Christmas Truce

The big story this Christmas is not so much the two-thousand year-old story as it is the one-hundred year-old story on its centenary.  There has been a book written about it, a movie, and even an opera.  And this year, the British supermarket giant Sainsbury’s produced a lovely three-and-a-half minute video telling a version of the story of the Christmas Truce.

The truce seems to have occurred somewhat spontaneously in several places between British and German troops who were dug into trenches on the front in Belgium on the first Christmas Eve of the first year of the First World War.  Details of a somewhat disjointed and murky story have been pasteurized and homogenized to make a more perfect narrative than first-hand sources can actually provide.  But the fact of a remarkable, unplanned, and quite meaningful truce that saw bitter enemies shaking hands, exchanging gifts, playing soccer, and singing Christmas carols is beyond question.

Hundreds of letters attest to various details of the Christmas Truce, but one of the most famous letters was written by Frederick W. Heath, who bore the rank of private at that early stage of the war.  Heath reports that “my eyes caught a flare in the darkness.  A light in the enemy’s trenches was… rare at that hour.”  In short order, “light after light sprang up along the German front.”  And soon Heath heard a call from the enemy’s position, “’English soldier, English soldier, a merry Christmas, a merry Christmas.’”

But the Christmas greetings from the opposing forces did not end there, they soon became an invitation: “’Come out, English soldier; come out here to us.’”  Lights twinkling on the front or not, the English soldiers did not quit their weapons or their trenches that night, although Heath reports that a conversation took place all night long between the two sides, and the Germans sang carols, and the Brits played piccolos and sang carols too, and laughter was heard, and no gunfire.

“Came the dawn penciling the sky with grey and pink,” Heath wrote.  “Under the early light we saw our foes moving recklessly about on top of their trenches.”  He recalls that it was “a brazen invitation to us to shoot and kill with deadly certainty. But did we shoot?  Not likely!  We stood up ourselves and called benisons on the Germans.  Then came the invitation to fall out of the trenches and meet half way.”

Although I am deeply suspicious of the sleek packaging of wartime narratives in order to sell groceries, I recommend watching the Sainsbury’s ad, which does a better job than I can do here of describing the kind of scene that must have followed in the No Man’s Land of the front lines of a war a hundred years ago.  Soccer matches break out; handshakes and meaningful glances are exchanged; chocolate and tobacco change hands.  Heath’s letter puts it simply: “Here was no desire to kill, but just the wish of a few simple soldiers… that on Christmas Day, at any rate, the force of fire should cease.”

This story plucks at nearly every heart-string I possess: from Anglo-philia; to my respect for those who serve in the military; to my peace-loving ways; to my conviction that the power of Christ can overcome every darkness, even the darkness of war; it even appeals to my love of chocolate.  Beautiful though the Sainsbury’s ad may be, it is somewhat chauvinistically revisionist in that it suggests the impetus for the truce originated on the British side of No Man’s Land, and by its reckoning only the British soldier gives a gift to his German counterpart, sacrificially leaving himself with nothing but his stale and meager rations when he returns to his muddy trench.

And the little video gives only the faintest impression of what may be happening as the men from both sides return to their fortifications, and the dull, faint sound of shots being fired can be heard rather unthreateningly in the distance.  Private Heath put it more pointedly: “As I finish this short and scrappy description of a strangely human event, we are pouring rapid fire into the German trenches, and they are returning the compliment just as fiercely.  Screeching through the air above us are the shattering shells of rival batteries of artillery.  So we are back once more to the ordeal of fire.”[i]

Back once more to the ordeal of fire. 

One of the most important and most overlooked facts of the Christmas Truce was that it came to a fairly swift end; the men returned to their trenches, to their rifles, and mortars, and artillery.  And the fighting resumed – the ordeal of fire – almost as if nothing had ever happened.

So what is the re-telling of story of the Christmas Truce, and its hint of good will among men, except a Ghost of Christmas Past posing as Ghost of Christmas future, and framing Ebeneezer Scrooge’s famous question: are these the shadows of things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?  Put it another way on the night we celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace: Will we ever know Peace?  Or are we destined to return again and again to the ordeal of fire?

“Back once more to the ordeal of fire.”  In so many ways these words describe our current predicament in the world.

“Screeching through the air above us are the shattering shells of rival batteries of artillery:”

Rich vs. poor. 

Black vs. white.

Republican vs. Democrat. 

Christian vs. Muslim. 

Conservative vs. liberal. 

Fox vs. MSNBC. 

West vs. East. 

Russia vs. Ukraine. 

Rebels vs. Syria. 

ISIS vs. the world. 

N. Korea vs. Sony Pictures.

Police vs. black men.

De Blasio vs. protesters.

Israel vs. Palestine.

Obama vs. Boehner

Bush vs. Clinton (again)

China vs. America.

In-laws vs. home.

South vs. north.

Capital vs. labor.

Pats vs. Genos

Baxter vs. Ozzie – yes, sometimes even my two lovely Labradors reduce the discussion in their world to this simple equation!

These are the shattering shells of rival batteries of artillery.  And daily we find ourselves back once more to the ordeal of fire.

I daresay there is nothing unique about this present moment.  For a hundred years we have been taking a short break, most Christmas Eves, for a taste of peace.  But then we rush back to our trenches to resume the fighting – it hardly matters over what.  But every year for an hour or two we kindle a light in the darkness of Christmas Eve and move recklessly about on top of our trenches in a show of affected peacefulness.

Jesus knows how likely we are to return to our trenches, to the ordeal of fire as soon as we walk out these doors.  So year after year he calls us here to listen for him.  Year after year the Christ child cries out from his Christmas crib, in a cry that sounds like what Private Heath must have heard: “English solider, English soldier, a merry Christmas!  Come out, you Christmas worshipers; come out here to me!”

He cries out to each of us as we sit in our pews, but his cry carries further.

He cries out to those who are marching in the streets for justice they fear will never be theirs because of the color of their skin.

He cries out for those who mourn their dead children, lost in the confusing violence of racism.

He cries out to those who are sick, no horrified, at the thought of police officers gunned down in their cars.

He cries out to those whose sons and daughters are still struggling with the wounds of war – inside and out.

He cries out to the lonely, and the refugees, and the wandering immigrants, and the people who patrol the borders, and the doctors and nurses caring for Ebola patients, and the elderly who are trying to figure out how to remain independent without much success,  and the children who are spending Christmas in hospitals, and the women and girls who have suffered at the hands of violent men, and the people whose secret lives are perilously close to being found out, and the addict who is without his family this Christmas because he cannot admit his addiction and he will not take the help they have offered.  “Merry Christmas!” cries the baby Jesus from somewhere on the other side of the trench of whatever war it is you and I are fighting. “Come out,” he cries, “come out to me!” 

In our confusion, we can’t tell if he is friend or foe.  Is it safe this Christmas Eve to come out of the trench and sing?  Is it safe to fraternize with the one who I thought was my enemy?  Have I anything in my pocket to give him?  Will you run across No Man’s Land and laugh and play a friendly match of soccer, with little care of who wins or loses?

What shall we do, dug into our trenches as we are?

The real lesson of the Christmas Truce of 1914 was that it didn’t last.  And there were plenty of people who tried to nip it in the bud anyway.  And when the caroling stopped everyone returned to his side, and the shelling started, and the ordeal of fire resumed.

But still the Baby of Bethlehem is crying: this is his plea for peace.  Not a year goes by that we don’t have the opportunity to come out of our trenches and stay out, and move recklessly about inviting either attack or peaceful fellowship.  And maybe we do for an hour or two on Christmas Eve, but like good soldiers we always return, and the warring begins again.  So the Baby cries again and again and again, as we fight a thousand undeclared wars at home, and abroad, and within our own private battlefields.

And the good news of Christmas is not that once, a hundred years ago, for a night or two, or maybe a little longer, the ordeal of fire was interrupted by an interval of hope and fellowship and peace, only to resume in due course.  No, the good news of Christmas is that the Baby keeps crying.  He will not grow up or go away as long as we keep returning to our trenches.  He just keeps crying year after year, hoping that some day we will heed his cries and stay out of the trenches.

On at least one other occasion in the Great War, Frederick William Heath found himself between the front lines of British and German forces in the midst of No Man’s Land.   On 13 October 1917, an Australian bi-plane was forced by enemy aircraft to crash land in between the front lines, under heavy fire.  Its pilot was badly wounded, but found cover that protected him from the enemy gunfire.

Heath, our letter writer of three years earlier, was in a trench nearby, and he jumped out of his trench and made his way to the downed pilot to try to rescue him, but found him too injured to move.  So Heath returned to the trenches and there arranged for a larger rescue party to bring in the bleeding pilot, who would survive in hospital for only two weeks before dying from his wounds.[ii]

And here again, surprisingly, is a sign of more of the good news of Christmas.  For if a soldier in the midst of a tragic war is willing to risk himself for a fallen ally from a far-away continent, how much more so will the Prince of Peace, now all grown up, keep coming to save you and me, even though we return again and again to our trenches, and even though we die?

In the quiet truce of this Christmas Eve, let us dare to pray for peace that will last.  And if we can’t imagine such a thing, then let us be brave enough to come out from our fortifications, and move recklessly about on top of our trenches as we call out to those who a moment ago we were supposed to be killing:  “Merry Christmas, merry Christmas.  Come out to us, come out, so that we may laugh and sing and play together."

And let us stay out of our trenches for as long as we can, in hopes that some Christmas Eve we will come out from them and never go back, God being with us. 

Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen

Christmas Eve, 2014

Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia

[i] A Letter by Frederick W. Heath; www.christmastruce.co.uk/heath.html

[ii] “Frederick William Heath” by Charles Woollam and Gill Joye; www.christmastruce.co.uk/heathblog.html

Ftr Phelps, December 7, 2014, Second Sunday in Advent

Already There

It isn’t so surprising, really, that no one noticed him. After all, there was quite a scene happening, and he was far from the center of the action. He was standing on the edge of a growing crowd made up of a hodge podge of religious fanatics, seekers, skeptics, and the merely curious. At the heart of the crowd was a cluster of powerful men – priests from the Levitical tribe, leaders of the synagogue, members of the liturgical elite. And in the center of it all was John, his feet still wet from the water of the Jordan, his eyes bright with the passion of clarity and purpose.

So it isn’t so surprising that no one noticed one quiet, undistinguished man standing alone outside the crowd. After all, he wasn’t nearly as entertaining as the showdown happening in the center. Now, I say showdown, but it was more of a conversation, really, and not a particularly unexpected conversation either. The people standing around this inner circle of baptizer and priests had been saying for weeks that it wouldn’t be too long before the temple in Jerusalem sent envoys out into the desert to check out this wilderness prophet. And there they were, just as expected. The priests and Levites, faithful servants of the Lord and his temple, had finally come to find out who John was…and who John thought he was, what he was doing…and why he thought he was allowed to do it.

These are not surprising questions. After all, these men were experts in ritual purification. These were the priests who were responsible for the offerings in the temple, those sacrifices of blood and flesh and food that were intended to make right one’s relationship with God. So if this John was offering a baptism that was intended to do the same thing, well, then, it made sense that these priests would want to come see for themselves.  

So on the surface, this conversation is nothing more than a kind of on-site inspection. Who are you, what are you doing, do you have the proper licenses and permits. But almost immediately, John makes this routine review something far more extraordinary, far more entertaining for the gathering crowds. Because right away, without an ounce of fear or irony, John says the word, “Messiah.” And suddenly this conversation is not just about the technicalities of ritual law; suddenly this conversation is about that thing that is of ultimate importance: the Savior, the Son of Man, the Hope that lies in the heart of every faithful Jew. And John has the audacity to say that that Hope, that Messiah, is coming – not someday-my-prince-will-come coming, but coming right now. In fact, John says, he is already among you. He is already here.

Now this is a surprise. The Messiah is here? Already? But where are all the signs and portents? And where the heck is Elijah? He’s supposed to come first, isn’t he? The priests and Levites take a breath as if to speak, but let it out again. They shake their heads, fold in to one another, and the conversation is over. The show suddenly ended and the curtain closed, the people begin to wander off in twos and threes, some following John back to the Jordan, some heading to their homes, others hanging around to see if anyone else has anything interesting to say.

But still no one notices the man who continues to stand very still as the current of the crowd swirls around him. No one, that is, except John, who gives his cousin a nod and a serious smile before he heads back down to the water. John knows that it is not yet time. And John knows what to do in the meantime. He is to wait, and hope, and keep his feet wet. All while the man continues to stand alone, watching these beautiful, broken people, feeling their excitement and their longing, knowing that their world has already begun to change. He stands, waiting for the moment when he will move into the center, for the moment when he will finally transform everything, for everyone, for all time. He stands, the one they are all desperately searching for, already there.

It isn’t surprising, really, that we don’t notice him, either. There is so much in our lives that grabs at our attention. The scene at the center is so often taken up by other things, some very, very good, and some horrid. It can be taken up by brilliant conversation or by gossip, by a great love or by infatuation, by the appreciation of art and music and dance or by acquisition of things and things and more things, by the full agenda that feeds our hearts or by the busyness that empties our souls, by the conviction that leads to righteous action or by the undirected anger that leads to destruction, by the celebration of health and the beauty of our bodies or by the objectification and harassment of those bodies, or the sickening terror upon hearing the word “cancer,” or the slow agony of watching a family member slide into depression or dementia.

In the presence of these scenes – some good, some bad, some merely diverting, some wholly arresting – it is no wonder that we don’t always notice him. Even when we pray or come to worship, looking for him, hoping that he will come to us, that he will fix this, forgive this, free us from this, we sometimes just don’t notice him.

But he is already there. He is there when we are blessed or brokenhearted, when we are praised or persecuted, when we make merry and when we mourn. He is there with the oppressed, with the captives, with the prisoners. He is there in the ruined cities and in the former devastations. He is there with the missing, the abused, and the lost. He is there with those who march in protest, in Hong Kong and Ferguson and Washington, D.C. He is there with the families of Tamir Rice and Michael Brown, just as he is there with the police officers who shot them. He is there with women who have been raped and received no justice, just as he is there with the men who raped them. He is there in Olney, in Kensington, in Frankford, with the drug-dealers and prostitutes just as he is there with the priests who minister to them. He is there in our city schools, he is there in City Hall, he is there in the halls of Congress. He is already there.

And he is there with you. He is there with you at your home and at your work. He is there with you in the hospital and in the nursing home. He is there with you in your families and in the strangers you pass on the street. He is there with you at your sleeping and at your waking. He is there with you in your Advent and in your “Christmas season.” He is there with you in your pew and on this altar. He is already there.

He is already there, and that has changed everything. But he has not yet come fully to the center, not yet come again in great power and glory, putting all things in subjection under his feet. So what do we do to notice him in the meantime? We do what John did. For even with all his self-proclaimed unworthiness in the face of the one who will come after him and baptize with the Holy Spirit, John continued to baptize with water. He just kept doing the thing that he did.

Now if John was unworthy even to untie the thong of his sandal, surely you and I are unworthy to take out the recycling bin that holds the shoe box that his sandals came in. But we can still keep doing the thing that we do, with the passion of clarity and purpose. We can teach and preach, sing and bake. We can fix policies and fix bones, we can study and sell and serve and stitch. We can do that thing that we do, and we can do what we can. If he will come again to restore all of Creation, we can at least bring our own bag to the grocery store. If he will come again to cover us all with the garments of salvation, we can at least knit a scarf for a Soup Bowl guest. If he will come again in great power to judge the living and the dead, we can at least stop judging ourselves. If he will come again to execute judgment and righteousness, we can speak out against marriage inequality, unequal pay for equal work, and systematic torture, and we can speak up when we see the ugliness of racism in this city, especially those of us who are white and therefore privileged.

This is how we notice that he is there. Because when we walk in his way, we find the true center – of our hearts, of our lives, of our own priesthoods. And in that center he stands, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, already there. O come, let us notice him.

Preached by Mother Erika Takacs

14 December 2014

Saint Mark's, Philadelphia