12.24.2023: In the Rubble and In the Stable

In the Rubble and In the Stable

Christmas Eve Morning Service 2023

Holmdel Community United Church of Christ

Rev. Loren McGrail

 

 

          Dearest Ones, on this Fourth Sunday in Advent and Christmas Eve, I want to talk with you about hospitality as an expression of love. To do this I invite you to travel back in time with me to that first Christmas in Palestine.  To have a better understanding of the scene in Bethlehem, how people lived, I would like to share with you some historical facts from theologian Kelly Nikondeha’s book, The First Advent in Palestine: Reversals. Resistance, and the Ongoing Complexity of Hope.

          A few folks from our church have been reading this book with people from all over the country and exchanging ideas not only about that first Advent season under Roman occupation but about Palestine today under Israeli occupation. We have been reading, lamenting, and hearing each other into speech so we can find hope in our own dark times.

          One of the ideas that has really opened up the Christmas narrative for many is reimagining the scene in Bethlehem--- including where the holy family found shelter and with whom.

          First, however, let’s remember why they traveled to Bethlehem. It was to be counted in the Roman Census, to be counted so that they could be taxed. Since Joseph was from Bethlehem, he had to return to his family. As you recall Joseph, who was not married to Mary, but had decided to listen to the angel in his dream and stand by her and not divorce her. He most likely brought her to his family’s home where they would have been warmly greeted by members of his family.

          They would not have gone wandering about looking for a place to stay. His family most likely lived in a small compound made of small structures arranged around a stall where the livestock stayed at night. There would have been some covered rooms ringing the stalls and on the second floor there would have been a cooking, eating, gathering place and some enclosed private rooms where most of the family would have slept.

          When the Gospel writer Luke describes a full house, he means that the enclosed and the covered rooms were unavailable, perhaps with other family members coming in to be counted. ‘No room in the inn’ meant “no room in the guest room upstairs". The word for guestroom was mistranslated into the word ‘inn.’ There was no space in the guest room.

          By the time, Mary and Joseph arrived, the only room available was then a corner in the stall area with the livestock. Dear Ones, the tired and hungry family would have been met with warmth and joy. Though bursting at the seams with extended family, Joseph and Mary would have sat around the table for meals and when Mary’s water broke, she would have been surrounded by other mothers and midwives. They were not alone nor stranded.

          Joseph’s humble family did not turn Mary and Joseph away. Rather, they made room for them in their humble abode. In addition, Jesus was born in a feeding trough or manger. Even the animals provided what they could, their feeding trough.  

          This telling of the story allows us to see that ALL celebrated the birth of Jesus, God-with-us, and that he chose to make himself known among the oppressed loving poor and their creatures.

          So Dear Ones, banish your idea of an inn with a mean inn keeper who had no room. Rather picture this, Mary’s son, God’s Son, crowned in a warm stable in a world plagued by tax increases and economic hardship.  

          In the old reading of our story, we are told to make room for strangers, for the divine will be found with them. We are made to feel ashamed for being selfish and uncaring when we don’t do this. However, in this more historically correct reading of the story, the Divine comes to birth when we have found our people---aunts, uncles, cousins, and even animals. There is no shame or scolding.

          Dear Ones, all Advent we have been exploring and praying about how to gift each other with presence not only presents. I would like to leave you this Christmas Eve with a few questions today to ponder:

• How are you opening up your heart for new life to be born? What is blocking or keeping you from making room?
• What needs to be moved, rearranged, thrown out, or prayed upon, to allow you to make room?
• Who are the people, the holy families, or the vulnerable children who need shelter or protection?  What can you do?

          Rev. Munther Isaac from Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem said Jesus is born in the rubble this year in Gaza. Palestinian Christians, like Rev. Isaac, are not celebrating Christmas this year; they are commemorating it. For how do you welcome the Prince of Peace during a genocide? This question must be asked and deeply pondered by us too.

          So Dear Ones, as you listen and sing familiar Christmas songs, let us remember and commemorate how God spoke comfort and joy into that first century dark world of imperial violence and economic hardship, and chose to become one of us in order to bring peace.

          Let us commemorate this event, this Christmas Eve, by removing the rubble and by stopping the bombing that is creating the rubble. We can’t celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus and be indifferent to the death of children dying in Gaza.  In first century advent, they counted the living. We are counting the dead.

          Dear Ones, we need more than sparkling lights, more than gifts under the tree. God, we need you to help us find you under the rubble of the world we have created. We want to welcome you with all that we have but we are overwhelmed by our hopelessness and complicity.

          All Loving One, show us how we can truly welcome the Prince of Peace being born here among us again. Show us how to stop making rubble; how to clear out our shattered and rubble cluttered hearts so we make room for your blessings of hope, joy, and love, so we can join you as co-creators in your solidarity work to “reclaim our humanity, dignity, and worth”. This is the birth we have come to celebrate today, love reborn in the rubble and in the stables of our hearts. Let us make room.