On the front porch we sing, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Then we
all go in together, for hot coffee, “socks and soap,” women’s showers, and lots
of conversation. Christmas eve on a Tuesday morning at Manna House begins.
A guest tells me on the way in, “That Emmanuel song is my
favorite. ‘mourns in lonely exile here,’ moves me every time.”
I agree, my favorite Christmas song too. The music and words
evoke my longing for God to transform this troubled world. My Christmas hope is
that the way things are will give way to God’s dream for the flourishing of the
whole creation, humanity included.
Yet, I find it hard to hold to Christmas hope. The way
things are is broken. There is oppression, cruelty, hurt, and harm. Evil seems ascendant
and relentless. The system is designed to grind people down. Politics as usual
and consumer capitalism do not prioritize “the least of these.” The system engulfs
and distorts all of us, and we live amidst deadly contradictions and cross-purposes.
I start folding laundry and come across a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt.
Immediately, I think of several guests who were put to death by this system. But
while they were alive they were big Cowboys’ fans. They would have loved
getting this t-shirt. Contradictions. Cross-purposes. Christmas hope?
I look across the laundry room and see the John Kilzer t-shirt
I hung up last spring. It tumbled out of the dryer the Monday after he died.
John was a friend to those on the streets and people of all walks of life who struggle
with addiction. His clothing donations were especially appreciated by our
taller guests.
He often said, “There's a God-shaped hole in
all of us and only God can fill it.” More, he said God filled that hole with
God’s love and there was nothing any of us could do to make God stop loving us.
John’s life and words recall St. Paul’s Christmas
hope, “For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any
powers, neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that
is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).
This Christmas hope holds that despite the hardness of the
present order, love will be ascendant, or as Leonard Cohen sang, “There is
a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.”
So, Christmas hope celebrates the baby Jesus is born in Bethlehem,
of all places, a land under the empire of that time. Jesus brings a Way that is
Life and Truth, that practices a Christmas hope contrary to empires organized for
death; a Christmas hope that leads into the Beloved Community, designed for fullness
of life.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux identified the “little way” as a means to
practice Jesus’ Way in our daily lives. The little way embodies Christmas hope
as it cracks open ordinary tasks so that in them I can share in God’s revolutionary
love.
When I pass through the clothing room, a woman who has showered
asks if I can help get socks on her feet. She sits in a chair and I kneel in
front of her. Her feet are disformed by years of bad shoes and too many miles.
Socks do not go easily over her bunions and twisted toes, but eventually I
succeed. I help her with her shoes next.
Hospitality invites me to faithfully practice such little acts of Christmas
hope, so the light can come in, and so God’s reign comes in.
As the morning slows down, I have time to simply sit with
the few guests who remain. We begin to talk about Christmas and the many
disappointments each of us has experienced as Christmas came and went. Gifts
not received. People who disappointed. It seems like a good time to have a
Charlie Brown Christmas moment, an affirmation of Christmas hope. I read to
those gathered Luke’s version of the birth of Jesus. When I finish guests weigh
in.
“Jesus slept outside.”
“Jesus got a rough start.”
“No room for them in the inn.”
I look around and see a guest still asleep on the couch. He
has been there all morning. He will return to the streets when Manna House
closes.
“He’s coming back, you know,” a guest says about Jesus, “and
this time he won’t be born in a barn. This time he’s getting all of us off
these streets.”
Christmas hope.
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