The Rev. Austin K. Rios
24th December 2023: The Fourth Sunday of Advent
The mid-20th century psychologist Abraham Maslow, famous for outlining a hierarchy of needs for humans, listed shelter as one of our basest requirements.
Along with air, water, food, heat, clothes, reproduction, and sleep, shelter is necessary for our survival.
Anyone who has ever been exposed to the elements in urban or wilderness environments for an extended period of time knows exactly how critical shelter is.
Without a roof, a wind break, or walls to protect us, we humans cannot live for long.
Reflecting on how many of our siblings in this city of Rome are unhoused, and the housing crisis that affects so many around the world, it strikes me as significant that the heart of our Advent IV readings has to do with God’s house in this ephemeral existence we call life.
The reading from Samuel invites us into the story of how God’s house has been a tent of meeting, that journeyed with the people of God and Moses in the wilderness since the days of the Exodus.
During the stability of the great king David’s reign, the question of building a permanent home for God arose.
And yet, in this scene from Samuel, the tent and tabernacle dwelling God says that the builder of the temple home will not be David.
Instead, God will be the one to make David a house.
This God-built house of David is more than brick and mortar, but rather a pledge to erect a lineage, a cross-generational legacy, and a realm of protection that will extend God’s power and presence throughout the world.
I’m not sure if this kind of house would qualify for shelter in Maslow’s hierarchy—in fact it is perhaps more akin to a framework that helps us arrive at the level of transcendence Maslow positioned at the top of his pyramid.
But as we sit on the precipice of the Incarnation, and prepare to celebrate the gift of Christmas tonight, the intertwining themes of shelter, God’s house, David’s house, and Mary’s faithful Yes arise once more.
Luke’s fantastic tale of the Angel Gabriel’s announcement to Mary—from the assurance of conceiving a child through the Holy Spirit to the pledge that this miraculous Jesus will inherit David’s throne and reign over Jacob’s house—is both a promise extending into the future and one that reaches back through generations of history into the rich soil of creation’s genesis.
I say fantastic because it is one of the most glorious moments in all humanity—that this unwed teenager and virtual nobody according to contemporary standards says yes to allowing her body and her life to become shelter and home to the divine.
And it is also fantastic in the sense that its meaning and significance for us resists being accessed rationally and directly but arises with our own willingness to make a home for heaven within our lives and to let the mystery of God’s will being done in us be.
When I imagine the scene of the Annunciation, I find myself drawing near to Mary’s heart and the myriad questions that must have arisen for her after those initial fears from seeing an angel subsided.
What would Joseph say?
How would she and her child live with the social shaming and exile that this “miraculous” pregnancy would create?
Would making a home for God’s Son differ from the already precarious nature of pregnancy, and would saying yes to God’s will ultimately kill her?
Despite the questions, despite the lack of assured answers, Mary said yes to the God who created in goodness, the God who made promises to her ancestors, the God who journeyed with Moses and Miriam in tent and tabernacle, and who resided in the temple and the dynastic legacy of David.
She agreed to sacrifice her young body and the security of her future in order to shelter the Son of God and make a home for heaven within her own self.
It is a choice and an experience with which many mothers can resonate—the choice to allow new life to grow and be born through you, regardless of the uncertainties and difficulties that may accompany that choice.
But for all of us who have not, or will not, bear a child—Mary’s choice speaks to the home for heaven that all members of her Son’s Body are still called to make.
Every one of us baptized into this fellowship and community called Christ’s Church are charged with saying our own yes to providing shelter for God within our souls.
To saying yes to allowing the Spirit of God to shape and direct the course of our lives, and to lead us into a future that the world may deem foolish, but which God assures us is holy and healing.
To saying yes to the reality of our human frailties and insufficiencies and yes to the redemption of the One whose kingdom has no end flowing through us like a river into the future.
How might we learn from the nobody now lauded as queen to make a home for heaven within our own lives?
It helps to know that even though Mary’s yes happened on an individual level, the implications of that choice played out in community.
Joseph didn’t abandon her, her family did not shun her, and even though their early days mimicked the people of God’s itinerant journey as refugees reliant on divine assistance and human kindness, the Holy Family’s community only continued to expand because of that first faithful yes.
Because of the alternative way that this child of the promise exercised kingship, because of the way his reign went beyond the borders of his tribe and nation, and because of the way the life he lived destroyed death forever and established an eternal house for all who seek shelter from the storms and madness of our world.
We, too, can say yes to his life being born in us.
We, too, can say yes to living according to his wisdom and giving shelter to the suffering through deeds of mercy.
We, too, can say yes, as Mary did, to making a home for heaven in our hearts, in our church, and in the world, trusting that God will guide us and accompany us as we face uncertainties, challenges, and disappointments.
Our YES is the first step in making our faith intimate and real, and it is one of the most important gifts we can give each other, and this world, for Christmas.