The dog that we use to dress up to be one of the sheep in the pageant has long since died. But not before she grew progressively more cantankerous until, near the end, we had a sheep that would growl under its breath as it came up the aisle and occasionally snarl, or nip, at Wise Men who didn't have the sense to keep enough distance. We have also learned not to use a live donkey. I'll won't go into any specific detail other than to say it is one thing to hear cattle lowing at the manger, it is quite another to watch a donkey doing what that one did, where it did it.

It wasn't just animals that would do their own thing and depart from the letter of the script. We have had the wings fall off of angels even as they were announcing the coming of the Messiah. I guess they were just blown away by the awesome news they were delivering.

We have watched Mary drop the baby Jesus, kings forget to bring their gifts and shepherds that wandered off stage taking various animals into the audience with them. One year the angel holding the pine branch over the Holy Family began to absent-mindedly move the upper part of her body left and right. The effect could have been interpreted as the wind of the Spirit in the branches of the trees, I suppose. The problem was that each time she turned to the left the tips of the branches waved through the altar candles. Did you know that our sprinkler system is capable of delivering ten thousand gallons of water in less than 30 minutes? Thankfully, it was not set off during the pageant that Christmas Eve.

All churches that have pageants have a million stories. But along with all the funny ones, one of our stories holds a great irony. This story has nothing to do with characters. It has to do with the space in which the pageant took place.

Before we built the Saint James Center the pageant was in the church. And Christmas has always been a time when many people arrive whom we have not seen for a while, if ever.

Don't feel singled out if you are one of these-remember that Joseph hadn't been back to Bethlehem in years before that first Christmas. We are always glad when people join us here and we hope you will stay for the weeks and years ahead.

The issue we used to have was that the church only seats 300. As the years went by we'd be full a half an hour before the pageant even started. So I remember how, for years, I would hear the voice of a child saying "...and there was no room at the inn." And then I'd look up from the altar and watch our ushers turn away over 200 people from the front door.

In 1996 we built the Saint James Center. In keeping with the rural character of this area we designed it to look like a barn. What a perfect place to tell the story of the birth in the manger without having to turn away any who has come to hear it. When empty, the Center is a cavernous space. But in times of celebration we can hold far more than just a manger and the cast of the pageant. There is room for an altar, two priests, four chalicists, several acolytes, three or four choirs, a pack of musicians and a thousand seated people. If we wanted a partridge and a pear tree there is plenty of room for them too. When we planned the space we conceived of it as a large empty place. And much of the year, it is empty. But we wanted to be able to receive whoever came, when the time was right.

Most of us go through life collecting memories, experiences and things. We accumulate possessions. We plan for future events. We schedule appointments. Many of us feel vaguely uncomfortable, perhaps even unworthy, if we are not busy every single minute. The stage of life across which we move begins to fill with characters, furniture, settings and props. A some point, if we are not reflective, we fill up so much of the time and space that there is no longer any room- no room at the inn for God to be in the place where we live, no room in our lives for even our own true self.

Think of all the times we say "no" to the emptiness in our lives by desperately filling every minute with activity. But the Gospel story tells us that God comes to the manger where there is space, not to the inn with the "no vacancy" sign.

Think of all the times we say "no" to openness and will not entertain either a surprising idea or an unexpected person. If they were like we sometimes are, the Magi would have stayed home. I am sure they had appointments to keep, they were important people. The Shepherd would have stayed with their flocks- they had responsibilities and those sheep were other people's property. How could they think of traipsing off into the night to go see a baby? We could, we do, mount all kinds of objections to stories of visions and angels, Scripture and Prophecy. But by doing so, perhaps we have said "no" to a divine presence that is ready to be delivered wherever there is room enough.

But that is when angels with their wings falling off come to call us back to a more expansive sense of life. That is when empty-handed Kings still, somehow, give us gifts by offering to give us nothing. Missed appointments, wandering animals and people who depart from the scripts we have crafted make us slow down, look beyond our pages of expectations and catch a glimpse of the world lit by starlight. In that light we see that God can come as a baby and not a conquering general, that strangers might turn out to be gifted royalty, and that one of the smallest words we have can open space and time and change the world.

That word is "yes." It is the word that Mary said when an angel came with astonishing news. It is the word that Joseph said to Mary as he awoke from his troubling dream. Mary and Joseph did not analyze all the possibilities and list the pros and cons-this was way beyond that. They sensed the presence of God and they said "yes!"

If we look into ourselves we will probably discover more than one memory of times we have said "yes" without having had all the answers. If we ponder these things in our hearts we will recall times when we felt led, or drawn, into something powerful yet only partially disclosed.

Saying "yes" to God is hardly ever an interior event that one holds only to oneself. It is more like agreeing to let a large rock be dropped into the placid surface of one's settled life. "Yes" is the smallest of words, but speaking it out loud can cause our sensibilities to be swamped, and conventions to be overturned by the wake.

Sometimes we just have to depart from what we had planned. Margaret Silf tells the story of a pageant not unlike some of our own. As Mary and Joseph step up to the inn the six-year-old innkeeper changed the script. "Please can we have a room for the night," he was asked. "Sorry there is no room at the inn," came the response. But at that point the little innkeeper had second thoughts… "Hang on," he added. "Don't go away. You can have my room."

It only takes the smallest invitation for Christ to dwell within us.
The littlest "yes" is enough. Come quickly Lord Jesus, come and stay with us.
AMEN