“Tell Us a Story”

A meditation for the day after Christmas

Based on Isaiah 63:7-9 and Matthew 2:13-23

December 26, 2004

Redlands United Church of Christ

Sharon R. Graff

As we prepare to close the books on 2004, we join Isaiah in doing our part to bring and to reflect the light of God’s story in our world. As we ready ourselves to open the doors and greet the next year, we join Joseph in dreaming, in imagining. I invite you, in the spirit of our scriptures today, to sit back in front of the crackling fire that is the warmth of our gathering today, and let me tell you a story.

This story is entitled, “Trouble at the Inn ” and it is written by Dina Donahue, an inspirational author and longtime member of the San Diego Christian Writers Guild.

“For years now whenever Christmas pageants are talked about in a certain little town in the Midwest , someone is sure to mention the name of Wallace Purling. Wally’s performance in one annual production of the Nativity play has slipped in the realm of legend. But the old-timers who were in the audience that night never tire of recalling exactly what happened.

“Wally was nine that year and in the second grade, though he should have been in the fourth. Most people in town knew that he had difficulty in keeping up. Wally was big and clumsy, slow in movement and mind. Still, Wally was well liked by the other children in his class, all of whom were smaller than he, though the boys had trouble hiding their irritation when Wally would ask to play ball with them or any game, for that matter, in which winning was important.

“Most often they’d find a way to keep him out, but Wally would hang around anyway -- not sulking, just hoping. He was always a helpful boy, a willing and smiling one, and the natural protector, paradoxically, of the underdog. If the older boys chased the younger ones away, it would always be Wally who’d say, ‘Can’t they stay?  They’re no bother.’

“Wally fancied the idea of being a shepherd with a flute in the Christmas pageant that year, but the play’s director, Miss Lumbard, assigned him to a more important role. After all, she reasoned, the Innkeeper did not have too many lines, and Wally’s size would make his refusal of lodging to Joseph more forceful.

“And so it happened that the usual large, partisan audience gathered for the town’s yearly extravaganza of shepherds’ crooks and crèches, of beards, crowns, halos, and a whole stage full of squeaky voices. No one on stage or off was more caught up in the magic of the night than Wallace Purling. They said later that Wally stood in the wings and watched the performance with such fascination that from time to time Miss Lumbard had to make sure he didn’t wander onstage before his cue.

“Then the time came when Joseph appeared, slowly, tenderly guiding Mary to the door of the inn. Joseph knocked hard on the wooden door set into the painted backdrop. Wally the Innkeeper was there, waiting.

“‘What do you want?’ Wally said, swinging the door open with a brusque gesture.

“‘We seek lodging.’

“‘Seek it elsewhere.’  Wally looked straight ahead but spoke vigorously. ‘The inn is filled.’

“‘Sir, we have asked everywhere in vain. We have traveled far and are very weary.’

“‘There is no room in this inn for you.’  Wally looked properly stern.

“‘Please, good Innkeeper, this I my wife, Mary. She is heavy with child and needs a place to rest. Surely you must have some small corner for her. She is so tired.’

“Now, for the first time, the Innkeeper relaxed his stiff stance and looked down at Mary. With that, there was a long pause, long enough to make the audience a bit tense with embarrassment.

“‘No!  Begone!’ the prompter whispered from the wings.

“‘No!’ Wally repeated automatically. ‘Begone!’

“Joseph sadly placed his arm around Mary, and Mary laid her head upon her husband’s shoulder, and the two of them started to move away. The Innkeeper did not return inside his inn, however, as the script demanded. Wally stood there in the doorway, watching the forlorn couple. His mouth was open, his brow creased with concern, his eyes filling unmistakably with tears.

“And suddenly this Christmas pageant became different from all others.

“‘Don’t go, Joseph,’ Wally called out. ‘Bring Mary back.’  And Wallace Purling’s face grew into a bright smile. ‘You can have my room.’

“Some people in town thought that the pageant had been ruined. Yet there were others -- many, many others -- who considered it the most Christmas of all Christmas pageants they had ever seen.”  The End.

We talk a lot in this church about offering room as did Wally, of offering an extravagant welcome -- especially as we align ourselves with the current UCC advertising campaign. Even before the controversy earlier this month from the networks, we talked and greeted as if all people are welcome here, as if God’s arms really do embrace everyone. Yet at the most unlikely of times -- during a Christmas pageant, for instance -- we hear and see this message of enlightening welcome in a new and transforming way. We hear Joseph say, “What do you mean, you’re pregnant?!” and in the space of just a few seconds, this our own Joseph character goes from angry to sullen to judgmental to despondent to joyful as he hears the angel’s message and, in his dreams, finally sees the light. We, too, hear and see the light in new and transforming ways when we listen to the darling angels sing their songs of joy, as we watch the humorous and all-too-real script unfold and touch us gently on the shoulder. “This story is for you,” says that touch, “and for you and you and you.”  You are the light. With your unique humor and insight and wisdom, you reflect the light, says that touch we felt last Sunday from our youth.

The biblical story of Christmas, with all its historical inaccuracies, remains a story of absolute truth. It is a story of the truth that light penetrates the shadows, that light will overcome the darkness, that the brightness of God’s love is a force stronger than any empire imagined by any Herod -- ancient or contemporary. The story proclaims beyond a shadow of a doubt that light and love will ultimately trump all else. They will trump sadness and grief, loss and fear, apathy, suspicion, and sarcasm; light and love will trump illness and even death.

As our youth so effectively reminded us last Sunday, this message of light coming into the world is a message that is there for each and every one of us to embody -- that is, to eat and digest and share with the world. Howard Thurman, the spiritual author and guide, once wrote,

“I will light candles this Christmas…

candles of joy, despite all sadness,

candles of hope where despair keeps watch,

candles of courage for fears ever present,

candles of peace for tempest-tossed days,

candles of grace to ease heavy burdens,

candles of love to inspire all my living,

candles that will burn all the year long.”

And thus does the story of light go from this year to the next -- through us, in us, changing us, needing us, because of us. Tell us that story, won’t you?

Amen and Blessed Be.

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