What the Archbishop actually said

“Archbishop says Nativity a myth !” screamed at least one of the broadsheet newspapers a few days before Christmas. Leaving aside the fact that the word “myth” is a much more positive noun than a sub-editor would allow, this non-story tells us a lot about a sad lack of bible knowledge and the desire to savage Rowan Williams at every opportunity.

So what was it all about ? It all arose from an interview with the Archbishop by Simon Mayo on Radio 5 Live (by definition unscripted). In it Rowan was asked whether he believed in the Three Kings, and their names and the fact that one of them was black. He rightly pointed out that Matthew’s Gospel does not tell us there were three, nor how many there were (though there are three gifts of course), nor their names or ethnic origin – more than that they were not Kings. He went on to say that much that we sing of in our Carols or see depicted in Nativity Plays or on Cards is an elaboration of the story, folk tales and myths created around it. There is no harm in these, provided we recognise them as such. That is what he said – perfectly biblical and correct.

So, if they were not Kings, then who were these men ? The Archbishop reminded his questioner that Matthew calls them Magi, astrologers, perhaps from Persia. Their journey to seek and worship the infant Christ is a powerful symbol of the Christian conviction that the God we meet uniquely incarnate in Jesus is not only the fulfilment of Old Testament law and prophets (a major theme in Matthew’s Gospel ) but the fulfilment of the longing and desiring of those far beyond the religion of Israel. He is the goal of their spiritual searching – significantly they give up the tools of their profession to Jesus and worship him. The God they sought in strange and crooked byways, they now recognise in this child. From then on they are different and changed.

For us this is a basic principle of mission – that our boundaries, like those of the Holy Family in the Stable are low enough to welcome the seeker, the stranger, the person who is culturally and spiritually different from us, and that our conviction is that Christ we proclaim is not our possession but for all.

Roger Clarke

January 2008