This is a sheep fold, used to shelter flocks at night. The cave protects sheep from wild animals and also from cold. Since a couple hundred sheep can fit into the cave, four or five shepherds and their flocks share the space. The shepherds rotate keeping watch at the single entrance. The shepherd on duty is called “the Door” or “the Gate.” This familiar Scripture reference, heard in this unfamiliar place, slices into me with new power. This underground cave is far removed from a Sunday school picture of a white-robed shepherd sitting on a well-placed rock contemplating the landscape while holding a picturesque staff.
“Jesus said, ‘I am the gate for the sheep.’ ” In the shadowy cave, Sam is standing in a shaft of light, and I want to go throw my arms around him and kiss his cheek. Maybe his white hair reminds me of my father, or maybe he has become my father by leading me to something precious about my faith, a faith that I’ve certainly inhabited my whole life but am embracing anew.
We wander around, and Sam tells us that we are like the sheep, referring to the way we’re mixing freely inside the cave. That’s what sheep would do. Each shepherd has his own call, and the sheep respond to it. Sheep are herd animals. They like to be together, and that makes them much easier to herd than goats. Goats don’t bunch together, and they don’t listen. “Goats like to wander and plunder,” Sam says.
Maybe I’m more goat than sheep. I’m definitely some sort of wayward animal. Even here in the Holy Land I’ve felt the pull to do things I shouldn’t do. The tradition in which I grew up would simply say this was my unworthiness. But I’m starting to think it’s something different. I am no more or less unworthy than anybody else. Still, I’m a human being and have choices to make — all the time. Something seems to be shifting in my theology on a visceral level.
Sam is pointing out a stone trough like the one Mary used as a manger. I picture Mary placing Jesus in that furrow of rock. Wouldn’t a stone manger be cold? I remember the tombs from yesterday, deep inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre: the dirty oven tomb and the clean marble tomb. Both were cold. Whether natural rock or worked marble, stone is cold. For the first time it really hits me that Jesus not only ended his life lying on stone, but began his life that way. Our Christmas card pictures are downright cozy in their contrast to reality. What a chilly reception for a divine being who voluntarily entered our flesh. Flesh is warm, yet only for a brief span. And to think within that span, such coldness! I think of how often I’ve preached on Jesus’ incarnation, and how little I understand it.
Sam talks more about shepherds. He explains that the business of the town of Bethlehem was to provide sheep for the Temple at Jerusalem, only five miles distant. Masses of sheep were born and raised here in Bethlehem, only to be slaughtered on the altar in Jerusalem. It’s not hard to find the metaphor there: Jesus is not only the Good Shepherd, but also the Lamb of God.
Sam explains that shepherds played a unique role in Temple culture. They were crucial to Temple life because they provided an essential commodity; yet, at the same time, they were outcasts, excluded from Temple functions. They were sinners, ritually unclean. These were, of course, the holiness laws coming into effect; these laws also excluded Gentiles and women. Shepherds were unclean because they touched sick animals, excrement, and blood. They were stained. The irony is clear: the shepherds provided the means for other people’s sins to be forgiven via blood sacrifice, but they themselves had no access to forgiveness. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Perhaps the metaphor works because he didn’t need forgiveness like an ordinary shepherd.
Someone in the group asks whether the shepherds owned their sheep. “No,” Sam says. “Most of the shepherds were hired hands.” He goes on to explain that it was often the Sadducees who owned the sheep, as part of their role in maintaining Temple operations. In fact, sheep were the greatest source of the Sadducees’ wealth. Still, being a shepherd wasn’t a bad job. Shepherds were paid relatively well, and often owners and shepherds worked together for a lifetime and passed their positions to the next generation. “The shepherd’s well-being,” says Sam, “was tied to the well-being of the sheep.”
Now someone asks about stone itself, and Sam talks about “generativity.” That’s another word we don’t use much. Sam says that a cave is a symbol for the womb, embodying safety and nurturing. He elaborates on what we heard yesterday: cave theology. This was first proposed by Eusebius in the fourth century. Not only did Jesus’ body spend its first and last moments on a rock, but all the pivotal biblical stories about him — birth/death/resurrection/ascension — happened on a rock or in a rock cave.
Sam talks about swaddling cloths, how they were used for both newborns and corpses, and thus encapsulate birth and death in one image. This is not a new tidbit for me; in fact, I’ve used it in sermons. But when I hear this while standing in a rock cave — both birthplace and tomb — the poignancy of the image hits me almost physically. I suck in my breath. Jesus was wrapped in death rags from the moment he drew breath. You have to wonder why he did it! Why would a deity bother with the mess and inconvenience of flesh?
Sam segues into leadership: “God often used shepherding as a way to train leaders. A good shepherd is a good leader because he has to search out the good lands, has to negotiate with other shepherds, has to be attentive to his flock.” That concise description brings me up short. For years I’ve rebelled internally against the image of pastor as shepherd — even though the two words are related — because the image seems clichéd, both sanitized and overused. Perhaps I’ve been influenced by the sentimental hymn arrangements of Psalm 23, or the Sunday school pictures that show a clean white lamb slung around the shepherd’s neck, but the pastor as shepherd seems to suggest that the job of a pastor is primarily reactive, to scoop people up when they fall. Standing in the shepherd’s cave in Bethlehem, I suddenly realize that this notion severely shortchanges the biblical image.
“Can you name some leaders who were shepherds?” Sam asks.
We call them out: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David.
“Shepherding is good training, like fishing,” Sam says. “Shall I tell you about that?”
Ashley shouts, “Preach it, Sam!” and our group applauds.
So he does. In a few sentences Sam talks about fishermen, how they learn to be quiet and stay out of sight. How they must know their fish well to know what kind of bait to use.
JoAnne whispers to me, “We’ll be in Galilee in two days, you know.”
My heart fills with anticipation. Already I’m approaching that place, which I’ve never seen, with new eyes.
Then it’s time to leave the embrace of the cave and board the bus. We are going up the long hill to see “the actual place where Jesus was born.”
The Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem
CHAPTER 11
Love Is Difficult
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
1 CORINTHIANS 13:12-13
THE CHURCH OF the Nativity is one of the sites established by Constantine in the fourth century. His mother, Helena, was pretty sure it was the authentic place of Jesus’ birth, since people had been worshiping there for centuries. Helena had a church built at the exact location where the actual manger stood. That structure was destroyed in the sixth century and rebuilt. Along the way, the Orthodox argued with the Catholics, who argued with the Armenians. The result was that two sanctuaries were built over one holy site. Dual sanctuaries. Dueling sanctuaries.
Stephen explains that the building’s disagreeable history doesn’t end there. In the eleventh century, the Crusaders rode into Bethlehem to bring Christ to the masses through brute force. They did some good things for the church building — such as enlarging it. But their presence also created some unusual problems. People would sometimes ride into the church on a beast — horse, donkey, camel — charge rig
ht up to the altar, and grab some holy object, then gallop off. It is unclear to me who did this, or why, or exactly what they would grab. Was it common theft or something more? The Crusaders solved the problem by adding a new entrance with a doorway low enough to keep out mounted marauders. They called it the Door of Humility.
This story is told to explain why we must bend low as we pass through this door. In fact, we must bend from the waist, as if we are entering a cave. It’s a pleasing metaphor, but I doubt whether it was, or is, effective pedagogically. The spiritual lesson of humility cannot be taught through architecture.
There’s a more recent chapter of this building’s history, also violent, that needs to be told. In April 2002, armed Palestinians forced their way into this church. Using two hundred nuns and priests as shields, they refused to surrender their position for thirty-nine days. The world paid attention, and there was great pressure on the Israelis not to destroy this holy site. Ultimately, the Palestinians surrendered.
Surely, if there is any place in the world that should be bathed in blissful love, it should be the place where Jesus was born. But Bethlehem is not a sweet place. Perhaps that’s fitting: Jesus wasn’t born to bring “niceness.” Jesus was born to inaugurate the kingdom of God. The world was so allergic to that kingdom that they tried to stamp him out. It isn’t surprising that the raw ingredients of sacred presence are too powerful and intoxicating to be sweet.
Faith is full of such paradoxes. I think how, for years, my family ended our mealtime prayers with a simple chant: “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food.” Saying God is great means that God is all-powerful. Saying God is good means that God is all-loving. We experience God’s power and love through the simple gifts we receive, like food on the table. But sometimes there isn’t food on the table, so to speak. Why is that so? As some theologians have put it: If God is so great, why is everything not so good?
If maturity is the ability to hold two conflicting ideas in your head without your brain exploding, spiritual maturity is the ability to wrap your head around God’s being both good and great without your faith exploding. The truth is that God’s goodness and greatness present a paradox, and rather than try to understand that paradox, we must simply stand under it. Within that paradox is the space where we humans live our lives: exercising our free will, making choices, and experiencing the results of our choices, and the choices of others.
Seminary taught me to resolve this paradox with a doctrine that we Presbyterians are particularly fond of: the sovereignty of God. That’s what theology does: it gives us labels to contain things we can’t explain. I’ve drawn on these labels as I’ve written sermons, to help name the unnameable. Yet, standing in this open plaza in Bethlehem, in front of a church that marks both God’s incarnation and human mayhem, the poignancy of these paradoxes deepens.
The sun shines brightly on the Church of the Nativity. Our group is clustered around Stephen in a section of the paved courtyard; similar groups dot the plaza. At the edges of each group, street-sellers ply their wares. Out of the corner of my eye I notice some sellers waiting near our group. Sam is explaining that in some places we will be able to see the original mosaic floor. Underneath this church is the original cave where Jesus was born, and the exact spot where his manger stood. Each time Sam says “original,” his voice underscores the word.
As the group breaks up to move into the church, street-sellers swarm us, pushing postcards into our hands and pleading. “Please, I have five children at home, please to buy.” Many of them have arms draped in stone necklaces, which they swing before us. One man has Palestinian scarves that catch my eye. “My name is Hakim,” he says.
We enter the church and peer at a roped-off piece of mosaic floor. It seems very dark and dirty, and I want to call for a scrub bucket.
There is a funeral going on in the Orthodox sanctuary. The top of the coffin is propped in the corner. It bears a large, Crusader-style cross and seems like a stage prop. But it isn’t. I’m used to caskets with closed lids, death one step more remote than this. I want to glimpse the coffin but can’t because the sanctuary is full of people standing.
We pilgrims must walk alongside a railing that separates us from the mourners, which we do respectfully. There’s a silent traffic jam as we stoop through a narrow doorway one at a time. We continue single file down a long grade to the cave where Helena built her shrine so many centuries ago. It feels like we are deep underground when we come at last to the shrine at the manger. Set in a slab of marble is the fourteen-point star. Hanging over this star is a row of lamps. I drop a shekel in a box and light a long taper, which I anchor in a bed of sand. Then I kneel and pray for the peace of Bethlehem.
We head out of the cave through a passageway in the opposite direction. Along the way — as if we might need another reminder that joy is never unmixed with sorrow — we pass the Chapel of the Innocents, which commemorates Herod’s order to kill all Jewish boys under the age of two in his attempt to kill the baby Jesus. This is the morning-after-Christmas story that doesn’t get as much press.
We crowd into another chapel that once housed the bones of the church father Jerome. Sam tells us about Jerome, who lived in Bethlehem from 386 to 420 CE, and translated Scripture into Latin, possibly in this very room. The rock walls are beautiful in their irregularity, hewn by hand. Jessica whispers to me, “Now this is some kind of study.” I nod my agreement. We writers understand the pull of contemplative space.
The passageway continues up into the other sanctuary, Saint Catherine’s, which is Catholic, a mere 120 years old. We are given a few minutes alone. I go forward to kneel and listen to the words of the red-robed priest who is celebrating the Eucharist: “We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you come again. When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.”
As I listen to these ancient words, it occurs to me that this sacrament — like everything about this Church of the Nativity — points to the glimmering threshold between life and death. In this sanctuary, worshipers celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection; in the other sanctuary, worshipers witness a funeral; both sanctuaries like legs straddle the place where Jesus was born.
Birth and death. On the one hand, birthing and burying are common human experiences, going on all the time. Yet for the main actors — and the persons watching and waiting — they are pivotal and life-altering. A birthing bed or a deathbed are each a holy place where we wait with bated breath for the threshold to be crossed. This sanctuary is the same. We see that God is on both sides of the threshold and that indeed the doorway between these realities is more translucent and temporary than we know. For a brief, holy moment, I can glimpse both directions at once — toward life and toward death — and feel God’s presence. My fingers grasp the wooden pew, my feet are anchored on the stone floor, my eyes rest on the lifted communion chalice, and time ceases. Eternity surrounds me.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. My sense of time isn’t good in the best of circumstances. As a pilgrim, I’m a complete time failure. Why do I even wear a watch?
We begin to walk down a long hill to the bus. Along the way, I decide to buy one of the headscarves, wanting to express solidarity with the Palestinians. I see the street-seller named Hakim and call his name. He responds with delight and comes running. He knows he has me.
Now I must decide between red and black. Red is Bedouin; black is Palestinian. I try to picture one of them draped across the communion table in my church. I dither — rubbing the fabric between my fingers — until I decide I want to buy both. I will try to haggle as I should, but it won’t be easy. I offer to buy two for the price of one as Kyle and I start walking toward the bus. Hakim trails beside me, and Camera Michael shows up, camera rolling. Hakim protests that he has no profit margin at all; I must pay a little more. I am no good at this. I don’t know if what he says about profit margins is true, but I do know that I am rich to him. I flew here i
n a plane, didn’t I? I finger the scarves again.
“Excellent quality,” he promises.
We negotiate the price from 80 shekels ($20) each to two for 120 shekels ($30). I have left my money on the bus, so Kyle loans me some. When the transaction is finished, Hakim continues walking beside me, companionably. I’m surprised. All around are other tourists, potential targets.
“What state are you from?” he asks.
“Virginia,” I say. “Do you know it?”
“Is it near New Jersey?”
I nod, and he shakes his head sorrowfully. “I will never go there. Never! A girl from New Jersey broke my heart.” He beats a closed fist against his chest.
I’m glad Camera Michael is filming. I love Hakim’s theatrics. I play along. “I’m especially sorry,” I tell him, “since I am also a girl from New Jersey.”
Now his shock is unfeigned. “Really?”
“Really,” I say. “I lived there for ten years. I went to high school there.”
“Have you broken a heart there?” he asks dejectedly.
“Not in New Jersey. Not that I know of.”
He shakes his head again, as if he is an old man and all of his grandchildren have disappointed him. “If someone breaks your heart, it is broken forever. Love is forever. You cannot help it.”
I commiserate: “Yes, love is difficult.” We walk down the hill toward the bus — with me clutching my two scarves and him trailing an armload. We both wag our heads over love, then part with a firm handshake beside the noisy bus.
Deheshieh, Palestine
CHAPTER 12
The Hope
How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!
Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land Page 9
