There Was No Room at the Inn: How America Became Herod

Just me flirting with Heresy … I am sure me getting kicked out of Catholic School makes more sense the more I do this.

Scripture citations come from the New American Bible (Revised Edition) Standard Catholic Edition.

The Gospel According to Cathy Cannon

Let’s start with a truth most of us were taught but few of us really absorbed: Jesus Christ was born into homelessness. Not metaphorically—literally. His first breath came in a borrowed barn because no one, and I mean no one, had room for his mother. That’s not just quaint Christmas imagery. That’s the theological premise of Christianity.

There was no room at the inn. And there still isn’t. Not for Christ. Not for the people he called his own.

Because if we take Scripture seriously—and I mean actually seriously, not bumper-sticker seriously—then we have to admit something deeply uncomfortable: America is playing the role of King Herod.

And I don’t say that lightly.

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The Nomadic Covenant

To even begin this story, you have to start with the Israelites.

God didn’t give his law to an empire. He didn’t deliver his covenant to a people with land and borders and power. He gave it to a people on the move, always one step from exile, never fully settled. The Israelites were nomads, wanderers, immigrants. And God didn’t just acknowledge that reality—He baked it into the covenant itself.

“You shall not oppress or afflict a resident alien, for you were once aliens residing in the land of Egypt.”

—Exodus 22:20 (NABRE)

That verse is one of dozens. Over and over, the Torah reminds Israel:

You were the immigrant. Don’t forget it.

• Leviticus 19:33–34: “When an alien resides with you in your land, do not mistreat such a one… you shall love the alien as yourself.”

• Deuteronomy 27:19: “Cursed be anyone who deprives the resident alien, the orphan or the widow of justice.”

These aren’t suggestions. They are commands—a spiritual ethic born from historical trauma. To reject the immigrant is not just heartless. It is covenantal betrayal.

That’s the entire foundation of the Jewish story. Which means that anti-immigration ideology, no matter how prettied up with flags or laws or political theater, is inherently antisemitic. Not just politically—but theologically. It violates the identity, memory, and sacred narrative of the people God chose to carry His name.

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Jesus, the Immigrant

And now we arrive in Bethlehem.

Jesus wasn’t just born away from home—he was born into the machinery of a state census that forced his parents to move. Joseph and Mary were displaced by empire. They were counted and catalogued like data. Their child arrived with no midwife, no crib, no room.

“She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

—Luke 2:7 (NABRE)

It’s a beautiful line. Until you realize: we still don’t make room for him.

Within two years, the Holy Family fled to Egypt as refugees—escaping political violence, state-sanctioned murder, and the paranoid rage of a king who feared losing power.

Jesus began his life as a homeless child and a foreigner.

Let that sit for a minute.

Because if you follow that thread all the way through—from his birth in Bethlehem to his flight into Egypt, from his ministry on the margins to his execution outside the city walls—Jesus was never the center of empire. He was never Rome. He was always the immigrant. The outsider. The vulnerable one we’re supposed to recognize and serve.

So when he says, in Matthew 25:

“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me… Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.”

—Matthew 25:35, 40 (NABRE)

He isn’t offering poetry. He’s offering his curriculum vitae.

Jesus was the stranger. And still is.

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America the Herodian

Now let’s come back to us. To America.

If Jesus came today—brown-skinned, poor, undocumented, seeking safety from violence—we’d detain his mother. We’d call her a criminal. We’d take the child and say it’s policy. We’d build a wall around the manger and say, “National security.”

Which brings me to Herod.

Herod called himself King of the Jews. He ruled with imperial blessing. He styled himself as righteous and ordained.

And when he got word of a child—poor, born out of wedlock, rumored to bring salvation?

He ordered a massacre.

Herod was a man so obsessed with power that he murdered infants just to preserve his illusion of control.

And I have to ask: what’s the difference, really?

• Herod feared a child.

  America fears a caravan.

• Herod unleashed soldiers.

  America unleashes ICE.

• Herod acted in the name of order.

  So do we.

But order without mercy is not holiness. It’s cruelty with a crown.

And if we say, “Well, it’s complicated,” or “We have to protect our country,” then we’re repeating the exact justification Rome gave Herod.

We’re doing the opposite of what God asked Israel to do.

We’re doing the opposite of what Jesus taught in every breath of his ministry.

We are, in spiritual terms, siding with empire.

And we are repeating the nativity in reverse.

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There Is Still No Room at the Inn

This is why I keep coming back to that line:

“There was no room for them in the inn.”

It wasn’t just true then. It’s true now.

We claim to be a Christian nation. We crown ourselves with moral authority. But we won’t make space for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. And so I have to say it again, for the people in the back:

If we reject immigrants, we reject Christ.

If we vote for policies that criminalize the poor, separate families, cut off asylum, and weaponize fear?

We’re not protecting Jesus. We’re trying to kill him before he grows up. Just like Herod did.

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The Gospel is a Borderless Kingdom

God didn’t give Israel a kingdom with walls. He gave them a law rooted in memory.

He said: “You were the stranger. Now welcome them.”

Jesus didn’t build a palace. He built a table. And he said: “Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.”

So the question is not Where are your papers?

The question is Where is your heart?

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Final Benediction

If you’re reading this and you’re uncomfortable—good.

Scripture should make you uncomfortable when you’re too close to empire.

This gospel isn’t easy. It’s not meant to be.

But if we want to follow Jesus—not the sanitized version, but the real one—

then we better start finding him in the places we’ve shut out.

Because Christ isn’t behind a wall.

He’s in the refugee camp.

The detention cell.

The border crossing.

The borrowed manger.

And if we dare to call ourselves followers of the Word made flesh?

Then we better start making some room.