A Child's Invitation

Third Sunday in Advent

Luke 1:46-55; Isaiah 61:1-4,8-11

Long before the wilderness beckoned, or the lame were deposited at his feet, or the cross was in sight--even while he was being formed in the womb--his mother knew that the earth was about to be shaken.

The simple handmaiden comprehends the world's greatest mystery. Mary understands that hidden deep within her is a message of hope for a world aching for a Messiah. In the most ordinary and most miraculous event of birth, the world is being turned upside down.

Mary embodies the reversal that has already begun. The humble woman of low estate has been named most blessed. In potent words that might surprise those for whom the word meek comes to mind when picturing Mary, she announces the advent of a new day:

Lord, you have shown strength with
your arm, you have scattered the proud in the
imagination of their hearts, you have put down the mighty from their
thrones,
and exalted those of low degree; you have filled the hungry
with good things,
and the rich you have sent empty away. (Luke 1:51-53)

It all hangs on the first cry of a newborn baby. Cracks in a crude stable's walls let in the cold night air and release the warm and quiet cry that is the world's most significant birth announcement.

And in the unfolding of time, the son confirms the words of the mother. Grown to maturity, he announces his ministry. He stands in Nazareth among his people, in their synagogue, and reads from Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor. The Lord has sent me to proclaim release
to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty those
who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable
year of the Lord.

The implications of the words hit home. They disturb, anger, threaten. They proclaim a new order that is not popular among those who benefit from the status quo, so that shortly after the proclamation we find Jesus on the top of a hill about to be thrown over the edge by an angry crowd.

The message is simply that the humbled have now been exalted, the powerful have been deposed, those formerly left with crumbs and hunger pangs are invited to feast. The day has come; we only have to recognize it.

In this age, the banquet table is set for a new clientèle. Upon entering the hall where the feast is prepared, the poor trade in their shackles for garlands, their tattered coats for robes of righteousness.

At one corner of the table sits the homeless alcoholic who accepted a bus token from me one day and tried to sell it to a friend of mine the next. Next to him is the prostitute who moaned through the agony of heroin withdrawal in jail. And there sits the arthritic Mr. Washington from next door who always told me despondently, "The rich keep getting richer, and the poor keep getting nothin'. "

Never before has there been such a collection of the broken, the poor, the tortured. From all over the world come the refugees, the exploited, the ragged, the weary. And at the head of the huge table sits a young boy once crippled by poverty's personal attacks. A large tear of joy descends his cheek as his eyes take in with delight the feast before him: mashed potatoes and tortillas and fried rice, chitterlings and plantains, pork, and sweet potato pie. His eyes are as enormous as the pile of food in front of him.

The weak and lonely, now whole, join in laughter and share the global feast. Those whose food had been nothing but stark perseverance now revel in God's abundance.

Outside, peering through windows covered with the bars that they themselves once constructed, stand the hard-hearted, the selfish, the complacent. They cannot understand such a party. They alone are left out of this great banquet. For once a long time ago, a baby crept onto straw, and the event was too quiet for them to notice.

Inside at the foot of the table sits a figure with welcoming arms stretched wide to encompass all those seated around. He says, as if to answer the puzzlement of those who look in from outside, "For I the Lord love justice."

Fourth Sunday in Advent

Psalm 89:1-4,14-18; 2 Samuel 7:1-5,7-16; Luke 1:26-38

Three o'clock in the morning. Mid-December. Cold. Some 200 homeless men had finally settled down in the huge room off the church's kitchen for a short winter's nap. The calamitous meal was over, and the fighting, and now all was quiet but for some snoring and an occasional wheeze.

A knock on the door. Two young Hispanic women were on the stoop clutching three babies and two garbage bags full of possessions. They told me in Spanish that they had been sent by the police and needed a place to spend the night.

"But we can't take children in here with all these men." My Spanish was awkward.

Their weary eyes pleaded for rest as another gust of bone-chilling air rushed in from outside where they stood. The babies started one by one to cry.

"Okay."

Three other children appeared from behind them as I ushered the small parade through the snores and back to the kitchen where I had planned to grab some sleep. I spread my sleeping bag in the basket of the large dishwasher to make a bed for the 6-month-old twins, and found some milk to heat. We made places for the others and they soon fell asleep, except for one. That night as I sat on the concrete floor and rocked to sleep the whimpering 4-year-old in my lap, I discovered Christmas again.

"This is no place for children as precious as these." But there was no room for Jesus either. And certainly many who understood the significance of his birth must have felt that a stable was no place for such an infant to be born. But it was God's choice and not ours.

Someone is always trying to contain God in the place that seems exactly right. King David wanted to build him a temple of cedar, but God refused the offer and said that he would instead build David a house that would last forever, a figurative reference to his dynasty. God apparently prefers to live on in people.

The psalm reminds us that the foundation stones of David's throne were justice and righteousness. The everlasting qualities. The ones from which Jesus sprang forth, as Gabriel tells Mary:

He will be great, and will be called
the Son of the Most High;
and the Lord God will give to him
The throne of his father David,
and he will reign over the house of
Jacob for ever;
and of his kingdom there will be
no end.
(Luke 1:32-33)

There could be no more powerful or overwhelming words than these about the future of one's offspring. But Mary, rather than being caught up in such glory, offers humbly and quite practically, "How can this be, since I have no husband?"

God seems to be fond of limiting himself to the surprising, simple places. Like choosing to be borne by Mary. Like coming to life in a stable and living among the outcast and the poor. It seems God has even stooped to dwell within us, despite our sinfulness and doubt.

St. Francis wrote in his rule that "we should make a dwelling-place within ourselves where he can stay, he who is the Lord God almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." A dwelling-place is not a place one passes through, but the kind that one can take root in. God comes to us again this season as Emmanuel, "God with us," to take root and dwell with his peace. And by our willingness to allow him in, we fulfill the promise of a dynasty of justice and righteousness that lasts forever.

Thomas Merton once said, "Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him, Christ comes uninvited." In a violent world such as ours, the best that we can offer Christ are the small corners. The mangers and the dishwasher cribs. Our hearts. The humble places where he feels most at home.

The psalmist says, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." The Lord dwells in us, and our home is the Lord. It's the sort of reciprocal relationship that has astounding possibilities. All we need do is invite him in.

Joyce Hollyday was on the editorial staff at Sojourners when this article appeared.