The Gift

I was born and brought up in the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire. It’s a town which doesn’t have many claims to fame – there is the Cathedral, where I was ordained, and the Hepworth Museum (the sculptor, Barbara Hepworth, was also born there). It’s also the home of Wakefield Trinity – I should say that this is not some obscure theological doctrine. But if you are unfamiliar with the world of Rugby League, it might not mean much to you.

But Wakefield is a city that is also associated with a cycle of medieval Mystery Plays. These plays which took place on the streets of Wakefield form one of the four remaining cycles of medieval mystery plays. There are two mystery plays which form part of this cycle, which take as their theme the story of the shepherds in the gospel reading which we have heard.

There is a particularly moving scene at the end of one of these plays, when three shepherds (all Yorkshiremen) greet the new born baby Jesus. This is what one of them says:

     Hail, little darling dear, full of Godhead!
     I pray thee be near when that I have need.
     Hail, sweet of thy cheer! My heart will bleed
     To see thee sit here in so poor weed,
     With no pennies.
     Hail! Put forth thy dall.¹
     I bring thee but a ball:
     Have and play thee withall,
     And go to the tennis.²

The shepherds bring three gifts: a basket of cherries, a pet bird, and a tennis ball. It’s a touching scene because when you compare it with Matthew’s account of the Wise Men, the gifts seem so paltry and insignificant. Gold, frankincense and myrrh – now you’re talking. But a budgie and a tennis ball?

Christmas is a time when we exchange gifts, gifts that are an expression of our love and affection, but perhaps there is something else going on. In a little book, published in the early twentieth century by Marcel Mauss, the French social anthropologist, the writer offers a meditation, an essay, on The Gift. Mauss was fascinated by the way in which people across many different cultures offer gifts to each other. And he argued that this pattern of exchange - not just of objects, but also of favours and services, symbolic and material, - between individuals and groups created a pattern of obligation, obligations deep within the fabric of our lives. We exchange Christmas cards. I do you a favour so that you might do me a favour. I buy you a pint, and then it’s your round. I give you a gift, and however generous that gift may be, I create a sense of obligation.

But the beautiful thing about the story of the shepherds - with their cherries and a bird and a ball - is that the very playfulness of these gifts seems so much more appropriate for a child, who can give nothing in return – except perhaps for a sense of joy and delight and wonder. And sometimes rediscovering the playfulness which lies beyond a sense of obligation is one of the things that helps us to recover our humanity, and one of the things that helps us to understand the reality of grace in our lives.

For divine grace is never about what we can return – our gifts only seem paltry and insignificant in comparison. Grace is profligate and generous and liberal. It is not frugal or calculating. It is not thrifty or parsimonious. It is lavish and extravagant. And amidst all the violence and petty-minded squabbling, the ruthless competition and anxious self-defence, which increasingly dominate our world, there is grace in discovering that God speaks to us in the playfulness and joy of a child. For here we see the indescribable and incalculable gift of God’s love - in the gift of new life, the unprotected vulnerability of a tiny child.

^{1. The word dall means 'hand'.
2. From Tony Harrison, The Mysteries (London: Faber & Faber, 1985), 77-78. Harrison's modern adaptation draws on material from the York, Wakefield, Chester and Coventry cycles of English Mystery Plays. The two Shepherds' plays in the Towneley or Wakefield cycle are the work of the Wakefield Master, who wrote in the first half of the fifteenth century. Harrison takes this material from the Second Shepherds' Play and updates the English. The original version is below:}

    ^{Hayll, derlyng dere, full of Godhede!
    I pray the be nere when that I have need.
    Hayll, sweet is thy chere! My hart wold blede
    To se the sytt here in so poore wede,
    With no pennys.
    Hayll, put furth thy dall!
    I bryng the bot a ball:
    Have and play the with all,
    And go to the tenys. (English Mystery Plays, ed. Peter Happe (London: Penguin, 1975), 293).}