Dear Folks,
If you met a person who had never heard the story of the Incarnation, what would you tell them? It’s not an idle question. In mid-December fifteen years ago, a parishioner pulled me aside at coffee hour. “I think we need to become more active at St. John’s,” he began sheepishly. “My wife and I decorated our house yesterday for Christmas. We packed the kids in the station wagon, drove out to the east end of Long Island, and bought a tree. Back at home with mugs of steaming hot chocolate, we carried the boxes of ornaments up from the basement, and made new ones on a card table set up in the living room. Close to dinner time we unpacked the creche, and our older daughter giggled as she placed the wise men on a window sill in the kitchen. ‘They’ve got a long way to go before they get to Bethlehem,’ she said. The twins, who are five-years-old, thought this was a great idea, so they positioned the animals and shepherds on the dining room table, two rooms away.” That all sounds great, I said. “We were feeling good about the day,” the parishioner said, “until we heard one of our five-year-old’s whisper to the other, ‘Now what’s the name of that baby in the straw?’” I signed them up for Sunday School.
How would you tell the story of Christmas? I wondered about that with a group of friends at Blakehurst recently. They gather regularly to puzzle over theological questions, following an example set by June Finney years ago, and they invited me to join them as Advent was beginning. “If someone landed from Mars and wanted to know what the December fuss was all about,” I asked them, “where would you start?”
“An angel got the whole thing going,” said one person. “I think it begins with Mary,” said another. “She was 14, pregnant, and unmarried. What do you think about that, rector?” We were off and running! “What about the man—I forget his name,” someone asked. Joseph, I offered… and what do you make of the fact that he seems forgettable, I wondered. “Oh, I think he’s very important,” said someone. “He could have turned his back on her, cast her out of the family. I think he took a risk by doing the right thing. It’s not such a stretch to believe knowing who the father was could be a mystery. We were all 14 once upon a time.” Now the group was giggling, and nodding their heads.
What about the manger, I asked them. “That’s where the baby was born, because there was no room at the Inn.” What do you think that means, why do we include that detail? There was no innkeeper in the scripture… did you know that? That’s a role we have created for our Christmas pageants. Our conversation got quiet, and I told them about some research I’ve been doing.
There were no hotels or B & B’s in first century Israel, no Holiday Inns with the lights on for all the people who were travelling for the emperor’s census. Modest houses at that time would be constructed with two rooms, one at street level and one upstairs. The lower space would be where a family would keep an animal or two, usually a cow to provide milk for the small fry. It was warm and dry and swept clean for cooking and storing food. The word for the other space is “inn,” and elsewhere in the gospel the same word is translated as “upper room,” like the one where the disciples gathered after Jesus died. Because other family members would have traveled to Bethlehem to be counted, as well, by the time Mary and Joseph arrived, the “inn” was full, so the couple was invited to stay downstairs. They weren’t cast out. The poor family did what poor families do—they made room for them in the best place they could offer. Jesus was born into a space of hospitality.
That’s how I would tell the Christmas story.
Love,
David