And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn. -Luke 2:7

Last Friday morning, the young children of Beauvoir School had Christmas chapel in the Cathedral. Among the songs they sang was one with a simple refrain: Have you any room? Again and again the first grade class sang as two children portraying Mary and Joseph walked up and down the stage as if knocking on doors. Have you any room? No! the first graders sang emphatically. No! And then in their meanest sing-song voices, Sorry.

Something inside me broke as they sang. In my mind's eye I saw all the people that I have no room for. I thought of how I sometimes respond when someone stops me on my way to a Very Important Meeting. No room. I heard all my lame excuses for not taking time to pray each day. No room. In the young ones portraying Mary and Joseph I saw Central American children at our borders, homeless people sleeping on heat grates, all those whose lives we are willing to throw away. No room.

Have you any room? The children began again and I wasn't sure I could bear to hear another verse. But this time, instead of singing No! they shouted Wait! I felt my heart leap inside. We have a stable. Mary and Joseph can stay there.

It wasn't much of an offering. The stable was, in Adam Hamilton's words, "a first century parking  garage." But it was enough room for God to make a home.

God will not change us without our participation, writes Marcus Borg. Nor will God change the world in which we live without us. Making room for God is our part. We may think we haven't any room at all, and perhaps we don't. But wait, maybe there is a corner of attention we can spare, a small opening of our clenched hands, a heart yearning to forgive.