Address given at the Metropolitan Police Carol Service

I used to be the Dean of Bristol and my house was in the city centre. Up the hill was the University of Bristol, down the hill was the theatre, pubs (lots of them), kebab shops, a whole night-time economy. On the hill, where I lived, in cellars under the buildings, were the clubs. I am not a clubbing kind of Dean, but there were nights when I would walk home late, up the hill, through the club scene. More than once, I met Police Officers and we would walk together. They seemed quite pleased to meet someone who could manage a whole conversation at midnight without falling over.

I am describing a scene that lots of you know better than I do. A scene very different from the world I live and work in. I was on my way home to bed; they were just getting started. I had spent a while putting on a suit, a tie, a coat and probably a hat and a scarf. And… well let’s just say they were wearing a lot less. I enjoyed talking to the Police, most of the clubbers hoped not to have to do that. Different worlds. Actually, the club scene in Bristol was fairly mild—hectic and drunk, of course, but not dangerous—and the Police had time to be polite to the Dean as he pottered home. Still, that business of different worlds stayed with me, and tonight, I thought I would say something more about different worlds and Christmas.

That was a glimpse of Bristol. I should say something about the Abbey. People know us because of the kings and queens, because of the Coronation, because of the wonderful choir. People think this is a place of ceremony and custom. Even here though, different worlds meet. Down there, not far from where the Commissioner is sitting, the Constable of the Tower of London arrived, in 1378, looking for a man who had escaped. The Prisoner was called Robert Hauley and, as the saying goes, he resisted arrest. Procedure was a bit different back then and he was cut down with swords—he is buried over there. There was a service going at the time. Different worlds. Behind me is buried, in a grand tomb, Queen Elizabeth I and, in another grand tomb, Mary Queen of Scots, the woman Elizabeth I had executed. Different worlds. There are slavers and abolitionists here. Politicians who, in life, fought like cats, are buried side by side.

Different worlds collide, in Bristol, in Westminster. We don’t agree. We get drunk and badly behaved; we argue; we even get violent. And we ask you to police that. Yet here we are tonight singing ‘Tidings of Comfort and Joy’. What do we think we are doing? What has Christmas got to do with our different worlds?

The answer is that it helps If you have a bit of history.

Our carol service tonight is familiar. We do this a lot. The readings we read, the prayers we say, the carols we sing, they are put together like this over and over again. that happens for a reason. What we are doing tonight is telling a story. It is a story we keep telling, a kind of history. There was a reading from Genesis—Adam and Eve. That is close to being the beginning of the story. Not a story of how the world was made, but a story of good and evil and where it gets to and what it does. Then there was another bit of the story told when evil flourished and the world was at war. That was the reading about hoping for a son who would be the Prince of Peace. Then another reading, about big and cruel empire, ordering people about. In a deeply unfashionable bit of that empire when everyone was looking the other way a son was indeed born. The next reading was from the same night. An angel appeared to some shepherds (shepherds by the way were rough sleepers, awkward people). There was more about the baby and then the angels start singing about peace. They do that remember, in the skies over an empire where soldiers use their swords where people we do not like get nailed to crosses.

That’s the story, the history, in this carol service. It’s our history. Not a nice, cosy Marks and Spencer Christmas, but a London, Bristol, Kyiv, Gaza, Syria Christmas. It’s a Christmas for priests and police and peace keepers. It’s a Christmas in which different worlds collide. It’s a Christmas that knows evil is real. It is a Christmas that face danger. It is a Christmas that has some hope.

It is not the end of the story. That baby grows up and his life does not end well. The evil and the danger go on. Still, something started there that is not finished, will never be finished— a different way of living, a peace, a love that no evil can defeat.

I don’t do the job that you do. Frankly, I am not sure I have the courage to do what some of you do. I am very grateful that you have that courage, that commitment, that resilience. I don’t do what you do, but my job is difficult sometimes. When it is difficult the thing that keeps me going is having a bit of history. I have done this job a while, I have a bit of history here. So, I know that I can deal with difficulty. I have done it before. My history reminds me I can deal with some difficulty. That helps. But what helps more is that the story we tell here, which is full of hope. The history is a story about peace, glory, reconciliation, love. That is the real story. It is a story in which those good things will triumph. Having some history and some hope really helps.

From all of us in Westminster Abbey, to you the Metropolitan Police and huge thank you for your service, for your courage, and for your grace. We wish you a Happy Christmas. And we remind you that we have a bit of history and it is good news. It is light in the darkness, it is hope and it is true on Park Street in Bristol, it is true here and it will be true wherever you go when you leave here tonight. A bit of history. A lot of hope.