Before, I'd always made this sentence into a metaphor: there's no room in my cluttered heart for God, no room in our busy lives for the Christ Child. But for so many people, the lack of room is hard, physical reality, not mere poetry. My mind today drifts back to one Christmas, not too long ago, when I became the reluctant inn-keeper.
At first, like the inn-keepers of Bethlehem, I didn’t realize that the intrusion of this unknown little family into my world had anything to do with God. I was at home in Louisville, Kentucky, sleeping soundly, enjoying the blissful and dreamless sleep of post-Christmas clergy. Suddenly, the phone rang. At four in the morning. A clergy colleague from across the state apologized for waking me up so early and then asked for my help. As she unfolded her rather complex tale, my stomach began to wrap itself in knots, and my heart began to sink. “Not today,” I pleaded with God. (I imagine that those innkeepers in Bethlehem were reluctant to get out of bed, too.)
“There’s a young couple,” she said breathlessly, “trying to get home to Nebraska for the holidays. They don’t have any money, so I bought them tickets on the Megabus. A church member drove them the two-hours to downtown Louisville to catch the bus, but the Megabus driver wouldn’t let them on the bus without proof that I had paid for the electronic tickets. He shut the door in their faces and ran over the mother’s foot as he drove away. I’m out $400, and they are downtown with my church member and don’t know where to go. There won’t be another Megabus tonight.”
The first “inn” had violently shut its doors. I was too sleepy to be indignant.
My colleague continued: “It’s 19 degrees outside, and they have two small children. Can you help them?” (At least it wasn’t below freezing in Bethlehem.)
My mind still foggy with sleep, I tried to think of some way to help this family, without inconveniencing myself. I could certainly get up and drive downtown and take them to my house or even to church. I could get up and take them all to breakfast and put them on a Greyhound bus. But I wasn’t feeling very generous. After all, I was on vacation, and I had no idea who these people were! I wanted to make this my colleague’s problem. I would help her solve her problem. That usually works when I want to look like I'm being helpful.
“Why don’t you find them a motel? I’ll pay for the room,” I offered. [I tend to throw money at problems when I don’t want to deal with them.] I snuggled back down into my pillows, happy to have solved the problem so easily.
Thirty minutes later, the phone rang again. It was my tired colleague.
“The family drove over there, and the motel won’t let them stay. They won’t take payment from credit cards if you aren’t there to show them the card.” The second inn had shut its doors. The nerve of those untrusting innkeepers, I thought.
I, however, was determined not to get involved. “I guess the Cathedral isn’t open yet,” I muttered, eying the clock. It was about 5:30 a.m. “I know, what about the warming shelter? Maybe they could stay there for a few hours, and then I can come down and take them to the Greyhound station later?”
“Give them my phone number,” I added with new-found generosity, “in case there's any more trouble.” And I pulled up the covers and shut my eyes.
At 6 a.m. or so, my phone rang again. This time it was the young mother. “The shelter won’t let us in!” she fumed. They say we have to wait out here in the cold until 8 a.m. before we can go in the lobby. I’m so tired. Can you please help us?”
What, a shelter that won’t take in a freezing family?! You’ve got to be kidding me! I start to wonder if the young mother is making up all of this rejection. I get suspicious and try to trip her up in her story. But that church member is still there with her, so she must be telling the truth. The third inn had barred its doors.
I was finally waking up, and I started to feel a twinge of moral outrage … or was it guilt? I could understand the voice of an exhausted mother who was worried about her babies. And besides, it was after 6 a.m. now. I might as well get up. I offered to meet them at the Greyhound bus station and buy them tickets home.
I still didn’t think about the Nativity, until I saw the baby. There he was, only a few months old, nestled in the manger of an old car seat. He looked just like the Baby Jesus in those paintings by Rubens, with chubby little arms and legs, and pale, white porcelain skin. His eyes were shut tight, as if they had been painted on, and “no crying he made.” He just looked different, like something the Holy Spirit might have conjured up.
Animals didn’t stand around this baby’s bed, but his two-year-old brother tottered unsteadily around him with the jerky movements of an exhausted child. Mary stood there nervously, too, a tiny mother who looked to be about sixteen years old, though she must have been older. She talked a mile a minute, clearly in charge of this little family and going on pure adrenaline. Joseph looked much older and stood quiet and removed, often looking down at the ground. He was the one who kept thanking me.
Instead of shepherds, there were other early morning passengers shuffling around the baby, all a bit down on their luck, all looking tired. Instead of angels, there were Amish women in starched white bonnets and stiff dresses, looking very righteous and yet kind at the same time. Instead of wise men, there was an evangelist of some sort with a kingly gray beard and a thin black tie and shiny shoes. He was handing out little gifts and tracts to all of the waiting children, with a smile. The downtown Greyhound Station was a perfect stable for this child of God, a typical refuge for the modern family that everyone, including me, had turned away.
As life would have it, I learned later that this little family was far from divine. As a real-life human family, it was troubled, and the story that they had told my colleague and me wasn't quite the whole story. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that they did make it back home, and they opened my eyes to my role as inn-keeper, an inn-keeper with the tendency to keep my neighbor--not just my God--out in the cold for much too long.
Howard Thurman, a theologian we'll be discussing here at St. Ambrose in January's Adult Formation, wrote a poem for us innkeepers tonight. Here's part of it:
Where refugees seek deliverance that never comes ...
Where children age before their time
And life wears down the edges of the mind ...
Where fear companions each day’s life,
And Perfect Love seems long delayed.
CHRISTMAS IS WAITING TO BE BORN:
In you, in me, in all mankind.
God is born tonight so that there may always be room for Love, not just in our hearts, but in our lives.
No comments:
Post a Comment