Dec. 24 Sermon: Where is My Place?
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
Holy Covenant United Methodist Church
December 24, 2010
Luke 2:1-20
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Mary wonders: Where is my place?
Will anyone love me, accept me? After all, I’m a pregnant teenager, 14 and unwed; a child myself, not ready to care for another child. My family has disowned me: my sisters and brothers, once my truest companions, won’t even look at me and my swelling belly. My mother only talks to me about my impurity, instead of giving me advice and support. Even my friends push me away, for they think I’ve gone crazy—telling them stories about angels of God visiting me. Nobody believes I’m really a virgin. And maybe they’re right—did I really see an angel? Has my pregnancy made me hallucinate? Where is there a place for me, a girl with no friends, no husband, no money, who has crazy visions?
Joseph wonders: Where is my place?
I’m traveling to my home city, Bethlehem, to be counted yet again. The government doesn’t care who I am, what I care about….they just see me as a number. A number to be counted so they can take more of my money. All I want is a safe and comfortable home, nothing fancy, but to be able to feed my fiancé and our new child without worrying where our next piece of fish or loaf of bread will come from. But the government is so oppressive that everyone in our town is kept in severe poverty, while the emperor feasts day in and day out. Will I have a place when I return home, a place to make a home for my family?
Mary and Joseph wonder as they wander; but they don’t have much time to dwell on the big picture, their place in the universe—what they really need right now is just a place to stay the night. Mary can’t walk much farther, and Joseph needs to be up early in the morning to get a good place in line for the census. Every motel they pass has a “no vacancy” sign out front; their distant relatives have already taken in other distant relatives and don’t even have a spare patch of floor. Finally, they knock on the door of the last inn on the edge of town and the innkeeper answers. They ask, expectantly, is there a place for us?
The innkeeper replies: there’s no place for you at the inn.
There’s no place for you.
We hear these words, 2,000 years later, as we, too, wonder where we have a place. Wandering through this life, seeking welcome. Trying to make it as a single parent, marginalized from our families, wondering what our future family might look like. We wonder with Mary if we’re ever going to get some good news.
And we wonder with Joseph, as we, too, struggle to make it financially. As we wander through this economy where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Unemployment rises as CEO’s get bonus checks. We’re not looking to be millionaires, we just want the means to have enough food on our table without fear or worry.
Where is our place?
The shepherds stopped asking this question years ago; for they know their place. It’s not in the city, where the rich and powerful dine at banquet tables. It’s not in the halls of power, where they can advocate for fairer tax policies, healthcare for all, and immigration rights. No, their place is way up on the hills, away from the center of it all. Still, sometimes late at night, looking up at the stars, they wish for a place: an invitation to a wedding feast, to witness the splendor and taste the variety of food. The chance to talk to a politician about what matters to their lives. Instead, they eat the same thing, day in and day out, talk to the same people.
The innkeeper has never really had a place in society. He’s a Samaritan, one of those ethnic and religious minorities trying to make it in Bethlehem; tolerated, but not accepted. At least he’s got this inn, he thinks, though it’s out here on the edges of town. It’s sort of a seedy place, but it pays the bills. He averts his eyes when the prostitutes come in with their clients, wondering what it feels like to carry so much shame around in your body. He hopes for the day when he has a place at the Bethlehem table of commerce, hopes for the day when his inn could be at the city center. The day when someone looks at him and sees a good, whole, loveable human being.
And he’s starting to get frustrated with all the bad news in his relationship. For things are strained with his wife, who wallows in deep grief because she doesn’t know her place in her family anymore. Both her parents died within the last year, and on this long winter night she wonders: Who am I without relatives in the world? Where is my place?
We, too, wonder: We wonder about the finality of death. We are, along with the shepherds, excluded and long for a voice, for some access to power. We want, like the Samaritan, to stop facing discrimination. We wonder if there is ever going to be good news for us.
Wondering, where’s my place in this crazy world?
The innkeeper replies: There’s no place for you at the inn.
Just as those words tumble out of his mouth, he looks up into the sky and notices a bright star, blinding him momentarily. When he glances back down to this young couple, tired and penniless and about to have a baby, he notices the barn behind them. So he says, there’s no place for you at the inn, but if you’re willing, you can rest on the hay with the animals.
Mary and Joseph are so relieved to have a place for the night and anticipate a long, restful sleep. They settle in the straw, make room between the sheep and the goats, and Joseph drifts off. But Mary awakes with a start and the birthpangs begin.
The birthpangs of Christmas.
Up on that hill, those shepherds, who don’t think they have a significant place, who hear the same thing day in and day out, who talk to the same people over and over again, look up and notice a bright light, blinding them momentarily. When they look back up they see a host of angels. Angels visiting them, the shepherds, the nobodies up on the hill.
The shepherds are amazed at what they hear—good news of great joy, a special boy being born and they, the shepherds, are the ones to visit him. Amazed that God’s angels are visiting their little patch of grass in the world. They say to the angels: Isn’t such good news for those people down in the city? Isn’t it for the guests at the wedding banquet? The emperor and the military? We don’t think it’s our place to receive such good news.
And the angels reply: Today God brings good news of great joy for all the people. All the people.
Good news for all the people.
So they make their way down the hill, to the outskirts of Bethlehem. They see the sign the angels foretold: a young mother and a proud father, a baby boy all wrapped up in fabric from his mother’s cloak, lying on that hay in the manger.
The birthpangs of Christmas. Mary and Joseph realize this is their place, surrounded by shepherds, wrapping their perfect child with love.
The innkeeper and his wife can’t help but hear the commotion—the first cries of new life, both wrenching and sweet to the ear. The shepherds opening up the barn door, gasping in amazement. So they wander out to the barn, crowd around the manger and marvel at the infant. Just then, Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, the innkeeper and his grieving wife, all notice a bright light and are blinded, then alert. Up on that hill they see and hear a host of heavenly angels, praising God and singing: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among all and good will.”
These are the birthpangs of Christmas: Everyone has a place around that manger worshipping God: Shepherds and Samaritans, young mothers and unemployed fathers. The kingdom of God is born here tonight. God is born into the world as Emmanuel, God with us, and this child ushers in a whole new world: humanity has a place with God, for God has made God’s place with humanity in Jesus.
The kingdom is here:
Because in our worries with Joseph about scarcity, Jesus makes a place for abundance, multiplying the loaves and the fish and filling up the hungry with good things. Saying blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of God.
When we worry about being rejected, like Mary,….Jesus says, who is my mother and father? Who is my family? Because of me, we are all brothers and sisters. You always have a place in the family God.
To us, to the shepherds, when we’re outside the center, looking down from the margins, Jesus busts open earthly categories of power and says everyone is welcome at the wedding banquet: rich and poor, those on the street and those in the palace.
When the world tells us we’re not good enough, like the Samaritan, because of our race, gender, sexual orientation…Jesus says to the world: the Samaritan is your neighbor. The outcast is God’s beloved. The prostitutes have a prominent place in the ministry of Jesus and women will no longer know shame.
And when we face death, alongside the innkeeper’s wife, Jesus, through the power of resurrection, makes a place for new and eternal life; death is no more, mourning and crying and pain will disappear; and he will wipe every tear from our eyes.
These are the birthpangs of Christmas: A new world is being born! Because of Christmas, humanity has a place with God, for God has made God’s place with and for humanity in Jesus.
Tonight, we add our bodies to those gathered around the manger the first Christmas and meet around this communion table. God’s welcome table. Praising God and singing: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among all and goodwill.” Because of God’s communion with humanity in this infant, this communion table ushers in the foretaste of God’s kingdom. Here, nobody goes hungry. As you come to receive, look up, and you might just be blinded by a great light. When your eyes drift back down, you’ll glimpse all God’s children, gathered around the table: The hungry and full, shepherds and emperors, Samaritans and single moms; men and women, gay and straight; kids, youth, adults; those from every nation; and that great cloud of witnesses eternally reconciled with God in eternal life.
On Christmas, we wonder: Where is our place?
Our place is around God’s table.
For today God brings good news of great joy for all the people, all the people: For to you is born this day, in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. Amen.
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