Readings, Isaiah 52:7-10 and John 1:1-14
Image, Mystic Nativity, Sandro Botticelli (1501)
 
At the end of that gospel reading, we hear the meaning of Christmas in brief: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. Jesus, the eternal word of God, through whom all things came into being has come as a human being. Jesus, the light and life of all people, has been born among the people. Jesus, beginningless, now born, has a common beginning. Jesus, who held the world’s potential within him, is now in the world.
 
Christmas represents the loving convergence of divinity and humanity in the person of Christ. Christ united these two natures within himself, but he did not do it for himself, he did it for us, all of us, the great us of humanity (indeed, we might go further and say the great us of creation). Because in the Incarnation, the uniting of God and man, Christ takes up all of humanity, all creation, and unites it with God. It is this union, achieved by Christ, which inspire the wondrous words of Paul: nothing can separate us from the love of God.
 
All this is true, and serves as the bedrock of the Christian faith, but there is something more to emphasise here. And the Word became flesh and lived among us – as we have said this is the binding of humanity and divinity, the opening of salvation, the power by which we become children of God. But let us contend momentarily with all that living among implies. 
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Readings, Exodus 17:8-13 and Isaiah 65:17-25
Image,  John Everett Millais, Victory, O Lord! (detail), 1871
 
The story we heard from Exodus follows shortly after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The people, recently freed, are beginning what they hope will be a short pilgrimage through the wilderness on the way to the mountain of God and then the promised land. Cracks, though, are already showing. Despite having witnessed the plagues in Egypt, and the parting and crashing of the sea, the people have begun to grumble: Is the Lord among us or not?
 
Thankfully for them, the Lord is among them, and the Lord provides. Bread and quails have fallen from heaven, water has been struck from a rock. The people are being fed from the hand of God; their daily necessities provided by the one who has promised to be theirs.
 
Then Amalek came and fought with Israel. To ensure that beleaguered and belittled Israel might survive, Moses stands atop the hill with the staff of God in hand – the very staff by which he bested Pharaoh, the staff which touched the sea and made it part, touched the rock and drew water. The staff given to Moses as a sign that God is with him and the people, about to reach out with a mighty hand to free them. This Moses shall hold aloft, so that once again God will act to secure the fledgling nation.
 
But here the story takes a fascinating turn. Because essential to this story of God’s extraordinary power, is the very ordinariness of human weakness. Mixed in with the seemingly supernatural ability of this gesture is the question of human limit. We simply cannot keep our hands above our head all day. Moses’ aged body will not allow it… it doesn’t matter how profound the moment, the human body is a vulnerable one.
 
Moses’ hands grew weary; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; so his hands were steady until the sun set.
 
I love this image, the failing Moses, exhausted and aching, propped up by a rock, arms held in place by those in his trust. It’s one of those beautifully paradoxical Bible stories. One of those stories which defy the heroic, the epic, and instead casts a picture of vulnerability, limit, weakness, and care.
 
Because there’s a more glorious way to tell this story. Where Moses, the intrepid, singular hero, stands alone aloft the mountain, and, with steely grit and rippling muscles seals the fate of the war. Channelling the very strength of his God, he triumphs with maybe just a few dramatic beads of sweat crossing his handsome brow.
 
Instead, we have another addition to the strange and uncharacterizable picture of Moses, of biblical heroism, and of godly leadership. For Moses, we know already from Exodus is a paradoxical figure – the baby saved from death who grew up in a palace, but also the murderer who was forced into decades of hiding. The man called forth by the blazing bush, but also the one whose doubt in his own speaking abilities was so entrenched that God had to relent and let him take Aaron to do the talking. The one who stood arms aloft and parted the Red Sea to bring his people to freedom, is now here requiring his own arms to be held in place to secure their safety. In the very next chapter this will continue. Moses’ father-in-law comes to visit and watches how Moses is stuck all day solving every petty squabble and has to tell Moses to teach the people to solve their own problems, and appoint judges to share the burden: What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you. For the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone.      
 
The Torah proclaims Moses as a prophet without rival: Never since, the closing words of Deuteronomy ring out, has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform. But what today’s story teaches us, alongside all those nifty paradoxes, is that even a man such as Moses has limits, limits which require not only the goodness of God, but the care of community. Moses’ health, his thriving, his survival resembles our own in its contingency. Moses is great, and he is vulnerable and dependent.
 
This is a vital message on a day such as today where we are thinking about men’s health and care, and in the coming weeks as we enter the 16 Days Against Gender Based Violence. The crisis of gender-based violence, the so-called epidemic of male loneliness, the increasing and concerning radicalisation of young men, the lack of dialogue about men’s health physical and mental, so much of this stems from rigid gendered expectations and stereotypes. Stems, that is, from expectations of what it means to be a man, to be masculine. Expectations that are rigid, restrictive, and ultimately destructive (not only for the self, but for others). Sadly, these kind of rigid expectations and aspirations take root in the church as well; where a kind of godly masculinity is espoused, touting the supremacy of men as leaders who are strong and controlled (and perhaps controlling). And yet, as with Moses, time and again the Bible defies a kind of heroic masculinity that is self-sufficient, strong, and stoic, invulnerable and individualist. In its place is the valorisation of service, the requiring of humility, the glorifying of weakness, the celebration of compassion, the commending of vulnerability, and the recognition of our reliance not only on God, but others. To be human, and in particular to be human within the church is to be given to others in mutual dependence and care, to be both giver and receiver of grace and gifts, to be a helpmeet to one another and the earth.    
 
And we needn’t solely glean this lesson from the figure of Moses, or other human leaders in Scripture. Because we find the same example in Christ, the exemplar of the human. Limit and vulnerability mark the life of Jesus. Jesus is entrusted to the care of others. Jesus’ body grows weary, and others will come along (whether it be to anoint his head or carry his cross) to care for and sustain him. Indeed, one of the great, dismaying failures that Jesus experiences is when he is facing an approaching battle and asks his friends to stay awake and pray with him, but – unlike Aaron and Hur – they fail, and sleep through his agony.
 
Jesus’ heroics, such as they are, also fit more in the mode of Moses’. His wonders are hardly herculean, but are acts of healing, feeding, compassion, stillness and peace. For God’s vision of flourishing, of future shalom and abundance – as we heard in today’s reading from Isaiah – is communal. In the new creation, far from being enforced, the so-called natural divisions and boundaries fade away, as wolf and lamb feed together. The picture of heavenly glory and peaceful new creation is not one where we become more self-sufficient, but more harmoniously intertwined with one another, creation, and God.  
 
The reminder then, whenever we start to think about health and flourishing, is to remember that in the Christian picture of the world, we are never called to be self-sufficient, never asked for individual heroics, never taught to hide or shun vulnerability. We are never asked to go it alone. We are made a body with one another, called to fold one another to our hearts, and hold each other up – weep with those who weep, rejoice with those who rejoice. Even when Moses possessed the staff of God, this incredible symbol of divine power - this is shown to be too heavy to hold on his own. Here on the battle field, as with the broader governing of Israel, his task will only be accomplished if it is shared. His greatness is contingent on hearing the words of wisdom: you cannot do it alone. Like Moses, all of us have God, an ever-present help in times of trouble, but we need to also have each other, particularly if we are to live into the vision of God’s flourishing kingdom where we shall know full and fruitful lives in community before God.

Readings, Psalm 8 and Luke 18:9-14
Image, Salvador Dali, Confession (1960) Woodcut 
 
We could make the case that, at least at first, the Pharisee in the parable does little wrong. His first line of the prayer, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, could, resemble a common refrain in the life of faith: “there but for the grace of God go I.” At the heart of our prayer life – particularly for those of us who have some material comfort, who are not looked at with derision by the pious and the privileged – ought to be a humility born of our understanding that should we have been dealt a different hand, it would be very easy for our life to be otherwise. If we had been born into a warzone. If we had been raised in a household of neglect. If we had been born into a marginalised community. If we had a bit more bad luck, a few less opportunities, a bit less positive reinforcement, a few less positive role models, a few more burdens laid on us too young. Any number of things, we admit, could have left us a lot less stability in the self and comfort in life, facing instead one ripe with struggles and sparse with choice. Such an admission is essential to our self-understanding and prayer, less we confuse and conflate worldly comfort and esteem with moral purity, and material struggle with character flaw and immorality. When we see neighbours and strangers struggling against the forces of the world, struggling with addiction, poverty, violence, and trauma, one could be like the Pharisee and pray, I thank thee God, that I am not as others are… not because we were so wise and goo, but because we got lucky.
 
Unfortunately, it seems this is not the way the Pharisee intends it. For in uttering the following: I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess – the Pharisee is claiming that the reason he is not like others is because of his piety, moral strength, religious devotion. He looks at what good has befallen him not as something which leads him to gratitude and humility, but as that which justifies himself before God (and in spite of others).   
 
In contrast, the tax collector benefits from brevity; a simple, true statement. Striking his chest, as many Christians still do today in the mea culpa, he says only: God be merciful to me a sinner. He considers no one else, nor seeks to evoke comparison with someone worse.
 
Clearly, this gets it right, he is the one who goes down to his house justified. Obviously, we would like to locate ourselves in his camp. But it is perhaps not so easily done – or, full admission – I do not find it easy. It takes a lot of trust to let this be the first, and perhaps only thing we say of ourselves. To resist all impulses to justify and equivocate, to slip in an addendum to our confession. Yes, Lord, I have sinned… of course, yes, a sinner I… but remember I didn’t do that thing, and this week I did less of the other… oh, and remember that good deed, that kind thought… and also, well I’m not like them.
 
It's not easy, we might say it is hardly natural. After all we’ve been taught to make a good impression – that even asked about our weaknesses in a job interview our answers are best couched as hidden strengths (work too hard, care too much, I can be a perfectionist, perhaps too ready to allow middle managers to take credit for my work). Are we willing to let this be the first, and perhaps the final thing said about ourselves in front of the mercy seat of God? To not seek judgment on a curve against the ‘real’ sinners but stand in the stark, unflattering light and recognise our absolute dependence on God? Not easy indeed.
 
And are we willing and ready to let this be the first and perhaps final word that is said of other things we would like to justify, those we would like to offer a few words to their credit to hopefully balance the scales or improve them by comparison? Because when we come to speak of Christians of the past, or the church in other times, there can be a real nervousness to let the sin be spoken, to name their misdeeds and attitudes as sinful. We can be quick to reach for those justifications again – yes, they did that, or yes, they were participants in that, or no, they didn’t speak against it, or sure, they profited from it, but they at least didn’t do… or they weren’t as bad as others… or how could they have known that it was bad?
 
But like ourselves standing in the courts of God, the church is first and foremost the church in confession. The church which understands all too well its propensity for falling prey to worldly value systems and the lure for power. The church is community seeking to turn back, to resemble more, to follow closer. And to be that we need to be willing to confess without reserve that while those before us handed on the beauty, wonder, and meaning of the message, they also fumbled, harmed, erred and require the mercy of God. 
 
Now, maybe you’ve been finding this a little bleak. A little morose to press again and again that, like the tax collector, we need to be ready to let the first and perhaps final word said about us (or the church) before God be have mercy on me, a sinner. Yes, we might recognise that this is vital in fostering humility, in keeping us from judging and condemning our neighbour, in reminding us of our dependence on the grace and mercy of God, and need to restore what has been broken. All that’s good, but is it good news? Well, this is a sermon, and what kind of sermon would it be if we did not proclaim some good news, and we begin to proclaim some good news with the words of Jesus that close out this parable: for every one that exalteth themself shall be abased; and they that humbleth themself shall be exalted.
 
You might have found yourself in a conversation at work, church, school, even around a family table, and there’s an opening for you to share something you’ve done of which you are proud, some achievement or milestone. You’re thinking about blurting it out, but are worried how it might come across, and then someone else says, “you know, Liam just did this cool thing…” “or Liam’s great at that, ask him.” And while there is nothing wrong with speaking up for ourself in a moment like this, sharing something we’re proud of or worked hard for, it feels great when someone does it for us, when someone else says more about us than we would have hazarded to say for ourself. And that’s where we come to the good news, because when, like the tax collector, we only hazard to say of ourselves, have mercy on me a sinner, this is not all that is said about us: for those who humble themselves will be exalted.
 
Christ has determined to be for us and for our freedom. Christ has chosen in grace to share with us all that was his by righteousness. In Christ’s victory we have not been given a spirit of fear in order to fall back into shame, but a spirit of adoption: we have been made children of God, siblings with Christ, co-heirs with the Son. We, who have been taught to pray for forgiveness, taught to seek mercy, are also those the psalmist reminds us have been made but a little lower than God, crowned with glory and honour.
 
In so many ways this sermon has gone in the wrong direction, speaking first about the need to confess with simplicity and brute honesty, and then only now about all that makes it possible. The better way to go is to say, because God has already said of us: beloved, child, redeemed, cherished, honoured, we are able to say: have mercy on me a sinner. Confession is only truly possible in the full reality of Christ’s generosity, grace, and love. Confession takes its proper place within the unfailing, unending love of God, amidst the delight and kindness of God. That is to say, if you are struggling with confession they trick isn’t to focus more on your sin, or wallow in your guilt. Rather if you are struggling with confession that fix comes through delighting further in God’s love and grace, focusing more on Christ's abundant care. For it is when we grasp that we have already received the spirit of adoption, already been brought in under the umbrella of grace, then we are able to come in freedom, trust, and confidence to the courts of God and offer our confession. Only in the knowledge that in Christ we have already been justified, can we resist the impulse to try and justify ourselves. We are able to offer the word of confession because we are already assured of forgiveness, we are able to be humble because we are exalted in Christ’s word of grace. We can say sinner, because Christ has already and will always say so much more wonderful and divine things about us, than we could ever possibly hope to muster.