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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us December 10, 2005 A lesson from the Nativity: There’s always a little more room Scott Dalgarno Pam Shepherd, the delightful new pastor of Ashland’s United Church of Christ, said the following to me recently about this festive season, “It’s our best story.” She’s right. Christmas is our best story. It’s what is entirely unique about Christianity. Buddha found enlightenment as a young adult. Muhammud experienced his “night of power” as an adult. Moses was married when he encountered his burning bush. Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan as an adult, but it is his birth that has captured the world’s imagination. The idea that God might appear in human form is not new. The Greeks and Hindus have spoken of this forever, but the idea of God manifesting God’s self as a vulnerable winsome baby is something fresh, vibrant, and disarming. Part of the winsomeness has to do with the story’s second irony — not just the irony of incarnation (God coming into the world), but also the irony of the fact that the world is slow about making room for him. And Joseph … went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to be delivered. And she gave birth to her first-born son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. An unwed pregnant (by “the Holy Spirit”) teenager is traveling with a man, says Luke’s version, and they couldn’t find a motel room. It’s a pretty old story. Imagine the following exchange: Joseph: But my wife is pregnant. Innkeeper: That’s not my fault. Joseph: It’s not my fault, either. Ironically the Hebrew word for salvation is Yasha. Which means literally, to enlarge, or to make room. Interesting, eh? There is always room, you know, if we want to make it. Right this minute I’m looking out my office window at the trailer park across Siskiyou Boulevard. A couple of years ago we had a discussion of a sort in this town about whether there ought or ought not be room in our town for those who accept low wages to clean our inns and motel rooms, or take care of our parents. We decided that was a good thing, and I’m glad for it. If not, we might as well have put up guard houses at the two freeway exits and made this a gated community. Jesus, truth be told, did not come from one of the “better” families. He was one of the people we might call marginal and the company he chose lived on the margins as well: prostitutes, drinkers, the blind, and the lame. Once when his mother and brothers came looking for him they caught him right in the middle of teaching. The house he was using as his classroom was so crowded word had to be brought to him that his mother and brothers were outside. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked “Here are my mother and my sisters and my brothers,” he said, looking around him at the dozens who’d just come in off the street. What made Jesus Jesus was that he had a heart bigger than the world. No room? Jesus’ heart still beats — Just listen to this story from Asad Bin Saif, a scholar of India’s slums. It’s full of Christmas hope: “Look at the hands from the trains [here in India]. If you are late for work in Bombay and reach the station just as the train is leaving the platform, you can run up to the packed compartments and find many hands stretching out to pull you on board, unfolding outward from the train like petals. As you run alongside you will be picked up, and a tiny space will be made for your feet on the edge of the open doorway. The rest is up to you. You will probably have to hang on to the door frame with your fingertips, being careful not to lean out too far lest you get decapitated by a pole placed close to the tracks. But consider what has happened; Your fellow passengers, already packed tighter than cattle, their shirts drenched with sweat in the badly ventilated compartment, retain an empathy for you — knowing that your boss might yell at you or cut your pay if you miss this train — and make space where none exists. And at the moment of contact, they do not know if the hand that is reaching for theirs belongs to a Hindu or a Muslim or a Christian or a Brahmin or an untouchable or whether you’re from Bombay or Mumbai or New York. All they know is that you’re trying to get to Bombay, the city of gold, and that’s enough. Come on board, they say. We’ll adjust. We ‘ll make room.” (From “Holding on in Bombay” by Suketu Mehta). Scott Dalgarno is pastor of Ashland’s First Presbyterian Church DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams