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Sermon 376 St. Martin’s 132 (Riverway) 12/24/24
Merry Christmas!
I feel like one of the things a Christmas sermon should try to do is to make the familiar strange. We know this story so well (or at least we think we do) that we can be lulled into forgetting the utterly radical message of the Incarnation.
I have yet to hear anyone gasp at a Christmas Eve service when they hear the gospel read. We know what we’re getting ourselves into when we walk through these doors.
And so, whether you come to church every Sunday or you’re one of our beloved Chreaster (Christmas and Easter Christians)—welcome by the way, we’re glad you’re here—the story of God coming to earth as a human is far from being self-evident, even if we’ve been sharing this news for the past two thousand years.
If you take a step back and consider the story that has brought us together tonight, it would seem that God visiting his creation has more in common with the ancient mythologies of the Egyptians or Greeks than the reality that you and I live in.
We live in a world of wars and rumors of wars; natural disasters, famine, and a deep political division that can make Christmas dinner a bit awkward at times.
Yet, we Christians are claiming: This is not a drill…this is not just a nice story to get us through the winter months, or to make us feel warm and fuzzing inside.
We honestly believe God was born—the Son of God came into the world the same way you and I did, and he took on everything that is part of the human experience, including the local and geopolitical reality of his day and time—details that Luke thought were so essential to understanding Jesus’ ministry that he included them in his gospel.
Emmanuel—God with us—is a historical fact, rooted in the same world as Caesar Augustus and King Herod. This is not a fairy tale, far from it.
And so, tonight I was to help us rediscover the strangeness of Christmas and what that means for you and me because it most certainly has implications for us in our own time.
To do this, I want to share with you three things: a fact, a story, and a promise.
The Fact [i] I’m sorry to tell you, but the Christmas story in your head is wrong…well, at least a bit more context could be helpful.
When you look at the gospel we just read, it can be shocking to closely examine what is (and what isn’t) said. I know for me, I always picture Mary and Joseph rushing into Bethlehem, desperate to find an inn, but they are turned away each time. This is how every movie and kids’ pageant goes.
But look closely, Luke never tells us they were rushing anywhere. In fact, Luke tells us that they went to Bethlehem “and while they were there”—meaning while they were already in Bethlehem—the time came for Mary to give birth.
There’s no panic involved. Joseph doesn’t run off to find a place to stay only to come back and find Mary holding the baby in her arms.
We have added a lot of assumptions to the text that are simply incorrect, and we’ve allowed those assumptions to overtake our common sense.
Consider the cultural context.[ii]
To this very day, the Middle East is a culture known for its hospitality. I’ve never eaten so much food in my life as when I’ve been in the Middle East; the food never stops coming out of the kitchen. There is always an abundance, and I feel like I’m the most important guest they’ve ever had…and that’s the point.
Being a good host is a great honor, it’s a way that you show love and respect. To be inhospitable is a disgrace. You’re supposed to roll the red carpet out for your guests. And so, we are told that Mary and Joseph walked into a small Jewish village (in the back of our head, we should know that they are now the village’s guests).
If that’s not enough, we are told that Joseph was from the royal line of King David. Bethlehem didn’t have much going for it, but it at least could claim to be David’s hometown. And so, Joseph would’ve been an important guest.
He may not have personally been wealthy or particularly well-known, but still, the great king was one of his ancestors. That would’ve been a big deal.
On top of that, (and much more obvious) was Mary’s condition: she was late in her pregnancy. The village would’ve jumped into action when they saw this young woman. If this village had slammed the door in this couple’s face, Bethlehem would’ve been voted the most heartless town in all of human history.
Our culture doesn’t have nearly as high a value on hospitality as many others, and yet, if we saw a pregnant woman with a suitcase sitting on the curb with her husband—I would bet someone—if not many people—would offer them a place to stay. How much more so for ancient Bethlehem!
And the phrase we’ve already mentioned, “While they were there,” adds to the fact that they were certainly not homeless, stuck in a barn, for days or weeks waiting for a room in the inn. Rather, we can safely assume that they would’ve been welcomed in, by any number of families, even though the village was getting to max capacity due to the census.
And this brings us to the most misinterpreted part of this story. You see, the word Luke used for “inn” was not the same as “a commercial inn.” You may remember the Good Samaritan took the man who had been beaten on the road to an inn and paid for his stay there. That was a commercial inn.
The word used here in Luke 2 is kataluma, which simply means “a place to stay” or “a guest room.” It has absolutely nothing to do with motels and hotels.
The average first-century home in Bethlehem had one room, plus a guest room attached to the back, with its own separate entrance. Many times, these homes would be built out of a cave which provided an instant structure to work from, and it was nice and cool in the summer. Bethlehem is littered with caves.
In the one main room, the family would cook, clean, eat, and sleep. It was normally raised up a foot or so from ground level where the door was.
In between the door and the step up to the living space, there was a small area to keep your sheep and donkeys and whatever else. They’d bring the animals in at night to ensure that they weren’t stolen, but also to add body heat to the living area. There would even be a small feeding trough dug out of the raised floor so that the animals could stick their heads over and eat while in the house.
And so, when Mary and Joseph were told there was “no room,” meaning “no space” in the kataluma, it was referring to the guest room in the back of the house.
That space was already taken by other guests, and so Mary and Joseph would have to sleep in the family room with everyone else.
When Jesus was born, he was surrounded by his parents and their host family (and whatever animals they had brought in for the night). They would’ve wrapped him in whatever cloth they had around the house and placed in him the feeding trough (i.e. the manger) that was in the house. Luke doesn’t describe a stable but a family room![iii]
Luke doesn’t go into detail about all this because he assumes we know what a first-century home looks like, and what a kataluma is, and why animals and mangers would be in a home.
I believe this completely changes how we think about the Christmas story. Rather than being forsaken—being born in a lowly stable in the cold—the cultural clues left by Luke, make it seem that Jesus was born in the warm embrace of Middle Eastern hospitality.
The house may have been packed, the animals would’ve been there too, but unbeknownst to this host family, they had opened their home to none other than God himself. Little did this family know that caring for these “out-of-towners” was the greatest act of hospitality in human history.
Of all people, when the Son of God opened his eyes, he saw them.
God’s arrival was marked by great humility but also by community. That’s the fact I want to share with you tonight. The reply that Mary and Joseph got at the door was, “Our guest room is full, but we will make room for you among us. Come in, come in, the meal has just begun, and we’ve saved a place just for you.”
The Story This fact of Christmas is that hospitality and the Incarnation go hand in hand, and this reminds me of a couple who displayed this in their own life.
A few years ago, when Kabul and the Afghan government fell almost overnight to the Taliban, you likely remember the pictures and videos of Afghans who worked alongside the US military for years, rushing to the airport in hopes of fleeing to the US for safety.
The surge of Afghan refugees became astronomical and many soldiers and military personnel took it upon themselves to get the translators and guides they had served with years ago out of the country with their families before the Taliban could carry out reprisals.
Because of the urgency of this situation, Americans began opening up their homes as the swell of refugees poured into the US.
Our friends, Emily and Daniel opened up their home to one Afghan family after Emily felt a nudge in her heart that this was something they needed to do. There were, of course, a lot of adjustments once the family arrived. No one in that family spoke English; they relied on a translator or Google Translate for even their most basic questions.
They had to adjust to a new culture, a new city, new food, and do it all while living in someone else's random house.
With no car, the family depended on this couple for all their rides to doctor appointments, immigration meetings—pretty much anything and everything. As the days went by, most of the family warmed up to Emily and Daniel though the father was still on the fence.
On one particular day, Daniel and the father were talking about a number of things until the subject of religion came up. There’s nothing like trying to have a nuanced conversation about Islam and Christianity over Google Translate. They talked about Jesus and the similarities of their beliefs, and how Jesus is a revered prophet in Islam.
Out of this conversation, Daniel told the man that it was because of Jesus that they felt called to open their home to strangers in the first place, but not only that, because of Jesus, he and Emily truly cared about them, cared about him, his wife and children.
It seemed that the father was trying to figure out what motivated Daniel and Emily to welcome them into their home. What was their intention? Were they in it for money? Were they trying to convert them to Christianity?
But something finally clicked, and he realized that Jesus was actually the sole motivation for their extraordinary act of kindness. There was no other agenda than to love as Christ first loved us.
Jesus had even told his disciples, “What you have done for the least of these you have done for me.”[iv] When you have cared for the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, and the imprisoned, you might as well accept that you’ve cared for the Messiah himself; you’ve made room in your life, in your home, and in your budget to welcome the Lord in.
The Incarnation transforms hospitality into a gospel prerogative. And so, the fact of Christmas is that a family once made room Jesus, but this story is a reminder that it still happens today. Homes and hearts continue to be opened to the King of Kings.
And in this desire to make room for Christ, there lies a promise: one that we will take part in just a few minutes.
The Promise I’ve always found it strange that on Christmas Eve after singing hymns about this newborn king and hearing the age-old story of the nativity that we then go straight to the altar and start talking about Jesus’ death.
Have any of you thought that was a bit odd? It’s quite a morbid practice if you think about it.
If there was ever a day not to do the Eucharist it would be this one. Nothing ruins the vibe of Silent Night more than recalling what this child was destined for.
“On the night before he died for us, our Lord Jesus Christ took bread…” This is a birthday party for crying out loud, and here we are recalling his Passion, Death, and Resurrection! Christians are a strange breed.
But Jesus’ Incarnation means something because of his crucifixion and resurrection. The end of the story makes the beginning much more significant. And so, even tonight, we tell the whole story of Jesus through our liturgy.
The shepherds were blessed with the angel’s announcement, but they did not know what was to come of this child later on. Mary and Joseph had a better sense than anyone else, yet they could never imagine the road set before their newborn child.
But you and I have come here tonight because we are in on the secret; we know Jesus’ was no ordinary birth, and his was no ordinary death. Somehow, by him, we can become children of God.
The child who was welcomed by the Bethlehem family in their home transforms into the One who welcomes all to make their home in him.
And in the end, communion is a promise given to us. It’s especially for us who did not journey with the shepherds that fateful night to see the Messiah, or the wise men bearing their gifts.
Communion is for those who were never fed by Jesus along the Sea of Galilee, nor heard his teachings, or watched him upend tables in the Temple courts; let alone see him die on Golgotha, or behold him in all of his Easter glory.
Communion is for those who believe though they have never seen. It is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet where Jesus is seated at the head of the table.
We are reminded when we receive the bread, that Jesus has made a place for us at his table, and by taking and eating it, we are making a place for him in our hearts.
We do communion every time we’re together because we need that reminder. Jesus has set aside a place just for us in his home, at his table. And at Christmas, we are reminded that we cannot allow Jesus to stay out in the cold, away from us disregarded, and unloved. We welcome him in because he has welcomed us.
The Incarnation is where hospitality and the gospel meet; where the love of God is united with his people, or as the Apostle Paul said of Jesus’ humble entrance into human history:
“Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”[v]
A fact, a story, and a promise.
In the person of Jesus, everything comes together and is transformed into his likeness: lives are changed, grace is unleashed, relationships become whole, homes are opened, and sins forgiven.
Whatever has brought you here tonight, make room, make space in your heart for Jesus to come again in quiet humility to mend what has been torn, and to redeem what has been lost.
Make a space for the Son of God; open wide your hands (and your hearts) as you receive the heavenly promise once again in the Body and the Blood. He is the fact. He is the story and the promise. “Our guest room is full, but we will make room for you among us. Come in from the rain, the meal has just begun, and we’ve saved a place just for you.”
[i] “He lies in the manger, but contains the world; He nurses at the breasts, but feeds the angels; He is wrapped in swaddling clothes, but vests us with immortality; He found no place in the inn, but makes for Himself a temple in the hearts of believers. In order that weakness might become strong, strength became weak.” Augustine
“He so loved us that, for our sake, He was made man in time, although through Him all times were made. He was made man, Who made man. He was created of a mother whom He created. He was carried by hands that He formed. He cried in the manger in wordless infancy, He the Word, without Whom all human eloquence is mute.” Augustine
[ii] The stories that we have of Jesus being born in a stable quickly and they arrived in Bethlehem comes from the year 200 A.D. and there are so many inconsistencies with the geography and the culture that the person who wrote it had no clue what was going on in the first century.
[iii] All of this cultural info comes from Kenneth Bailey’s Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes.
[iv] Matthew 25:40
[v] Philippians 2:6-11, NRSVA
Photo by Walter Chávez on Unsplash
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