Searching for a Nativity

You may listen to Mother Tackas' sermon here.

For many years now, I have been searching for a nativity. I’ve never had a nativity set of my own, and I have yet to find one that I really like. Part of the problem, I think, is that I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for. When I was a child, my family had a very simple white ceramic nativity that my mother had made. It was quite small, with just the figures of Mary, Joseph, Jesus lying in the manger, and one angel keeping watch. This nativity always seemed very pure and precious to me, and we put it out year after year even after the baby Jesus lost an arm somewhere in his journey to or from the attic in the Christmas boxes. Now my grandmother also had a ceramic nativity set, but hers was far grander and more ornate, in bright, bold colors with tall, intricately-painted wise men and shepherds and all. And I like both of these sets, but I’m not sure which kind I’d like for myself? Do I want something rich and romantic and Renaissance-y, like the crèche here at Saint Mark’s? Or do I want something simple and minimalistic? Or what about something rustic and hand carved, like the olivewood sets from the Holy Land? I just don’t know! I know I can certainly cross some nativities off my list, like some of those I’ve seen floating around the internet this week – the supercute “kittycat” nativity, for example, or the set that depicts Mary and Joseph as emperor penguins. I can do without the Irish nativity where everyone is decked all in green; I can definitely do without the nativity made of carved butter, or – the worst! – the all-meat nativity, with a manger made of bacon that cradles a tiny swaddled sausage. One hopes that the sausage is turkey sausage at least….

Well, one thing is for certain – in my search for a nativity set, I will almost certainly end up with a set that depicts the nativity stories from both the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. I’ll want a set that has Luke’s shy shepherds and singing angels…and Matthew’s wise men from the East that I can move closer and closer to the cradle as we approach the Feast of the Epiphany just like we do here in church. I’ll want it all – the shepherds and the wise men and the stable and the hay – even though Jesus was probably really born in a cave and laid in a hewn-out stone drinking trough and even though the shepherds and wise men don’t actually appear in the same story in the Bible. Doesn’t matter – I may not know what I want my nativity to look like, but I know that I want everybody to be there. I want the whole story – the whole picture.

But is this really the whole story? Do the nativities of Luke and Matthew really show us the complete picture? And the answer – somewhat surprisingly – is no. Because there is another nativity story, here in the prologue to the Gospel of John. You have to search for this nativity, you have to dig around for it a bit, but it is most certainly there. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” There is the story of the nativity in John’s language, spoken in poetry, clothed in mystery. But how does this story add to our image of the nativity? What does John’s nativity look like?

Well, first of all, it’s big. Really big. It is the entire universe, in the beginning, black as pitch and without form, where the earth is “wild and waste” and darkness moves over the face of the deep. And into that darkness, God speaks a Word, a Word that has always been on the tip of God’s tongue, a Word that is God. “Y’hi or” (because in our nativity God always speaks in Hebrew)….and suddenly and miraculously, there is light. There, in the center, one single flame, burning its way into the darkness, even though the darkness, which is always so self-absorbed, doesn’t even notice that something new has been born. And that light continues to burn, bright and steady, as the years go by and the scene in our nativity changes from a garden to a wilderness to a promised land, as prophets and kings and mothers enter our nativity and leave it again, as a temple is built there and is destroyed and another built in its place. And in the midst of all of this, the light burns, with a constant, and faithful, and righteous light. Sometimes men and women walk into the center of our nativity, point to the light and say, “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord” and “Behold, a virgin shall conceive!” Sometimes others pay attention to them and sometimes not. And still the light burns. Until finally, after centuries of shining into the darkness, the light in the center of our nativity is surrounded by other words and other lights, as the glow of the angel Gabriel settles around a young girl named Mary, and he speaks to her words of promise and hope and challenge: “You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” And the light shines on a woman with bowed head who says, “Be it unto me according to your word.” And the Word is made flesh and grows in her womb, and is born this day in the city of David, Christ the Lord.

This is the nativity of John – a nativity so enormous that it encompasses the entire universe – every shining star, every nebula and supernova. It is a nativity so complete that it shows us the entire scope of history, down to each prayer, each breath, each blade of grass. And yet, for all of its cosmic immensity, it still leads us to the same place, to a tiny, simple manger – to God’s choice, God’s infinitely mysterious, inexplicably generous choice to take on a human life to redeem you and me. This is the magnitude of this morning, this is what we kneel before at this crèche – a nativity that is precious but also powerful, beautiful but also terrifying, simple and pure and majestic and mighty. This is the nativity of John, of Luke and Matthew, of Mary and Joseph and the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and in this nativity we find what we’ve all been searching for, the eternal Word made flesh, God among us, a babe in a manger, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Preached by Mtr. Erika Takacs

Christmas Day 2011

Saint Mark's Church, Philadelphia

Hero of Bethlehem

You can listen to Father Mullen's sermon here.

For a few months now, I have been telling more or less the same story about Bethlehem to various different groups of people.  It is not the story of Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem; it is the story of the recent visit twenty-two of us from Saint Mark’s made to that little city in the West Bank, during our recent pilgrimage to the Holy Land.  And the hero of the story - if you want to call it a hero – the hero is me.

It’s a story that takes place entirely within the church of the Nativity – the ancient church that sits just off Manger Square in Bethlehem, and that marks the spot where Jesus is said to have been born.  That precise spot is actually marked, not by an X, but by a fourteen-pointed silver star set into the marble floor, with an altar over it.  Silver lamps, very much like the lamps that hang in front of the altar here at Saint Mark’s, hang not above but beneath the altar in Bethlehem, over the star.  All of this is found in a grotto – an underground chapel that you reach by waiting in a long line of people upstairs in the main church, in the south aisle.

The day we were there it took about 45 minutes of standing in line to pass through the first little doorway that leads to an upper chapel, beside the high altar of the main church.  Inside the upper chapel, to our left there was a semi-circular stairway, like a miniature amphitheater, if you can picture it, of maybe five or six steps that lead to another little doorway through which a few more steps lead down into the grotto, where eventually you can reach the altar, get down on your knees, stretch out your hand beneath the silver lamps, and place your hand in a hole in the center of the fourteen-pointed star to touch the stone, a few inches below, in the place where it is said the Virgin Mary gave birth to the Little Lord Jesus.

All of this is lovely.  Except for the crowd of people, every one of whom believes it is his or her Christian birthright to visit the place where Jesus was born.  And every one of whom thinks he or she should probably get to the grotto before anyone else.  So, we found that when we passed through the first little door into the upper chapel to approach the semi-circular steps - which functioned like a funnel that was basically too small to allow the flow of people in - things got a bit tight, and what had been a line of people, became more of a crush of people.

The situation was not helped when a security guard tried to escort a large group to the front of this crush of people, right to the mouth of the funnel.  I believe that in the Holy Land this is referred to as “cutting in line.”  This special group may have been special to the security guard, or to the priests who ran the church, they may even have been special to Jesus for all I know, but they were not special to us.  No one who had been waiting on line - at that point for nearly an hour - appreciated this group cutting in line.  And what had been a crush of people now became a little more like a mosh pit.

Perhaps I exaggerate.

But at the time the only thing that seemed exaggerated was the pushing and shoving of people who wanted to get to see the place where Jesus was born, and to place their hands on the stone beneath the silver star, under the hanging lamps.

I was appalled.

I began to recite in my head Hail Marys, over and over, thinking not only that it was an appropriate prayer, but that it was a pious and holy thing to do.  And I pictured myself as the only pious and holy pilgrim in this crush of madness.  At this point I could have cared less what had become of the other twenty-one pilgrims in Saint Mark’s group.

And here’s what I did: I kept looking back over my shoulder, calculating, in my disgust, how I could make my exit from this place, from this crass shoving and pushing.  I tried to plot an exit route, back whence I had come.  I thought to myself that it was not worth it - debasing myself and my quite well-behaved faith - just to stoop at the place that may or may not be the place where Jesus was born.

The problem with my exit plan was the little door we had already passed through to get into this upper chapel.  Trying to swim upstream through the crowd, as it were, seemed nigh impossible to me, and the thought of squeezing my way in the wrong direction back through the doorway and into the main church seemed like challenge even the hardiest of salmon wouldn’t have tried.  So I soldiered on to the semi-circular steps, steeling myself as others pushed behind me, making myself as big and square-shouldered as I could, even glaring from time to time at others who made their way past me, wishing to send with a burning signal some sign to them that they had trampled on my holy patience and were themselves like unto the lowliest and filthiest shepherds that might have crowded round the manger that first Christmas night.  Whereas I was a wise man: quite possibly the wisest man to be found in a hundred yard radius… at the very least.

Eventually I made my way down the funnel-steps through the second little doorway and into the grotto, where, of course, a host of so-called pilgrims were now angling toward the altar and falling to their knees in order to reach out their hands, one at a time, into the opening at the center of the silver star and feel the place where Christ was born.

To me, nothing seemed more far-fetched than that Christ could be born in such a place, or that he could be born for such a gaggle of selfish, rude, and inconsiderate people.  And I would have none if it.  Without pausing even to pray, I circled wide around the altar, avoiding the crowd, and rushed up the stairs on the far side that lead out of the grotto and back into the relative sanity of the church.

Once outside the church, when our group was gathered, I was only too happy to pronounce my righteous indignation in the most sneering way.  And I fashioned myself, in my mind, in every way the hero of this episode – I was one who would not push his way through the crowd, who would not put his own desire ahead of another’s in order to reach a destination that may or may not be a truly holy place.  I would not lower myself to the level of those other pilgrims whose enthusiasm for their faith had clearly gotten the better of them.  I would gladly have left, I let it be known.  Yes, I would have walked right out, if only I could have swum upstream through the crowd, and retraced my steps.

But, faced with no choice but pressing onward, I certainly was not going to linger in the precincts of the grotto where the sniveling simpletons, who actually believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that here was the place where Jesus was born of Mary, insisted on reaching their hands into the opening in the fourteen-pointed silver star… as if… the Prince of Peace would have anything to do with this lot of hooligans!

And as we drove away from Bethlehem, I think I cradled my head in my own hands, as I shook it in dismay, thinking about the poor state of Christians, and the poorer state of the Christian faith, and wondering how it was that Jesus could tolerate followers like those I’d just encountered.

The more I have told that story, the more heroic I have become in my own mind, as my rectitude compares so favorably to the dubiousness of everyone else in the story.  And in my mind it became clearer and clearer to me that I was the best thing that had happened in Bethlehem, since… well in about 2,000 years!

That is, until Christmas started to creep up on me…

…and the possibility that I am not the hero of the story, and never was meant to be, began to dawn on me along with the uneasy suggestion that when my rectitude compares so favorably to the dubiousness of everyone else in the world, then maybe – just maybe - I am looking at myself in a rose-tinted mirror, as it were.

There is, you see, no hero of Bethlehem, and when any of us begins to make ourselves the hero of Bethlehem, then we are treading on dangerous ground.  On Christmas there is only the question of whether you are willing to go to Bethlehem, or not… and what you do when you get there.

That is why tonight, here at Saint Mark’s, and in virtually every Christian church, on every continent, whether it is winter or summer right now; warm or cold; whether you speak in English, or Swahili, or Greek, or Aramaic, or Japanese; whether there are palm trees growing outside or pine trees… nearly every Christian church has transformed itself, for one night only, into a miniature Bethlehem - for those who wish to come and see the babe lying in the manger.

One of the great, open secrets about Christmas, that we nevertheless have to re-learn year after year, is that Bethlehem can be built almost anywhere – nearly overnight – if we wish.  And we have come here tonight to build Bethlehem.  You are all standing in Manger Square, and we have got as many twinkling stars in the sky as we could light.  Over there, the wise men have begun their journey.  We have provided, if not a choir of angels, at least an angelic choir.  Let’s call the acolytes shepherds.  And of course there is the manger, with Mary and Joseph, and the Baby Jesus.

And it turns out that Bethlehem – no matter where it has been built – poses nearly the same question to everyone: What are you going to do now that you are here?  Are you going to come to see Jesus?  Or, are you going to make the same mistake I made and conclude that somehow this journey to Bethlehem is about you?  That you are meant to be either the beneficiary of the visit or the hero of the story?

Are you the reason you are here tonight?  And is your pew-neighbor’s elbow, that keeps jabbing you in the side, beginning to make you wonder if you should leave at the first chance you get?  Is the head of the tall person who sat in front of you causing you to look back over your shoulder to plot an escape route during the next hymn?  Do you wonder if you could swim upstream at some point in this service and find your way back to the world outside here, where there is surely a Christmas party you could go to?

But the question Bethlehem poses isn’t only about tonight.  Because we all have our weaker moments, our less proud moments, even on Christmas Eve...  Even when you have travelled half way around the globe to visit Bethlehem and all you can do is conclude how much holier you are than everyone else around you.  The truth is that many of us do this with our faith all the time.  We say it is about Jesus; but really, we make it about us.  And if we’re not getting what we came for, then don’t expect us to stick around Bethlehem very long.  Even if we can’t find a way to swim upstream and get out the way we came, then you better believe we are not going to stick around the grotto and go sticking our hands inside stars!  We are going to find the fastest way out, and the best story to tell of why it was so virtuous of us to leave so soon.  We are going tell ourselves that we are the heroes of Bethlehem.  That’s what I did.

But really… can you believe I would be stupid enough to stand in that line for more than an hour…

...that I would put up with all that pushing and shoving…

…that I’d have administered all those dirty looks…

…that I’d have said all those Hail Marys…

...that I’d finally made it down the steps, and through the little door…

… I’d finally entered into the grotto – the place I’d traveled thousands of miles to see, where I might never be again…

… can you believe that I was only steps away…

… all I had to do was drop down to my knees…

…and stick out my hand…

… and reach into the place - marked, lest I should miss it, by a silver star, illumined by sacred lamps, sheltered by an altar…

… but, instead… I walked away from this… in a hurry?

And this is how I should leave Bethlehem?

What might have happened if I’d stopped at the place where Jesus had been born…

…and instead of uttering my Hail Marys as an antidote to the world around me…

…I’d found a better prayer to offer to God?

… a prayer of just how wonderful it was to be in Bethlehem in the first place – to have the freedom and the resources to get there…

… a prayer of thanksgiving for all God’s given me…

… a prayer for healing the things in me that need to be healed…

… a prayer for forgiving in me the things that need forgiving…

…  a prayer for helping me with the things that need helping…

… a prayer of love and concern for others around me…

… a prayer of care for the earth God has given us…

… a prayer for peace in a world that is drowning in war and violence…

But I left Bethlehem without saying any of the prayers….

… which is a lot like visiting Bethlehem without really visiting Jesus.

And tonight, tonight… we have built Bethlehem here.  And I believe that perhaps God is giving me another chance to visit Bethlehem, and to make a better visit of it.

Yes, tonight we have built Bethlehem here… and of course the same question is staring you in the face, as it is me:  What are we going to do now that we are here?

Are you we going to wait and see if we get what we want out of this visit?  Or are we here to see Jesus?  I sure I hope I get it right this time!

There is no hero of Bethlehem – and it certainly wouldn’t be me or you if there was - God does not need a hero tonight, or any night of the year.  There is only this child in the manger… and a thousand reasons not to stop and worship him, not to bend low and adore him… but to plan our exit…  and get on with our lives, because we foolishly think it is all about us.

But for one night only we have built Bethlehem here…  and it’s not about me or about you… and there is only this question:

Now that we are in Bethlehem, are we going to stop, and be with Jesus, and let it be about him?

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Christmas Eve 2011

Saint Mark’s Church, Phialdelphia

George Washington Memorial - 2011

The Battle of Trenton, at the end of 1776, was, as you all know, a decisive turning point in the War of Independence.  The Continental Army had earlier suffered stinging defeat in New York, and New Jersey didn’t look very promising. By late December of that year the entire revolutionary effort looked to be in doubt.  To make matters worse, many of the colonial soldiers’ enlistments were set to expire at the beginning of the new year, and many of the men must have imagined cutting their losses and returning home to try to salvage what remained of their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, in the aftermath of this misadventure.

It was the success at Trenton that changed the momentum of the war and set the cause of independence on a course for success.  I won’t recount for you here the details of the battle – which many men here know, I’m sure, with greater clarity than I do.  But I will recall one miniscule detail of the march to Trenton, after Washington and his men had already successfully crossed the icy Delaware. 

Somewhere near Jacob’s Creek, about 12 miles from Trenton, while General Washington was directing the movement of artillery from horseback, the hind legs of his horse buckled and the horse began to slip backward down an ice-covered slope.  Washington, ever the horseman, grabbed the horse’s mane, yanked his head upright, shifted his own weight in the saddle, spurred his horse forward, and managed to prevent the horse from careening down the ice.  He recovered his stature, stayed in the saddle, and continued to oversee the movement of the artillery.[i]

It’s reasonable to surmise that there were Troopers nearby, since they were with Washington on the way to Trenton.  And I like to imagine that the Troopers’ confidence in their General was bolstered by his expert horsemanship.  Certainly from a historical perspective, as the most recently named, Most Improved Rider of the Troop, I’d have been impressed!

But we know how easily and how often history turns on miniscule events.  Who knows what would have happened if the march to Trenton, already hours behind schedule, had been thwarted because of the unauthorized dismount of its commanding officer?

As it happened, Washington and his men caught the Hessians who manned Trenton by surprise, and in 45 minutes of fighting claimed a decisive victory, then turned back to return to the relative safety of Pennsylvania on the other side of the Delaware.

Once back on this side of the river, Washington had a pressing task at hand: to convince the men whose enlistments were about to expire to re-up, which he did, sitting on his horse and offering a $10 bounty in return for signing on for an additional six weeks of service in the Continental Army.

Picture Washington giving a speech to his men while mounted on his horse.  As one soldier described it, the general “told us our services were greatly needed and that we could do more for our country than we ever could at any future date and in the most affectionate manner entreated us to stay.”[ii]

At first just a few men stepped forward.  As the others looked at Washington, I wonder if they called to mind that scene from just a day or two before when it had seemed the illustrious general was about to be toppled from his horse to slide unceremoniously into a half-frozen creek.  Did they recall his strong fingers grasping the horse’s mane and holding his head up?  Did they see his sure legs grip the horse’s sides?  Did they remember the way his shifted his weight just so in the saddle to help the horse regain its balance?  Did they hold in their minds eyes the vision of that horse spurred forward, steam snorting out its nostrils, ears forward, its eyes alight, and its rider sure and confident and upright, taking command of the work that needed to be done to assure the victory they had crossed the river to accomplish?

Who knows what the men thought?  But every one of them eventually stepped forward to re-up, and the rest of how things played out in the war, is, as they say, history.  And perhaps throughout the years of war that lay ahead of them his soldiers remembered the sight of that sure horseman on his steed, bringing victory where others would have found only defeat.

I don’t know for sure, but I very much doubt that the papers that reported the successful river crossing and the victory at Trenton included any word about George Washington’s horsemanship.  But if they had, here’s how the headline might have read:

Horse slips, Washington doesn’t fall.

Now, this sounds like a pretty boring headline, but it is at the heart of what we revere about Washington: when the going got tough and things looked bleak, our man stayed on his horse.  It certainly would be good press for any Trooper!

Now think for a moment about that reading we heard from the Revelation to Saint John the Divine, about war that breaks out in heaven.  If you think about it, and put aside all the hoopla about a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads, this is, more or less the headline for the war in heaven:

Dragons attack, angels win.

It is also the headline that every solider who marches as to war hopes will be told about him:

Enemy fires, our boys are safe!

It follows, of course, the general contours of the Christian Gospel, which can also be reported in headline form:

Christ hung on a Cross to Die: Rises from the Dead.

And the reason the image of Jesus hanging from the Cross has been branded onto our memories is because we need that image, too, in the time that lies ahead of us.  We need to be reminded of Christ the sure rider, as it were, on his Cross: confident and upright, taking command of the work that needs to be done to assure the victory he has crossed the river to accomplish.

It is no wonder that very shortly after he died, in 1799, it became popular to revere George Washington with an enthusiasm usually reserved for saints.  And it was not long before the image of the “apotheosis of George Washington” produced.  This image, which literally means “George Washington becoming a god” is what graces the rotunda of our nation’s capitol, where Washington, draped in royal purple, is flanked by Victory and Liberty, surrounded by figures representing the thirteen original states.

Great debate has been waged about the matter of Washington’s faith: how strong it was, or whether he had any at all.  The rector of this church, William White, once said that no amount of recollection could bring to his mind “any fact which would prove General Washington to have been a believer in the Christian revelation.”[iii]

But what we know or understand about Washington and the inner workings of his heart and mind actually pales in importance beside the image of him as the strong rider who will not be unseated from his horse, who will lead his men to the victory that they crossed the water to accomplish, and defying all odds, achieving that victory not only in Trenton but in the grand battle for freedom.

And in that image, we see, too, something true about our faith in Jesus Christ, the inner workings of whose heart and mind are unknowable to us, the mysteries of whose birth remain much talked about, the meaning of whose death is much debated…

All of which pales in comparison to the image of that sure rider, as it were, on the Cross, who will not come down from it to save his own skin, but who remains there to save our souls, who will lead us to the victory he crossed the water to accomplish, and whose triumph is a freedom more sublime than any even the great General Washington could have won for us: freedom from the fear of death, the tyranny of the grave, an eternity of hopelessness…   For which we give thanks to God now, and for as long as our voices will praise him.

In the Name of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

at the Washington Memorial Service of

The First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry

18 December 2011

Christ Church, Philadelphia

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[i] Chernow, Ron; Washington, A Life; 2010, New York, Penguin, page 274

[ii] Ibid. page 278

[iii] Ibid. page 130