The Empire Strikes Back

(Scripture: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-23)

Today we celebrate Epiphany – the actual feast of Epiphany was on Friday, January 6, marking the end of the 12 days of Christmas. Epiphany celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, as personified by the Magi, those strange visitors from the East who came to worship Jesus – and who, in the process of seeking Jesus tipped Herod off to the existence of a rival to his power. It’s a story of wonder, the coming of these foreigners to worship the newborn king – a story of horror, as we read of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents – a story of dislocation and exile, as Mary and Joseph and the babe live for a time in Egypt to escape Herod’s fury, basically as political refugees. During my first Christmas Eve here, back in December 2007 – and I used the same readings that had been used before I got here, and have continued with them almost unchanged in the years since - I was struck that the reading from Matthew 2 didn’t stop with the departure of the wise men, but continued all the way to the end of the chapter, with all that we heard Stella read today. Most churches stop short of reading the whole chapter – not wanting to frighten the children on Christmas Eve with words about a murderous psychopath of a king leaving a trail of slaughtered children in his wake – but your Christmas Eve service included everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And on that first Christmas Eve here, I thought that said something about this congregation I was just starting to get to know, that you didn’t want an edited, prettied up, Hallmark greeting card Christmas story, but wanted to hear the whole thing, warts and jagged edges and all – and I thought that said something about the faith of this congregation that was mature enough, durable enough to withstand all that life deals out. I was impressed – and I still am.

Matthew’s Gospel circulated within an early Christian community that was primarily but not exclusively Jewish, and so Matthew at every turn ties his birth narrative to the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament, there’s a tension, a tug of war, between readings that admonish the Jews to keep separate from the Gentiles, to avoid any contact with them, to maintain ritual purity, and other readings that speak of the Jews being a light to the nations, instructing the Gentiles – which obviously involves being in contact with the Gentiles. This is especially true for those Scriptures written after the return of the Jews from exile in Babylon. So on one hand we have the books of Ezra and Nehemiah admonishing the Jews returning from exile to divorce and send away their foreign wives and any children they may have had with them, while on the other hand we have readings such as this morning’s reading from Isaiah, which tells the Jews rebuilding Jerusalem that “nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn”, picturing camels coming from the surrounding nations, laden with gifts for the Jews rebuilding the temple, bringing gold and frankincense, proclaiming the praise of the Lord. And this is the image Matthew has in mind when he tells us of the coming of the wise men, with their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. In the coming of the wise men, our reading from Isaiah is being played out. Matthew is telling us that while Jesus the Messiah was born a Jew, he was to be a light to the nations, his coming was for all, Jew and Gentile alike – for you, for me, for all of us, and for our neighbors as well.

And then Matthew goes on to tell us that while the wise men from the east were delighted at the birth of child Jesus, the powers of the Roman empire, in the person of Herod, were distraught. For the powers of the Roman empire, the coming of Jesus was not a gift, but a threat. Rome wasn’t looking for a new king of the Jews – they had already appointed a king for the Jews, and his name was Herod. No others need apply. And so Matthew sketches out an account which would have reminded his Jewish readers of the Old Testament stories of Joseph and of Moses – just as Pharaoh had ordered the slaughter of all male Hebrew babies, Herod ordered the slaughter of the boys of Jesus age. Just as the dreams of Joseph in the Old Testament led him to Egypt, so the dreams of Joseph in Matthew’s gospel led him into Egypt. Just as Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, so Mary and Joseph brought Jesus out of Egypt. For Matthew and his community, Jesus was the new Moses, come to lead everyone out of bondage to sin into the freedom of God’s reign.

And so the birth of Jesus provoked wildly divergent reactions – joy, worship, fear, rage, even murder. To the powerless and those on the margins – the shepherds, the wise men traveling from afar – Jesus’ coming brought great joy. To the powers and principalities of the world, Jesus’ coming provoked great opposition – truly for them, Jesus was, as we read last week, a sign to be opposed, so that their inner thoughts would be revealed. And so throughout today’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Matthew repeats over and over and over, like a mantra: “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Joseph is told to take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him….and they went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. Even after Herod’s death, with Herod’s son Archelaus ruling, Joseph is warned in a dream to go to Galilee and keep his distance from Jerusalem.” Don’t return to Herod. Flee Herod, for Herod means harm. Stay away from Herod and his family.

Being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, the wise men departed to their own country by another road. Herod was the local puppet ruler propped up by the Roman empire – and having been threatened by the birth of Jesus, in today’s Gospel reading, the empire strikes back, to borrow a title from the Star Wars series. Having made our annual pilgrimage to worship the newborn king, which road will we take? Will we return to Herod, or will we depart by another path?

For us, Herod represents the worldly powers that be, the powers of empire – the powers of militarism, consumerism, the imposition of the values of the empire on other cultures. As Americans we’re trained from childhood on to see our military power, our wealth, our way of life as gifts from God. But one definition of idolatry is to worship God’s gifts, rather than worshipping God as the giver. And we can – and we do – misuse God’s gifts. World renowned theologian and UCC member Walter Brueggemann, professor of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary in Georgia prior to his retirement, has compared the situation of Christians living in America to that of the Jews living in the Babylonian empire, or that of the early Christians living in the Roman empire – and the Jews and Christians faced a constant struggle not to get sucked into the values of Babylon and Rome. As Christians, if we are not to return to Herod, departing by another way means being not buying into everything our culture wants to sell us, but rather being self-reflective, even self-critical, seeing ourselves as we are, warts and all.

For in Ramah – located north of Jerusalem, and according to some traditions where Rachel was buried – and in Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other lands, Rachel still weeps and refuses to be consoled. I recently attended a talk by Celeste Zappala, a member of First United Methodist Church of Germantown and a Gold Star Mother for Peace. Her oldest son, Sgt. Sherwood Baker, was killed in Iraq on April 26, 2004 as he provided security for the inspectors who were searching for the fictitious weapons of mass destruction. She holds no grudge against the Iraqi people, and indeed feels solidarity with the millions of mothers there whose children have been killed over the past 10 years. Her words of rebuke are reserved for the government who sent her son into harm’s way on false premises. Her talk began with the words of Matthew 2:18: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children, she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” As Herod was on the rampage in our Gospel reading, Herod is still on the rampage to this day, killing innocents the world over. War is a human tragedy, often provoking crimes against humanity, but for military contractors, war is big business. They make a killing, in more ways than one.

We read this passage at our Bible study last Sunday, and many of us asked the question: “Why did God allow all those poor innocent babies to be killed?” At other times we’ve asked about the Holocaust, how God could allow the genocide of millions of Jews. But God did not create human beings as robots, nor is God willing to step in minute by minute to override every stupid, sinful decision human beings make - but instead God allows humans freedom of choice – and real choices have real consequences, intended and unintended – so in one sense, to blame God is to pass the buck. Perhaps a more appropriate - and more challenging – question is, “Why do we allow it?” We need to be aware of the road that leads back to Herod, and of the other road that leads to freedom in Christ.

I’ll close with these words from a song most of us learned as children: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me” As the sign on our social hall door says, “Let peace begin with me” – and with you, and with all of us here at Emanuel. After all, it has to start somewhere. Amen.

Lent Begins

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ –

“Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The tempter came and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.’ But he answered, ‘It is written, “One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”’’ Matthew 4:1-4

With the coming of the month of March, our liturgical calendar transitions from Epiphany to Lent. Epiphany was a season of proclamation and revelation, as Jesus was revealed to the Gentiles, was baptized, and began his teaching and healing ministry. Lent, by contrast, is a time of introspection, self-examination, and repentance. In a sense, in Epiphany we journey beyond ourselves outward in faith to share Christ with our neighbors. Lent, by contrast, is about the journey inward, as we examine our lives in the light of the cross of Christ.

During this season of Lent, I would encourage each of us to re-connect more deeply with our faith in Jesus. This year’s United Church of Christ’s Lenten devotional booklet, called “The Jesus Diaries”, offers thought-provoking mediations on the question “Who is Jesus to me?” from a variety of writers. See the article later in this newsletter for more information. In addition, as in past years, the Bridesburg Council of Churches will offer a series of Wednesday night Lenten services, beginning with Ash Wednesday on March 9 at Bridesburg Methodist. The services will rotate among the Bridesburg churches according to the schedule later in this newsletter; Emanuel Church will host services on Wednesdays, March 30 and April 13.

I’d also encourage us to be alert for signs of God’s presence in our every day lives. The Gospel for March 6 (Transfiguration Sunday), tells of a time when Jesus invited Peter, James and John for what started out as a mountain hike, but ended up as an encounter with the divine, as Jesus was revealed to them in a new way. (The Scripture reference is Matthew 17:1-9.) Our experience may not look like that experience, but if we are alert, we may find that God is present in our daily encounters with family, friends, coworkers, or in the ordinary events of the day. To quote Elizabeth Barrett Browning:

“Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only those who see, take off their shoes - The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.”

During this season of Lent, may we be alert to those times when we, too, stand on holy ground.
See you in church!
Pastor Dave

Bridesburg Council of Churches Lenten Schedule
(All Wednesday evening services at 7 p.m.,; most services are preceded by soup and/or refreshments)
March 9 (Ash Wednesday) Bridesburg Methodist
March 16 Bridesburg Baptist
March 23 Bethesda Methodist
March 30 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 6 Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 13 Emanuel United Church of Christ
April 22, 1-2 pm Good Friday Service, Bridesburg Presbyterian
April 23 9:30 a.m. Easter Egg Hunt Bridesburg Presbyterian Churchyard
April 24, 7 a.m. Easter Sunrise Service Bridesburg Baptist

Coming and Going

Happy 2011! After our snow day last week, it’s great to be back at Emanuel, starting the New Year out right by spending time in worship. Since we were snowed out last week, today’s service includes elements of Christmas – the birth of Jesus – as well as Epiphany. So our service has included both Christmas carols and Epiphany hymns, and my sermon likewise has one foot in Christmas, and the other in Epiphany.

In the church’s liturgical calendar, today is Epiphany Sunday, which celebrates the revelation of Jesus to the Gentiles, which, I’d guess, is most or all of us. Remember that up to this point, everyone who encounters Jesus in the story – Zechariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, presumably the shepherds, Jesus himself – are all Jews. But on Epiphany Sunday, we give thanks that this revelation spread to the world at large. The word “epiphany” has made its way into our secular language to describe those occasional “Aha” moments we all have, those moments when we understand something for the first time or connect the dots for the first time, when, figuratively speaking, the little light bulb over our head goes on, and we say that we’ve had an epiphany.

Our Old Testament reading sets the stage. Part of God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis was not only that God would bless Abraham by making his descendents a great nation, but that great nation of Abraham’s descendents would become a blessing to the other nations. Our reading from Isaiah recalls this promise: the surrounding nations would come to Judah, to Jerusalem, seeking God’s glory. And they would come to Judah, to Jerusalem bearing gifts – the abundance of the sea, the wealth of nations…and, specifically, gold and frankincense. Matthew’s Gospel portrays the Isaiah reading come to life, in the form of – the Magi, or wise men, watchers of the skies who came from Persia, with gifts for a king. More than a little naively, they traveled to Jerusalem, the Jewish capital – where else would a "King of the Jews" be born, they supposed, asking “where is He who has been born King of the Jews, for we have seen His star, and have come to worship.”

While they may have been wise in tracking the movements of the stars in the heavens, perhaps they weren’t so wise in the ways of worldly politics. For in coming to Jerusalem and making their inquiry, they set off the paranoia of Herod, the local puppet ruler propped up by Rome – because as far as Herod was concerned, there was already a King of the Jews, and Herod was his name. No others need apply. To borrow some language from the old western movies, Jerusalem and Judah weren’t big enough for two kings of the Jews. But Herod forced a smile, consulted his religious advisors – who said the king would be born not in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem, a few miles down the road from Jerusalem. Herod sent them on their way, telling them to come back when they’d found the baby, so that Herod could also come and….worship. Yeah, worship, that’s the ticket. Of course, the rest of our Gospel reading tells us that Herod had, not worship, but murder on his mind.

Jesus’ birth was revealed to the Wise men, and they traveled for many miles to worship. Jesus’ birth was also revealed – by the wise men – to Herod, and he sent his men many miles to murder. And likewise, Jesus’ birth is revealed to all of us, and to our neighbors.

How will we respond? When we come to worship, what gift will we offer? And by what road will we depart? As we mark the turning of the calendar and the beginning of the new year, these are questions to contemplate.

On Friday night, I took the train into the city to spend part of New Years’ Eve at my home congregation, Old First, at 4th & Race Streets in Center City, for their New Years’ Eve Watchnight Service. While this is not a tradition in our churches – and in fact it’s only the 2nd time Old First held such a service - it’s a strong tradition in the African-American community. I’m told it came out of the time of emancipation, when on December 31, 1862, New Year’s Eve, slaves were counting down the hours and minutes until January 1, 1863, when Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would take effect, and, on paper at least, they had freedom, glorious freedom. Pastor Michael, the pastor at Old First, who once served a congregation in NYC primarily of immigrants from the islands of the West Indies, also told us that there is a West Indies tradition that the way you bring in the New Year’s Eve will determine how you spend the whole year. In some West Indies communities, New Years Eve watchnight services are bigger than Christmas Eve service. Old First’s service didn’t actually run until midnight – we started at 7 pm and ran till about 8:30 – but it gave the feel of awaiting the New Year, in the presence of God and among the folks who for 20 years had been my church family week in and week out. It was a small group, about 15 of us gathered in a circle at the front of the church – though I told them that at Emanuel, it would be considered a good Sunday attendance. It was a meditative time for the 15 of us who were there, a time to consider the joys and struggles of the past year, to confess and ask God to forgive us our past failings and to help us to be more faithful in the coming year, to share our hopes and dreams for 2011. And, of course, I lifted up a prayer for Bridesburg, and for Emanuel Church, that we here can be a place of hope and love and peace for the beloved neighborhood of Bridesburg in which God has planted us.

Which path will we follow in the coming year? It’s tempting for us, as it was tempting for the Wise men, to go back to Herod, to give lip service to worshipping Jesus while living in ways which, though greed and gluttony and fear and hate, through our personal choices as well as our choices of how we participate in the wider society, bring death to our neighbors, or ultimately even ourselves. It’s the road many of our neighbors travel; perhaps it’s the road on which we found ourselves all too often in the past, and it’s tempting to return to what we know, to what’s familiar.

Or, like the Wise Men, we can turn from the failings of our past and follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit within us, and, having come to worship the newborn King, depart by another road, rejoicing and giving thanks for all we had heard and seen. We can follow in the way of Jesus, the way of love for God and neighbor. We can follow in the way of Jesus, being open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, embracing the future God has in store for us. For our congregation, celebrating our 150th year of service to this community, we can move out of the shadows of fear and discouragement, to say “yes” to the ways in which God is calling us to glorify God and serve our neighbors, to say “yes” to God’s call for us to say “welcome home” to those feel spiritually orphaned and homeless, to say “yes” to being the place of faith, hope, love, and peace that God is calling us congregation to be.

As we come forward in a few moments to the Lord’s table, may our souls be fed and our spirits strengthened, so that we can depart, rejoicing, to say “yes” to God in the coming year. May we, like the Wise Men, have our ears open to hear the voice of Jesus, our hearts open to feel the prompting of the Spirit. Where God leads, may we follow. Amen.
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Wise men and women still seek Jesus. Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org