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“Manger Scenes I Have Known”
St. Philip’s Cathedral
Atlanta, Georgia
December 23, 2007 (Advent 4)
The Very Rev. Harry H. Pritchett, Jr.
Unless you came in one of the side doors, you could not have missed the live nativity this morning at the cathedral’s entrance: donkey, sheep, rabbit and real live people and a real live baby Jesus. When I was growing years ago, all such nativity presentations and reenactments such as crèches, pageants, and displays were simply called manger scenes. So the name of this homily might be…”Manger Scenes I Have Known”. Because you know, there are manger scenes and there are manger scenes.
I remember one as a teenager in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the Virgin Mary was costumed in blue satin from her foot to the top of her head which was adorned with a rhinestone tiara. On her ears were matching, dangling rhinestone earrings and she held the doll baby Jesus with long, white kid gloves. We called that manger scene the glitzy Madonna.
A little later on I remember going to the Radio City Music Hall in New York City and seeing the Christmas show which probably had more participants in the cast than the entire little town of Bethlehem did when Jesus was born. And the Rockettes danced their praise to the immaculately clothed and perfectly choreographed Holy Family.
And then there are all those live manger scenes like we have today which I first remember becoming popular in the Sixties. They were usually located in the yard of churches where shifts of volunteers braved the cold air every night to take their place with other lively participants in a tableau right off a traditional Hallmark Christmas card.
Many years ago I remember the hassle of getting all our children into their warm clothing one cold night so we could have a wonderful family outing (always more compelling in our imagination than in reality). We hurried with excitement to a live manger scene outside a local church in Birmingham. About the time we got every body out of the car and into place so we could observe all the live people and live animals, a big brown cow moseyed slowly toward the stable, paused and batting her sleepy big dark eyes, bent her head toward the manger straw, encountering there the one un-live character of the otherwise live performers. It was the doll of the baby Jesus. The cow grabbed the doll in her teeth and slung it over her head, out in the crowd of on- looking children who spontaneously cheered as we adults shivered. Soon we were all laughing out loud and warmed out of our pious silence as the babe was restored to the manger straw. I thought to myself, how typical of our human narrowness to cast the main character of the show – the baby Jesus -- as a wooden, manufactured and very unreal doll. And how appropriate of the baby Jesus to bolt out of that manger into the people, amidst the surprised children.
Yes, there are manger scenes and there are manger scenes.
However, the worst nativity pageant I ever remember was at the church where I grew up. The youth group was staging this manger scene. I was chosen to play Joseph and believe it or not, my future wife, Allison, was chosen to play Mary. We did our parts with seriousness and commitment, looking as ethereal as possible. And then it came time for the shepherds to enter. The choir was singing “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” and some of our fellow young people dressed in flannel bathrobes and toweled head gear proceeded to the altar steps where Allison and I as Mary and Joseph looked piously and lugubriously at the straw which contained a naked light bulb. With his back to the congregation, one of our peer shepherds said in a soft whisper, but loud enough for all the cast to hear “Joe, when you gonna pass our cigars?” The spell of the occasion was not simply broken by his remark; it was exploded. Our Mary and Joseph parts were completely destroyed as it became impossible to hold back guffaws of laughter. The chief angel, standing on a chair behind us was the worst. She shook so hard that she fell off her chair and simply rolled over on the floor, holding her stomach. The strains of “Silent Night”” were simply insufficient to cover the uncontrolled snorts of us all. Our very disappointed, but good-sported youth advisor said afterwards, “The only thing that didn’t go to pieces was the light bulb in the manger: it never went out.” Much later on I thought to myself, that’s a good image – in spite of us all, the light in the manager never goes out.
Yes, there are manger scenes and there are manger scenes.
Isn’t it strange how we all seem to want to get there – to get to the manger? Why do we keep coming back year after year to Christmas pageants or nativity stagings or even dramatic extravaganzas of the manger birth stories? Can you imagine what a visitor from Mars would think? He would be totally confused at our insistence on rehearing or on restaging a tiny little bit of an ancient story told only in two small books in the midst of a much longer story within a whole library of books called the Bible. Why do we do it – what draws us to the manger?
Certainly it is not a rational thing. Certainly it does not fit into our scientific and technological world of chips and software and information highways. The desire of the faithful to return to the manger and simply to be there is very strange, but very strong.
Perhaps … amidst the glitz and the glitter and the sheer avarice incarnate in shopping malls and media. ..Perhaps somewhere deep down below the empty shine of cocktail parties or the Norman Rockwell dream of family gatherings… or even buried behind the Handel and the alleluias and the glories… perhaps, underneath and behind it all is a longing – a longing for simplicity when we are drowning with clutter – a yearning for some reality when we are surrounded with pretension -- a desire for truth beyond our chronic illusions – a craving for mystery when we are suffocating from the flatness of secularism… And so we come to the manger scene – the straw, the animals, Mary and Joseph, shepherds and Wise Men, and of course, the baby.
Years ago, when I was rector of St. Thomas Church in Huntsville, Alabama the women of the church used to invite for a Christmas party a special education class with cerebral palsy. The special-ed kids came to the party as our guests, so our healthy children put on a Christmas pageant for them. About two years into that project, one of the teachers in the cerebral palsy class suggested that perhaps her students could return some of our generosity and hence participate in a shared Christmas festivity. Even though tentative at first about this approach since they certainly did not want to embarrass our guests, the brave women of St. Thomas agreed to experiment. It was a cold, bitter rainy day that first Tuesday when the cerebral palsy class performed the Christmas pageant at St. Thomas. There were Mary and Joseph, one little black boy and one little white girl, in wheel chairs. The angel could not keep her arms for flying in the air. The shepherds came on crutches. The wise men took a very long time to get from the back of the parish hall to the manger, pulling their own wheel chairs. It was almost impossible to understand the narrator because of her speech impediment, but of course everybody knew the story anyway. No one tried to help anyone else, and no one felt embarrassed. It was quiet at first and then there was great laughter and sometimes there were tears. The simple truth from the manger was not denied – some of us have cerebral palsy and some of us do not. Some of us are children and some of us are adults. Some of us are black and some of us are white. Some of us are poor and some of us are rich. But we are all human beings and we are peculiarly separate while being peculiarly united. One thing is for sure, we are all vulnerable, we are all fragile and dependant on others much like a baby and in that manger kind of insight, tears may be a sacrament -- yes, tears with smiles become the outward and visible sign of some inward and spiritual grace at the manger scene.
Yes, it is very mysterious how we all yearn to go to the manger year after year …for simplicity?...maybe. For reality?...maybe. For truth?...maybe. For love?..of course.
So come away this Christmas…it is all right to come away… to let go and just come away…”Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head…I love thee, Lord Jesus. Look down from the sky. And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.” Amen
Comments? Contact Dean Pritchett at: hpritchett@stphilipscathedral.org