Sermon for Christmas Eve
Luke 2:1-14
I want to start tonight by ruining the
mental picture most of us bring to the story we just heard. Mary and Joseph come to Bethlehem along with
hundreds of other people, following the emperor’s order to go to their
hometowns to be counted. Mary is at the
end of her pregnancy, and I hope she really did ride on a donkey or something
because, as Mtr. Jean said on Sunday, it’s a 90-mile, arduous hike from
Nazareth, across arid plains, and then up 2,700 feet of steep hills to
Bethlehem. But because of the crowds,
Joseph and Mary find … what is it the story says? They find “there was no place for them in
the inn” (Luke 2:7).
So, what do we picture when we hear that? A Bethlehem street lined with cheap motels,
all with “no vacancy” signs? Well, no –
at least we know it wasn’t that. Maybe we
picture Ye Olde Inn from Shakespeare’s England, with a pub on the first
floor? Or maybe a ramshackle Old West bunkhouse,
managed by a kindly, grizzled old innkeeper?
Well, it turns out, the “inn” wasn’t like
any of those because this place Mary and Joseph stopped wasn’t an “inn” at all.
We have that mental image because of maybe
the most famous bad translation in history.
It happened in the early 1500s in one of the first English-language
Bibles,1 and it remains with us still.
The word translated as “inn” is kataluma
in Greek, and it means a space for guests. Here’s what that would have looked like in
Bethlehem. First, you have to know that,
on the limestone hills there, people didn’t live in wooden houses or keep their
animals in wooden barns because they didn’t have many trees. What they did have was rocks, mud, and caves. When I went to Bethlehem, we visited a cave
thought to have been similar to a family’s house in Jesus’ day. As you entered a cave house, you’d find a large
space for the family to sleep; and in the back of the cave would be a smaller
space, maybe hollowed out, where the family would bring in the livestock to
protect them from predators at night.
And on the hill over the cave, a family might put up a small structure
where extended-family members or friends or travelers could stay.
It was this kind of small structure above
the cave, the kataluma, that had no room when Mary and Joseph arrived at
his family home. Too many other family
members had gotten there first as they followed the emperor’s order, and the
space for guests was full. So, Mary and
Joseph had to bunk with the animals in the back of the cave underneath – which
I imagine Mary didn’t mind too much. At
least she got a little privacy, as well as a feed trough where the baby could
rest without lying in the animals’ muck on the floor.
So, now that I’ve ruined the nativity scenes
on your Christmas cards, why am I telling you this? Because I think it matters
where Mary and Joseph were staying and where the baby Jesus spent his first
night.
Our image of the holy family looking for a
room at a Rodeway Inn reflects our culture and our wiring. If we’re looking for a place to stay,
we take care of that on our own, finding somewhere we can join other travelers who’ve
walled themselves off from each other in little rooms with locked doors. It’s the answer we’ve come up with, one that
fits our rampant individualism.
But that’s not the world God entered 2,000
years ago in Palestine. Instead, as Mary
and Joseph came to the old homestead to bunk with the relatives, God came
knocking right there, in the midst of everything this very normal family was
going through. They’d all come to
Bethlehem because the emperor told them to; so, there they were, shoulder to
shoulder on the floor of the cave and its guest room above. And in the midst of that extended family’s messy
life – getting dinner ready, tending the livestock, corralling the kids, caring
for the elders – in the midst of everyday life, God came knocking. “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved
into the neighborhood” as one of them (John 1:14 The Message).
OK.
Other than historical curiosity, why does this matter? Because Jesus still comes to us now in the
midst of our day-to-day lives, bringing hope where we least expect it, knocking
on the door and asking to be invited in.
Well, when the Sovereign and Savior of the
world comes knocking, it might be good if we had something to offer him. In a couple of weeks, we’ll remember the magi offering
the Christ child their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. In the moment, those were perfect gifts for
God’s king – rich treasure that symbolized both the honor of the nations and
Jesus’ vocation as “king and God and sacrifice,” as the carol puts it.2
But when Jesus the King comes to us
today, what kind of gift do you think he’s looking for?
Well, our culture says a king would be
looking for markers of wealth and privilege and success – gifts only the finest
could offer. But this king comes among the
rest of us, too, folks just doing their best with the life they’re given.
OK, well, our political system says a king
would be looking for a power base – people to support his rule and follow his
commands. But this king says “no” to
every offer of political power, disappointing his followers who want him to
kick the Romans out.
OK, well, our religious establishment says
a king would be looking for obedience – a righteousness most often based on fear
of judgment. But this king refuses to
coerce people to follow him, honoring the free will that comes with being made
in the image and likeness of God.
So, when Jesus comes knocking today, bringing
hope where you least expect it, what kind of a gift do you think he’s looking
for from you? Ever more and harder work?
Spiritual perfection? Unfailing kindness and concern for others?
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to you that,
when I offer the Confession of Sin to begin my daily prayers, I feel like I’m
being asked to catalog the ways I let God down the day before. Well, when I met with my spiritual director, we
talked about this; and she asked the obvious question: “When you do that, what
kinds of sins come to mind for you?” And
I said, well, usually what comes to mind are my deficiencies of love: not
wanting to pick up the phone and call somebody, or not remembering some
significant time in someone’s life, or not wanting to go to one more blessed parish
event. And my spiritual director said,
“I’m not sure those are sins exactly. Maybe they’re just aspects of who you are. Maybe those aren’t so much sins to confess as parts
of yourself to give to God and see what God might do with them.”
When Jesus comes knocking on our doors, I
think what he’s looking for is the gift of a true and honest heart, a heart seeking
to be healed. He’s not looking for
ever-harder work toward perfection but for the gift of … well … you and
the life you inhabit.
And I got to see a great example of this just
last week. Out of the blue, I heard from
an old friend, someone I knew as a parishioner years ago in Springfield. She had come to our little congregation broken,
beaten down by a history of religious leaders making her feel unworthy of love
and trying to manipulate her into following them. She felt disrespected and dismissed, and it
fed her deeper feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness. But in that little congregation of other
regular folks doing their best to find God in the midst of life, my friend
found a community that welcomed her. She
came to see that those people were grateful for her tremendous gifts of
compassion and intelligence.
Now, her journey wasn’t easy. Decades of mistrusting churches and their
leaders made her path of spiritual growth more like one step up and two steps back.
But my friend wrote to me last week reflecting
on how that experience in our little congregation had led her to offer herself to
God – warts and all – in order to see what God might have in mind for her. And now, 20 years later, she was telling me she’d
earned her doctorate in psychology and had been helping students for years learn
about living into the wholeness and well-being God intends for them.
The key to my friend’s story isn’t that
she figured out God’s magic formula for success. It was that she kept coming, kept opening the
door when Jesus knocked, kept up the conversation, kept showing up with other
fellow travelers who didn’t have the answers either. My friend kept offering Jesus the one thing
she had to give: herself. She put
herself in the offering plate and brought herself to the altar, over and over
again, inviting our Savior to come and take flesh and dwell in her. She kept showing up, asking God to strengthen
the things that were good, and heal the things that were broken, and turn her
away from the things that dragged her down.
This Savior we worship tonight didn’t come to criticize us or manipulate us. This Savior didn’t come to demand we work harder. This Savior certainly didn’t come to soak up the world’s glory. This Savior came to move into the neighborhood and dwell among us, even dwell within us. This Savior came to ask for the greatest Christmas gift you can offer, which is the gift of yourself – nothing more and nothing less, for there’s nothing greater you can give.
[Choir sings verse 4 of “In the bleak midwinter.”]
What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
if I were a wise man, I would do my part;
yet what I can I give him—give my heart.3
1.
Interestingly,
in the first English translation of Scripture, by John Wycliffe in 1382, kataluma
is translated “chaumbir” (https://textusreceptusbibles.com/Wycliffe/42/2),
close to the Greek’s intent. But in William Tyndale’s translations of Scripture
(1522-1525, work that led English King Henry VIII to have Wycliffe burned at
the stake), kataluma is given as “ynne” (https://textusreceptusbibles.com/Tyndale/42/2).
That translation was retained in England’s official Great Bible of 1539 (https://textusreceptusbibles.com/Great/42/2)
and the Geneva Bible of 1560 (https://textusreceptusbibles.com/Geneva/42/2).
The Bishops Bible of 1568 used “inne,” as did the King James Bible of 1611. And
so it continues, with “inn” used in the New Revised Standard Version today.
2.
“We
three kings of Orient are,” The Hymnal 1982, 128, verse 5.
3.
“In
the bleak midwinter,” The Hymnal 1982, 112, verse 4.
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