Rev Dr Sam Wells, Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields

Good morning. ‘Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.’ So says Jane Austen of Fanny Price in Mansfield Park. But she could equally have said it of herself. Jane Austen’s 250th birthday this week is being widely celebrated on this network. She was swathed in the practice of faith: her father and two of her brothers were ordained, and two visits to church on Sunday were her lifelong pattern. She certainly knew the shortcomings of religion: parodying the servility and self-importance of the parson Mr Collins, she says he ‘was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society.’ Her gift is to turn the interactions of family and community, and especially the elaborate dance and fragility of finding a marriage partner, into a whole moral universe. Her characters transcend their surroundings. One, Mr Bennet, says laconically, ‘For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?’ Another, Mr Knightley, says poignantly to Emma Woodhouse, ‘If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.’ It's a truth universally acknowledged that it’s never been clear what it actually means to be a Christian. Some insist on adherence to specific doctrines. Others on obedience to identifiable moral codes. Others point to formation in a traditional culture. A woman of her time, Jane Austen’s participation in worship and devotion was socially conventional. But she has her own answers to this perennial question. If she were to identify a favourite parable, my guess is she’d choose the story of the two sons, one of whom refused his father’s request to go into the vineyard, but did; while his brother said, ‘I will,’ but didn’t. For Austen, Christianity’s about actions not words. ‘Christian’ is more of a verb than a noun. The many suitors are sifted out not by their protestations of love, but by their true character. Of Fanny Price, we’re told, ‘She made herself indispensable to those she loved.’ Which connects Jane Austen in a significant way to Christmas. For the Christmas story’s not about what God says. It’s about what God does. In Northanger Abbey, Isabella Thorpe exclaims, ‘There’s nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves. It’s not my nature.’ Coming in person as a vulnerable baby is communicating by action rather than by word. Maybe Jane Austen knew exactly what she thought being a Christian meant. It meant not loving by halves. Perhaps she’s more of a theologian than she’s usually given credit for.

Good Morning, ‘Hark!’ ‘Do you hear what I hear?’ ‘They said there’d be snow this Christmas; they said there’d be peace on earth’ ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ ‘I pray God it’s our last!’ Throughout the land the lyrics of Christmas songs are being piped in shopping centres and pubs and, loved or loathed, we sing along. This year’s official Christmas No1 will be decided on Friday. Current favourite is Kylie, with oldies from George Michael and Slade chasing hard. As Slade’s Noddy Holder sings; ‘Does your granny always tell ya that the old songs are the best.’ Then, in a tradition begun by Lennon and taken up by Rage Against The Machine, there are the Christmas protest songs. This year’s from Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel with ‘Lullaby’, a song for Gaza, and Billy Bragg’s ‘Put Christ Back Into Christmas’, with Bragg asking us ‘to stand with those who need the most’ and reminding us that Christmas celebrates the birth of a refugee. It seems very British to me that we are free to mix protest in with sentimentality and silliness. The Christmas story is spacious enough to contain all our hopes and fears, our joy and praise, our rage and indifference. Even our scrooge-iest revulsion. For I contend that the birth of Christ is itself a kind of cosmic protest song. The original Christmas No.1 was after all sung by angels to people at the margins of society: the young Mary and Shepherds, those far from the corridors of power and status; a startling song that announces a change to the status quo, a tune sweeter and louder than the prevailing mood music of despair, the monotonous dirge of violence and oppressive power, of one bad thing after another: ‘Do not be afraid’ it declares. ‘There will be peace on earth.’ It’s arguable that we might never have heard this story had the message not been sung to people who were immediately in tune with it, and able to sing back in words of astonished wonder and praise: ‘he has scattered the proud, put down the mighty, exalted those of lowly degree.’ Or ‘My eyes have seen your salvation.’ Once you’ve ‘hailed the incarnate deity’; or seen the Godhead veiled in flesh, the chances are you’re going to sing about it. Christmas invites the world to sing a different tune. I’d even suggest that part of the reason we still sing about it – even if we stray into sentiment - is that its core melody is like a pop tune or great carol you can’t help but sing along with. ‘No. I can’t get you out of my head; because God and sinners are reconciled; because mild he lays his glory by; the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee; And so this is Christmas.’

Good morning. This year, for the first time, I've bought a real, 6-foot Christmas tree - and I hit the shops in search of baubles and tinsel.The only problem? Fashions have changed. I want the kind of tree I remember from the 80s: a multicoloured glitter bomb that looks like a dozen boxes of quality street.Alas, things have gone posh. It's all pink and white now, or cold blue; coordinated and minimalist. As if decorating a hotel foyer. I stared for days at my naked tree, preferring that to the retail option, and wondering why I was so bothered.Well, trees clearly do still matter because people are furious that a public tree was cut down at Shotton Colliery in County Durham, a green spruce the village planted over a decade ago in remembrance of the dead from two world wars. . It reminded me of the grief that was felt when the Sycamore Gap tree was butchered in 2023.Christmas trees are far more than decoration. One legend has it, that they were introduced by Martin Luther, when he was out walking one winter night and saw the stars twinkling around the top of a fir. He put a tree hung with candles in his home, to remind onlookers that Jesus came from Heaven. This German tradition was imported to Britain by Queen Charlotte, who, in 1800, decorated the first known royal tree at Windsor - with fruits, toys, raisins and candles.It was already custom here to hang greenery indoors, probably to cheer us up while, in a colder age, the view outside the window was barren and white. To this pagan-ish spirit was added a Christian spin, the sparkling Christmas tree, like Christ, suggests light in the darkness and the promise of new life. For nature this comes with spring. For human beings, with resurrection.Faith, far from being at odds with the tangible world of nature, sacramentalises it. In psalm 96, "the trees of the forest" are ordered to "sing for joy" in praise of God. The author of the Old English poem The Dream of the Rood encounters a talking tree that provided the wood for Christ's cross, bedecked with gold and gems. This fits with my instinct that Christmas trees should be sparkly and bright, so bright that when the lights are switched on they’re visible from space.A wise friend pointed out that most Christmas decorations are not bought in one go, but accumulated over a lifetime. When they’re taken out of the attic and hung from the tree, the odds and ends are a trip down memory lane. Christmas trees invite wonder. Adults, I suspect, think of childhoods past. The tree connects us to mysteries of time and nature and promise.

15 DEC 25

13 DEC 25

Over the next week or two – whatever your degree of vocal prowess or religious belief – you are likely to join in some form of communal singing. Whether it’s ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ or ‘Feliz Navidad’, you will be obeying the exhortation of Psalm 100: “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth. Serve the Lord with gladness; come into His presence with singing.”Carols and seasonal songs are so integral to this time of year that we don’t probe the reason for their presence in churches, homes and so many other shared spaces. St Augustine of Hippo, born in the fourth century, can enlighten us. He said: “Cantare amantis est.” In other words, “To sing is the act of a lover,” or, as the Pope put it at the Jubilee of Choirs in Rome last month, “Singing belongs to those who love.” When we love deeply, silence is not enough. Love, with all the trust and joy it engenders, seeks expression, and it finds expression through song.Christmas is the feast of God’s love made flesh. Our carols are songs of love to the God who comes among us. As Pope Leo reminded the singers assembled in St Peter’s Square, song can be a way of praying, lifting the soul towards the mystery we celebrate. When we sing, we join the angels who announced “Glory to the newborn king”.Of course, the spiritual power of song is not restricted to Christmas and the people who celebrate it. It was in Judaism that the Psalms first became shared prayers, and at Hanukkah – the festival of light that so often coincides with Advent or Christmas – families and congregations sing to glorify God as candles glow.In the Qawwali music of Sufi Islam, voices weave together in devotion. In Hinduism there are bhajans, in Buddhism chants, all expressing the universal impulse to give voice to love and reverence. To return to Psalm 100, our songs will ring out as we enter God’s gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise.In a world that is so often fractured, communal singing produces both musical and spiritual harmony. So let us sing – not because custom demands it, but because love compels it. Through the simple and affirmative act of raising our voices together in this season of joy, and as members of the human race, we both convey and embody a crucial message: that what unites us is far greater than what divides us.

Good morning, This time yesterday I was sitting in a cosy barn in the Chilterns, surrounded by a herd of goats and a surprisingly well-mannered donkey. A friend had kindly loaned me his farm to broadcast a live nativity to forty thousand primary school children across the country. During the broadcast, we linked up with Kakuma Refugee camp in northern Kenya. Ajok, a 17-year-old from Sudan, explained what life was like for her there. She told us that her camp houses 200,000 refugees, and that each day she walks 5 kilometres to get to school, where she learns in a class of 130 students. When she gets home, she has to beg for food so her family can eat one meal a day. Despite all the hardship she is a young woman full of hope planning to graduate and become a teacher. A friend at the UNHCR, who runs her refugee camp alongside the World Food Programme and the Kenyan Government, explained to me that, due to international aid cuts, supplies in the camp are severely limited. Ajok’s family have been categorised as “low need,” which means they now receive no food assistance. Ajok’s Christmas will, sadly, be very different from mine. Yet it is her story that echoes most clearly the grittiness of the first Christmas. Her experience of being displaced is not dissimilar from Mary and Joseph’s - who were forced from their home at the worst possible time. Her anxiety over the lack of basic necessities reflects the Holy Family’s desperate search for accommodation in Bethlehem. It is no wonder that Jesus identifies with the vulnerable and the outsider. Matthew’s gospel records him saying: “For I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you welcomed me.” Many of us miss this central message of hospitality to outsiders in the Christmas story. Some of us get distracted by the superficial, synthetic trappings of the festive season, others by the belief that immigrants are threatening our nation’s Christian culture. Both approaches fail to grasp the core of the Christmas story and its call to open our doors, our hearts, and our lives to those who need welcome most. Mary and Joseph welcomed precisely those others would have turned away - humble shepherds and road-weary foreigners, sent to them by God himself. Little did Mary and Joseph know at the time that they too would suddenly find themselves fleeing across the border to Egypt - refugees reliant on the kindness of strangers. This is why, in this time of Advent, it is people like Ajok —those struggling simply to get by who have much to teach us. The nearer we draw to the real Christmas story, the more we see just how the true Christ of Christmas is still breaking down walls, restoring dignity and inspiring generous hospitality.

10 DEC 25

09 DEC 25

Good morning. In the midst of despair for many at the lack of international progress on combating climate change, comes a small but significant story of hope. Last week, scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, published measurements of this year’s ozone hole over Antarctica. It showed the hole continuing to shrink, demonstrating that the ozone layer is recovering. This is a glimmer of hope giving confidence that science and governments can combine in healing the world.Forty years ago, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey first observed this hole caused by the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere, chemicals which are used widely in the production of a wide range of goods, from refrigerators to hair spray. The erosion of the ozone layer exposes the Earth to dangerous levels of ultra-violet radiation. Governments moved swiftly and two years later they adopted the Montreal Protocol. This led to a curtailing of these chemicals even if their concentration in the atmosphere would reach their peak some 13 years later. But the Protocol, built on good science and political willpower, means that by the 2060s the ozone hole will be closed and the planet protected. This achievement needed committed action and long-term vision to solve a problem over many decades. Sir John Houghton, a leading atmospheric physicist, subsequently chaired over one hundred international scientists in producing the first Scientific Assessment Report as part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In contrast to the Montreal Protocol, combatting wider global warming was and still is slow progress, resisting considerable pressure from some governments and fossil fuel advocates. When asked whether he ever despaired his reply was ‘absolutely not — it is a totally solvable problem.’ This was based in his confidence in science but also in his deep Christian faith that God was active in the world and had not given up on it. For Christians, the Creator God becoming flesh and blood in the baby born in Bethlehem, is an embodiment of hope. This incarnation shows that God is committed long term to the physical world in both the healing of human beings and the environment and that science is a gift to contribute to that. Further the good news of Jesus is that love can change people from selfish greed to generous service.In a complex world where problems seem so intractable, I am thankful for glimmers of hope, either from science or from the Advent story, to sustain action over the long term and to resist the darkness of despair.