Do you remember the childhood game “musical chairs”? There weren’t enough chairs for everyone. You kept moving until the music stopped and then scrambled to occupy the chairs first. One person would be left out.

Life is like that. We scramble to occupy the chairs first. There are those who are left out and left behind treated as if they don’t belong or even deserve a chair in the circle. We often talk about the homeless as if they are a problem to be solved rather than people who deserve love and respect. No one should have to prove they are worthy of a warm and safe place to sleep.

Imagine if we had the kind of compassion that stood in awe at the trauma and burdens the homeless have to carry rather than standing in judgment at how they carry it.

This time of year, those of us who adhere to the Christian faith remember the story of a pregnant teenage young woman and a frantic man of Middle Eastern descent knocking on a door in the middle of the night asking for shelter. This story seems more poignant this year than ever. What if we imagined they were knocking on our door? Would we welcome them in, give them safety, something to eat and a place to rest? Or, would we turn them away and turn off the light? Are we too busy to even hear the knock on our heart’s door?

Mary and Joseph were about to give birth to Jesus. They were seeking shelter and told there was no room for them. Regardless of your faith tradition or if you have no faith, there is something universal and compelling about this story of a child laid in a manger, an animal’s feed trough, because “there was no room.” There is one thing every religious tradition in the world holds in common that seems to have been forgotten: Those of us who are warm, dry, safe and well-fed must show up for those who are cold, wet, endangered and hungry. Is there room? That’s the question every heart is invited to answer.

I am sitting in my usual spot at the coffee shop working on my message for Christmas. I’m eavesdropping on the Bible study taking place at the table next to me. They are bemoaning what they call the war on Christmas smugly proclaiming, “We need to put Christ back into Christmas!”

Sitting two tables over is a man who clearly slept in the cold last night. He is hunched over tightly gripping a cup of coffee as if he hopes its warmth might somehow find its way to the chill in his bones. If we’re hoping to find the child in the manger this Christmas, there he is two tables over tightly gripping his coffee.

Can we see the face of the child in the manger in those who are left out and left behind told again and again, “There is no room for you?” Can we see the face of the child in the manger in the faces of those in our own community who don’t have a warm and safe place to sleep? Can we see the face of the child in the manger in children who will go to bed hungry and cold tonight?

We don’t know what in fact happened and what in faith happened around the story of the child laid in a manger because “there was no room.” Things don’t have to be factual to be true. What is true is that we all might experience the joy and hope of this season by seeing the face of the child in those left out and left behind finding room in our hearts for their story.

I think I’ll set aside the Christmas message I am trying to write and go and ask the man tightly gripping his coffee if he wants company and something to eat.

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