Making Room 12/22/2002

William A. Ritter

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures: Luke 2:1-7, John 14:1-3

Long after I forgot the very bad joke it fits, I remembered the punch line: “Everybody’s gotta be some place.”

Well, truth be told, everybody does. We are space-taking people, although some of us take up more space than others. When I was researching the 50-year history of this sanctuary, I came across a notation suggesting that this wonderful worship space can seat in excess of 600 souls. Now as to whether Methodist “souls” have swelled, shrunk or stayed the same size over the last half century, I can’t rightly say. But if this place once held “in excess of 600 souls,” those souls came packaged in much smaller bodies.

Or maybe we haven’t changed size all that much. Maybe we just crave a bit more elbow room between me and thee….meaning that sanctuary seating limitations have more to do with greed than bloat. At the University of Michigan, where stadium seats are numbered in the belief that only midgets go to watch behemoths, there is constant talk of reconfiguration, so as to give all of us a few more inches. Thankfully, they tell me that at the Lions’ new playpen downtown, they’ve actually done it. I guess Ford really does have a better idea.

Several years ago, my daughter attended Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta. Which was how it came to pass that after years of her mother and I taking her to church, she returned the favor. One Sunday morning, while not exactly late, we did have to jostle the choir to get into the sanctuary, claiming three in the back row….the last three in the back row. But that didn’t deter people coming later than us. While the choir walked down the center aisle, they walked down the side aisles….clogging them….leaning against the outer walls….all in all, quite unseemly. Surely a fire hazard, I thought.

But you can imagine my surprise when, between the end of the hymn and the beginning of the Call to Worship, the liturgist (thank God it was the Associate) said: “Okay folks, you know the drill. Everybody in the pews, squeeze. Everybody in the aisles, sit.” And they did. Quietly. Passively. Agreeably. Like sheep.

Last week I quoted a couple of lines from West Side Story’s “Tonight” (my second favorite song from my all-time favorite musical). The whole cast sings it when the day is very much ripe….and their lives are very much in front of them. But my favorite song….introduced not by horns, violins or even castanets, but by a very lonely cello….is the song that closes the play. It is when Tony and Maria (the lovers) sing together one last time. “Last,” because he is dying….in her arms….of a bullet….from a rumble….during a gang war….over turf control on the streets of New York. I can hear them now:

            There’s a place for us,

            Somewhere a place for us.

            Peace and quiet and open air

            Wait for us, somewhere.

Everybody’s got to be some place. And woe unto those, this Christmas, who find themselves misplaced, displaced, replaced or (for any number of reasons) uncomfortably out of place. I am talking about the brown-shoe people in a black-shoe world….or maybe even the no-shoe people in an over-shoed world.

As many of you know, my wife now works at Cass Church and Community Center. She is the part-time coordinator of volunteers for the wonderful new Scott Building (into which a lot of us have poured money, sweat and love). They do it all at the Scott Center (with folks the Bible often refers to as “the least of these”).

And in dealing with the homeless, they do so in multiple levels….from semi-permanent residents who enjoy two floors of very private, well-kept rooms, to people who sleep on mats on the floor. But even the latter group….the “floor folk”….do all kinds of amazing things to stake out their space….to define it, protect it, repel encroachment into it, or turn back trespass against it. Sometimes it’s hard to know where those invisible boundaries are until they have been breached. But they had better not be breached, lest the breachee come up swinging.

Faith Fowler has been at Cass since 1994. I worry that she is walking a tightrope between burnout and sainthood. But she perseveres with a little help from her friends. Which is why, on the day Jesus asks me to account for the space I took up on earth, I want to be able to say: “One good thing I did, Lord; I was Faith’s friend.”

And Faith’s favorite story of ministry at Cass (growing out of the day she turned to her dog and said, “Guess what, Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore”) was the day she was trying to do holy paperwork in her office, only to be interrupted by the incessant knocking of a very much under-dressed and over-painted lady. Who, upon entering, pointed to a 14-year-old girl she had dragged in by the arm, and said: “Rev. Fowler, tell her to get off my corner.”

Everybody’s got to be some place. Which is why even the hookers and the homeless resent intrusion. When Rev. Fowler sent the cowering 14-year-old with a social worker in search of some food to fill her belly and a coat to cover her body, the veteran prostitute calmed down a bit and said: “Rev. Fowler, it’s true. I don’t want her on my corner. But she’s too young to be on any corner. And if there’s any place that can save her, it’s Cass Church.”

Everybody’s got to be some place. Except Jesus. For when it came time for God’s beautifully-orchestrated coming out party for our Lord, would you believe there wasn’t a single ballroom available anywhere in Bethlehem. More to the point, there wasn’t a single birthing room available anywhere in Bethlehem. For they had stumbled into a strange town….late at night….with lots of people and no room.

“No room at the inn,” Luke says. My gosh, was there only one….inn, I mean? Luke doesn’t say. In reality, the text is incredibly spartan. Even the definitions are imprecise. “Inn” is probably not the best translation. “Lodge” is currently the word in favor. Although in 150 A.D., Justin made a good case for the birth of Jesus taking place in a cave. And there are those (well versed in first century living configurations) who figure that “cave” was what it was then, and what it should be now. The Greek word is katalyma….which is actually a pasted-together word, suggesting “a place where one lets down one’s harness (or baggage) for the night.” But in my research, I keep coming across the word caravansary….a public place where entire groups of travelers might spend a night together (not unlike the waiting room of a train station, with or without a roof).

Note, for purity of text’s sake, that there is no innkeeper….no innkeeper’s wife….no innkeeper’s scullery maids….no innkeeper’s servant boys….no Amahl and the night visitors….no little drummer boy….and no animals, except by inference. After all, if Jesus uttered his first cry from a feeding trough, something on four legs must have fed there. But if you want to be technical, you should probably forget about sheep, goats, cattle and camels. Instead, you might want to view the scene through the lens of an 800-year-old prophesy, where oxen and asses were the animals of choice (at least according to Isaiah 1:3).

As to why there is no room, don’t go looking for villains here. Let’s lay to rest, forever, Stephen Vincent Benet’s greedy innkeeper….who, in Benet’s words, “loved the sound of coin….loved it, in fact, more than life itself.”

Truth be told, the reason there is no room for this little trio (or, at the time of their arrival, this little two-thirds of a trio) is because other people got there first. Did that ever happen to you…. other people getting there first, I mean? Sure, that’s happened to you. The other guests got there first. The other diners got there first. The other applicants got there first. The other candidates got there first. The go-getters got there first. The fast-trackers got there first. The old boyfriend got there first.

Besides, they didn’t come by Cadillac or Caravan. And nothing about the sweatshirt Mary was wearing screamed “FUTURE KING,” with an arrow pointing down at her belly. So who was to know?

Still, everybody’s got to be some place. So, thank God (and I really mean, “thank God”), somebody created a place. “Prepared him room,” I mean. Which, whenever it happens still, causes “heaven and nature to sing”….does it not?

If there is a colossal error in my ministry (and there may be), it’s that, for 38 years, I have been guilty of drawing too few lines and opening too many doors. But, then, you know that about me. And you have grown to tolerate that in me.

About two weeks ago, I had a dream. I don’t usually tell you my dreams, for fear of what you may see in them and therefore think of me. In fact, I’ve only told you one other dream….in my first sermon….on my first Sunday….at our first meeting. On that occasion, I talked about “the unpreparedness dream” (which is common to a lot of us). In its most classic form, it is final exam day….in high school….but you haven’t read the book….haven’t been to class….can’t find the room….can’t find your pencil….or maybe your pants. You know that dream.

But this dream was different. I was at camp. It was clearly a Methodist camp. In fact, it looked remarkably like Judson Collins Camp out in the Irish Hills. I was there as the minister-in-charge of a group from this church. Many of you were there, too. I think most of you were young. But not all of you were young. Anyway, we were all together in the dining room, just prior to the evening meal. And they (the camp staff) were laying out a wonderful spread….a grand and glorious smorgasbord, really….quite unlike any food I ever ate at Judson Collins. I mean, the tables just went on and on.

Which was when one of you whispered in my ear that someone else had come….actually two someone elses. Not that I remember who they were or why they weren’t there from the get-go. All I remember is that they weren’t in the count, don’t you see. “Could they stay and eat?” you pleaded. And I said: “I am sure they can. Why just look at all that food.”

So I went to the kitchen people and made my request. But they said no….no way….the count is what it is….sealed on the day I gave it….sacred from that point forward. So I offered to pay. Still, “no.” Then I said: “What if I don’t eat? Can one of them sit down to the table in my place?” Again, “no.” Still pleading, I tried everything I could think of. So at last they said: “We’ll call the camp manager.”

Figuring that I could count on there being sense and sensitivity in the supreme court of campdom, I confidently stated my case. Leading him to laugh in my face. So I said (and I am not proud of this….no, I am not proud of this at all): “See if you ever get even one apportionment dollar from First Church again.” Whereupon he said something unprintable, which included: “Who did I think I was, trying to play Big Bucks Billy?” Which is when I elevated an entire end of one table of salads so that they slid to the floor (a slow-motion waterfall of ambrosia and lettuce leaves).

Instantly, I recanted, repented and began cleaning up the mess. Which is when I woke in a sweat, not knowing whether I was more shocked by my conviction about all of us eating, or my anger upon discovering that all of us couldn’t.

But let me push this….and you….one step further. I can make an adequate sermon out of whether they made room for Jesus….whether we’ll make room for Jesus….or whether we’ll make room for each other (in the name of Jesus). But somehow, this sermon won’t seem complete unless I also remind you that the one for whom there was no room, promised to go ahead and make room for us. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you. And I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Leading me to close with a story, which (in my earlier days here) some of you heard me tell at funerals. But I have never told it on Sundays….until now. It concerns a time in my life when I was both young and invincible. I figured I could do virtually anything, including driving maximal distances on minimal rest. So one morning I started before sun-up….drove through snacking hours….lunching hours….nappy hours….happy hours….dinner hours….darkening hours….midnight hours….all the while, confident that if I could just keep at it, I had prearranged lodging at the end of it.

Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, I found my exit, parked my car, and entered the inn of prior choosing. There was still a desk clerk on duty, even though she was half asleep. So I announced my presence in a louder than usual voice. “Ritter,” I said. “I have a reservation.” When that generated no response, I repeated my name again, this time spelling it. “I am Mr. Ritter….R I T T E R….I have a reservation.” Still, she said nothing. But she did scan a small stack of 3 by 5 cards, slipping them much-too-quickly between her thumb and forefinger. It occurred to me that she already knew my name wasn’t on any of those cards. But she didn’t say so. Instead, she excused herself and went to the back room. I am not sure what she did there. But if there is a manual that trains desk clerks, I am sure on the middle of page seven it reads: “When confused and in doubt, excuse yourself and go to the back room for five minutes, thereby allowing yourself the opportunity to think of something.”

What she thought of was to come back and say: “I am terribly sorry, Mr. Ritter. There must be some mistake. For we have absolutely no record of your existence.” Weary as I was, I was still quite certain that I existed. But I didn’t say that. Instead, I said: “Not to worry, just give me any room you happen to have.” Which was when she told me that she didn’t happen to have any. So again I said: “Not to worry. I passed several of your competitors on my way into your parking lot. Point me in the direction of one of them and make a phone call on my behalf, alerting them to my imminent arrival.” Which, while a great plan, didn’t work either. For again she said: “I am sorry, Mr. Ritter, but we tried that half an hour ago for someone in your situation. Everybody’s full. There’s a convention in town.”

Now she had given me all the bad news she could possibly give me in a single evening. So, as her final word, she said: “But if you’re ever in our fair city again, please come back and give us a chance to make it right.” Which led me wearily to the car and the open road, knowing yet another meaning of Frost’s immortal line: “And miles to go before I sleep.”

Wrap the gospel around that one last time. “In my Father’s house are many rooms. Were it not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you?” Translated, I take that to mean that God knows we’re out here and has made more than adequate provision against the day of our dying.

* * * * *

Everybody’s got to be some place.

            Save for Jesus.

                  For whom there was no place.

                                    When he came to our place.

                                                But when we get to his place,

                                                            Ah….when we get to his place….

Let's Pretend 12/23/2001

First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan

Scriptures: Romans 13:11-14 and Galatians 3:23-29

As you can tell by reading the last two covers of Steeple Notes, I have gotten a lot of mileage out of the time I spent in our sanctuary (earlier in December) with 120 second graders from West Maple Elementary School. It was amazing how well it went. Sixty Minutes is one thing when Leslie Stahl and Mike Wallace do it for adults on a Sunday. Sixty minutes is very much another thing when Doris Hall and I do it for 120 seven year olds on a Wednesday. But you would be amazed to read the thank you letters I received….not only as to how well second graders can write, but as to how well second graders can think.

They loved the visit (“Best field trip ever,” many said). And to think, Doris and I didn’t even have a fire truck to show off. They especially liked the windows (which they could see)….the organ (which they could hear)….and the mock baptism (which they could imagine).

Several kids were concerned about our Angel Tree program, where we purchase and deliver presents for over 300 children of prisoners. One letter writer named Eliot was especially “sad” for what he called “the kids in the Angel Tree,” because they had no parents. While Sydnee Cohen (I think it’s a girl Sydnee, not a boy Sidney) thanked me for telling about the birth of Jesus, before adding: “I always wondered why Santa was a part of it because he had nothing to do with it.” But my favorite letter came from a lad who wrote:

            Dr. Ritter, thank you.

            What does it feel like to be a minister?

            I know I feel better every time I think about you.

            My mind feels better.

            Thanks very much.

            Just to remind you, I’m Jewish.

                                    Love, Jared

In point of fact, all three letters I quoted were written by kids who are Jewish. That’s because Jewish kids constitute a statistical majority of the second graders at West Maple Elementary. Which, however, did not stop several of them from wanting to participate in our annual reenactment of the nativity at 5:30 on Christmas Eve. They wanted to know how you got parts…. if kids who didn’t come to this church could have parts….who, on our staff, assigned the parts…. what you were allowed to wear if you got a part….and were there enough costumes for all the kids who wanted parts.

Finally, one little girl laid it right on the table when she said: “What if you’re Jewish? Can you still have a part?” I tried to answer her as delicately as I could….wanting to be welcoming….but not wanting to start a bigger conversation than I was prepared to finish. Certainly, being Jewish was no hindrance to Mary and Joseph. Nor was it an issue for anyone else who wandered by the barn, save for the kings (wise men, astrologers, whatever), given that neither Persia (then) nor Iraq (now) was awash in synagogues.

But none of this concerned these kids. Religious distinctions were not divisive issues for the second graders of West Maple, in spite of Jared’s need to remind me that, though he loved me and his mind felt better when he thought about me, he was not me, nor was he like me. Thus explaining his sign-off: “Just to remind you, I’m Jewish.”

What many of these kids thought was that it would be “fun” to be in a play….“fun” to get dressed up in costumes as a part of the play….and “fun” to be with other kids in this particular play, given that it is not every day you can find a children’s theater production with room for everything from angels to animals. “What fun,” someone said. And, if the truth be told, “what fun” it often is.

I remember, several years back, when debates over public nativities raged across the land. Could a town erect a “stable scene” on the front lawn of city hall? Could Christian images be displayed on village greens or in urban parks? What kinds of music could be played over what kinds of loud speakers in December? For a while, it seemed as if everybody was either in court or on their way to court. To be sure, we still see a bit of that. But precious little, compared to 15 years ago.

At that time, I remember reading an essay by the late Meg Greenfield on the back page of Newsweek magazine. Every other week, Meg shared that “bully pulpit” with George Will, numbering the two of them among America’s most influential voices. Meg Greenfield was Jewish. And in response to all of the public nativity court cases, she wrote some incredibly interesting things. She noted that to whatever degree Jews opposed nativity scenes on public land, or sought to moderate Christmas images in the marketplace, such opposition had less to do with sectarian grumpiness than with sectarian envy. She was even so bold to say that many in the Jewish community….especially many children in the Jewish community….wished they had what we have. “The public enchantment of your story does not so much offend us as attract us,” Meg said. Few Jews would want to see it gone. The primary goal is to see it contained, so that the most impressionable members of the Jewish community (namely, the children) do not get the idea that the Christian story is the only story there is….the only story that matters….or the only story the town (or state) endorses.

If you don’t believe Meg has a point, ask yourself: “When was the last time your child or grandchild ever clamored to play Ahasuerus, Mordecai or Queen Esther in a local Purim pageant, or one of the Hasmonean brothers in a Hanukkah festival?” The fact that many of you don’t have the faintest idea what those names represent probably proves Meg’s point. At least she made sense to me. And it is my guess that the kind of moderate thinking she represented led to fewer court cases and greater civic sensitivity on the part of everybody. But implicit in her remarks was the reminder to us….in the Christian community…. that our story is alluring, and (when visually enacted or depicted) does capture the imagination, even as it touches the heart.

And so we put ourselves into it. In some cases, we even throw ourselves into it. Designing sets. Sewing costumes. Learning lines. Playing roles. Every year we do a mini-pageant at 5:30 on Christmas Eve with (and largely for) children. Every three years we also do a musical pageant in early December with (and largely for) adults. The king I never got to be as a child in Detroit, I have portrayed three times as an adult here in Birmingham….even to the point of being allowed to sing. What’s more, church after church now does a greater or lesser version of a production known as “Journey to Bethlehem.” Still other congregations place beautiful manger scenes on their front lawns. And a few, like the Baptists downtown, go all out and stage live nativities under the shadow of Jacobson’s, where the sheep are the only ones who get to wear their winter coats as costumes. One advantage possessed by the original Mary was that she was in less danger than her Birmingham Baptist counterpart of freezing to death.

C. S. Lewis (who took many of us closer to the heart of thoughtful Christianity than anyone in the last century) reminds us that there is more here than meets the eye. Something extremely important is going on in the midst of all this set-building, costume-sewing, line-learning and history-reenacting that consumes us each December. In short, we play the part in order that we might become the part. In a marvelous essay entitled “Let’s Pretend,” Lewis talks about “the good side of pretending.” To be sure, he says, there is a bad kind of pretense, where the goal is to deceive, defraud or misrepresent the self as something one is not. If, on the street corner, I pretend to help you, thereby gaining your confidence so that I will be able to rob you, that is the worst kind of pretending. Picture yourself standing at an ATM machine, having difficulty with the peculiar configuration of slots and buttons. Suddenly someone comes up behind you, senses your confusion, guides you carefully through the proper procedures, and then runs off with your money, once it slides from the slot. Clearly, an evil pretender.

And then there’s that poor chap who got to coach the Notre Dame football team for a grand total of five days, until someone higher up in the university discovered great pretension in his resume, suggesting achievements he’d rarely had at places he’d barely been. Oops….another great pretender found and foiled. And every pastor can tell stories of some lay person who amassed great power in the church by pretending to be a great giver to the church, but whose check (at the end of the day) never matched his “cheek” (as they say). And, at the most relational level, how many marriages suffer from one spouse or the other pretending everything is all right, when it isn’t and hasn’t been for a long time? To be sure, a lot of pretending is bad.

But not all. Some pretending, rather than misrepresenting the real thing, moves you toward the real thing. C. S. Lewis suggests that careful attention be paid to the games children play…. pretending to do this and that….pretending to be this and that. Important stuff is going on in those games. Life is being tried on for size in those games. I asked Mary Feldmaier if this is true (given that Mary spends almost all of her staff time with children five years of age and younger). “Of course it’s true,” Mary said. “Play is children’s work. Pretending is never merely make believe.”

I have a friend in the ministry who, at five years old, used to line up all of his stuffed animals in rows and preach to them. All the while I was dressing up as a cowboy. Which explains nothing, unless you want to start playing with the word “round up.” Although it does help me understand why one of my favorite movies of all time is Billy Crystal’s City Slickers.

Shifting gears, I have long noted that brides seldom cry in the act of repeating their vows, while grooms often do. Which is, I think, explainable by the fact that brides have pretended to be brides….dreamed about being brides….dressed up as brides….and watched 428 episodes of Wedding Story….since they were five years old. Grooms don’t have the faintest idea what Wedding Story is. Nor have they pretended to be grooms or even thought much about being grooms until 20 minutes before the ceremony. So when the groom opens his mouth to say, “I, Fred, take thee Ethel,” the enormity of it hits him right between the eyes….or, more to the point, right behind the eyes, where the tear ducts are located. Pretending, done right, is part of the preparing.

Christmas is the prime moment when both full-blown and closet Christians are invited to enact the story they tell….the better that they might grow into the story they tell. Because the ultimate pretense (as the apostle Paul reminds us) is not putting on the costumes of those who surrounded Christ, but “putting on Christ.” What John calls “being born again,” Paul calls “putting on Christ.” Several times, Paul alludes to that image. In Bible-speak, this is the ultimate in dress-up language. For, as a careful analysis of the Pauline epistles will demonstrate, every time Paul talks about putting on Christ, he also suggests that we are being “re-clothed.”

Which does not mean that, upon leaving this morning, we are going to issue every one of you a costume at the door. You’re smarter than that. That’s why I like preaching to you. As a congregation, you’ve long since removed the braces from your brains. You know that “putting on Christ” has less to do with bathrobes than with behaviors….“behaviors” meaning acting different as an entrée to being different. If, indeed, you find that you are a little better in December…. kinder in December….more open-handed, open-minded and open-hearted in December….and more hospitable, charitable and reconciling in December….it is not so much a seasonal aberration or temporary pretension, as a possible indicator of who you are on your way to becoming….if you would only just go with it longer and further than you have ever gone with it before.

What might “putting on Christ” look like for you? Darned if I know. I don’t really know you that well. The Bible offers a few clues. Maybe it looks like turning the second cheek, offering the second garment, walking the second mile, or forgiving someone the 491st time (70 times 7 plus 1). Maybe it looks like turning on a porch light for the wayward kid, digging up the back forty for a missing pearl, reinvesting and doubling whatever gift God gave you that you buried in a box decades ago, or even cracking the seal on a bottle of much-too-expensive perfume, the better to adorn the face or feet of one you love. Those are just a few biblical things you might do if you want to “put on Christ.”

But I do need to warn you (given that everything comes with a warning label these days). If you do that stuff….any of that stuff….for very often.…or for very long….people are going to wonder about you. And some may even come right out and ask you: “What’s gotten into you?” Which isn’t correctly phrased, don’t you know….given that the question should read not “what,” but “who.”