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Sermon preached by The Very Reverend Ross Bay, Dean of Holy Trinity Cathedral
Christmas Day 2009
Readings: Isaiah 9:2-7; Luke 2:1-14


Most of us will know of Martin Luther King Jr’s famous “I have a dream” speech, one of the defining moments of the American Civil Rights movement, delivered in 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. Most of us probably wouldn’t be able to say much more about it than that, or recite any more of the content. Although if we heard the lines:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”;

and:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character”;

then we would very likely not only recognise the speech, but perhaps marvel that an industrialised, democratically governed nation could have perpetuated such inequality within the lifetimes of quite a few of us here today.

In every generation we dream of the world being different. For some the dreams remain just that, wishful thinking, hopeful imaginings. For others the dreams create an energy and a passion that compels them to be part of turning the dreams into realities. Kate Sheppard and the Suffragette Movement; Dame Whina Cooper and the land marchers; Nelson Mandela and those who stood with him against apartheid; the Anglican Church and the Hikoi of Hope; and the list could go on as we recall people and moments where dreams found tangible substance and precipitated change.

They are dreams which I believe find their origins in God. For God has a dream for this world, the dream of peace and justice made real for all people everywhere, the dream of the planet healed, the dream of people reconciled across class and race and gender and faith.

God has given this dream tangible substance, and has done so through the gift of Jesus of Nazareth. This is God’s Christ through whom the dream of God’s just reign has broken into this world. This is the child born in the stable at Bethlehem whose humble and wondrous birth we gather to celebrate today and to whom we bring the worship of our hearts and the offering of our lives. For in Jesus, God has come to dwell with us as one of us.

God’s dream of a world transformed has found its beginning in Jesus and will find its ending their also when Christ comes again to bring all these things to their completion. But in the meantime God’s dream abides among us, the people of Jesus, those who have caught the vision of God’s reign. For God took on flesh in Jesus Christ, and Christ now takes on flesh in each one of us who will make a place for him in our lives, and in doing so allow God’s dream to continue to be worked out through us.

A friend told me a story about her granddaughter who was going to be in their church’s nativity play. She had all sorts of hopes about being an angel or a shepherd, but when it came to parts being given out she was offered the one part she hadn’t wanted – and that was to be Mary. But there were no tears or disappointed tantrums. Instead she said very philosophically: “Oh well, somebody has to do it”.

They could almost have been words from Mary herself, who expressed it like this: “Here am I the servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word”. God’s dream for the world, made real in Jesus, involved human beings right from the start. Mary who bore the Christ; Joseph who stood by her; the innkeeper who offered hospitality. All of these allowed themselves to become part of the outworking of God’s dream for the world. Nothing has changed.

I wonder what the dreams are that we bring with us today. As we have prepared for Christmas at the Cathedral over this past month of Advent, we have focussed each Sunday on a different aspect of the work of Christian World Service in aid programmes around the world. We have lit candles to represent the gifts of faith, hope, joy and love, [which you can see burning around the Advent wreath beside the altar] culminating in the lighting of the Christ candle last night as we recognised that these gifts have their source in Christ and find their focus in Christ.

Those candles represented big dreams, being worked out in part through the work being done on behalf of the Christian Church by aid workers in challenging parts of the world. Our dreams may be much smaller, yet in some ways seem just as hard to achieve. Perhaps it is a dream for our families, or our workplace; perhaps it is for our Church; maybe it is a need in our local community, or our nation as a whole. Whatever it is, if it is a dream for good, a dream for transformative change that brings faith, hope, love or joy, then see it as the outworking of God’s dream. And see yourself as part of that outworking. For the mystery and the wonder of the Incarnation is not found when we get bound up in arguments about the metaphysics of the virgin birth, but when we understand that God came to dwell with us as one of us, taking on flesh in Jesus, and continues to do so, taking on flesh in each one of us who choose the way of Jesus.

For us to say “I have a dream” is no small statement. To believe it is God’s dream finding its way through us might be downright scary. But with both the Mary of history and the Mary of recent nativity play, God is hoping that we will be willing to say “Here am I – somebody has to do it”. Because that is how God’s dreams continue to become tangible and real.

We celebrate more than a great story at Christmas. We in fact celebrate God’s radical action in bringing about change in the world by establishing his reign on earth in Jesus Christ. God invites us to make room in our lives for Christ, to allow Christ to take on flesh in us, and so to discover God’s radical dreams planted in our hearts and stirring us to action.

May God grant us a holy and happy Christmas. May our celebrations be filled with joy and laughter. And may we have the courage to allow God’s dreams to become our dreams, and our lives to become the tangible outworking of those dreams as God through us changes this world for good.