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