Scriptures: Isaiah 63;7-9, Psalm 148
Ephesians
3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-23
Our reading from Matthew’s Gospel takes place a long time
ago, in a land not quite as far away as Tatooine or Alderon, but a solid ten to
eleven hour airplane flight from Philadelphia nonetheless. On Christmas Eve we read the stories about
Mary and Joseph being visited by angels, about the birth in the manger, and
about visits from shepherds and wise men….all the familiar, comforting readings
we associate with Christmas. But on
Christmas Eve, we also read the very discomforting story of Herod’s response to
the birth of Jesus. King Herod did not
celebrate the birth of Jesus by sending out cards or hanging lights or baking
cookies. The birth of Jesus did not
inspire Herod to hum Christmas carols, nor did the birth of Jesus fill Herod’s
mind with tidings of comfort and joy. No,
the birth of the baby Jesus filled Herod’s mind with thoughts, not of
merriment, but of murder.
That’s right, murder.
Why? When the Wise Men visited
Herod seeking the child, they referred to Jesus as the one who was born King of
the Jews. When we hear these words on
Christmas Eve, they are just words we expect to hear at Christmas time – but to
Herod, these words were a threat – because as far as Herod was concerned, the Jews
already had a king, and his name was Herod.
As far as Herod was concerned, the job title “King of the Jews” was
already filled – by Herod. No others
need apply for the position! And so the
words of the wise men were a threat to Herod.
Herod heard these words as a sign that his time in power was ending, and
an upstart was coming to take his place.
And so it was that Herod felt his
power threatened – by a baby. And Herod
sought to eliminate the threat. The wise
men – who may have been wise in reading stars and scriptures, but were not so
wise in reading political leaders - had inadvertently given Herod enough
information so that he knew the approximate age of the child – two years old at
most - and so Herod had his thugs kill any children of that age or younger who
were born in Bethlehem. Gruesome as it sounds, it was hardly out of character
for Herod, who was violent, emotionally unstable, paranoid. Indeed, during his reign, Herod had his wife
and two of his own sons killed –a joke popular during his reign said it was
safer to be Herod’s pig – which as an outwardly observant Jew, Herod wouldn’t
touch - than to be Herod’s son – so why would Herod have scruples to hold him
back from killing a few dozen babies in some dusty, out of the way village. Herod’s act is called the slaughter of the
innocents, and the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches remember this act with
a feast day, Holy Innocents, on December 28 – shortly after the feast of St
Stephen, the first Martyr of the church, on December 26.
But while Herod had lots of blood on his hands, he failed in
his attempt to kill the baby Jesus.
Joseph, who like his Old Testament namesake was guided by dreams, was
warned in a dream to take the child to Egypt to escape Herod – and so Joseph,
Mary, and the baby essentially became political refugees in Egypt. Later Joseph was told in a dream that it was
safe to return from Egypt, but he kept his distance from Jerusalem, settling in
Galilee, some 90 miles to the north.
It’s telling to notice the contrasts between Joseph and
Herod. Both Joseph and Herod felt
threatened. Joseph relied on God’s
guidance, while Herod violently took things into his own hands. Two
very different approaches to outside threats, with two very different
outcomes. And again, it has to be said
that Herod’s gruesome violence was in response to a threat connected with a baby.
A baby. Herod, with all
the power of Rome behind him, was scared by a baby.
We tend to see Christmas through a layer of gauzy
sentimentality. It’s sort of as if the manger in Bethlehem is set inside one of
those crystal snow globes that you shake, and the snow comes down on the beautiful
scene inside. We read about Mary’s being “great with child” but don’t often
think of what it would have meant for someone eight or nine months pregnant to
be traveling 90, 100 or more miles on foot or by donkey. We read about the manger, but don’t focus on
the barnyard smells that Mary and Joseph would have found there. And we certainly don’t come to church at
Christmas to hear about Herod the homicidal maniac. But they are part of the story of our
salvation, as much as the angels with their messages and the shepherds tending
their flocks by night and the wise men with their gifts.
I’d also like to lift up another aspect of the story, which
I mentioned in passing earlier, but which I think will be crucial to how we, as
individual Christians and as the gathered communities of Emanuel Church and
Bridesburg Presbyterian Church live in the year ahead. Remember that, warned by an angel, Joseph
fled with Mary and the baby to take refuge in Egypt. They went to Egypt to take refuge. In so doing, they became refugees. It’s not an idea we associate with Christmas,
but Matthew’s gospel tells us that Jesus was a refugee.
Let me say it again:
Jesus was a refugee.
And again: Jesus was
a refugee.
Why am I hammering on this point? Because as a culture, we don’t much like
refugees. We feel threatened by them. Scripture is very clear on the duty to care
for the stranger and the alien – going all the way back to Leviticus 19:33-34,
which states: “When an
alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien. The
alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall
love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.” Leviticus wasn’t talking about space aliens, not talking
about little green men in flying saucers, but about people from other
countries. But while our leaders
sometimes like to quote other parts of Leviticus, they tend to skip over these
verses. But, as the church, we are
called to be counter-cultural, to stand against our culture when it is
unfaithful. And, as it happens, we have
not only Scripture, but the example of one who came here as a refugee – Isaac,
who came here to flee the violence of the civil war in Liberia that dragged on
for years and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and
yes, children. In Liberia, Herod was
hard at his murderous work, operating under names like Doe and Taylor…and Isaac
has shown me even fairly mild photos of the violence from which he fled, and
the photos are stomach churning, heartrending.
The violence of these Herods reached Isaac’s own family. We here at Emanuel Church have shown and
continue to show hospitality to Isaac, and I think we’re a better church for
it. The year to come may bring other
opportunities to provide hospitality to other outsiders, to the “least of
these” whom Christ claims as his own sisters and brothers, other opportunities
to “entertain angels unawares”. I only hope
and pray we’re up to the challenge.
Two weeks ago, on the 4th Sunday
of Advent, I preached that the story of Christmas is about making room for
Jesus. The characters in the Christmas
story are defined by whether they made room for Jesus – as Mary did within her
own body, as Joseph did within his household, as the shepherds and wise men did
within their schedules and travel plans – or whether they didn’t, as the
innkeeper made no room, and in today’s reading Herod decreed that there was no
room, that all of Judea wasn’t big enough for both Herod and Jesus.
Two weeks ago, I asked whether we have room for Jesus. I ask the same question again – do we have
room for Jesus, in our church and in our lives - and follow it up with another question: In the year ahead, will we line up with
Joseph, or with Herod? Will we provide
refuge and hospitality, or seek to eliminate it? There’s no place of neutrality, no place to
turn away and pass by. By our actions or
our inactions, inevitably we’ll line up with Joseph, or with Herod – and I pray
we choose wisely.
Because, evil as he was, Herod was right about one thing:
there wasn’t room in Judea, isn’t room in all the world, for both Herod and
Jesus. There isn’t room for the ways of
Herod – the ways of empire doing business as usual, where might makes right,
where the only golden rule is that he who has the gold makes the rules, where
as the African saying goes, the elephants battle and the grass gets trampled –
there isn’t room for all of that – and
the way of Jesus, the way of self-giving love, the self-giving love of Jesus
that operates like yeast in a lump of dough or a mustard seed in a field, a
small but powerful thing that eventually takes over everything. These two ways of living are fundamentally
incompatible. For the Trekkies among us,
think of them as being like matter and antimatter – if you put them together,
the results are explosive. The ways of
Herod and the way of Jesus, the way of Empire and the way of the Gospel, are
unalterably opposed. And as Christians
we are committed to the way of Jesus, the way of self-giving love, the way of
making room for Jesus in what Mother Teresa called his distressing disguise of
the poor.
My prayer for this first Sunday in 2017 is the same as my
prayer at the end of 2016 – that we will make room for Jesus, in our hearts and
in our churches. Let every heart, every
church, every home, prepare him room. Amen.
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