St. Francis of Assisi found the perfect way to dramatize the Christmas Story—the story of how the Light overcame the Darkness by becoming flesh and dwelling among us. (John 1:5,14). He gave us the Nativity Scene.

His Vision of the Nativity is simple. A tiny baby. A loving mother. A faithful husband. A homeless family. A humble stable. Lowly shepherds. Lordly kings. Bleating sheep. Singing angels.

Yet his Vision of the Nativity is profound. God is with us, even when we are poor and homeless, even when we find ourselves in “humbling places.” The lowliest family is blessed. Poor people worship God. Rich people worship God. Nature worships God. Heaven worships God.

His Vision of the Nativity is profoundly simple.

Yet, his Vision of the Nativity gives Joy and Peace to all Humanity in the Way of Jesus.

His Vision of the Nativity is not a perfect representation of historical facts. For example, the Magi were not there on the night Jesus was born. (Matthew 2:1-2).

Yet his Vision of the Nativity is a perfect representation of spiritual realities.

For example, meditate upon the homeless family of Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus.

The stable almost certainly didn’t look like most of the stables we see in Nativity Scenes—a stable from the English countryside around the time that the King James Version of the Bible was translated.

Our Christmas cards usually show a stand alone barn. But a “stable” in Bethlehem at the time Jesus was born most likely was an area inside their tiny houses. The family’s few animals were kept inside the house at night for care and safe-keeping.

Luke’s Gospel tells us that the “guest room” was full. (Luke 2:7). Even though their tiny home was crowded with people and animals, the gracious hosts of Joseph and Mary welcomed them into the part of their tiny home where they cared for their animals. Soon it was the part of their tiny home where they also cared for Baby Jesus!

Our cultural assumptions distort our understanding of this part of the Nativity Story.

Joseph and his pregnant wife weren’t denied a room at a money-making business called an “inn”—Bethlehem’s version of a Red Roof Inn.

The exact opposite happened! Middle Eastern cultures pride themselves on offering extravagant hospitality. The entire community would bring shame upon themselves if a homeless family was not cared for. Therefore, in all likelihood, Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus were graciously welcomed and cared for by the entire community!

Joseph traced his family’s genealogy back to Bethlehem, the hometown of King David. (Luke 2:4-5).  The community of Bethlehem would have been ashamed if they didn’t care for their relatives after their long journey. They would have been even more ashamed not to care for a pregnant woman who was about to give birth.

As a child, I saw an echo of such traditional hospitality from my own aging relatives. They lived near the Gettysburg battlefield—about 300 miles from where we lived near Niagara Falls. The annual family reunions at their farms lasted a week each summer.

We always stayed in the homes of relatives. Only one time did my father suggest that we could stay at a motel. He thought it might make us less of a burden to his aging aunt.

His aunt was deeply offended! Why? She felt shamed.

Her hospitality was being rejected! Didn’t we like her house? Didn’t we like her cooking?

Never again did we suggest staying anywhere except in the home of a relative!

This brings us to a spiritual reality that we should remember each time we see a Nativity Scene. We should be ASHAMED that we are not caring for the homeless people in our midst.

We should be ashamed as individuals. We should be ashamed as a nation. We should be ashamed as a civilization.

As individuals, we cannot always take care of a homeless person—much less take care of the millions of homeless people in the United States. But as a civilization, we can.

For example, the United States is surely rich and powerful enough to care for all of the homeless people in the United States.

After all, the United States is stuffed with too much food and too much other stuff. That’s why there’s an obesity crisis. That’s why we have to keep building storage units to store our “extra” stuff.

Our wealth is staggering compared to the wealth of tiny Bethlehem. Yet they took care of a homeless family, giving them food and shelter. Yet, they cared for a woman giving birth to her first baby. Yet, they cared for her newborn baby.

Unlike us, they weren’t stuffed with too much food and too much stuff.

Unlike us, their hearts were stuffed with compassion.

Unlike us, they didn’t measure their greatness by the abundance of their power and their wealth.

Unlike us, they measured their greatness by the abundance of their generosity and their hospitality.

They did all this because they would have been ASHAMED to do less.

When we think of how we fail to care for millions of homeless Josephs, Marys, and Baby Jesuses, we need to ask ourselves: “Have we no SHAME?”.

In the 1950s, a similar question galvanized America to overcome the scourge of McCarthyism. It was a time much like today.

Politicians such as Senator Joseph McCarthy increased their power by feeding the fears of the American people. They divided Americans by spawning baseless stories of conspiracies. They destroyed the lives of innocent people by making baseless accusations against them.

These politicians shamelessly exploited the new technology of television to spread their lies and deceptions—much as today’s new social media technologies such as Twitter empower those who benefit from spreading lies that deceive and divide us.

Finally, one witness at a televised congressional hearing dared to ask Senator McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”.

Hopefully, a similar question today will empower us to overcome the scourge of homelessness: “Have we no shame?”.

Again and again, Jesus forces us to ask this question of ourselves, our nation, and our civilization.

He commands us to give hungry people something to eat, thirsty people something to drink, and to welcome strangers into our homes (Matthew 25:31-46).

He commands us to treat such hungry, thirsty, homeless people as if they are Jesus himself. (Matthew 25:31-46).

He commands us to treat such hungry, thirsty, homeless people as if they are Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us that it is not enough us to say, “Lord, Lord.” We must put his words into practice. (Matthew 7:21-8:3).

And so, when we see the Nativity Scene, we must remember that it is not enough to say, “Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!”.

We need to put the Light of Christmas into practice to overcome the Darkness of Homelessness.

When we see the Nativity Scene, we need to remember that it’s not enough to care about Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus.

We need to take care of Josephs, Marys, and Baby Jesuses! (James 1:22-25; 2:14-19).

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To read more about St. Francis of Assisi, please read my blogs: “St. Francis of Assisi Made the Way of Jesus Great Again”, “St. Francis of Assisi’s Vision of the Nativity”, “The Nativity Scene: Baby Jesus”, “The Nativity Scene: Mary”, and “The Nativity Scene: Joseph”, “The Nativity Scene: The Humble Stable”, “The Nativity Scene: The Shepherds”, “The Nativity Scene: The Magi”, “The Nativity Scene: The Sheep”, and “The Nativity Scene: The Angels”; and by reading the chapter “Relying on the Lunar Module” in my book Visions of the Church (published with my book Visions of America), at pages 181-185.

The chapter about St. Francis of Assisi refers to the Lunar Module because I use the flawed—yet triumphant—flight of Apollo 13 as my narrative thread to give an overview of 2,000 years of Church history in only 60 pages.

To read more about the Nativity, please read my book Hoping in the LORD, at pages 12-46.

To learn how politicians use lies to deceive and divide us, please read my blogs “Jezebel and Ahab: Greed, Lies and Violence” and “Deceptive-Drawings-Designed-To-Deceive-And-Divide”.

To read my thoughts about how best to care for people in need (how to strike the best balance between government intervention and market-driven systems), please read my blog “Intensive Care Units or Health Clubs”.

My thoughts about the “stable” in the Nativity being a part of a typical home and that the community of Bethlehem would have taken good care of their relatives, including a pregnant wife giving birth to her first child, are drawn from books of Dr. Rev. Kenneth E. Bailey. He spent decades teaching about Jesus in the Middle East, thereby learning to see the Gospels in the cultural context of the Middle East when Jesus taught and when the Gospels were written. I mention Dr. Bailey’s insights at relevant places in my books Hoping in the LORD and Lighting the World.