“The Word Became Flesh”
John 1:1-5, 10-14
The church I served in East Ridge was surrounded by abject poverty.
One of the things that was “brand-new” to me was the number of people living in extended-stay hotels.
I don’t just mean that they stay at these hotels for a week or two, I mean they live there for years, perhaps.
Families with one, two, three…maybe four or five children along with some extended family members could be packed into a smoke-filled, roach infested hotel room.
There was one particular hotel, called the Superior Creek Lodge, that housed approximately 1,700 people and within this number there were maybe 150 children.
There was a lot of crime at the Superior Creek Lodge—drug deals, prostitution, shootings, meth. labs—you name it.
On any given night, the police were there three or four times with their flashing blue lights.
The hallways of the hotel were filthy and smelled of urine and old cigarette smoke.
You could hear children crying and people screaming at one another as you passed the doors to the rooms.
We had an after-school feeding, tutoring and mentoring program for the children of Superior Creek Lodge at our church.
We would drive the church vans down the street to the hotel as soon as the bus arrived from the elementary school.
The kids would pile into our vans, unruly, cursing at one another, and showing little respect for the adult volunteers.
A couple of hours later, we would drop the kids back off at the hotel, and although the parents of the children were supposed to meet their kids at the van, there were rarely any parents waiting for them to return at the appointed time.
So, we had no choice but to let those children off in front of that scary hotel, leaving them to find their way to their rooms on their own.
We spent a lot of time at the hotel, taking food to folks and so forth.
It wasn’t unusual for me to pull up to the front of the hotel and see children milling about in the parking lot, by themselves in their pajamas or whatever.
Keep in mind that this place was right next to the interstate, at the East Ridge Exit off of I-75.
Sometimes, when kids would see me or other members of the church arrive they would just come and jump into our cars.
One cold winter day, we brought the children to the church and none of them were wearing jackets—some even had shorts on.
I quickly drove to Walmart and bought a winter coat for each one of those kids.
We had to cut the price tags off the jackets before giving them to the children in order to try and keep their parents from returning them to the store for cash.
It was a very sad situation.
And it was easy to become angry at the parents who neglected these poor, lost children.
On Tuesday evenings we had a feeding ministry.
A dozen or so of us would meet in the church gymnasium where we would make and pack meals to take to folks living in some of the other extended-stay hotels in the area.
Mary Ellen and I usually ended up going to one particular place which still exists.
We would knock on doors and offer folks bagged meals.
Pretty soon, they got used to us coming and looked forward to it.
One thing to note is that when you knock on hotel or motel room doors where people live, you see a lot…
…such as prostitutes all bunched up in a small room together or alone with some stranger…
…families with five or six young children…
…strange and horrible smells…
…sad people…
…lonely people…
…broken people…
…forgotten people…
…drug addicts and people who look much older than their actual years due to malnourishment, abuse, sickness and disease.
After the Superior Creek Lodge shut down, our church helped find permanent housing for approximately 70 of the families who were thrown out on the streets.
We were able to keep in-touch with some of them.
One family had a boy named Nate.
Mary Ellen and I would pick Nate up for Sunday school and church and someone else from the church would usually bring him home.
When Nate got in the car, it was almost suffocating.
He smelled so bad.
His mother was a chain-smoker who didn’t work, and living in the tiny little house together, Nate absorbed all the smoke and other smells from the place.
After Nate got out of the car, the smell would linger.
Other children would make fun of Nate for how he smelled.
Nate’s hair was greasy and rarely brushed.
He was a sad and lonely kid.
I remember him telling me that he was “the bottom of the barrel.”
That’s how he thought of himself.
Directly behind East Ridge United Methodist Church lived a family with a boy who was, maybe 11 or 12 years old.
When equipment on the playground, which was right next to their house, was vandalized we were pretty sure who had done it, though we usually didn’t have proof.
A number of times we had to replace windows due to rocks having been thrown at the building.
Sometimes, members of the church would arrive to find the boy and a few of his friends climbing around on the roof of the building tearing things up.
If church folks would knock on the door of the boy’s house to inform his parents, the boy’s father would come over--very drunk--and yell and threaten me.
(pause)
These kinds of stories are familiar to us in one way or another.
These scenarios exist in just about every city and town, in urban and rural places.
Poverty and addiction runs rampant, and we have all encountered it in various ways.
For all of us who call ourselves Christians and who live in relative comfort, it raises an interesting question that is especially relevant at this time of the year.
And the question is this: “Could I go and live with these people?”
“Could I enter into the chaos, the dilapidated, stinking, infested filth of poverty and addiction and live my life there, making my home far from the blessed comfort I enjoy at my home?”
This is what Christmas is all about.
The Word was in the beginning, and the Word became flesh.
In Jesus, God “made his dwelling among us.”
Despite the filth and sin, and all the ways we get this life wrong every single day, God chose to make His home with us.
God stepped from the comfort of the heavenly realm and came to join us, right where we are.
Isn’t it fitting that Jesus was born in a stinking barn?
That’s how much God loves you, and me, and every other person in this world.
As I have thought about this passage of Scripture this week, I have thought about the fact that we humans really do have a hard time getting along with one another or accepting one another.
Some of us may not like other humans who have a different skin color or a different language than our own.
We might not want to be around “those kind of people.”
Others of us, have, perhaps people in our lives that we must co-mingle with who are cantankerous, mean, bullies…people we must see due to our jobs or family or where we live or go to church or school--people whom we try to avoid when we can—people we would never want to live with.
If we think about this for a while, picturing the folks—whoever they are—in our lives who we most want to avoid, and realize that God decided to come live with them, would it transform our ability to love?
If we, as Christians, keep at the forefront of our minds that Jesus identifies with and is in such solidarity with these folks that whatever we do or do not do for one of them we do or do not do it for Jesus…
…what difference would it make in the way we love…
…in the way we think about and relate to others…
…in our financial decisions…
…in the way we spend our time and who we spend our time with?
When we are tempted to curse someone who annoys us, can we remember how much God loves that person?
When we are about to stab someone in the back through our words or actions, can we remind ourselves that the Creator of the World chose to leave heaven in order to live with that person?
When we are tempted to abuse ourselves, hate ourselves, hurt ourselves, think badly about who we are, can we think about the fact the God so loves us that He sent His Son to make His home with us?
(pause)
As Christians, as the Body of Christ—as Christ’s Church we are called to continue the mission of the Word--of Jesus Christ on this earth and in this world.
We are called to live beside and with the widows and the orphans, the prostitutes and the drug addicts, the lepers, the poor, the tax collectors, the mean, the mighty, the rich, the powerful, the bullies, the haters, the annoying.
We are called to love—even our enemies.
God has come to abide with US.
God set aside the status and privileges of divinity in order to enter into human stink.
God took on the weaknesses of being a human and accomplished the miraculous through it.
And God continues to seek to live in and with human beings through the indwelling of His Holy Spirit.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…
…through him all things were made…”
And that “Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
