The gospel reading from the Revised Common Lectionary for Christmas Eve is Luke 2:1-14, verse 7 says…
“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”
When I moved to Washington, DC, to attend seminary, I was assigned a shared dorm room with a guy named Andy. I began seminary in January so Andy had already lived there for a whole semester... without a roommate. He had settled into this dorm room with two beds, two desks, two closets all to himself. Then I arrived on campus with my bags in hand. I opened the door to my room and discovered Andy’s stuff was scattered everywhere. His papers and books and clutter were on my desk, his dirty clothes were on my bed, his stuff was in my closet. Andy had failed to make room for me. After we pushed all of his stuff over to his side of the room, something occurred to me. I got the sneaking suspicion that Andy wasn't thrilled to have me there. Andy kind of liked having that room all to himself.
A funny thing happened though, we shared that small space together long enough that we started to become friends. Eventually, Andy wanted me to come to this worship service called “Crossroads.” Crossroads was a new worship service and a big part of this new service was to try and make room for people. Crossroads was very intentional about welcoming people with disabilities. I remember a man with a learning disability who would always sit on the front row named Neddy. Every week a volunteer from the church would go get him, take him home, and sit with him during the service. Crossroads was Andy’s internship and he kept asking me to come. However, I had my own internship. I was at my internship every Sunday morning and even though Crossroads met Sunday evenings and I was free, I was never able to make room for that service in my life… until I found out there was a girl named Margaret (my future wife) who attended Crossroads, and suddenly I felt inspired to make room for the service. Finally I went to Crossroads and after the worship service I’m talking to Margaret and trying to look really cool… you can imagine how well that was going! There was a small crowd of people standing there and somebody said, “we need one more person to go on grate patrol tonight, if we don’t have another volunteer we wont be able to go.” Nobody there raised their hand, but I was trying to impress Margaret so I stuck out my chest and said, “yea, I’ll go!” The next thing I know I’m in a van with a bunch of strangers riding around the city and I have no idea where we’re going or what we’re doing. I look at the guy next to me and I said, “what is this?” Around that time the driver of the van started laying down on the horn, honking the horn repeatedly. He then came to an abrupt stop on a street corner and they flung open the doors of the van. They said, “Caleb, you hand out the trash bags!” They gave me this handful of big black trash bags. There was nobody there to hand them to but suddenly all of these people emerged from the shadows. In the back of the van, the group was handing out brown bag dinners, hot chocolate, and coffee and then people would come to the side of the van and ask me for a trash bag. We did this stop after stop and eventually I ran out of trash bags to give away. The city’s homeless would line up to receive a meal. After some time I said, “why do these people want trash bags?” The grate patrol regulars told me they cover themselves with the trash bags to keep the wind off them at night. It wasn't easy to look at people and tell them we were out of trash bags. For these people on the streets somewhere, someone, somehow humanity had failed to make room for them.
God knows something about that. God knows something about no room because humanity had no room when God was to be born on earth. Mary and Joseph were forced to travel even though Mary was 9 months pregnant. They weren't home for Christmas because of the systems they found themselves in. Home for Joseph and Mary was Nazareth and of course they are in this more unfamiliar town called Bethlehem. They had to go, they were forced to go and be enrolled, to be counted for the taxes. It wasn't the most convenient time for them to go, the characters of the Christmas story didn't sing “I’ll be Home for Christmas” in a perfect Hallmark Christmas movie finale scene when Jesus was born. And Mary and Joseph receive word from three wise men that continues to keep them away from home because Herod wanted to kill all the first born children. Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt where most scholars believe they lived until Jesus was 2 or 3 years old. So there was no room for God to be born and then God arrives and he and his family have to flee and stay away from home because of violence. There was no room for God.
Years ago I went on a trip to Plains Georgia to hear former President Jimmy Carter teach Sunday school at his church. The sanctuary seated around 500 people, and there was an overflow room with a tv for those people who arrived later and there was no room for them. I remember sitting in that sanctuary and when President Carter started his lesson he said, “if you wouldn't mind being generous and scooting in your pews that would make room so that some of the people in the overflow room could come into the sanctuary. We all did, we scooted in. We weren't as comfortable as we were before, but suddenly there were all these extra seats and many more people were able to come and be a part of that lesson. Making room is vital to who we are as followers of Christ.
As we all live into these days, we might just know somebody who would appreciate an invitation to our various Christmas activities. And likewise if someone extends an invitation to us, we can be open to trying something new. It can perhaps be a little less comfortable when we have to be generous and scoot in on our pews, but when we do we make room for more people to experience the wonder that is Christmas.