Bringing Back the Art of Mummering

 

What do you think would happen if you made your way through your neighbourhood in the dark, dressed so that you were unrecognizable, and knocking on doors? Next question: have you ever been arrested? 

While what I describe may sound unhinged or sinister it's part of a 500-year-old English tradition I've described before called mummering, or mumming, or janneying. Individuals and groups do all the things listed above and we know first hand because nearly half a century ago we lived in outport Newfoundland and experienced mummers arriving in the night. We found out that these masked and muffled folk would disguise their voices in silly ways, a huge challenge because as newly arrived mainlanders we struggled to understand was English spoken with a strong accent. I'm sure we disappointed people with our lack of provision of strong drink but perhaps they probably didn't expect that from the United Church, aka Methodist minister. 

We didn't realize at the time that mummering was nearly extinct in Britain and in Newfoundland and we might have been at the end of the tradition but for a revival in the past couple of decades on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The reason I've come back to the subject is because in the past janneying took place somewhat randomly during the Twelve Days of Christmas between Christmas Day and the Feast of the Epiphany. I noticed that the now annual Mummers Festival in St. John's NL was from November 29 to December 13, two weeks that were out of kilter with the original time frame of Christmastide. 

I have tried, without success, to ascertain why this odd practice was connected with the Twelve Days of Christmas as a religious observance and it probably wasn't. I do like that it was connected to a different calendar. 

Last comment: people in our outport home of Carmanville encouraged me to be a mummer the following year. At 6 feet, four and a half inches tall I was literally head and shoulders above just about any other male in the community, so I passed on the invitation. 

                                                            St. John's Mummers Parade

Our History

The Mummers Festival was initially a joint initiative with the Intangible Cultural Heritage division of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and Memorial University’s Folklore Department. The initiative began in 2009 with the intention of passing along a well-researched model to a community group who would continue organizing the Mummers Festival. That year, the Festival included 16 free community events throughout the month of December. In 2010 a Mummers Festival community group was established and run entirely by volunteers. In 2011, the Mummers Festival incorporated as a nonprofit entity. The Festival celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2023.

                        Our Mandate

To produce festivals for the purpose of education, charity, cultural promotion, community engagement and advancement of the public’s understanding and appreciation of Newfoundland and Labrador folk traditions related to mummering and Christmastime practices; and to assist in the transmission of these folk traditions through participation by the public and tradition-bearers in such festivals and related forums, lectures, workshops, performances and public events.

                            Our Goal

The Mummers Festival aims to promote the continuance and evolution of traditional arts and performance by encouraging active participation in mummering activities. All events are designed to equip the public with skills and knowledge about mummering so that they can better participate in our Parade day events and, it is hoped, the house-visiting traditions that occur during the twelve days of Christmas.

Charlie Kirk & the Sabbath

 

“Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns.  For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and consecrated it.                                   Exodus 20: 8-11 NRSVue

When I led a study group on the biblical concept of Sabbath in the Fall of 2023 it was one of the more poorly attended of the many I've offered at Trenton United yet the conversation was really worthwhile. Some of the participants were old enough that they grew up in a time long before Sunday commerical openings and their families engaged in activities that would be considered boring and stifling today. Along with church attendance they were encouraged to read and engage in music. Several of them have carried personal Sabbath-keeping into the present day with a commitment that puts me to shame, although I do have the decency to feel guilty about breaking the Sabbath. 

I pointed out that this one of is the only "remember" commandment while most of the others are prohibitions, the "thou shalt nots" of the KJV. And it is the lengthiest and most specific of the bunch, other than the one concerning idolatry. In a way the two go together. 

I was discombobulated when I read that the late Charlie Kirk, the young American right-wing star who was gunned down at a rally, had just finished writing a book about the Sabbath and it's now published. I heard about it through an Atlantic magazine article with the title There Were Two Charlie Kirks: A new book by the right-wing activist, who was murdered in September, has moments of seriousness, beauty, and cross-partisan appeal.

The writer of the article is Judith Shulevitz, a Jewish author whose book on the Sabbath I used in the study I led, as well as with other similar studies. In her piece she begins: 

Charlie Kirk’s last book, Stop, in the Name of God, was released on the morning of December 9. By afternoon, it had jumped to No. 1 on Amazon and then sold out. On one hand, this should surprise no one. Kirk had a huge following even before his assassination made him, for many, a martyred saint and drove an online surge of both mourning and recrimination over insufficient mourning. On the other hand, this is a book about the Sabbath. Living authors of books investigating the day of rest, a small but select sodality, are probably feeling dizzy right now. I know I am. (Kirk seems to have read my book, The Sabbath World, and mentions me once.) The Sabbath is generally regarded as a topic of specialized interest. I can’t think of any other work of Sabbatarian theology that has attained instant best-seller status.

It sounds as though Kirk practiced a Friday sundown to Saturday sundown Sabbath in the Jewish tradtion, including shutting down social media. I was able to find some quotes from the prologue of his book and I would agree with many of them, so I included them below. I would add, though, that Sabbath is both the immediate practice and an outcome that aligns with the fruits of the spirit described by the apostle Paul. We are called to live the Sabbath in every day and every aspect of our lives. I found far too much of what Kirk had to say elsewhere as divisive and disturbing in ways that fed White Christian Nationalism, so I won't be buying the book. Others may find it insightful and useful. 

You can read a few of his thoughts here and draw your own conclusions: 

"In this book, I intend to persuade you of something that may, at first, seem quaint, old-fashioned, or even unnecessary: that the Sabbath is not merely a helpful tradition or a cultural relic—it is essential to the flourishing of the human soul," Charlie Kirk wrote in the prologue:

"I will define the Sabbath not just in doctrinal terms but in existential ones. We will explore its origin—not in history, but in eternity; not in law, but in creation," he wrote. "I will show you how to incorporate it not as a weekly burger but as a life-giving rhythm that reorders your time, renews your mind, and restores your humanity."

"It is written for the exhausted parent, the anxious student, the burned-out executive, the soul-numbed scroller," he wrote.

"This is not a suggestion manual or a spiritual upgrade for those with spare time," he continued. "This is a manifesto against the machine of modern life. It is a call to war against the endless noise and ceaseless hurry that have slowly robbed you of your joy, your wonder, and your rest."

Charlie Kirk wrote that he did not write the book to "affirm your lifestyle," but instead "to interrupt it." 

"I am writing to cut at the root of some of the deepest wounds in our society—disconnection, anxiety, spiritual fatigue, moral confusion—and to offer you a concrete, ancient, and divine practice that can begin to heal them," he wrote.

"As America has abandoned the Sabbath, we have watched nearly every major marker of health—emotional, spiritual, communal—begin to fail," he wrote. "We are more productive and less peaceful, more connected digitally and more isolated relationally. We are over-stimulated, undernourished, distracted, discontent, and desperately lonely."

"My mission in writing this is very simple: I desire to bring all humanity back to God’s design to rest for an entire day," Charlie Kirk writes. "To cease working, to STOP, in the name of GOD." 

Childermass 2025

                                          “The Massacre of the Innocents,” an 1824 painting by Léon Cogniet.

The Escape to Egypt

 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”  Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

The Massacre of the Infants

 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi. Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
    wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

                                          Matthew 2: 13-18 NRVue

I think I've said in the past that it would have been unthinkable during my years of congregational ministry to focus on yesterday's "downer" Christian feast day during the Christmas season. The fourth day of Christmas is not actually about calling birds, a theme I could get behind, but the slaughter of children. Ugh. It is called the Feast of the Holy Innocents or the Massacre of the Innocents and refers to a disturbing story found only in Matthew's gospel and not corroborated by any other historical writers of the period. Herod the not-so-great, the despotic Roman king of Judah, can't find the infant Jesus the Magi had come to worship. So in his fury he orders the deaths of all the toddlers and infants in his realm. 

There has been a strange debate this year over whether Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus Family in flight to Egypt were truly refugees -- what else would they be? It seems that even this gospel story has been politicized by those in different parts of the world who want to claim to be Jesus followers but have a hate on for migrants and refugees. 2025 has been rife with the photos of starving and displaced children in Gaza and Sudan and elsewhere.

I hadn't realized that this feast day is also known as Childermass, and somehow this name helps bring into focus the reminder that children are innocent and subject to the whims of the adults around them. What if infant Jesus had been murdered or died on the challenging journey to and from Egypt? 

I saw a tweet from New Testament professor Esau McCaulley that led me to an article he wrote for the New York Times six years ago and it struck me as both relevant and worthy of sharing, or at least a portion of it. Here are a few paragraphs from that powerful piece. 

Esau McCaulley

@esaumccaulley

Six years ago, I published my first

@nytimes

piece on the feast of the Holy Innocents. I never imagined I would still be doing this all these years later.

Why is it important that the church calendar tells this story at the beginning of the Christmas season? Why should anyone care about the dates on a Christian calendar, especially in a time in which people have rightly questioned the excessive quest for power that marks some corners of the church?

The church calendar calls Christians and others to remember that we live in a world in which political leaders are willing to sacrifice the lives of the innocent on the altar of power. We are forced to recall that this is a world with families on the run, where the weeping of mothers is often not enough to win mercy for their children. More than anything, the story of the innocents calls upon us to consider the moral cost of the perpetual battle for power in which the poor tend to have the highest casualty rate.But how can such a bloody and sad tale do anything other than add to our despair? 

The Christmas story must be told in the context of suffering and death because that’s the only way the story makes any sense. Where else can one speak about Christmas other than in a world in which racism, sexism, classism, materialism and the devaluation of human life are commonplace? People are hurting, and the epicenter of that hurt, according to the Feast of the Holy Innocents, remains the focus of God’s concern.

This feast suggests that things that God cares about most do not take place in the centers of power. The truly vital events are happening in refugee camps, detention centers, slums and prisons. The Christmas story is set not in a palace surrounded by dignitaries but among the poor and humble whose lives are always subject to forfeit. It’s a reminder that the church is not most truly herself when she courts power. The church finds her voice when she remembers that God “has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble,” as the Gospel of Luke puts it.

The very telling of the Christmas story is an act of resistance. This is how the biblical story functioned for my ancestors who gathered in the fields and woods of the antebellum South. They saw in the Christian narrative an account of a God who cared for the enslaved and wanted more for them than the whip and the chain. For them Christianity did not merely serve the disinherited — it was for the disinherited, the “weak things” that shamed the strong.

Christians believe that none of this suffering was in vain. The cries of the oppressed do not go forever unanswered. We believe that the children slaughtered by Herod were ushered into the presence of God and will be with him for eternity. The Christian tradition also affirms that Jesus’ suffering served a purpose, that when the state ordered his death, God was at work. Through the slaughter of the truly innocent one, God was emptying death of its power, vanquishing evil and opening the path toward forgiveness and reconciliation.

                                         The Massacre of the Innocents --Pieter Bruegel the Elder