The Trouble With Stables
Stories
Lectionary Tales for the Pulpit
Series VI, Cycle C
Object:
What do you know about stables? They are not pretty places. The light is not that good. Walk into a stable and take a deep breath ... if you dare. Whew! But now it is Christmas and suddenly stables take on a different image. Instead of the dark, grimy, smelly places that they really are, we let our minds picture them as much more socially acceptable. In houses everywhere there are I-don't-know-how-many manger scenes -- some wood, some plastic, some ceramic, some papier-mâché. They are on the coffee tables, on the mantle, or under the tree to help us remember the occasion we commemorate, the coming of God in human flesh, the birth of the baby Jesus. It is a rather romantic picture, the way we do it, and the reason it is romantic is the same as so many things we make romantic -- they are not real. To be quite honest, our popular picture of that manger scene is wildly inaccurate.
Be that as it may, do we do the Christmas story an injustice by trying to pretty it up? I do not think God wanted it to be pretty. If God had wanted it pretty, it would have been handled differently. For years we have heard that Jesus could have chosen a palace. After all, King of kings and Lord of lords. But if the Lord's reason for steering clear of palaces was simply not to scare us off with too much majesty, or to demonstrate humility, there could have been some middle ground, couldn't there? Some place decent, at least; some place that smelled a little better, that had a little better light? But no, it was a room shared with animals -- dark, grimy, smelly. I wonder why.
Actually, I do not wonder. I feel fairly certain that I know. The Lord chose the location for that miraculous birth precisely because it was lousy. It was not any reverse snobbery. It was not just to convey some image of humility. No, the message was that God would be available to us even in the most putrid circumstances we could imagine, those circumstances when we would normally feel that God would be a million miles away.
Think about it. Here are some "boy meets girl" stories to show how it works.
Story 1. Boy meets girl -- they fall deeply and deliciously in love. They plan a beautiful life together. They marry. They have children. They create a lovely home. All goes well. And suddenly, it's over. You see, boy has met another girl ... younger, prettier, no stretch marks, no independent opinions ... and boy takes off, leaving girl number one with the children, the mortgage, and a boat load of broken dreams.
That is hard to deal with. The situation is miserable. There is anger. There is hurt. There is grief. There is a feeling of abandonment ... and not just the sense of being abandoned by a lover, but by everyone and everything good. Home is not the same anymore. It may as well be a stable. Is God in the midst of that? Or has God left, too? The story of Christmas says God is there!
Story 2. Boy meets girl -- love, then marriage, and eventually a beautiful daughter, the apple of her daddy's eye. Anything she wanted, she could get. She had daddy wrapped around her little finger before she ever knew she had a little finger.
She was raised right -- Sunday school and church, good training in the home, a sound set of values. She did well in school and was one of those who might be voted "Most Likely to Succeed." One could easily have pictured her future as one that would hold a successful career, a bright and talented husband, a beautiful home, handsome children, and all the rest.
But time marches on. She has become an independent young lady with ideas of her own. She meets a fellow who is somewhat less than her mom and dad might have hoped for -- no job, no education, no money, no future, and apparently no razor -- just a motorcycle, one earring, and a ponytail. She drops out of school, runs off with him, gets pregnant, and dies in child birth.
Mom and Dad sit there under the tent during the graveside service hearing the preacher talk about life and hope and resurrection ... but they are not really listening. Both are thinking the same thing: "Where did we go wrong?" Who knows?
Finally, the funeral is over. The people who came by the house to offer their sympathy and condolences are gone. All that is left is a kitchen full of uneaten food ... and two people full of unanswered questions. They have gone to bed now and lie quietly thinking that this will be a miserable Christmas. The house is dark -- just a little light shining through the window from the street lamp outside. Probably not much more light in that room than was there that night in Bethlehem -- stables tend to be dark. But the story of Christmas tells us that God is there in that dark.
Story 3. Boy meets girl -- more love, more marriage. No children this time. Just two people who will grow old together in great contentment. They had stood before the minister years ago and vowed to love and care for each other "till death us do part," and they had kept their promise. But now one of them is no longer able to do that. He hardly even knows who he is anymore. Not only can he not love and care for his sweet wife, he cannot even take care of himself. She has to do it all. Oh, she does not really mind. She loves him more now than she ever did. But there are times ... oh, there are times ... when she gets exhausted and wonders how she can go on. She gives and gives and gives some more ... and gets nothing in return. Not even at Christmas. That is hard.
It is almost what one would expect in a stable. After all, people do not come to stables looking to be cared for. When we go to a stable, we expect there is work to be done. No thanks, no rewards, just drudgery. And the story of Christmas says that, in the midst of the drudgery, God is there.
Story 4. Boy meets girl -- they fall in love; they marry. They have children ... two good ones and one miserable wretch. Two "A" students and one dropout. Two with successful careers, one who could never hold a job. Two who were cream of society, one the curdled milk. Could the conclusion be "two they loved and one they didn't"? Not at all. They loved each one.
Now it is December 24th. The phone rings and the voice on the other end says that their child is in jail ... caught selling drugs to an undercover cop. Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas.
They go down to the police station to bail the child out. No luck. Bail has not been determined yet and arraignment cannot happen until after Christmas -- the judge is out of town. It does not matter how much money you have. If Santa is going to see this child, this year it will be in a cage. Hmm ... a stable with bars.
Granted, the stories are extremes. But extremes happen all the time, and we know it. For most of us, though, the stables in which we sometimes find ourselves are much less dramatic: the disappointments that come when our youthful dreams sink into the quicksand of grown-up reality, the day-to-day grind of a job that is just work, the dull pain that hangs on and on about which the doctors cannot seem to do anything, the emptiness of a home that is now just a house where people stay. The love is gone, the boredom that comes in retirement after a life of fulfilling activity sets in. Nothing dramatic, but then stables rarely are.
The trouble with stables is not that they are dark and dirty and smelly -- that is the nature of a stable. No, the trouble with stables is that there are so many of them. They are everywhere, not just in Bethlehem. They are everywhere that people reach the end of the line, when there are no more choices, no more rooms in the inn, when all that is left is to just desperately hang on.
The story of Christmas is a reminder that we are not alone in our stables -- God is there in that undramatic, dingy, dreary place. God is there in those hours of our lives when it seems that everything is wrong, when all is dark, when things just stink -- precisely the hours when we need God most. The Christmas story tells us that God is there with us! And the reason is that God wants to be there with us!
Will God lead us out of the stable? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The promise is that even that stable will turn out to be something or someplace good for God's children. We might not be able to see that good for a time, but we can count on the certainty of the promise. More than that, we can count on the certainty of God's presence. It may be a stable, one of many stables, but God is there!
Yes, again this Christmas we will walk into our dens and living rooms and kitchens and be confronted with an array of delights that signify celebration. Just remember that the other sights and sounds and smells, the stable sights and sounds and smells, are real life. They may be your life right now. If they are, the good news is those are the real sights and sounds and smells into which our Savior came and comes and comes again ... to be with you.
Be that as it may, do we do the Christmas story an injustice by trying to pretty it up? I do not think God wanted it to be pretty. If God had wanted it pretty, it would have been handled differently. For years we have heard that Jesus could have chosen a palace. After all, King of kings and Lord of lords. But if the Lord's reason for steering clear of palaces was simply not to scare us off with too much majesty, or to demonstrate humility, there could have been some middle ground, couldn't there? Some place decent, at least; some place that smelled a little better, that had a little better light? But no, it was a room shared with animals -- dark, grimy, smelly. I wonder why.
Actually, I do not wonder. I feel fairly certain that I know. The Lord chose the location for that miraculous birth precisely because it was lousy. It was not any reverse snobbery. It was not just to convey some image of humility. No, the message was that God would be available to us even in the most putrid circumstances we could imagine, those circumstances when we would normally feel that God would be a million miles away.
Think about it. Here are some "boy meets girl" stories to show how it works.
Story 1. Boy meets girl -- they fall deeply and deliciously in love. They plan a beautiful life together. They marry. They have children. They create a lovely home. All goes well. And suddenly, it's over. You see, boy has met another girl ... younger, prettier, no stretch marks, no independent opinions ... and boy takes off, leaving girl number one with the children, the mortgage, and a boat load of broken dreams.
That is hard to deal with. The situation is miserable. There is anger. There is hurt. There is grief. There is a feeling of abandonment ... and not just the sense of being abandoned by a lover, but by everyone and everything good. Home is not the same anymore. It may as well be a stable. Is God in the midst of that? Or has God left, too? The story of Christmas says God is there!
Story 2. Boy meets girl -- love, then marriage, and eventually a beautiful daughter, the apple of her daddy's eye. Anything she wanted, she could get. She had daddy wrapped around her little finger before she ever knew she had a little finger.
She was raised right -- Sunday school and church, good training in the home, a sound set of values. She did well in school and was one of those who might be voted "Most Likely to Succeed." One could easily have pictured her future as one that would hold a successful career, a bright and talented husband, a beautiful home, handsome children, and all the rest.
But time marches on. She has become an independent young lady with ideas of her own. She meets a fellow who is somewhat less than her mom and dad might have hoped for -- no job, no education, no money, no future, and apparently no razor -- just a motorcycle, one earring, and a ponytail. She drops out of school, runs off with him, gets pregnant, and dies in child birth.
Mom and Dad sit there under the tent during the graveside service hearing the preacher talk about life and hope and resurrection ... but they are not really listening. Both are thinking the same thing: "Where did we go wrong?" Who knows?
Finally, the funeral is over. The people who came by the house to offer their sympathy and condolences are gone. All that is left is a kitchen full of uneaten food ... and two people full of unanswered questions. They have gone to bed now and lie quietly thinking that this will be a miserable Christmas. The house is dark -- just a little light shining through the window from the street lamp outside. Probably not much more light in that room than was there that night in Bethlehem -- stables tend to be dark. But the story of Christmas tells us that God is there in that dark.
Story 3. Boy meets girl -- more love, more marriage. No children this time. Just two people who will grow old together in great contentment. They had stood before the minister years ago and vowed to love and care for each other "till death us do part," and they had kept their promise. But now one of them is no longer able to do that. He hardly even knows who he is anymore. Not only can he not love and care for his sweet wife, he cannot even take care of himself. She has to do it all. Oh, she does not really mind. She loves him more now than she ever did. But there are times ... oh, there are times ... when she gets exhausted and wonders how she can go on. She gives and gives and gives some more ... and gets nothing in return. Not even at Christmas. That is hard.
It is almost what one would expect in a stable. After all, people do not come to stables looking to be cared for. When we go to a stable, we expect there is work to be done. No thanks, no rewards, just drudgery. And the story of Christmas says that, in the midst of the drudgery, God is there.
Story 4. Boy meets girl -- they fall in love; they marry. They have children ... two good ones and one miserable wretch. Two "A" students and one dropout. Two with successful careers, one who could never hold a job. Two who were cream of society, one the curdled milk. Could the conclusion be "two they loved and one they didn't"? Not at all. They loved each one.
Now it is December 24th. The phone rings and the voice on the other end says that their child is in jail ... caught selling drugs to an undercover cop. Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas.
They go down to the police station to bail the child out. No luck. Bail has not been determined yet and arraignment cannot happen until after Christmas -- the judge is out of town. It does not matter how much money you have. If Santa is going to see this child, this year it will be in a cage. Hmm ... a stable with bars.
Granted, the stories are extremes. But extremes happen all the time, and we know it. For most of us, though, the stables in which we sometimes find ourselves are much less dramatic: the disappointments that come when our youthful dreams sink into the quicksand of grown-up reality, the day-to-day grind of a job that is just work, the dull pain that hangs on and on about which the doctors cannot seem to do anything, the emptiness of a home that is now just a house where people stay. The love is gone, the boredom that comes in retirement after a life of fulfilling activity sets in. Nothing dramatic, but then stables rarely are.
The trouble with stables is not that they are dark and dirty and smelly -- that is the nature of a stable. No, the trouble with stables is that there are so many of them. They are everywhere, not just in Bethlehem. They are everywhere that people reach the end of the line, when there are no more choices, no more rooms in the inn, when all that is left is to just desperately hang on.
The story of Christmas is a reminder that we are not alone in our stables -- God is there in that undramatic, dingy, dreary place. God is there in those hours of our lives when it seems that everything is wrong, when all is dark, when things just stink -- precisely the hours when we need God most. The Christmas story tells us that God is there with us! And the reason is that God wants to be there with us!
Will God lead us out of the stable? Perhaps. Perhaps not. The promise is that even that stable will turn out to be something or someplace good for God's children. We might not be able to see that good for a time, but we can count on the certainty of the promise. More than that, we can count on the certainty of God's presence. It may be a stable, one of many stables, but God is there!
Yes, again this Christmas we will walk into our dens and living rooms and kitchens and be confronted with an array of delights that signify celebration. Just remember that the other sights and sounds and smells, the stable sights and sounds and smells, are real life. They may be your life right now. If they are, the good news is those are the real sights and sounds and smells into which our Savior came and comes and comes again ... to be with you.
