Gospel:
Luke 2:1-20
1st
Reading: Isaiah 9:2-7
2nd
Reading: Titus 2:11-14
I met Mary and Joseph and the
baby Jesus this week. It isn’t as
glamourous as it sounds for me or them.
It was the icy Thursday morning. I
finally had a block of time I could work on my sermon. Susan got the phone. A young woman was crying. It was Mary.
They have been staying at Budget Inn.
The are on the waiting list for the SON program. They have no car. They have a 10 month old baby. She was terrified that they’d have to stay
outdoors in these freezing temperatures.
The owner of the hotel let them stay last night out of pity. They owed last night and hoped to also get
tonight’s room paid for. $154.90 total. She said, “You couldn’t possibly help with
that much, could you?” She’d been on the
phone constantly the past few days trying to figure out what they were going to
do. She told me she and her husband had
been two years clean and sober, from meth addiction. “That’s something, isn’t it!” She was ashamed and proud at the same
time. But she said they both have a
criminal record, which makes it hard for them to find work. Here they were doing what was right and it
wasn’t enough. I really knew they were
desperate when she asked if we had any food.
They have a microwave and can opener and a few bowls at the hotel.
I really didn’t want to write my
sermon, so don’t think I’m trying to make myself the hero of this story. It is thanks to you and the Boy Scouts and
Maritime Café, the marijuana dispensary that collects and donates food for the
pantry every year, it is thanks to this community, both the church and the
neighborhood, that we had food downstairs that came after we were completely
wiped out by our December distribution. It is thanks to Barb who makes the time to get
a check done and mailed from her office even in a busy holiday season. I put together a box of food that could be
cooked in a microwave and even a few little squeeze packets of baby food and
drove it over to them along with a letter stating that we would pay the hotel
costs.
I talked to the owner to make
sure they were legit, they really did have a baby and they were good
customers. I don’t want to become known
as the gullible pastor who doesn’t check things out. And then I went back to the car to get the
boxe of food. Mary came down the stairs
and she was so grateful and worried all at the same time. Would her little family have a place to lay
their heads? She wore a sweatshirt with
holes in the sleeves. She had nothing
but her family and her sobriety and some small bit of hope. Joseph came down to the car to get the box of
food. He was grateful and worried,
too. I gave Mary a card with all the
warming centers and their telephone numbers on it. She asked if she could give me a hug and I
said “Of course.” That hug was for all
of you. I told her to call me and give
me an update. She said she would.
On the drive back to church, I
missed my turn onto Jennings because I was pondering all these things. I thought of the money in my wallet. I should have given it to her. I wouldn’t miss it. To her it might mean another night of
warmth. One more day she wouldn’t
worry. I thought of my family, my warm,
growing boy who had never known a day of want, who had so many toys he couldn’t
possibly play with them all. I thought
of my community, people who love me and help me and look after me and I take it
for granted. I thought of my
problems—how will I fit in all my meetings and get my son from school and
volunteer with the PTA and find time for relational meetings and reach out to
people who aren’t very happy with how I am serving them or this church.
Here is Mary, far from home,
beginning a new journey as a mother.
What are her hopes for her child?
Here is Joseph, ready to work and support his family, but all the odds
are against him. Here are all these
houses sitting empty from foreclosure, two on my block—the third one was
finally torn down, and here are families lacking housing. Can no one do anything about it? How many derelict houses did Mary and Joseph
pass and stare at longingly as was starting to go into labor? Here are the arbitrary temperatures that we
say are inhumane to keep people indoors that we use to determine when warming
centers are open. When is it ever humane
to let a baby sleep outside? Yet here we
have a story of Jesus, baby Jesus, sleeping outside as so many homeless and
refugees do every single night.
It is not very glamourous to see
the world the way it is, with government used to count people in the census,
not so they count, but so they can be abused and discounted. It is not very glamourous to sit among the
houseless at the warming center and see the toll of living on the streets. It is not very glamourous to give birth in a
cattle shed. It is not very glamourous
for your job to be watching over sheep.
I decided the modern-day equivalent would be gas-station attendant. Lo, they were watching over their pumps by
night, when behold an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the
Lord shone around them.” They wipe off
their hands and straighten their vests and walk into town to see for
themselves.
It isn’t very glamourous for
your baby’s first visitors to be a bunch of gas station attendants or smelly,
dirty sheep herders, yet there they are
The shepherds are a very special kind of leader, who care for the sheep,
bind up their wounds, know them by name, protect them from wolves. These shepherds come to a cattle stall, a
place they knew well. This was their
turf. There they find the one who would
become the good shepherd. Finally a King
who cares about everyone from the least to the greatest. Here the baby Jesus was met by what he would
become. And the shepherds become more
than shepherds, they become the ones entrusted with more than sheep, they are
entrusted with the good news of great joy, and they tend it well. I wonder about the shepherds after that. They must have wondered what became of that
baby, that Messiah, that promise. Did
they see in each child they met after that the potential Messiah? Did they look for him among the children they
encountered?
We read the story and we might
feel tempted to get sentimental. But
there are real-life holy families all around us. Mary and Joseph still wander the city looking
for a place to bring the Christ child into this world. If we search our hearts, and ask ourselves
whether we have room for a little one like this, most of us hesitate. Is it safe?
Is it convenient? Is it
glamourous? Is it fun? The answer to all of these is no. When I
ask myself, do I love the Christ Child or my security and comfort more, I’m
afraid of my answer.
It is true that we have rejected
the Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Wonderful Counselor. We crucify him every day by leaving him in
the cold, executing him in our prisons, taking away his access to health care,
etc. But the amazing thing is that this
shepherd king, who sees us for who we are and knows us entirely, makes his home
with us, gathers us at his table, gives us his very body, gives us his
life. We constantly reject him, yet the
light is shining. There is hope because
that hope doesn’t depend on us. It comes
from God who is love and who we can count on.
Because of that love and hope our hearts begin to long for a different
world than we participate in and support.
Because of love and hope, we might open our eyes to see Mary and Joseph
and baby Jesus in the poor and hungry.
Because of that love and hope and grace, we let go of those things that
distract us from God’s vision of peace and justice and make life harder for
people already having a hard time, and take on the new life that God is leading
us toward.
I met Mary today. She’s a mother with two teenagers, fleeing
domestic violence. She needs food for
her family. Her eyeliner was thick and
there were bags under her eyes. She
talked too much. But she is the one God
has chosen to bear the good news, the Christ Child, and when Mary calls for
help, I don’t want to be the innkeeper who turns her away.
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