December 5, 2010

• Rejected

  If you look at the state inspection sticker on my car, you would see a tag that looks similar to this:

  

  OK, without the ghost in the middle.  Because that would be cool (depending on who you ask.)  A rejected inspection sticker, on the other hand, is not.  I actually get a chuckle every time I see it though.  Poor Beannie has been with me through thick and thin.  It'll take more than an arbitrary sticker to lessen my regard for this particular coupe.  If you must know, however, my headlamp is out and there's some talk about leaky exhausts.  

  Today, however, I was reminded of another rejection, and how it was handled.  It's a story about a kid named Wally. 

  Wally, according to this story that has now become somewhat legendary, was a too-old kid in grade school who had been left behind too many times.  As a special education teacher, I'm familiar with this demographic.  And let me tell you one thing I've learned: underneath it all, they are all just kids.  Wally too, was just a kid.  Granted, too old for his grade, too tall for his grade, too big for his grade.  But he had the gentle manner of a kid who has had to learn humility not by choice, but by circumstance.  

  When it was time to put on the Christmas Play, Wally's teacher gently redirected Wally's request to be one of the Wise Men and had him be the big, bad, brusque innkeeper whose meager lines were just rephrasings of, "There's no room!"  Wally was probably the best choice: he was the one that looked most like the bouncer of the group.  

  And so the practices ensued until the day of the production, and as all participants of a large event know, there's something special about "game night."  You can practice in your band room for months, but once you're behind those velvet curtains with the crowd murmuring behind, there's magic in the air.  And so it was that night.  The tinsel was brighter, the voices were squeakier, the mistakes more forgivable, and the atmosphere electric.  Even for a second grade play. 

  But no one is more captivated than Wally.  Watching from the wings, he looks as one entranced.  7-year old angels may as well have been Gabriel himself.  And when it was time for his cue, the teachers make sure he knew his lines. 

  What do you want? Wally's voice is as brusque as it had been in practice. 

  Sir, we seek lodging.  Please, do you have room?  The voice is higher pitched than perhaps Joseph's had been. 

  Go somewhere else!  I've been bothered enough.  Wally looks straight ahead.  We've had no room since the afternoon. 

  Sir, we've searched everywhere.  Please, my wife is pregnant. Mary pats her pillow-stuffed abdomen while holding a donkey head-on-a-peg. 

  Wally pauses sufficient enough for a voice in the wings to whisper his cue.  Wally repeats: There is no room, I say! 

  And instead of going behind the curtains back into the inn as the script reads, Wally stands where he is, silently watching the couple leave.  Joseph has his arm around Mary, and she has his head on his shoulder.  And as they limp away towards the stables, Wally suddenly abandons script and runs out towards them. 

  Wait! He cried, hope and joy gleaming in his eyes. Come back!  There IS room...  you can have MINE!

  I can imagine the ox and the donkey looking up in surprise, the angels giggling behind the curtains, teachers scrambling to guide Wally back to the inn.  

  There is no "perhaps" in the question of whether or not this happened in the real story of the Nativity, but the real question is whether or not this season, we can't change a "no vacancy" sign on our hearts to one that reads "lots of room."  How often do we reject the Christ in our lives because we have too little personal time, too little money, too little space, too little room in our hearts...?  

  It's December, and I've consented to the idea that it's finally ok to start having Christmas decorations and music and singing in the atmosphere.  But really, I don't want to forget the details.  Regardless of when the "real" day of birth was for Christ, His birth was indeed real, and the need for room in our hearts is real.  And the larger reality is that Christ is coming again.  And He will need to come in our hearts before we see Him come in the clouds.  

  There were many in Christ's day who told the King of Heaven that there was no more room in their hearts and minds for a Savior that came not to save them from the Romans, but to save them from their sins.  The message has not changed.  I pray that this season, we will find room in our hearts for God and the message He has for us.  And that may mean giving of ourselves, and telling God, or a friend, or a stranger, or even a foe: "There is room/ time/ money/ resources... take mine."

  And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matthew 25:40
  

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