball down the hill as it goes down the hill it will get a layer and another layer and another layer the point in the snowball will still would be the same but you'll get another layer on top of it and another one and another one for me that's what's going on in the Jewish telling of history what you get is layer after layer after layer of the same event so of course Matthew and Luke tell us about Jesus as this old old story but they do it because for them it's telling you that it's true so let's move on and first to Luke's Gospel and then we'll move on and after a short break to Matthew's Gospel and pull out some of the strands that we find in there I have to say that Luke is my favorite birth narrative story apart from Matthew but apart from Matthew is definitely my but favorite birth narrative and there's something that Luke does in his telling of the birth narrative which is really quite interesting and it sets up how we can understand that actually both Luke and Matthew the harsh reality is that we've hardly got any birth narratives in the Gospels I don't know if you remember a long time ago there was some a mr. Kipling advert which I absolutely loved and it caused such outrage it was pulled after a few weeks and because what mr. Kipling the advert did was it actually showed you the birth in the nativity play so you had a woman actually giving birth in the nativity play and the person standing next to the vicar said to the vicar house Mr Kipling ever directed a nativity play before and the vicar said no but he makes exceedingly good cakes but what I loved about it is that it draws our attention to the fact that we haven't got a birth narrative in either Matthew or in Luke because actually what we've got is we've got a long lead up to the birth and then you've got an after the birth and you've hardly got any actual birth and it's worth just noting that and Luke more even than Matthew has a massive run-up to the birth you've got the announcement of John's birth the announcement of Jesus's birth John's birth that a little bit of Jesus's birth then you've got the after stuff with Simeon and Anna and it's worth just kind of having that in your mind when you're thinking about the birth narratives um Matthew has hardly any birth narrative at all let me just read you the sum total of what there is so Matthew mostly focuses on Joseph um Joseph has this great anxiety about whether he should marry Mary and the angel Gabriel comes as you nose and speaks to um Joseph and all it says is Joseph awoke from sleep when Joseph woke from sleep he did as the angel of the lord commanded him he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son and he named him Jesus the end justice well you're not going to do a nativity play from Matthew I would say it wouldn't last you very long um but it's worth just recognizing that that we don't have much in the way of actual birth narratives in Luke we have a little bit more and a little bit more which is important in Luke is the announcements to the shepherds the Shepherd's are out in there on the hills Jesus has just been born and the Shepherd's come hotfoot to see Jesus and in that announcement there is absolute pure gold of theology which we often miss because we're kind of rushing on to imagine the Shepherd's actually at the stable with Mary and Joseph so let me just pull a few of them Luke strands out because the strands I think are particularly important the first thing is that if you're reading Luke's birth narrative and you know your Old Testament you have Bethlehem you have shepherds you have the hint of Kings and immediately you go David and the reason why it's important that you would say David is because David was the long-awaited Anointed One he was going to come and be the new king so as soon as you got Bethlehem and shepherds and kingship mentioned all together you're immediately back in your mindset thinking about King David and the new king who would come and then you've got the Angels the angels are fascinating in Luke there are lots and lots and lots of angels in Luke until this moment when the angels appear to the Shepherd's and then they disappear completely until the resurrection you have nothing in the middle I'll come back to that in just a moment but the angels are really important in Luke's Gospel because they tell us who Jesus is they tell us what to expect they announce the message of what is going on but something unusual happens with the Angels in Luke's birth account first is that the angel who appears first isn't named up until this moment he's been called Gabriel we assume the angel is Gabriel but he's not called called Gabriel the next thing to notice is that Gabriel turns up with mates when he comes to speak to the Shepherd's the whole host of heaven announces to the Shepherd's what he's going to go on what is going on and their message is so very very important you know it really well but let me remind you of it glory to God in the highest heaven and peace to his people on earth now if you know Isaiah you will know that Isaiah's great prophecies can be boiled down into two points the first is that when the moment comes when God comes to transform the world then God's glory will be revealed in the world the second is that when the moment comes and God intervenes in the world then peace and harmony will break out on earth so in the Angels message to anyone who knows their old testament what the Angels have announced is that the world has changed forever the moment that people have been waiting for for all these many years has now come the world is transformed salvation has arrived the world is now a completely different place and the reason why I love that piece of lucan theology is because at this point Jesus hasn't done anything at all other than turn up cry a bit drink a bit of milk other than that not anything else and often when we think about salvation we think about it in terms of great activity and there is just a beautiful moment where the angels arrive and say salvation is here and it's here because Jesus has arrived he hasn't done anything else and in case you're in any doubt of it you then find it when Jesus goes to the temple and meet Simeon and that beautiful line from the nunc dimittis Simeon holds Jesus in his arms and he says actually the wrong thing to our mind but I think absolutely the right thing we hear him saying my eyes have seen my Savior and he doesn't say that he says my eyes have seen salvation that this physical fact of Jesus being present in the world has changed the world so much that actually salvation is present salvation is there in the world because of who Jesus is and it's a salvation with a profoundly political edge anyone who proclaimed peace at the time of Jesus was making the most strong political message that they possibly could the message that they were making was that there is a peace which is not the Pax Romana the Pax Romana was the crucial intervention of the Romans in the Roman Empire and the Roman emperors declared that there was the Peace of Rome the Pax Romana and what they did was that they made sure that there was peace because anyone who did not think that they would join in with the peace got killed it was a very straightforward way of establishing peace I tell you we will all be peaceful and if you're not peaceful I'll kill you do you agree with me excellent so to have a message that says a tiny baby has come and there is peace is a profoundly political statement against the rules of the day that actually peace can exist in vulnerability in poverty in a tiny frail baby that's where peace can be found not in military might and then the final point on top of all of that to whom was this message proclaimed shepherds now there's a bit of a tussle among New Testament scholars about what you should think about a shepherd um there is one school of thought that says Shepherds were outsiders they were unclean they were untouched and you shouldn't touch them therefore they were the lowest of the low there's another school of thought that goes and King David was a shepherd and you could be a landowner and be a shepherd and actually be quite wealthy and I could play out for you the tussle between the New Testament scholars but you'd get bored quite quickly but I do just want to say that actually I'm more on the lowest of the low end than I am on the King David end that actually Shepherds had to live outside of the village they therefore couldn't keep purity laws they couldn't observe all the laws of the Pharisees and so therefore it is more likely that they were regarded as unclean so if the message announcing salvation is announced to the shepherds then that tells us that actually if you want to see salvation you look to the outsiders to the people who were on the outskirts of society to the people who were not regarded by a main society as being of any significance whatsoever and for me that's really important a moment ago I told you then after the Angels went away on the when they'd appeared to the Shepherd's they really went away and didn't come back for a long time because the rest of Luke's Gospel is about who can notice who Jesus is um you don't get it announced with a big shiny fiery angel you've got to work it out for yourself and you've got to carry on working it out for yourself and for me the most beautiful moment of that is Simeon and Anna when they take Jesus into the temple and they meet Simeon and Anna and probably in the temple would have been two to three thousand people it was a big place it would have been lots and lots of people there would have been a crush going on and Simeon and Anna without the help of angels or voices from heaven or anything remarkable went their salvation and it's almost as though Luke is saying to us are you the kind of people who can go their salvation there it is I see it Luke sets as a challenge I think and asks us to reflect on where we can see salvation the hint start with people like shepherds and you're more likely to see it there then you will anywhere else I'm going to pause for a moment and we're going to hear a Carol set to music by John Island called new Prince new pomp and this will causes me great happiness because in it you will hear mention of Inns and stables and all of that and you will know that I'm enjoying that enormous Lee while the choir is singing [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'd never heard of that Carroll before but I think is absolutely beautiful Matthew and Matthews unbirth narrative as we've established already Matthew has a before birth narrative he has an afterbirth narrative but really not much of a birth narrative and Matthew like Luke does remind us that with Jesus everything has changed but he just does it slightly differently with Matthew the key verse is his quotation from Isaiah 7 which is given to Joseph before Jesus's birth that they will name him Emmanuel so a virgin shall conceive and bear a tart child and they shall name him Emmanuel as you will know that word Emmanuel is the key for Matthews understanding about what the birth narrative is all about it is a simple Hebrew word M means with Iman ooh means with us so you in Hebrew you put um the preposition on the pronoun on the end so in my new means with us mi nu L God with us or actually with us God which i think is rather nice but what Matthew does in the telling of his story far more than Luke does is he tells us of the precariousness of the story he reminds us time and again about what a dangerous thing this was that Jesus was born in the way that he did you can almost feel Matthew standing onto one side going really no that's a bad idea I wouldn't have done it like that because time and time again he shows you why it could have gone horribly wrong it starts with Joseph would Joseph take Mary to be his wife what would have happened if he didn't and you were led into that sense that what he might not and then he does then of course you've got the danger of Herod and the danger of Herod is real and we'll come back to him in a moment but Herod might have killed Jesus he could easily have killed Jesus and then where would we have been they flew flew to Egypt they this doesn't sound right that they flew to Egypt but you know what I mean they escaped to Egypt what happened if they'd got killed among the way what happened if they wouldn't never came back what happened if they hadn't heard that Herod had died and could safely have come back it's all a very dangerous precarious narrative and Matthew reminds us again and again that this birth was no easy thing it was not the sensible course of action it was dangerous it was precarious and probably shouldn't have happened in the way that it did let me just give you a little note on Herod because I think Herod is a fascinating character one of the things that people often say about Herod is that you cannot prove that he did in fact slaughter the innocence there's no historical account that records it but what most scholars of Herod would say is there's no account that records that Herod did slaughter that the innocence but he's entirely the kind of person who might have slaughtered the innocence he was altogether an unpleasant person to put it mildly Herod is a fascinating character and I could go on about him for hours and hours I won't you'll be pleased to know but Herod the Great in short should not have been King and he knew it and at the heart of who Herod was was that simple fact you may not know Herod's father was from Edom um in Latin that's I do Meah so Edom were the ancient enemies of Israel Israel had to deeply hated enemies one was Moab the other was Edom harrods father came from Edom his mother was a Nabataean so came from what we would today call Petra so across the other side of the Jordan so although he actually did worship as a Jew his heritage was to put it mildly dodgy and no Jew daeun would have trusted Herod at all he had no claim to the throne whatsoever he smooth-talked the Romans into allowing him to be king and in order then to shore up his power he married someone called Mary Omni and Mary amny was one of the Hasmoneans I won't go into detail Jewish history but after the Exile the Maccabees came to the throne and they formed a dynasty called the Hasmoneans so the Hasmoneans then became the kings of Israel until the Romans arrived in 63 BCE so therefore he married Mary Omni in order to be able to give him some reliability but Herod was paranoid and he was completely convinced that somebody was trying to get him off the throne the whole time so as a result of his paranoia although he deeply loved his wife Mary Omni we are told in the sources he had her murdered because he thought she was about to challenge him on the throne and then he had her two sons murdered murdered her brother her grandfather and her mother just to be sure so when you I say we don't know whether he slaughtered the innocence but he was the kind of person who would have done you'll see what I mean he was a profoundly paranoid man who had gripped on to power so when we get the Magi coming to talk to Harris about a king born in Israel imagine the terror for a pretender to the throne who had only kept the throne because he'd managed to kill everyone else who might look like they might have thrown his absolute terror that he might be thrown off the throne was really real and I think in that you get a remarkable insight into what Matthew is telling us about power and Jesus and kingship on the one hand you have somebody who shouldn't be King on the other hand you've got somebody who really is already King on the one hand you've got somebody who was so terrified about power that he has to kill everyone to keep it on the other hand you have God who was prepared to give up all power entirely and be born as a precarious risky baby just contrast those pictures and you can feel Matthew telling you time and time again that this was a risky exercise that Jesus engaged in this was the craziest thing on earth and it proved that he really was king that he really had the power there's just a little thing you might like to know about the wise men before I move on to John's Gospel the wise men fascinate me um the Greek word is mage I that singular is major and a major grew up in the Persian Court as interpreters of dreams so when they started they were regarded truly as wise people but by the time you get to Acts they've become distrusted um there's a major appears in acts in acts 13 verse 6 who is held up as a false prophet and a charlatan and called a mages so the interesting question is when Matthew tells us about the Magi does he have in mind his wise wise Persian interpreters of Dreams or does he have in mind the slightly dodgy off the back of a lorry charlatan that you find in acts' we don't know and often people would go well surely he has the Persian model in mind I wonder if he's got the dodgy characters in mind that the Magi come out as upright and righteous and godly next to Herod and therefore what you've got is possibly these charlatans who look good next to Herod but what they do is follow the truth they follow what they understand to be the way of truth I need to end and what I want to end with is actually suggesting to you that I've talked this evening about to birth narratives unbirth narratives Luke and Matthew what if all of the Gospels actually have a birth narrative it's just in the other two we haven't quite noticed them until now for me Mark's Gospel is itself a birth narrative it's just a birth narrative of a different kind my absolute favorite favorite opening line of any gospel I say pausing just for a moment yeah we'll go with that for a moment but my absolute favorite line is mark 1:1 the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ son of God what that means is everything that follows is the beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ son of God the story of Jesus is the birth narrative of the good news the birth narratives of the good news of Jesus Christ son of God the key bit about mark is that the birth narrative plays on in our lives it carries on in who we are as people so mark has a birth narrative it just hasn't got a baby in it which is why we don't like it quite as much and when you realize that you actually realize that the best birth narrative of all is John 1 John 1 the opening to John's Gospel is the supreme profound thoughtful exploration of precisely what Matthew and Luke are trying to do which is to tell us who was this person why was this poor person important why is the world now completely different because this person came so I want to end my talk by reading you John one I am a massive fan of John's Gospel and the reason why I am is that it is the kind of the juices of deep deep contemplation over the years you can feel the years and years of prayer and thought and reflection that comes out there's a lovely Jewish interpretation that believes that if you read certain passages of Scripture you will have a vision of heaven for us slightly bizarrely those passages of Scripture are things like Ezekiel one which is all about the chariots and things which we find it hard to get our heads around but I love the idea of Scripture that there are passages of Scripture that are so deep so profound that you can see right into heaven when they're read I think if there are any candidates in the New Testament for that Jewish belief of reading Scripture giving you a religious experience and understanding of God I would put for you John 1 and John 17 for me those two are the two that evoke a vision of heaven so I'm going to read for you John 1 in case it distracts you let me just warn you ivory translated it for this evening so if you're going I've not heard that translation before no one has and you can decide what you think about it later on but let me just read as we end in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God and the Word was God he was in the beginning with God everything happened through him not a single thing that happened happened without him in him was life and the life was the light of all people the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not understand it a man came sent from God his name was John he came as a witness to witness about the light so that everyone might believe through him he wasn't the light but he witnessed about the light the true light which sheds light on all people was coming into the world he was in the world and the world happened through him but the world didn't know him he came to his own people and his own people didn't accept him but whoever did welcomed him and believed in his name he gave them the right to become children of God children born not from blood nor from the will of the flesh nor from the will of a man but from God and the word became flesh and set up camp with us and we gazed in wonder at his glory glory is the only child of his father full of grace and truth [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] can I start by saying huge thank you to taller obviously for that fascinating witty I've got a lot more adjectives I could have used there you got cut short I got cash and to the singers who are just just departing it makes it's great to have some music in this and we've got questions coming in which is wonderful please as I said don't be shy we've got a few more minutes to collect so if you want to ask a question please do please do that so I have various things in front of me here you have obviously stimulated a lot of thought which is which is brilliant um I'm going to start with some questions which relate to someone we've not discussed very much which is Mary and the first one I got here and says given your defense of the historical reliability of the birth narratives might it be fair to cite Mary as the probable source of the oral tradition that the writers of Matthew and Luke transcribed it's a great question yes and and it in a way it kind of refers you back to various things that Luke in particular say and where he talks about Mary pondering things in her heart now the only way Luke could have possibly known that mary pondered anything in her heart would be because she mentioned it so personally yes I would be a big proponent of Luke particularly Luke possibly also Matthew and gaining their sources from conversation with Mary and if you want to just do a little bit of a historical wonder to work out how that could have happened this is all about whether we believe Christian tradition to be true or not if so if you don't it doesn't work but if you do then the Christian tradition has Mary going with John to Ephesus after Jesus's death Luke if if Luke there's so many ifs you have to do in order to lose these things if Mary went with John to Ephesus if Luke was Luke the physician who's mentioned in Colossians and also in Acts if he's that Luke then he will have traveled with Paul through Ephesus and could well have met Mary on the travels so it is actually possible to postulate a historical scenario in which had happened incidentally he would also then have met John and I think it's really interesting to reflect on some of the synoptic Gospels Synoptics being Matthew Mark and Luke writers meeting John and what they made of John when they met him would be it's an extraordinary thing isn't because because people must have met it met each other it's it's it's it's inevitable now I've got a slightly cheeky one here I'm staying with Mary slightly cheeky one and then have been a very very straightforward and easy one after lovely what do you think would have happened to Mary had Joseph abandoned her even say would they ever have escaped the rumors and the gossip because I mean that that's certainly something hasn't changed absolutely it's some it's I think is a very very powerful question the answer is there is no evidence at all in the first century that women were actively stoned for adultery with the possible exception of John eight kind of put that in a footnote and come back to it if it's an interesting one but there's no evidence within rabbinic text that women were actually stoned but she would have lived on the outskirts of society she would have been shunned her reputation would have been in share in tatters and you're right I mean probably that they would have lived with that reputation Joseph and Mary for the entirety of their life and for me the thing that I I've come late to an appreciation to Mary in my life and there is something I think really very powerful for me about her silent presence through the Gospels and the recognition that's when Gabriel announced what Gabriel announced to Mary there's a very high chance she was 13 maybe a little bit more but not a lot more and when you think of what I've got now got a 15 year old daughter so this really kind of kind of lands home and that she was little more than a child and yet Mary a response to Gabriel who she is through the Gospels is remarkable you only see little shadows of her but I think she is an incredible figure all the way through this absolutely absolutely now this is the card one I think what do you think is the theology of the Annunciation and the virgin birth I could I could do little in Toulouse now to give you some time let me let I'm gonna start on the easier end and then move to the harder and I'm going to sound like I'm being really controversial and then not be quite so controversial who decided I don't believe in the virgin birth I do believe in the virginal conception that's for me a really important distinction which is that the virgin birth imagines that Mary gave birth to Jesus and remained a virgin I would say that the Gospels point us towards a virginal conception not towards a virginal birth the theology behind it is is very difficult to pull out because it's had so many layers through Christian history that I find are very difficult layers I I still find it very difficult to sit in conversations with people who want to say the virginal state is pure and I sit there it's dangerous it is very day with two children saying and what are you saying of me and and it has it has had such a powerful impact on Christian history about how women are viewed so that is the bit that I really struggle with and the layers on it become really very difficult indeed personally the sense I make of the theology of the Annunciation and the virginal conception is that if we want to say that Jesus is fully God as well as fully human you have to have some element by which you can say this is the divinity part there were other explanations that you could have come with but this was the one that the Gospel writers can gave us and and I had no problem with people say well how can you believe in something like the virginal conception I say because I've had a baby and actually birth is the most incredible miracle in itself and and one of the things I used to love when I was pregnant I didn't enjoy a lot about being pregnant but one of the things I enjoyed about being pregnant was that moment where you'd say to the doctor and what does the placenta do and they would go eats the baby alive yeah but how I don't they maybe be able to tell you now but I think there is something kind of really powerful about recognizing that birth is in and of itself an amazing miracle and therefore for me it's only a little tiny step from birth as a miracle to the virginal conception as a miracle and I can live happily with that thank you now a couple of questions which relate to history and evidence and our you know the concept you were talking the the cyclical nature of Jewish history for example the idea just to remind you that God has intervened and and he's done it before one that this therefore therefore this must be a truth um does this cyclical nature tell us something important about how we understand the gospel narratives and and truth what is true and there's a second bit to this question here which is very topical in its language how do we hold on to the good news which we've explored in your talk in the era of fake news oh that's a great question let me do the easy half first half and then we'll go on to the second half I think for me the moment I realized that actually what was going on underneath the Gospels was the Jewish understanding of cyclical history absolutely everything changed for me I suddenly went oh that's why they tell the story like this that's why it's so important that Jesus is the new Moses the new Elijah the new you know you on new David edik makes a whole load of sense of why the Gospels tell you what they tell you and then you also have that radical bit at the end which I think are also glorious so it is true if you can demonstrate it's happened before and then you get to the resurrection which is so much not anything that has happened before and you can feel kind of the ground shaking underneath their feet about how they prove that something is true because it's completely new and I think it gives once you have that in your head it makes a radical new sense of what's going on in the gospel narratives but that's the easy I think fake news is is a very very challenging concept which has always existed and actually the reason why the Gospel writers told the stories in the way that they did was because they lived in a world of fake news how did you know that something was true so you had all of these kind of great magicians who would come along and say I am here to change the world and I'll show you by drawing and there was one of my favorite of examples of this is somebody called Honi the circle drawer I just think he's got the best name in ancient history I'm attempted to call my daughter Susie the circle Drori but she wouldn't let me but there's just something about that kind of that magical mystical there were lots of those characters around and Josephus who writes history of the Jews in the first century tells a story after story of people going it's me it's me we'll go into the deserts and then nothing happened or they got killed by the Romans and so I think that's taught the question of fake news has ever been thus and the question of the Gospels the question of Paul is in a world of fake news how do you know what is true how do you discern truth the Gospel writers gave us one model which is let us tell you how it was all foretold so that you know that it is true I think our big challenge for today we don't live in a world where that works anymore so how now do we know whether something is true what what would if we were going to write the gospel narratives today and say this is true and I'm going to prove to you that it's true because what would come after our because I think is a really interesting question because I think we've lost faith in how we prove something to be true and I think that's the crisis that we're facing politically at the moment I think that's absolutely right Trust is that Trust is the key thing so then that brings been very neatly onto another question which is here which is up what are their alternative nativities for today how do we how does the story you told us tonight rediscover its edge and relevance in in the grit and mess of our broken lives and society because it's there's a danger it's all too comfortable isn't it I think for me it's a personal danger because one of the things I love about the season of Christmas is that it brings people in people who wouldn't necessarily come to church are here they're experiencing they're listening to that story but if what we're giving them as a worth what they're taking away let's say is a slightly skewed thing what have we got for for the world today in terms of I think it's a great challenge and I think there are so many things you could say about it I think one thing's worth saying is that people who try to reintroduce an edge artificially almost certainly fail because actually the reason why people come at Christmas time is not to have their fur rubbed up the wrong way to be put on edge to be given a completely new thing they've never thought of before there is something important about that sense of well it's interesting isn't I've just talked about how we know something is true because it happens for a long long time actually Christmas is the time where people go now tell me the old old story I like the old story don't tell me the new one I won an old one and so there is that which i think is important but I actually think that in the sense what I was trying to talk about tonight was actually what difference does it make how does it change the world we live in and that's why I love Luke's story this Luke's going salvation salvation is here and you can almost hear Luke's audience going yeah but the Romans are still in control I'm still poor my life is still awful nothing is as I want it to be and Luke is saying salvation is here you've got to look for it and for me they're kind of the golden thread of Luke which I absolutely adore is salvation doesn't look like you think it looks salvation looks messy it looks kind of it's poor it's not to be found in the places you will look for it but the world has changed glory to God and peace on earth the world is a different place now therefore salvation is in our midst but you're gonna have to look for it and for me there is something in that which is really really powerful I loved what you said about how Luke announces everything and then but then doesn't they're they're angels disappear and we have to find it ourselves is this is this a message we can cope with in the modern world do you think and when we need it yes but in a world which seems obsessed with wealth creation and there to find salvation in the marginalized or in the way you don't expect it no I don't think it is something we can cope with but it never was and in a way one of the things that's kind of fascinating about being an ancient historian as I am as well as a New Testament scholar is you kind of go well the world is boringly the same you know when Jesus was born they didn't all go do you know what we don't need our fine palaces anymore we recognize the truth we're going to give up all our wealth and power and go and follow Jesus from a stable if it's those stories in the gospel of the rich people who couldn't do it I love that story of the the rich young ruler who went I want to follow you know I want to follow you and Jesus said lovely go and sell everything you've got anyway yeah but not that anything else but not that it's never been a welcome message that's true and a couple more things on the historical stuff says how much does the story of Herod slaughter the innocence and the flight into Egypt relate to Matthew's desire to portray Jesus as the new Moses almost entirely I mean and this is where you get into this that's why people ask the questions about historicity is that Matthew tells you a feel look Matthew is telling you a theological story just as Luke is telling you a theological story which he weaves together from Old Testament narratives so therefore he needs Jesus to be in Egypt in order to be able to demonstrate that this is the new Moses who's going to come out of Egypt and then he gives a new Sermon on the Mount with different Commandments and there are camels there's all sorts of parallels of Jesus as the new Moses he brings the new law and he goes up the mountain an awful lot in Matthew's Gospel there's a discussion among scholars there's a various scholars would like Jesus to go up the mountain five times in Matthew's Gospel because it would be nice and pleasing and like the five books of Torah actually Jesus goes up six mountains which spoils though and so yeah it's kind of five mountains and the other one but actually you have their form Matthew telling you the story of this new Moses figure who is coming with the new law which looks completely different so yes he does need Jesus to go to Egypt in order to do that and that's what causes people to say well did he just make it up and that's where you get into the chicken and egg does he make it up so he can start with Egypt and that's pleasing or actually did Jesus go to Egypt and the most Matthew goes oh that's very interesting there's that not the new Moses you can play it either way well there's an there's another question here which says do you think the birth narratives were developed after the resurrection as further proof that Jesus was the Messiah is there a sense these guys are writing retrospectively in order to make it all line up they were certainly written after the resurrection and there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the gospel narratives come from and then neighbor date well I can tell you with absolute confidence that every single New Testament scholar thinks that the Gospels were written after the resurrection after that I can't tell you any more about one every single New Testament scholar things so anywhere from the 50s all the way through to the second century or when people think about the Gospels being written and there is no I think there's no doubt that what the Gospel writers are doing are making sense of who this person was I have no problem with them being so fascinated by who this person was but like Luke they go around and find people to tell them Elizabeth Mary you know all the early people that that actually what happened and then from that they build their narratives you can of course go the other way and say that actually what they did was they constructed a narrative after the resurrection to prove that Jesus was who he said he was I don't personally go that route but it's one of those arguments you can go in either direction as I say it's a chicken and egg and either you can say that they collected all the evidence and they put it together and they saw a pattern or they started with the pattern and they reconstructed it backwards you can't prove they have their argument is untrue you can't prove it to be true either answer no I'm agin so I'm gonna do two more because I've just got to keep an eye on the clock I hope I know the answer to this one already it says if God with us is an ongoing reality to whom does the us refer is it believers only or is it the whole of humanity I think I know the answer but the implications of the answer are enormous absolutely um there is only one answer because there wasn't on us when he came if you see what I mean the odds develop if you want to make it as as in a small group of Christians they didn't exist when he came so therefore he would have been God on his own which wouldn't have been such a great Christmas message with her would it God all by himself so therefore God with us has to mean the us he encounters in the world that he made and loved and therefore it has to mean the whole of humanity that's a heart that's a hard thing to take on board isn't it in some ways as you know as believers who I leave you if you didn't gain down the path of saying you have to believe certain things you have to do certain things you have to have faith people who don't have funds it's quite it's a hard thing isn't it to hear sometimes do you know I don't find it hard at all and for me it is the absolute heart of what I believe as a Christian is that um God came for the world the whole world and fortunately I exist in the world so that means me as well but that kind of that desire to privatise God is something that I've never really felt I think there is just I mean I get a kind of little tingle um down my spine when I think God for us all every last single one you know even those really annoying people I really don't like God for them to that's who God is now his is a good thing a good sort of science sort of science one if God is outside of time how can it make sense to speak of Christ becoming incarnate and entering history coming into our timeline as a particular moment um I'm a bit of a Doctor Who fan and in Advent Advent messes with your sense of time and in that I think it's the David Tennant Doctor Who manifestation and where doctor who talked about we believe wobbly timey wimey stuff and I've always thought that that's the best explanation of theological history we believe wobbly timey wimey stuff which is that actually God is infinite and chooses to be finite God is beyond all time and chooses to locate himself in time God is beyond our imagining and presents himself to our vision there is something absolutely beautiful about that paradox of outside of time and thoroughly bounded in time God did not need to choose to do that but God did and that's what makes the Incarnation amazing and the time is our concept of yes indeed and God invented it in the first place if he wants to make it we believe habla tell me why missed half you can Paul you've given us so much this evening it's it's been an absolute pleasure I'm going to ask you um if you have a final thought that that I mean you've probably got a hundred and one but there's something that all these wonderful people here can take away this evening especially as we're about to start on our Advent journey towards Christmas I think for me the amazing thing about the Christmas story is that in it I seem to see something new every year that you can read it again and again and again and see a nugget see a line see a word that you've never noticed before and in that old old story made new each year for me what is really powerful is that the message comes back time and time again in John's beautiful words the word became flesh and we gazed at him in wonder at his glory that does it for me every year and even telling you know I'm a it has them back of my neck I've gone again because that God who is beyond all time who created the world in Matthews most precarious way chose to become a baby so that in Luke's glorious announcement salvation can be made known and that old old story is still true today so you look out at the world and it looks gray and miserable and hopeless and full of fake news and it's going to hell in a handcart and into that world the word became flesh and we gazed at his glory in wonder I'll do it for me thank you very much [Applause]

Channel: St Paul's Cathedral

Views: 6,101

Rating: 4.8333335 out of 5

Keywords: St Paul's Cathedral, Paula Gooder, God With Us, Christmas, Jesus, Christ, Mary, Joseph, stable, Shepherds, Magi, Angels, faith, salvation, redemption, God, birth, Bible, New Testament, nativity

Id: 5z3l3YJcDWk

Length: 87min 51sec (5271 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 28 2019