Among other roles I fill, I am a Christian pastor. We are entering the Christmas season. We know how the first Christmas went… What happened?
There is this couple – Mary and Joseph – they aren’t married. They want to be. Mary anyway is probably a teenager. She’s pregnant- very pregnant – and they have to go pay their taxes or something similar. In order to do this, they need to leave their town and travel to the capital city (or a suburb thereof). It was about the same distance as between here and Cobble Hill or Duncan. They didn’t have a car. They had to walk. It would be at least a two day walk.
They get there and, of course, it is time for Mary to have the baby. The water breaks or contractions start or something. They have to find a place to stay – but they don’t have a hotel room and there is no shelter. There is no hostel. Hospitals as we know them don’t exist and Mary is about to give birth. A business owner lets them use his barn and their baby is born.
Now, Joseph isn’t the baby’s biological father. This baby is God’s son and so, by definition, he is also God. Christmas is when we celebrate God becoming a person, when we celebrate the birth of God’s Son.
God invites specific people to celebrate the birth of His Son. It is night. And there are these shepherds, unskilled labourers working the nightshift. These aren’t the owners of the sheep or even the people who get to work the day shift – this is the night shift. God invites them – out of everyone in the world - to witness the birth of God’s baby, who by definition is also God.
They come to see Him. That is how God chose to enter the world. He wanted to share a most important event with unwed teenagers and people stuck working overnight on Christmas.
In the Christian faith, like God did at the birth of His Son, this is who we are supposed to include and honour as well – not the rich, not the self-sufficient, not those who don’t seem to need anything – but those who are on the outside looking in. John Wesley sums it up by saying that if we are God’s people, we will love and care for all God’s people and even more we will have a preferential treatment for the poor and other people on the margins. And this, my friends, is what you are doing.
In the previous 12 months you, as part of our team,
· have housed 21 people, who were previously homeless, in a place of their own
· have provided people with their first ever jobs
· provided more than 144 500 meals from our Soup Kitchen
· provided a further 11 000 meals from our food truck
· provided a further 5000 people with groceries
· sent kids to camp who have never been to camp
· given clothing and school supplies to children in need
· provided hundreds of toys to children who would otherwise get nothing for Christmas
· You have kept 3 940 people inside, off the streets at night; providing them with a bed, shelter, a safe place, with no in-and-out privileges so that once they are inside for the night, they stay safe for the night. You have kept them off the streets.
When I was commissioned and ordained as an Officer in The Salvation Army, I took a sacred oath:
...To care for the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked. To love the unloved and befriend those who have no friends.... And, by God’s grace, to prove myself a worthy officer.
This we, you and I and the rest of our team, have been faithful to and, by the grace of God, will continue to do so.
Thank you.
My Friends you are making a difference.
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