Make Room for Christ

There was no room for them at the inn.

Everyone else, please have a seat.

Boys and girls, you can gather down here so I can talk to you.

Come on, come around here.

I am going to have a chat with you.

Come on. So, boys and girls.

You guys did a great job with the pageant.

Boys and girls,

I want to tell you a little story to connect this,

and here is what I want you to do.

I want you to imagine for a moment

that we are all on a hiking trip.

We are out in the wild, and that we have gotten lost.

We are lost.

We are all together, we are a whole group of families.

But we got lost, and we are stranded.

We are hungry, and we are running out of food,

and we are starting to run out of water.

And so there is a family meeting,

and we gather all the parents,

and the parents say,

“Well, we cannot just stay here, we are lost.

We have to do something.”

We decided to elect the strongest among us and said,

“We need to send him,

we have to give him or her all the water,

almost all the water and most of the food,

and we are going to send him to go get help.

And so we just saddle him up,

because we need him to go.

We do not have enough food to go out

and get the message and to bring back help.”

We are all excited to send him out, but we are a little nervous.

Will he make it?

Will he get out there, and will he get back?

And so just then, as we load him up,

and have him ready to go,

we heard a whoop, whoop, whoop.

What is that sound? A helicopter.

There is a helicopter coming.

So now all of a sudden,

we do not have to worry about sending this person away.

They have come to rescue us.

Now what do we have to do?

What do we have to do now?

We have to make room for the helicopter to land.

We have to clear a place.

Now we do not have to send anybody,

we just need to make room.

We start clearing the branches

and we start clearing a big place

so that the helicopter can land

and save us and rescue us.

See, boys and girls, that is the story of Christmas.

We do not need to do anything.

We just need to make room for Jesus

because he has come to redeem us.

He has come to help us.

And all we have to do is make room for him

in our hearts, make room for him in our lives.

Now, how do we do that, boys and girls?

What does that look like for ourselves?

If we make room for Christ, what does that look like?

Spending time talking and listening to him.

What else? Leaving a little bit of quiet time

for Jesus before you go to bed.

Going to mass, oh yeah, I like you a lot!

It is also, boys and girls, leaving room for each other.

We have to leave room for each other and the mistakes we make.

Because here is what we believe,

each one of us has Christ within us.

See, boys and girls, when we get baptized,

we become another Christ.

So that means everybody here is another Christ.

We need to make room not only just for their Christ,

but for all the other Christs who are around us.

And we need to be kind to our friends.

That means, for example,

leaving room for your younger brother or sister

who may not get everything right, who may make mistakes.

And room for your older brother or sister

who may not be always as nice to you as you want them to be,

is we make room for Christ in our lives.

So, boys and girls,

what I would like you to do today and this week

is make a little bit of room, take something away.

Because like the branches in that story,

we had to clear some of the branches and the grass away.

We had to take something out.

Can we have just a few minutes less television?

A few minutes less playing on the computer

so that we leave room for Christ,

so we can say a couple extra prayers?

Can we let go of a couple of our toys

so that we can share them with our brothers or sisters?

So can we make room for each other and our mistakes?

Can we do that, boys and girls? Yeah?

Okay, go on back to your seats.

[Speaking to the adults]

It sounds so easy to make room but if truth be told

is it is a lot more difficult and we all know that.

We know that our lives are very full,

full of not just material things,

although we have plenty of that stuff.

We have lots of stuff, cars and clothes

and we would call them toys if we were still kids.

But we think there is something more than that

when we call them computers and cell phones and cars

and you know, they are still toys.

But it is not just that.

There are so many voices coming at us.

So much coming through our Instagram, our TikTok,

our Facebook or YouTube

or whatever the other different social media.

We have lots of things coming at us and that is not even to mention

the television or the sports we watch.

How do we make room when we have all this stuff

coming at us all the time?

It is much easier said than done.

You see, the truth be told is we have to make some decisions.

If we are going to make room for Christ,

then what we have to do is to subtract something.

You cannot add something.

You see, the message of Christmas

is not about us having to do something

as much as it is to let go of something

so that Christ can come into our lives again

because He has already come.

He is already here.

He is a “God with us,” Emmanuel,

that is what we celebrate every year.

And we come every year here to make room once again.

When the scripture says that there was no room at the inn,

it is a historical thing that keeps repeating over and over again.

There was no room then,

there was not room 100 years ago

and there is not room again today.

We have different reasons, different stuff.

Whether it be material stuff or voices or games on the internet,

but we do have a choice.

We have the choice to make room for Christ

in our hearts, to make room for Christ.

But we have to be honest.

We have to decide to subtract something.

This is not an addition, this is subtraction.

We have to remove something.

What is it that we want to remove?

Only you can make that decision.

I cannot make that decision for you.

I know what I have to remove.

It is up to you to decide what you have to remove.

But you cannot say that you do not have time

because that is not true.

That is just simply not true.

It is how you are spending your time.

Can you do with 15 or 30 minutes less,

television or social media?

Will you really notice less of those YouTube videos?

Will you really miss another round of television shows?

Will you really miss another newscaster saying something

that we already know?

Can we subtract something?

You see, that is how we make room,

but it is not enough just to make room

because what Christ wants to do is make room,

but he also wants to be part of our lives.

And we have to make room for each other

because we believe that Christ is with us,

the God among us, God with us.

And so therefore we need to make room for each other.

So what does that look like?

Maybe we need to make room

for that family member who has been estranged.

And this is the time to forgive.

And that is the subtraction.

The subtraction is just let it go.

Why? Because it does not serve us any good anymore

to let that family back in.

Or maybe it is where we need to make room

for that neighbor who we know who has lost a loved one,

who is deeply wounded and hurt and lonely,

and their family will not be around.

Can we make room for them at our table?

Can we make room for them and their pain without judgment,

without some sort of precondition?

Can we make room for, it is not enough just to do it

for our family and those around us.

The ones who we really need to make room for

are the most vulnerable, the broken, the really wounded,

those who do not have somebody looking out for them.

That might be that homeless person or that widow, yes.

It might be somebody who is on the point of homelessness.

It might be an immigrant.

And yes, they might indeed be illegal,

but they are looking for a different home.

They are looking for somewhere to be.

They are looking for a better life.

And who are we to judge how they can come here?

Yes, we have to have borders, I get that.

But can we make room for them in our hearts?

Can we be gentle and kind?

Can we be Christ to them?

Can we open our hearts up a little and clear the space?

Can we make room for the division between us,

those who are ideologically different to us,

whether it be political or religious?

Can we stop the fighting and make room for peace?

Can we make room for unity?

That is what the Lord needs in our world today.

That is what we need in our world today.

So let us choose to make room for Christ,

each one of us in our own way

by first making some time

so that we can listen to what Christ is calling us to do.

And then make room for each other, the Christ among us,

so that we can be gentle and kind,

that we can be forgiving,

that we can look after the most vulnerable in our society.

You see, today we are called to make room for Christ,

God who is with us, Emmanuel.

Let us do it together.

There was no room for them at the inn.