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Christmas
For me, the most fascinating thing about these cribs is that they include in them just about everything one would not expect to find in a Christmas crib. Mary, Joseph, and the Child are there, of course, and a shepherd or two, three kings, some sheep and a camel, but so are the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker -- and maybe a drunkard slouching in his chair, a woman hanging out the wash, a beggar with his hand out, a carpenter repairing furniture, a couple of lovers hand-in-hand, children playing ball. Among this wild array, I once saw figures with the unmistakable faces of John Kennedy, Pope John XXIII, and Mother Teresa -- and I’m willing to bet Barack Obama is there this year! I also saw a slice of pizza lying next to Jesus in the manger! Bethlehem it isn’t! Pure Naples it is – with fish markets, pizza parlors, vegetable stalls, bars, traffic jams, and all the rest. Bethlehem it isn’t, but maybe that’s OK. Jesus, after all, came for all people of all times. And there is a sense, a very real sense, in which he is born in every time, including our time: born into all the messiness of where we live our lives: our neighborhoods, our streets, our homes, our parishes. The Neapolitan crib scenes make an important theological statement about Christmas. Twentieth century American Catholic writer, Flannery O’Connor, once penned some very words about the profound mystery we celebrate today: “The ultimate reality is the Incarnation, the present reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation.” I think she’s right, but I think she might have had to make an exception for those crib makers in Naples. They make it pretty clear that the flesh and blood that Christ took on is the real thing. So perhaps our crib scenes here in Seattle ought to include a Seattle Mariner, a jogger, a tall, skinny latte, the Space Needle, a ferry boat, a computer geek, the Pike Place Market, a pile of books from Amazon.com, and St. James Cathedral! Why not? For, my friends, the Incarnation is not just a moment in time, a moment long ago in time. The Incarnation is now – for Jesus longs to live in our time – in this moment, in this place, in you and in me, and in people as likely and as unlikely as that great cast of characters in those Neapolitan crib scenes. I remember once seeing a Christmas story unfold before my eyes right under that great Macy’s Christmas star on the corner of 4th and Pine. A homeless fellow was doing his best to sell an armload of the Real Change newspapers that homeless people proudly produce and peddle on our streets. Along came three young teen-agers who didn’t even wait for the homeless fellow to ask them for the sale price of a dollar. As soon as they spotted him, the three young people took counsel in a little huddle, fished in their pockets, and came up, not with one dollar, but several. Then, with a shy smile, one of them handed the money to the homeless fellow and said, “Here’s some money – but we only need one paper. You can sell the others again!” Well, it wasn’t exactly a manger scene, but for me it was a Christmas story. Three teen-agers showed that they knew what Christmas was all about. In their own way they wrote their own Christmas story, reversing the harsh story of the innkeeper of Bethlehem who had no room for the homeless couple who so desperately needed a place to stay. My friends, I have a question for you: do you believe in the Incarnation? Do you believe that God really took on our flesh and blood, our lives, beautiful as they are, and messy as they can be; our world, good as it is, and evil as it can be? If you believe in the Incarnation, then nothing can stay the same because you begin to see everything – and everyone – with new eyes. You begin to see the manger scenes that are all around us – the living ones -- not just those on our Christmas cards and beneath our Christmas trees or on our fireplace mantels. The truly memorable manger scenes are the living ones and we are all part of them -- right in the middle of them because it is our flesh Christ took on at Christmas. He lives in you, and me, and everyone. I conclude with some words of St. Teresa of Avila:
Christ has no body now but yours,
Now, as far as I know, St. Teresa of Avila never got to Naples to see how they
did Christmas. But if she had, I think she would have liked what she saw… Merry
Christmas! Father Michael G. Ryan
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The great Italian port city of Naples is known for many things. Mt.
Vesuvius, grand opera, petty thievery, organized crime, and traffic bad enough
to make I-5 and 405 seem like a dream. And Naples has at least one other
claim to fame: its Christmas cribs. In the heart of the old city there is
a narrow, dark street that is crammed with the studios and shops of hundreds of
artists and craftsmen who produce and sell an elaborate and dizzying array of
cribs and crib figures that you really have to see in order to believe.
They give new meaning to the word Baroque!