“How Does A Weary World Rejoice? We Make Room”
Preached Sunday, December 24, 2023 (Christmas Eve)
There is room for you here.
There is room for all of you here.
These are powerful statements of welcome and inclusion. The Church is at our best when we get it right. They are also part of the foundation of how I view my ministry. And they are also the foundation of the Good News of Great Joy for All the People from the Christmas Story.
And this Advent we have been talking about how our weariness and joy go hand in hand. That even in a weary world, there are reasons to hope, to connect, to sing, to rejoice. We have been using the line from the Christmas carol, “O Holy Night” - the line “a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices” to ask ourselves, “How does a weary world rejoice?” Tonight I’d like to answer that with “we make room.” Let me explain - first, starting with the Christmas story.
The traditional understanding brought to us largely by children’s Christmas pageants is that Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn but the innkeeper said, let me make some room for you - out back with the animals. Modern Biblical scholarship has talked about how Joseph, traveling to Bethlhem, where he was from, likely had family in town. And he and Mary would have been invited into what was essentially the traditional living room of a peasant family home - where animals too would have been welcomed in the night. Perhaps you noted that the Scripture I read this morning, a translation that came out in the last couple years, said “because there was no place in the guest room” rather than no place in the inn.
Whatever the case may be - in a stable or in a living room with animals… room was made. In those days when the emperor decreed that everyone had to go to their hometowns to be registered - which, to be clear, was a political act of oppression. If everyone was registered then they could tax them more, taxes that kept the poor in poverty and the emperor in riches. Taxes that suppressed revolution because everyone was focused on surviving, on just getting by. In a world that had seen massacres and violence at the hand and in the name of the emperor. In a world that would continue to be witness and victim to extreme violence - I am thinking of the slaughter of the innocents that was ordered when Herod heard of Jesus’s birth where all baby boys under two were ordered to be killed. In a world that was full and busy and hurried and overcrowded and beaten down and oppressed and weary - in that world, God made room.
God made room in this world, in the story of our salvation, in the middle of the narrative, God made room to come to us. To be with us. To be Emmanuel, God-With-Us. Jesus, God incarnate in a babe.
God came to us in Jesus, God came to us a human. Fully divine, yes, and fully human. In this amazing and salvific act, God is signaling to humanity, telling us that all of our messy and weary humanity, all of our sorrow and heartbreak, all of our needs and dreams, all of our joy and love - all that we are are that makes us human - that there is room for all of that, all of us, with the Divine. God in Jesus says to us, “there is room for you here - there is room for all of you with me.” God in Jesus is saying, “Just as I came to you, just as you were, come to me just as you are - I will make room for you here. There is always room for all of you in my divine embrace.”
…
And then - in the Christmas story, God continues to make more room. God invites more guests.
God invites the Shepherds to come and see! And perhaps even come and see with their sheep too. The Shepherds being invited represents how God makes room for the least expected and the lowly. They also represent the kind of king this baby would become - like a shepherd, leading with care and love. And the sheep - perhaps also representing how God came to save and redeem ALL of creation.
And then, a little later in the Christmas narrative, God invites the magi or the wisemen. These are people of a different religion, a different ethnicity, from a different region and yet God sent a star in the sky to invite them. Because God invites in and makes room for even the outsiders, especially the outsiders. There is room for all in the arms of God.
When we think of the Christmas story, it is often shaped by the phrase, “there was no room in the inn… or guest bed.” What if instead, instead of thinking of the lack of room, instead of starting with a narrative of scarcity, we re-shaped our associations with this story. What if we turned “there was no room” into “in the midst of a crowded, oppressed, and weary world - God made room.”
God made room to become fully human. To be with us and to dwell with us. To know intimately what it means to be human.
God made room for miracles. For Good News of Great Joy in a weary world.
God made room to include all: the last, the least, and the forgotten. The outsiders and the unexpected. The animals and all creation.
God made room on that first Christmas - room in God’s story of Divine salvation and love.
This Christmas, let us make room too.
Room to accept ourselves as the complex human beings we are - who carry sorrow and joy, weariness and hope alongside each other.
Room to accept the last, the least, and the forgotten.
Room to draw our circles wider, pull up chairs, and include the outsiders on the inside.
Room to accept God’s embrace of us - all of us - and room to extend that embrace to others.
This Christmas, let us make room. In our hearts, our homes, our lives.
For weariness and joy.
For each other.
For all.
For God’s good news of great joy for all.
Make room for all the ways that God is acting in our weary world - from that first Christmas when God made room in our world for Jesus, when God made room to be with us, until now - where God is still making room.
There is room for you here.
There is room for all of you here.
There is room for all in God’s divine embrace.
Let us rejoice.
Merry Christmas. Amen.
And this Advent we have been talking about how our weariness and joy go hand in hand. That even in a weary world, there are reasons to hope, to connect, to sing, to rejoice. We have been using the line from the Christmas carol, “O Holy Night” - the line “a thrill of hope the weary world rejoices” to ask ourselves, “How does a weary world rejoice?” Tonight I’d like to answer that with “we make room.” Let me explain - first, starting with the Christmas story.
The traditional understanding brought to us largely by children’s Christmas pageants is that Jesus was born in a stable because there was no room in the inn but the innkeeper said, let me make some room for you - out back with the animals. Modern Biblical scholarship has talked about how Joseph, traveling to Bethlhem, where he was from, likely had family in town. And he and Mary would have been invited into what was essentially the traditional living room of a peasant family home - where animals too would have been welcomed in the night. Perhaps you noted that the Scripture I read this morning, a translation that came out in the last couple years, said “because there was no place in the guest room” rather than no place in the inn.
Whatever the case may be - in a stable or in a living room with animals… room was made. In those days when the emperor decreed that everyone had to go to their hometowns to be registered - which, to be clear, was a political act of oppression. If everyone was registered then they could tax them more, taxes that kept the poor in poverty and the emperor in riches. Taxes that suppressed revolution because everyone was focused on surviving, on just getting by. In a world that had seen massacres and violence at the hand and in the name of the emperor. In a world that would continue to be witness and victim to extreme violence - I am thinking of the slaughter of the innocents that was ordered when Herod heard of Jesus’s birth where all baby boys under two were ordered to be killed. In a world that was full and busy and hurried and overcrowded and beaten down and oppressed and weary - in that world, God made room.
God made room in this world, in the story of our salvation, in the middle of the narrative, God made room to come to us. To be with us. To be Emmanuel, God-With-Us. Jesus, God incarnate in a babe.
God came to us in Jesus, God came to us a human. Fully divine, yes, and fully human. In this amazing and salvific act, God is signaling to humanity, telling us that all of our messy and weary humanity, all of our sorrow and heartbreak, all of our needs and dreams, all of our joy and love - all that we are are that makes us human - that there is room for all of that, all of us, with the Divine. God in Jesus says to us, “there is room for you here - there is room for all of you with me.” God in Jesus is saying, “Just as I came to you, just as you were, come to me just as you are - I will make room for you here. There is always room for all of you in my divine embrace.”
…
And then - in the Christmas story, God continues to make more room. God invites more guests.
God invites the Shepherds to come and see! And perhaps even come and see with their sheep too. The Shepherds being invited represents how God makes room for the least expected and the lowly. They also represent the kind of king this baby would become - like a shepherd, leading with care and love. And the sheep - perhaps also representing how God came to save and redeem ALL of creation.
And then, a little later in the Christmas narrative, God invites the magi or the wisemen. These are people of a different religion, a different ethnicity, from a different region and yet God sent a star in the sky to invite them. Because God invites in and makes room for even the outsiders, especially the outsiders. There is room for all in the arms of God.
When we think of the Christmas story, it is often shaped by the phrase, “there was no room in the inn… or guest bed.” What if instead, instead of thinking of the lack of room, instead of starting with a narrative of scarcity, we re-shaped our associations with this story. What if we turned “there was no room” into “in the midst of a crowded, oppressed, and weary world - God made room.”
God made room to become fully human. To be with us and to dwell with us. To know intimately what it means to be human.
God made room for miracles. For Good News of Great Joy in a weary world.
God made room to include all: the last, the least, and the forgotten. The outsiders and the unexpected. The animals and all creation.
God made room on that first Christmas - room in God’s story of Divine salvation and love.
This Christmas, let us make room too.
Room to accept ourselves as the complex human beings we are - who carry sorrow and joy, weariness and hope alongside each other.
Room to accept the last, the least, and the forgotten.
Room to draw our circles wider, pull up chairs, and include the outsiders on the inside.
Room to accept God’s embrace of us - all of us - and room to extend that embrace to others.
This Christmas, let us make room. In our hearts, our homes, our lives.
For weariness and joy.
For each other.
For all.
For God’s good news of great joy for all.
Make room for all the ways that God is acting in our weary world - from that first Christmas when God made room in our world for Jesus, when God made room to be with us, until now - where God is still making room.
There is room for you here.
There is room for all of you here.
There is room for all in God’s divine embrace.
Let us rejoice.
Merry Christmas. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment