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Home
for the Holidays*
Luke 2:7
Christmas Eve, Year B
A sermon
preached at First UMC De Queen, AR on December 24, 2008 by the Revd David S
Williams
The annual children’s Christmas Pageant went well. Mary and Joseph came into Bethlehem, on cue.
There they were met by the nine-year-old innkeeper who dutifully informed
them that, though he would love to help them out if he could, there was,
again this year, “no room in the inn.” Sorry. No vacancy, like the sign says
out front.
But then he looked again at Mary and Joseph, who really did look tired from
their journey, and the Innkeeper blurted out, “But there’s a great motel with
cable just around the corner from the church!”
And the pageant was in shambles. That’s not the way the story of Mary,
Joseph, and the Innkeeper is supposed to go. Or is it?
You know by heart how the story goes. Mary and Joseph come to Bethlehem for
the government’s enrollment and with everyone from out-of-town, there is no
room at the Inn so Mary is forced to give birth to Jesus in a cow stall or a
cave because “there was no place for
them in the inn.”
However, there may be another way of thinking about the Nativity story.
Scholar, Kenneth Bailey* points out that what our Bibles translate as “inn”
is, in the Greek kataluma, which
means literally “guest room” not “hotel” or “inn.”
Later, in Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan, the wounded
man is taken to a pandokheion which
does mean “inn,” but here, Luke says that there was no room for Mary and
Joseph in the kataluma, no more
room in the family “guest room” so they had to be placed elsewhere in the
home. An alternative way of translating the phrase, “there was no room in the
inn” could be rendered, “there was no appropriate place in the guest room.”
In the typical Mid-Eastern home, says Bailey, there is a designated room for
overnight visitors. It would be unthinkable, according to the dictates of
Eastern hospitality, for out-of-town relatives to be sent to an inn by their
own family.
Mary and Joseph were among relatives. They were back in Bethlehem because
Joseph was “of the house and lineage of David.” The problem was, there were
undoubtedly many relatives back for the government’s enrollment. By the time
Mary and Joseph arrived, the guest room , the kataluma, was filled and so they had to be placed in the next
best place in the family home, which Bailey says would have been the outer room where the family’s animals
were brought in for safe keeping during the night.
Especially in cold weather, the family livestock was
brought in to this outer room where
they stayed the night, then they were led away at morning, the room was
swept, and used for other family activity. That’s where the manger was, the
feed trough for the animals, in this outer room.
Some of you who are home for Christmas will sleep tonight on the sofa in the
living room, or nestled up in a sleeping bag elsewhere, because there is no
“appropriate place” for you in the guest room.
Uncle Oscar and Aunt Jenny called that room before you got
home. Well, that’s probably the case for Mary, Joseph and Jesus. Rather than
send you to the Palace Motel,
because the family loves you so much and is so delighted to have everyone
home for Christmas, they are giving you the honor of sleeping on the floor in
the play room.
All of this puts the story of that first Christmas a bit differently. Maybe,
Jesus was not born in the stable of
some cold, impersonal hotel, but rather born in the front room of a home
where aunts, uncles, and other random relatives caught first glance of the
new baby and heard the message of good news from the shepherds who were
working the fields that night.
For Mary and Joseph, these days among family must have been a peculiar
treasure. Soon enough they would be forced to flee for their lives as
refugees from the wrath of King Herod. There would be dark, difficult days
ahead. But for now they were home, among family. When God Incarnate was most
frail and vulnerable, a baby, he was cared for in the context of a home, safe
amid the blessings of family.
Some of you have made incredible effort to be home for Christmas. You have
flown US Air. You have suffered the indignities of the treacherous highway.
Tonight, even that fold-out sofa bed, the one with the bar running right
through the middle of the two inch foam “mattress” will feel good because you
are home for Christmas.
There is a lot of talk these days about people’s homes; homes being
foreclosed due to fiscal irresponsibility. A lot of people are losing there
homes tonight. It almost reminds me of the story of A Miracle on 34th Street or It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey would rather sacrifice his
life for others to have a home of their own. He would rather save others and
keep his integrity intact, than live a life of self interest. A little girl’s
dream is what every child wishes for tonight – a home complete with a swing
in the back yard, with a mother and father and siblings.
When I lived in Kansas City
and Little Rock
I made routine trips to homeless shelters dropping off strangers. My sense is
they could tell us a thing or two about their hunger for home. Homelessness
is not only a national disgrace but
also a metaphor for how lots of people feel tonight.
Most of the Bible was written by and for people getting
ready to be homeless, in exile, or coming home after exile. Most of the
scripture we read during the preparatory Sundays of Advent are prophets talking
about home, homelessness, exile, homecoming. “There’s no place like home for
the holidays,” is not just trite, it’s also true.
We long to belong. We want someplace where we fit. How was it a few years ago
that the opening song of the famous sitcom “Cheers” put it, “You want
someplace where everyone knows your name?” Though it’s sort of sad that place
is for some, no better than a bar.
Yet the song suggests that home is as much a state of mind
as a place. It’s where you fit.
“Are you going
home for the holidays?” For many years I’ve been asked this question from
people. Since we have served churches from a distance from family members, we
usually stay home for the holidays.
This year we are blessed to have our mother and sister home with us
and she gets to suffer out on the sofa tonight.
We are looking forward to welcoming baby Maggie Joe home
soon. Maggie Joe has reminded us how fragile our little lives really are. And
when we are that small we need the care and the comfort of home, of a family
and a Church family that surrounds us with prayer, warmth and love. We will
be telling the story of her miracle heart for days, months and years to come.
What a joy it will be to welcome her home.
You know, there
will be lots of homes with one less part of the family showing up for the
holidays, but it won’t be because of heavy traffic, a snow storm or a
lay-over in Chicago.
The other day
my eyes ran across an article in the paper that celebrated the homecoming of
another group of our service men and women. Men and women are coming home for
Christmas, while others are spending Christmas in a hooch dreaming of home.
Mr. Leeper
shared the story with me about the time when he was a young Lieutenant during
WW2. During the war many young men who were drafted had never really been far
from home. One day he noticed a young soldier sitting melancholy outside the
steps of his barracks with a few bottles filled with dirt. Mr. Leeper
inquired about what the young soldier was doing.
He said, “Lt.
Leeper, I’m probably one of the most homesick soldiers on our post. Before I
left home I filled these bottles with some dirt from the family farm so I
could feel like a part of home is with me and feel the connection of being
back home right here.” Mr. Leeper said he had never really thought of it that
way. From time to time he would find that soldier sitting outside on the
steps taking some of the dirt from those bottles and rubbing it in his hands.
Mr. Leeper said, “Watching him with that dirt would make me long for home.”
We long for home tonight.
But more than even all that, Christmas, as Luke tells it, is not just about Mary and Joseph coming
home, safe in the outer room of the family, it’s not even about your
homecoming for Christmas. It’s about God, Lord of Lords, King of Kings,
Prince of Peace, Savior, coming home.
This Christmas, the Gospel
according to Luke tells us that God cut a hole in the chimney of heaven and
slid down to save us from our sins.
We couldn’t get to God, so God got to us, coming among us
in this ordinary family story we cherish as The Nativity. When the world was filled with so much
darkness and despair, Angel’s declared a word of peace and a message of light
shattering dismal darkness (Luke 2:11-14).
What we call “Incarnation” is somebody sleeping on the
foldout sofa downstairs in the playroom. That somebody is little God With Us. Our God came out of the
cold to dwell among us. That’s the joy of Christmas.
There are not many religions I know
of which could tolerate this much domesticating of the divine. Most faiths
are scandalized by our faith in a God who takes on our flesh and is born
among us, one of us, in a manger of the family’s outer room as a baby, no less. When we sing, “I’ll be home for
Christmas,” we mean us. When Luke
hears the tune, he hears Messiah, Immanuel, God with us proclaim, “I’ll be at
your home for Christmas.”
Luke wants us to know that moving right in to the middle of your family and
mine, with all of its problems, secrets, sin, and silliness; with the love,
laughter, and the little joys of your home, there comes this God. And I think
that’s good news and that’s why there’s joy tonight.
Nearly the last chapter, of the last book of the Bible,
ends in a great gush of joy:
“See, the home of God is with people,
He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God
himself will be with them.... (Revelation 21:3)
And then we will all be safely at home in the heart of
God.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen.
*In Poet and Peasant (Grand Rapids:
W. B. Eerdmans, 1976). Thanks to Bishop Will Willimon for the inspiration of
this Christmas Eve sermon.
Let us pray: Incarnating God, we praise you for you have
brought the dawning of light into our darkness. A new world is breaking forth
upon the horizon, and a new life is swelling within us. For you come to us in
Jesus the Messiah, born a baby in Bethlehem
for our salvation. Birthed in a lowly place to people of lowly hearts, you
come in the vulnerability of a child to share our humanity and reveal our
divinity, to be light to the nations and peace to all people. May we be open
to receive you, open to be born anew this Christmas. In your Holy Name. Amen.
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