Room

Luke 2:1-20

At the church that sponsored me for ordination, the traditional Christmas pageant featured a cranky innkeeper whose role was to slam shut doors and windows when Joseph and Mary came looking for a place to stay in Bethlehem, and to shout, several times, “No room!”

 

I flash back to that several times a year, when I’m feeling crowded in an elevator or building, when my schedule is too full for one more thing, I just can’t take one more bit of news, or one more person than I can handle needs my attention.

Inside of me there’s a ten-year-old slamming a prop door or window, shouting “No room!”

 

I don’t know if you’ve felt something like that recently, but this year it’s just seemed to me like there’s so many more things to pay attention to, so much to do to get ready for Christmas, and my schedule, my brain, my life are too full.

There’s just no room!

 

Of course, after the door slams, the pageant story goes right on, and the cranky innkeeper is persuaded to become a helpful innkeeper, who leads Mary and Joseph and their donkey to the stable and tries to make them comfortable.

And then, Luke tells us, Mary gave birth to Jesus “and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn”.

 

No room.

But God makes room.

In an animal’s feed tray, when necessary.

 

Luke front loads his story of Jesus’ birth with the crowded politics of the day – emperors and governors who have no room for any new leaders; a census that’s crowding every town and people’s schedules and lives. 

It’s a central feature of our Christmas story that there’s no room.

And that in the midst of all this, God makes room.

Makes room to be one of us, to be with us.

 

 

Every time I sit down at home to write a sermon, just when I’ve gotten launched and focused, my hands and laptop are abruptly or gradually re-arranged. In a minute, or sometimes five, there is an entire 12-pound cat in the space between the keyboard and my hands.

 

This is an ergonomically terrible way to write a sermon.

Laptops are not designed to have room for a cat.

I’ve pointed this out over and over, physically moved the cat, suggested that another place or time would be better for the cuddling and napping the cat is insisting on right now. Over and over I tell him there’s just no room right there, right now.

 

Every time – every time – the cat ignores this, and just…makes room.

Makes room for himself where there is no room.

 

It’s not just sermons. This particular cat absolutely, positively, WILL make room for himself in my personal space, no matter how critical the load I’m juggling or the document I’m typing, no matter how late I am running. 

This cat insists that no matter what I am doing, this is the time and the place to be close to me, pin me down with affection, or “help”.

It defies physics, sometimes. Sometimes it makes an utter mess of my schedule. 

But this cat makes room, no matter how little room there is.

 

And when he does, in spite of myself, I feel calmer. 

I feel a sense of peace sometimes. Of belonging sometimes. 

A sense of irritation often, but oddly mixed with a sense of generosity – as if everything else in my life has a little more room and flex to share now that the cat has made physical room where there was no room.

 

In spite of myself, I feel loved.

 

And I suspect something like that is going on in that manger, in that crowded hill town of Bethlehem, in the crowded business and politics of two thousand years ago, as Jesus makes room.

As God quietly, persistently, re-arranges a space and time where there’s no room for divine presence, and no room for a baby, to fit perfectly around both a newborn infant and the whole infinite power and presence of God.

 

Peace on earth, and goodwill, the angels announce in the fields outside of Bethlehem.

And perhaps, in spite of the crowds and the government business that leaves no room for wonder or anything else, there is a sense of peace, a softly-weighted calm, a little more sense of spacious generosity – of goodwill – sneaking into the bodies and hearts of the people of Bethlehem as Jesus makes room.

Perhaps, that night, this night, all the people feel – in spite of ourselves – more love.

More loving and more beloved, filled up with tender affection and that melting of our hearts that comes with the deep, personal trust of a sleeping infant.

 

Because Jesus made room.

 

Made room once upon a particular time, twenty centuries ago.

And over and over ever since, 

Christmas after Christmas,

ordinary day after ordinary day.

Makes room, in our own crowded, busy, messy world here and now.

 

Sometimes it happens like it did in those Christmas pageants I’ve enjoyed, where God touches the heart of an innkeeper – of one person – who finds compassion and generosity making room in their own heart, and who then makes room in the world for God.

 

I watch this happen a lot this time of year, when I see people like many of you, going to a crowded mall – or squeezing online shopping into your crowded calendar – in order to find the perfect Christmas gift for a child who otherwise wouldn’t have anything.  

Many times over any year, I watch one of my friends or colleagues listening to a story of heartbreak or need from a stranger, or from someone none of us really like, and offering sympathy or help.

And your compassion and generosity make room in my heart to feel God’s compassion and generosity toward you, and me – and then I discover unexpected room in my heart and schedule for compassion and generosity toward others.

 

Other times it happens like it must have been happening all around crowded Bethlehem long ago, as people scrunch up in a crowded house or at a crowded table to invite a traveler in.

Sometimes, God does this with friends or family who absolutely insist on dragging you to a party or event (or church service) you really did not have time for. And joy or love or wonder or peace make room in your calendar and your spirit in spite of everything.

 

Where there’s no room, 

when there’s no room,

Jesus makes room.

 

And that’s probably the best news I’ve heard all year.

Because so often I just don’t have room. Even when I really want to.

 

There are so many other things crowding our time and attention. 

Responsibilities at work and at home.

Public crisises of war, and politics, and a precarious climate, and inflation, and still Covid.

Private challenges in our work (or classes), our health, relationships, grocery budgets.

And of course Christmas: the baking and events and presents and packages and rehearsals and decorating and dinner….

 

So often it’s so easy to get distracted from God’s presence in our world. So often, for many of us, it can feel like there’s just no room to squeeze in the things that Jesus asks from us: prayer or worship or silence or service. No time for the time God wants to spend with me.

 

It’s such a relief, a gift, to be reminded that in spite of all of that, in the middle of all that, Jesus still makes room.

To be one of us.

To be with us.

With you, with me.

 

Rearranging our space and time with insistent affection, and presence, and love.

Squeezing the gentle weight of peace into our hearts, 

the spaciousness of generosity and compassion into our spirits,

the whole infinite power and presence of God into the world in the tiny space of a newborn child,

until we cannot escape the knowledge in every part of our hearts, bodies, calendars, or souls, that we are deeply and insistently loved.

 

Tonight, tomorrow, all day and all year, wherever we have no room for God, or for ourselves,

Jesus makes room.

Room for love.

Room for everything.

Jesus Sends Us Stories

Matthew 11:2-11

What are you waiting for?

What are you looking for as a sign that God’s promises are all being fulfilled?

What are you waiting for, before you drop everything else to throw yourself into the glory of God? What’s missing, that would allow you to go in 110% on following Jesus? 

 

Myself, I tend to be cautious about going all in on something – or believing it’s all ready – if there’s not a clear plan.
I spent years waiting for a step-by-step (or even clear first step) plan for following this weird idea that maybe I should be a priest. 

I’m still waiting for following Jesus to get clearer than all this constant nebulous discernment about what spiritual path I’m on, and whether to give this money to the food bank or the disabled veterans.

 

Maybe some of us are waiting for a break in all the responsibilities you’ve got to take care of: family, work, getting dinner on the table and the bills paid and the holiday organized. If that were cleared away… ?

And Jesus has always been there, God seems patient – the sense of urgency is missing.

 

Maybe you’d like some kind of proof, even just a little bit, that Jesus is personally interested in you, before you go all in. (I mean, there are all these stories in the gospels about Jesus getting in one individual’s face to say “follow me”, doing a spectacular miracle for one particular other person – why not me?) 

Or something that proves that God is making the world a better place, not just watching from some far detached place in the sky, before you’re convinced this is the moment of decision?

 

I don’t know exactly what you are waiting for. Honestly, I may not be sure what exactly I’m waiting for.

But many of us are waiting for something to change, to happen, before we commit our whole selves, whole hearts and lives, waking and sleeping, to following Jesus in all ways, proclaiming God’s kingdom already come.

 

Many of us, consciously or otherwise, may also be evaluating the options besides Jesus – in case there’s something else we should be waiting for. Checking out the possibilities that work or exercise or the right friends or the right hobby might offer fulfillment or healing or wholeness. Looking for our sense of purpose from sharing the right moral views with friends and family and the people we vote for.  

 

Many of us are, at one time or another, considering whether we couldn’t do better than Jesus for solving the needs and heartaches of our lives. 

 

Even the most religiously passionate of us are often waiting for some change, or sign, or choice, or something, before we commit completely and permanently to Jesus, dropping every other priority in our lives. 

 

Even John.

 

John who already spent most of his life getting us all ready for the real power of God to show up among us. John who already met Jesus while he was out baptizing, and knew then that he was the real thing, the real power of God.  Even John is waiting for something else.

And he’s not afraid to ask Jesus directly about it.

 

Look, are you the Messiah? The one we’ve really all been waiting for? 

Or not?
Is there someone, something, better coming along?

 

John’s waiting for an answer.

A direct answer, before he feels confident committing what’s left of his life to this particular person being The One he’s already spent his life preparing for.

 

And Jesus sends him stories.

Sends him people who’ve seen healings, who’ve seen lives restored, seen and heard oppressed people respond with joy to what Jesus has to say, to just talk about their experience.

 

It’s not like John never heard those stories about Jesus before, probably. 

So far, though, those stories haven’t been enough. They weren’t what John was looking for.

 

Maybe John was waiting for Jesus to overthrow either the foreign government, or the religious elite. Maybe John was looking for fire and brimstone – an epic moral confrontation between ultimate good and human evil.

Or maybe he was looking for a personal touch, a clear plan, a different urgency, or the relief of all his other responsibilities so that he could finally follow Jesus as The One whose coming he’d been waiting for. 

 

What he gets is the stories. Stories about what his friends have witnessed in physical healing and heart healing as Jesus moves around the countryside.

 

None of these stories are about what John was preaching and predicting; none are about John getting released from prison.

They are just are stories about renewal, insight, hope, and love, actually seen and heard by the tellers, as Jesus walks through the world.

We don’t know if this time it’s enough for John.

If it was the yes his heart needed.

Matthew never tells us.

 

But I think it might have been, after all.

It might even be enough for me.

 

When I’m getting wishful and wistful about God fulfilling promises, sometimes I get tempted to treat attendance at church as a sign of whether God is really coming. (I know better, but there’s that tempting feeling when the pews are full…)

And then it’s cold here. Or you’re busy on Sundays. And we’re out of the habit of being packed together in these pews. And I wonder if this is really what we’ve been waiting and working for – since Covid, since all our lives, really. Wonder if God’s really all that interested.

 

And then someone tells me a story about how good it was, how powerfully healing, to get to just talk to one other person casually at coffee hour again.

Another person tells me a story about how important the livestream service has been to them, still. That the church is present, that they have been to church, they are part of us, when they cannot physically get here on Sunday morning. 

 

And my heart says “yes.” 

Yes. 

This is what we are waiting and working for.

This is the kingdom of God coming among us – in the ways I wasn’t especially looking for. 

 

God’s purpose, God’s plan, are being fulfilled.

Just not the way I thought I was waiting for.

 

When I’m looking for what I am expecting God to do, 

I might be missing what God is actually up to.

 

When I look for what I want God to do – for things that make me more comfortable, or just more confident; when I look for Jesus to be making it easier for me to drop everything else – I might be missing the things that God wants to do to make all of us more trusting and generous, might be missing what Jesus wants to do to empower all of us to follow him, love him, be loved by him.

 

Then when I listen to the stories – stories about other people, healing and renewal that happens one trickle at a time – when I listen to the stories Jesus sends me, I might just be seeing God’s whole kingdom coming, all of it, in a place and time that doesn’t feel like enough, but is everything. 

And then my heart answers John’s question. 

My heart says, yes.

 

What stories is Jesus sending you? 

What story of healing, insight, joy, or love – happening on a small scale, to someone else – have you heard lately?

What if that is the invitation, or the proof, that you’ve been waiting for?

 

What story of renewal, generosity, or hope far away have you heard?
What if that story is the relief, or the urgency, or the opportunity that you’ve personally been waiting for? Not the way you thought it would look, not at all.

But actually what you need, somehow, to say yes to God’s coming into the world, into your heart, your life.  

 

And what story could you tell?
What little moment of insight or hope, healing or renewal, love or joy, glory and generosity have you seen that might be the story Jesus is sending to someone else? To someone waiting to know if God, if Jesus, really is what they’ve been waiting for. 

 

We all wonder, once or often, if this is it. 

If this is real. If this is God. If God is enough for what we’re waiting for.

 

And Jesus sends us stories.

 

Sends us not an answer, but stories of what God is up to.

And then waits, listens, to see if our hearts say, “Yes!”