The Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning considers the deeper messages of homelessness and poverty amid the arrival of the Christ child.

MODERATOR

Photo: iStock

UP until recently I had been in the habit of using the phrase, ‘at the heart of the Christmas story’, until I realised how often over my years of ministry I had used the phrase.

How big is the heart of the Christmas story? That may be the point: the heart of the Christmas story is large. There are many themes and strands and nuances and challenges and complexities in this most shining of faith stories.

Each time we look at the Christmas story something different catches our attention. There are so many different characters in the Biblical stories and we are left wondering about who they are, where they came from, what they represent, how they fit in to the bigger picture.

This year I have been struck by the number of people who are on the move in the stories around the nativity. Magi setting off from a far eastern land following a star; Herod pacing up and down in one of his many palaces nervously wondering where the next threat to his authority would come. Shepherds running around in their fields; people scurrying around ancient Palestine at the time of the Roman census; and the innkeeper in Bethlehem run off his feet trying to find accommodation for everyone.

Even the angels, God’s messengers, moving around the heavenly realms, preparing their glad tidings of great joy, their feet hovering above the ground.

Somewhere in the midst of the bustle we find Joseph and his pregnant betrothed, Mary, travelling to the city of David, and finding, as the nativity story puts it, no room at the inn, and hardly any room anywhere. In the worst possible of circumstances, and possibly at the worst time of the year, they were homeless and poor. Somewhere near the heart of the Christmas story is the reality of homelessness and poverty.

I have been happy to support the initiative of the charity Social Bite who are organising the Sleep in the Park event in Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh on Saturday December 9. It’s the same venue for our General Assembly Heart and Soul event in May.

Sleep in the Park seeks not only to raise money to tackle the cause and effect of homelessness in Scotland, but also to raise public awareness about the issue and to challenge political authorities to find ways to eradicate homelessness. For good.

If homelessness is near the heart of the Christmas message, poverty is never far from the reality of homelessness.

I recently helped launch the Give me Five campaign, which seeks the eradication of child poverty in Scotland. How can it be, given the comparative wealth of our country, that homelessness and child poverty still feature in the twenty-first century?

As Christmas approaches, what can and must we do to play our part, and to encourage the political, business and economic world to play its part, not only to help those who are less fortunate, but also to remove not the symptoms but the causes of homelessness and poverty wherever possible?

The heart of the Christmas story is indeed large, for it contains the passionate promise of our God to be with us, whatever the cost, and whatever our circumstance.

It is good that we celebrate the coming of the Christ-child, our migrant Messiah, born homeless, born into poverty, but born nevertheless for us.

May the peace, joy and wonder of Christmas be with you and with the people of our world in the wonder and the mystery of this coming Christmastime, and into the New Year that lies beyond.

The Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2017/18.