Why Our Messy Presence Matters More Than Perfect Hosting
Series: Getting Ready for An Aussie Christmas
By WJ de Kock, ThD
Educational Consultant to Partners in Ministry
Professor of Practical Theology at Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University
5 minute read
It’s the Monday before Christ the King Sunday and the air con in your office can’t keep up—it’s a sweat lodge, your mind’s spinning from a to-do list that’s bred more to-do lists, and Christmas is coming like a freight train.[i] Someone’s sent you an email with a photo of a church that looks like a Vegas hotel lobby, there’s talk of a live nativity (you haven’t even got as far as camel logistics), and you’ve surveyed your kitchen and concluded that the craft bomb detonation may leave a permanent mark on history. Honestly, you’re convinced you could lose a small child under one of those piles of glittery “peace on earth” cut-outs.
Around now, a new anxiety creeps in: when did hosting people start to feel less like connection and more like an audition for “Australia’s Next Top Host”? When did hospitality morph from sitting around mismatched plates and stepping over board game debris into a stress test you could fail? Maybe this Christmas there’s an even more radical gospel on offer than a program that runs on time—the kind of grace that delights in the wild, unscripted ordinary of your life.[ii]
So, here’s the holy mischief: what if Jesus didn’t come to grade our centrepieces or gold-star our Advent calendars? What if, instead, the incarnation is God saying, “I’m happy to meet you exactly where you are—the mess, the missed details, the un-ironed shirts, the family with allergies, the bit where you don’t even have matching socks to offer?”[iii]
Remember the actual nativity story. “Mary gave birth to her first-born son, wrapped him in cloths and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the guest room”. [iv] No room: not because the town was exclusive or the Christmas brochure overbooked, but just…life. Animal stink, straw in awkward places, noise, fatigue, holy confusion. It’s not so much that God arrives “despite” the mess; the mess is practically the opening act.
How wild is this? The God who created stars turned up in the only venue available: a borrowed back shed, noises off, first-century Airbnb overbooked. Theological heavyweights have called this God’s “divine vulnerability”[v]—God doesn’t wait for a clean sheet or a moment of calm to turn up with grace. God lands, uninvited, smack in the middle of all the stuff the world’s tried to airbrush out of Christmas cards ever since.
And yet, every December, we somehow decide that what people want from us is seamless hosting—a floor so clean you could do open-heart surgery, a vibe so perfect it should be on Pinterest, and a fridge fully stocked just in case. But perfection is a liar with a good Instagram filter. It’s also the opposite of hospitality. When you arrange your life so that visitors only ever see your highlight reel, what you welcome isn’t them, but their best efforts to impersonate you. That’s not vulnerability; that’s performance with snacks.[vi]
But authentic presence in ministry—mess, fatigue, runaway emotions, take-away containers, all of it—is relief for hungry souls. Open your house, your office, your Tuesday lunch table, and say what nobody says on Instagram: “Sit. The place is chaos. I still want you here.” The first time you throw perfection out, it’s awkward. But then people breathe. They start putting their feet on the furniture. They say things like, “Well, since you asked, it’s actually been a rotten week.” That’s incarnational ministry at work. When you admit to the smudges, you make space for someone else’s story to show up unedited. Suddenly, the kingdom feels less like a rules night at an RSL and more like home.[vii]
If the incarnation is God’s bet that love thrives in the unpredictable, in the vulnerable, in the never-fully-ready, then real ministry has to make peace with the same. Maybe you cancel that one extra planning meeting—the world won’t end. Maybe tonight it’s slightly burnt toast and laughter. Maybe when you drop the apologising and self-policing, your best gospel move is to lift your glass and say, “Here’s to putting your feet up, not hiding the mess.”
That’s where grace gets rowdy. That’s where Christmas, real Christmas (not the luxury-resort kind), has a chance to break out at the actual table in your actual kitchen. Not as a performance, but an act of hope—clearing a space for others to risk being real, and so, piece by courageous piece, inviting Christ to show up in the last place anyone expected: among us, in the flesh, with laughter tangled up in awkwardness, and love outshining manicure.
And if anyone asks, “So, what’s the plan for hospitality this year?” just smile and say, “Messy. Very messy. That’s how grace likes it.”
ENDNOTES
[i] Your “to-do list that’s bred to-do lists” is not an exaggeration; see widely cited clergy burnout statistics in Carey Nieuwhof, Didn’t See It Coming (2018).
[ii] Henri J.M. Nouwen, Reaching Out (1975), perfectly captures the risk and reward of unguarded hospitality.
[iii] See Miroslav Volf, “Grace comes to the place where we no longer even pretend to have it all together,” in A Public Faith (2011).
[iv] Luke 2:7 (NRSV). The gritty detail of the manger remains a central theological mystery; see also Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, NICNT (1997).
[v] The “divine vulnerability” of incarnation is treated profoundly in Sarah Coakley, God, Sexuality, and the Self (2013).
[vi] Perfection as an enemy of authentic ministry is critiqued in Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection (2010) and Samuel Wells, Improvisation (2004).
[vii] Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak (1999), explores how “true self” makes real community possible in and beyond religious leadership.