Have any other two sentences ever given rise to so much drama for so many centuries?
“While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”
That’s it, all Luke says. But because he mentions an inn with a no-vacancy sign, every Christmas pageant has to include an innkeeper, and every nativity drama a race against the clock by a desperate couple frantically seeking a place to have a baby, who is going to pop out any minute now…
Who knows – maybe Mary and Joseph had been in Bethlehem for awhile before her contractions started. Maybe they camped out somewhere, only needing warmth and shelter when the baby arrived. Maybe the place in the house where the livestock were kept was the warmest, and that’s why they put the infant Jesus in the manger filled with straw when there was no human habitation available.
We know so little, yet we make so much of these few words. Because it’s a great story, all of it. The homeless couple, the smelly shepherds, representing the marginalized of society, the glorious angels, the friendly beasts… and in the midst of all of it, the incarnate son of God. You couldn’t make up a story this good.
Do the details matter? Maybe not – but there’s richness in them. It is significant that Jesus spent his first night on earth in a feed trough in a stable. It reminds us that he did not come to make his home in this world. He did not seek the comforts that keep so many of us holding on to more than we need while others go without. Though the Gospels suggest he lived a regular home-based life once he and his parents settled back in Nazareth after a period of exile in Egypt, after he began his ministry he stayed on the move. “The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” He almost didn’t have one to start with either.
Jesus is never recorded as leading anyone into a building – he led his followers out, and I believe out of the building is still where most of our church ministry is to be lived. We church folk have got it pretty backward in the 21st century. We’ve imposed onto our churches the assumption that home is where the heart is. It’s not the only place.
I just came from Stamford’s annual Homeless Persons Memorial service, at which we remember those who died homeless in our community in the past year, celebrate those who are moving through shelters into housing, and raise up the work of the agencies that address needs for mental health, addiction recovery, job training and placement, and healthcare as well as shelter and housing.
It reminded me that Jesus spent his first night, maybe several, not at “home,” but camping out in temporary lodging, sharing space with animals, in a city his parents did not call home. What we call homelessness was his first reality. The company of the marginalized was his first community. Maybe we need to pay more honor to the life going on outside our homes. Though there is dysfunction and injustice in it, we don't want to miss the life in people whose lives aren't in a mold we consider normal.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t eliminate homelessness; we should, we must, and God willing we will. I’m suggesting that as we do that we draw nearer to those who find themselves homeless, because in doing so we may just draw closer to Jesus.
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