All Inn

   2015-12-24 "All Inn"

When God wanted to show where Jesus was, he put a bright star in the east.

When we want to show where Jesus is we put up a church.

With a sign.

With puns.

Always with the puns.

Pithy puns.

"The best vitamin for a Christian is B1."

"Brush up on your Bible: It prevents truth decay."

"Like Jesus on Faithbook."

And we wonder why people don't come to church.

Which is not to say I don't enjoy puns.

Sometimes Scott and I will break out in battles to out-pun-ish the other.

We think we're hilarious.

We tell Carla, "If you keep rolling your eyes they'll get stuck that way."

She gets up to her eyeballs in puns.

So I was surprised last week when I saw a punned-out church sign that was (a) new (to me) and (b) thought-provoking.

It said,

"Are you one of the inn crowd [i-n-n, get it?], or are you one of the stable few?"

Good one.

Hats off to the labs at SayingsForChurchSigns.com.

Except.

Except it seems to imply that people who go to church are always stable and well-adjusted.

And that's true.

"Those Lake Hills Presbyterians are so stable and well-adjusted.

"Especially that preacher."

How often I hear that.

Actually, I've never heard it.

But I choose to believe it.

If only we could fit more well-adjusted people in here.

But there's not enough room!

Or well-adjusted people in South Knoxville.

And we'd no longer be a few.

We'd be overcrowded by an unstable in-crowd of our own making.

We'd have to set up a remote in the picnic pavilion out back.

Hey, wait a minute.

That sounds vaguely biblical.

Manger danger.

When the inn's unstable, the stable gets labeled a refuge for the able.

But that's a fable.

A self-deception from the false perception we're a chosen section granted God's election to see the perfection of the...

Word.

Christmas isn't about congratulating ourselves for being part of the stable few.

We're in church.

We're nowhere near a stable.

And thank goodness; they're stinky and we've got on nice clothes.

The world is so weird.

The world is crazy.

Good thing it's out there and we're in here.

In here.

Innn here.

Uh oh.

Christmas is the divine and ultimate sign that God makes a home on earth.

God makes a home even on this crazy, violent, unstable earth.

Even when the self-appointed inn-crowd has neither the time or nor the space for Baby Jesus.

With Jesus, we're all in.

All inn.

And Jesus?

He never stays stable.

He's right inn here with us.

--

On family vacations we'd stay at the Holiday Inn.

Green sign, fancy light bulbs.

They'd start at the top and make their way around to make the arrow and then flash in unison.

Here.

Here.

Here is your place of rest.

Here is your inn of holiday.

Air conditioning.

Color TV.

Vacancy.

Vacancy.

Vacancy.

2015 and the inn of humanity is no holiday.

Our time and space is packed to the rafters.

And at the same time, vacancy.

Vacancy.

Quote:

"We live in the time of no room....

The time when everyone is obsessed with lack of time, lack of space, with saving time, conquering space, projecting into time and space the anguish produced within them by the technological furies of size, volume, quantity, speed, number, price, power and acceleration."

"[We are] haunted by the demons of emptiness.

And out of this unutterable void come the armies, the missiles, the weapons, the bombs, the… camps, the race riots, the racist murders, and all other crimes of mass society."

The writer asks:

"Is this pessimism?

[Or] Is this the unforgivable sin of admitting what everybody really feels?"

Thomas Merton.

From Raids on the Unspeakable.

1960.

2015: Sorry, Joseph. Mary.

No room for your baby in THIS inn.

Unless...

he's a child of our own birthing, a savior of our own wishes, agreeing with our viewpoints, defending every un-meditated crime.

A Yes Man for Everyman.

Not a Savior to follow.

But a savior to keep in our back pocket.

A savior we holster.

A savior of the inn-side, whatever side we're in.

But the Year 1 Jesus?

The Bible's Jesus?

The Christ of loving your enemies and selling everything you own and giving it to the poor?

From his first night, there's never been room for that Jesus at the Unstable Inn.

Merton wrote:

"Into this world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for Him at all, Christ has come uninvited.

…With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present in this world.

He is mysteriously present in those for whom there seems to be nothing but the world at its worst."

--

It always kind of bothered me that we serve Communion on Christmas Eve.

I mean, he's not even born yet, and here we are, jumping ahead to crucifixion and death.

I want to say, "Slow down, people!

"Can we not be holly-jolly for ONE night?"

I guess I want a break.

I want a holiday from the news of the Inn-ternet and the CN-Inn.

(I never really thought about those puns before).

You say, "Watch Fox." You are sly.

I guess part of me just wants to make Jesus… Santa-fied.

Good news for people who've been good.

But that Jesus would be un-stable.

Unsustainable.

He would never make it to Easter.

He would not be good tidings of great joy to all people.

He would not be good news to the poor, healing of the brokenhearted, deliverance to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, liberty to those who are bruised.

He'd only be good news to those who fit in.

And so he makes his birthplace outside us.

But near us.

Just far enough away to be holy.

But close enough to hear our cries through the windows.

--

A poem by Madeline L'Engle

First Coming

He did not wait till the world was ready,

till men and nations were at peace.

He came when the Heavens were unsteady,

and prisoners cried out for release.

He did not wait for the perfect time.

He came when the need was deep and great.

He dined with sinners in all their grime,

turned water into wine.

He did not wait till hearts were pure.

In joy he came to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.

To a world like ours, of anguished shame he came,

and his Light would not go out.

He came to a world which did not mesh,

   to heal its tangles, shield its scorn.

In the mystery of the Word made Flesh

the Maker of the stars was born.

We cannot wait till the world is sane

to raise our songs with joyful voice,

for to share our grief, to touch our pain,

He came with Love:

Rejoice! Rejoice!

However unstable your inn may be, rejoice.

The Lord is come.

--

Madeleine L'Engle, from The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle

1