Why the baby in a manger is good news in Eltham

Editorial printed on 22 December 2002

What does Christmas mean in a place like Middle Park - one of hundreds of council estates ringing London? For most people probably no more than a welcome escape from the drabness of everyday life and the drabness of midwinter. It was built to house the workers needed for the growing munitions and engineering works along the Thames waterfront to the north. Tens of thousands were employed, skilled and unskilled manual labour.

Today, there is little need for unskilled workers and many are excluded from a market-driven society. Around here, if people are in work, they are likely to be low-paid shift workers. Many are pensioners or dependent on welfare benefits. Some, through hard work, are just about OK; many struggle to make ends meet and the rampant commercialism just adds to the pressure.

Time out and a chance to rest - though many will be working over Christmas - is one attractive prospect of the coming holiday.

The architect who built St Saviour's - our church - didn't live long enough to know that locally the building, all brick and concrete with a formidable exterior, is called 'the prison'. I understand his vision - a building that looked like the factory or the local cinema and which 'working' people would relate to and feel comfortable entering. Inside, the contrast is amazing.

Old and young alike who come in for the first time, just stop and say 'Wow!' as they gaze up at the east window, long blazes of brilliant blue and turquoise stained glass, with purple, red and gold highlights, and a huge concrete statue of Christ holding the world in the palm of one hand and blessing it with the other.

It isn't just the physical impact though. There is something else that touches people: a sense of peace and tranquillity. And, happily, many do still come inside - especially at Christmas.

At the centre of Christmas is the baby Jesus and there is a great deal of sentimentality about a baby. There is also a resonance with a baby's vulnerability that susceptible people recognise at a deep level. They don't articulate it - an acknowledgment that you're vulnerable in a success-crazed society is not easily admitted - but they come.

The message here is simple: actions speak louder than words, and the abiding principle is love, not a set of rules and regulations that simply says no.

People in Middle Park have enough of that: other people setting the criteria and then telling them they have failed to meet them. Little wonder some sink into a sort of hopelessness which shows in the vandalism, graffiti and rubbish around the estate. But as anywhere, this is only a minority and most people are good-hearted, decent folk.

The story of the shepherds being invited into the stable where Jesus was born is the part of the Christmas narrative that most excites me. The shepherds were the 'socially excluded' of their day, unable to join in public worship. The demands of their work made it impossible to comply with the religious rules - for example those covering handwashing and not touching dead animals. The Church has much to answer for in making people feel excluded in the past. People here are discovering that they are welcomed and accepted and are beginning to return.

Not every Sunday of course. Today's life patterns do not accommodate that. We compete on a Sunday with the children's sports matches, and children who are out of the parish spending time with the non-custodial parent. And you can add to that a real need to use Sunday for sleep, shopping and catching up on the domestic jobs. There is little other time for these routine bits of everyday living.

Christmas is a time of enormous pressure for the 'have nots'. Advertising bombards people with images of all the things they just must have. It doesn't just endlessly parade unattainable aspirations, it also forms the aspirations. When I was a child I didn't demand 'trainers with the right label' because I didn't know they existed. Today we don't have children kept off school because they have no shoes to wear, but we do have children being bullied and ridiculed because their trainers aren't the latest expensive models.

It appears society has forgotten the humble shepherds and sees only the magi: not as wise sages but as kings coming from a rich world with expensive presents to lay at the feet of the Christ-child. Most of us buy into this consumerist version of Christmas - whether we can afford it or not.

Then comes the new year and time to start paying for our consumerist Christmas. Beyond a mountain of debt, the New Year brings the threat of war with Iraq. For the Church of England it brings a new Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. Both could pass this estate by but either has the potential to change the lives of the people who live here.

More than ever this Christmas, I have been asking myself if God was trying to tell us something by choosing to have his son Jesus born into the Middle East at Bethlehem. The prophet Isaiah told us that the child to be born would be called the Prince of Peace. Just maybe this child was a sign that until we have peace in the Middle East, we will not have world peace.

The Church of England's new Archbishop seems to understand the deprivation of areas like this, and knows that it is not just material.

Church and State have consistently failed these people over the years. Rowan has a passion for a Church which is socially inclusive, certainly not rejecting the magi but embracing the shepherds with a whole-heartedness, just as they were invited to see the Christ-child when he was born. I hope the Church of England will follow his courageous leadership and be prepared to direct its resources where they are most needed. The parish system is under financial pressure and finding it harder to keep clergy in the areas that can't afford to pay for them.

I thank God for the joy of celebrating Christmas in Middle Park, among these good-hearted people, many of whom, like the shepherds, feel excluded by the consumerism they can't keep up with.

My favourite service is the Crib service on Christmas Eve at 5pm. I get the children to tell me the story, and it is heartening that they know it, with just a little prompting , and as we identify each of the characters, we put the figures in the crib and sing the appropriate carol.

Then we switch on the tree lights and bring a little sparkle into the drabness and I know why I want to be here next Christmas. It's to welcome them all again into their parish church. Cold and forbidding from the outside, it is when you go inside you discover its riches. Just like the stable.

The Rev Wendy Saunders is vicar of St Saviour's, Middle Park, Eltham, London

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