There's no place like home for the holidays!

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

(Scriptures for today's liturgy)

Audio for homily

Only at Christmas time would we ever think it something beautiful

to place in churches and in our living rooms

table-top to life-size replicas of a barn for animals.

But we do that every Christmas.

We bring a barn into church, we bring a barn into our homes.

Of course it’s the heart of every crèche that captures our attention.

It’s that feedbox, that manger

in which the infant Jesus finds his bed and makes his home.

I’ll bet if King David had any notion 
of where the Messiah would be born

he wouldn’t have worried, as he did, about living in a cedar palace

while the Lord’s presence, in the Ark of the Covenant,

dwelled in a tent.

When David announced his plans to build the Lord a trophy home,

the Lord set him straight:

“Should YOU build ME a house?”

There was no WAY for King David to fashion a house fit for God -

nor was God in need of anything the King might build.

In fact, the Lord says, 
he’s going to build an even greater house for David,

a house that will last forever.

We often get things mixed up like this,

thinking that we need to do for God --

what God has already done for us.

Today’s gospel reminds us

that before Joseph and Mary went knocking on Bethlehem’s doors,

Jesus had already found a home in the “house of Mary’s womb.”

It’s fascinating, mysterious and comforting to remember

that God chose to enter our lives by first confining himself,

(he who made us and the whole world)

that he would confine himself first to the intimacy of a Mary’s womb,

and then nestle himself against the nourishing warmth of her breasts

once she gave him birth.

There was a danger in God’s coming to us as a child, as a poor child,

the danger that like so many other poor children in history

he might have been lost, forgotten, abandoned or sold.

And even though some 2,000 years later he does indeed survive,

he’s often, easily lost in the hustle and shuffle

of the very celebration of his birthday -- even by believers.

Let’s take care not to repeat King David’s mistake.

Let’s not try to fashion a place in our hearts

to welcome Jesus at Christmas.

That’s what I said:

Let’s not try to fashion a place in our hearts

to welcome Jesus at Christmas.

Let’s not try to do for the Lord what the Lord has already done for us.

Just as Jesus found a home in Mary’s womb,

just as Jesus found a place to lay his head in Bethlehem,

so Jesus has already found a home in your heart and in mine.

And he seeks no other home, no greater home, no larger home,

no fancier home than the home he finds in the human heart.

You know how you might be embarrassed

when an unannounced guest arrives at your door

and your house is a mess?

It’s a little like that with Jesus but with this significant difference:

He’s isn’t going to surprise you

and ring your doorbell on Christmas. “Here I am!”

He’s already here -- he’s already moved in -- into your heart and mine,

and the houses of our hearts are a mess!

And he may be staying in a guest room that no one has cleaned

since Aunt Mary moved out 30 years ago.

And he loves living there, as a guest, in a room in your heart,

already.

If you came to church today to find the Lord, that’s fine.

But keep in mind that he’s living in your house you left to come here.

He’s already living in the hearts of the people you live with,

and in your neighbors’ hearts -- all of them!

And he came to church in your heart

along with everyone else who’s here today, too.

It would be good for us to spruce up that guest room in our hearts,

knowing that he’s here and his birthday is this week.

It would be very good for us to reach out to those this week

who have no homes in which to spend the night

because we can be sure Jesus spends the nights in the hearts of those

who have no shelter, no warmth, no food.

Just let us not pretend that he has not already come,

that he is not already living with us.

If we pretend Jesus won't arrive until Christmas day,

it makes it all the more easy to pretend that he'll leave,

soon after the tree is taken down...

Not just at Christmas but on every day of the year,

Jesus confines himself to the wombs of our hearts

and makes his home within us

because that is where he chooses to dwell,

where he chose to dwell long before any of us was born.

Over the next few days we will be making our houses ready

to celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

Bethlehem means “house of bread.” Isn’t that wonderful?

That the city in which Jesus was born, its name means 
“house of bread.”

We are, at this moment, gathered at this altar

in the house of God’s Bread.

We are invited to share the Bread of Life, and the Cup of Salvation,

the sacrament, the gift of the One who is God’s gift to us.

We are gathered in a Bethlehem, in a house of bread.

May the word and food we share at this table

open our hearts to his presence,

within us and among us.

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