I once spent Christmas Eve in Jerusalem. As I walked back to my hotel after praying at the church that includes the place of Jesus' crucifixion, I passed a young Israeli soldier and an elderly Arab Muslim baker — they were sharing a coal-black coffee. Instinctively, and perhaps clumsily, I wished them Merry Christmas. They smiled, and politely returned the greeting.
Then the older man said to me in surprisingly good English, "Excuse me, may I ask you a question?" I replied that of course he could. "Your Jesus," he said, "is incredible. God willing, we could all behave like he wanted. But, and please forgive my rudeness, so few of his followers seem to live as he asked." I opened my mouth to reply, then thought better of it and walked back through the narrow, cobbled streets, my head bowed in shame.
He was right. Of course he was. If not, the world would be a very different place. Hate would be love, swords would be ploughshares, intolerance would be acceptance, and cruelty would be justice. But it's not like that, and the history of the Church bleeds crimson with hierarchy, nastiness, persecution and pain.
Today, we Christians often do a better job, but certainly not always. Ask most secular people what it means to be a Christian and they will likely think of opposition to abortion or LGBTQ equality, a dark obsession with opposing sex and sexuality, and generally being against rather than in support of things. Oh, and then there is the ostensible war on Christmas that is trotted out every December. I have good news: there is no war. The problem is, there is not really any Christmas either.
Because if there were, Christians would be notorious for grabbing the culture by the neck and shaking it with revolutionary passion into a society that embraced equality and hope, that worked to guarantee that nobody went without food, housing, health care, education or happiness. They'd be respected as people who roared resistance to racism, homophobia, religious discrimination and war. They'd be known for their embrace of migrants, refugees and newcomers, and their work with those who were usually rejected and despised.
Some years ago I had what I can only describe as a religious conversion. I'd been a Christian for almost 30 years, but I don't think I genuinely lived as one. I don't claim to be a better person now — I'm not — but I do think I try to be a better Christian. That conversion was terrifying and painful, but it had to happen if my life and faith were to have any meaning. I've spent almost three years now training for the Anglican priesthood, and I may eventually be ordained. But it's not certain, because this is a vocation and a calling rather than a career or decision. It's not in my hands.
I've learned all sorts of things about history, theology, philosophy, linguistics and scripture, but most of all I've learned that when you sit by the bed of a man in his 80s who is frightened and in pain, and who knows that death is intimately close, you grasp the reality of what Christmas means. Learned that when you hold the hand of a young woman who has just been told that her child is and will always be severely disabled, the Christmas carol that matters is the gentle, lyrical and sweet voice of the rabbi Jesus. Learned that when you hand food and tea to a homeless person at 2 a.m. on a freezing winter night, you realize what the birth of a baby who is God signifies. No sweeping condemnations, no shouts of authority, certainly not any attempt to convert. Just being there, and living it.
We've no idea, of course, if Jesus was born on Dec. 25, and it's actually rather unlikely that He was. It's irrelevant though. What matter is not when He was born but that He was born, and while it's fashionable to deny that He existed, that's not really a serious scholarly position. Whether He was God or not is another matter, and faith has by its nature to be a personal decision. Forcing people to accept Christianity is repugnant, and has left open wounds the world over — just ask Indigenous people of their experience!
There is also disagreement about what He actually said, although we know more about the accuracy of those ancient texts now than ever before, and in spite of what some would have us believe, there is an abundant amount of reliable information. But, again, this is not really the point. I do not want to argue anybody into my religion, and many of the finest people I know, some of them my dearest friends, are atheists. What I do want to do as a Christian is to try to build a world that more resembles the desires and dreams of the Prince of Peace, and that challenge often seems to be increasingly difficult.
Political debate is being debased in the United States and in Canada, with leaders relishing and exploiting the tribalism and toxins that have always existed but were seldom in the past allowed centre stage. Listening and reconsidering are seen as weakness, and intransigence and dishonesty praised as political skills. The trans, Indigenous, and Black communities in particular are libelled, not only by fanatics but by people with influence and status, who are terrified when long powerless voices suddenly speak up and out for rights long taken for granted by the white, straight and male. Wealth is revered, poverty considered punishment, addiction rejected as failure.
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