I was only about half done with my sermon when I woke up Saturday morning about 6am to the news that our country was attacking Venezuela. And my heart sank.
The Venezuelean leader, Nicholas Maduro, is no angel. In fact, it's because of corruption and violence inflicted on the people of his country that so many Venezuelans have made the harrowing trip through jungles and swamps, dodging gangs along the way, to reach the United States in a desperate attempt to find freedom....only then to have ICE agents tackling them and deporting them back to their country or (worse) the CECOT prison in El Salvador.
The timing of all of this in conjunction with one of the Gospel choices for the Second Sunday of Christmas presented an interesting challenge. Hopefully, I met it. See what you think.
Text: Matthew 2: 13-15; 19-23
The Christmas season always presents us
with highs and lows.
We have the joy and celebration of
Christmas Day…while still remembering that each Christmas happens in times that
are not necessarily bright and cheery.
In the church calendar…the birth of
Jesus on December 25th…is immediately followed on the 26th by the
Feast of St. Stephen:
A day in which we honor St. Stephen as
the first deacon who was stoned to death for professing his unwavering belief
in Jesus as the Messiah.
Just in case we forget that to trust and
believe in Love is a costly business.
And our Gospel reading this morning is
another reminder that to follow God’s will and commit to being with Jesus is
not a path to an easy and carefree life.
But staying on this journey…difficult
and challenging as it can be at times…is still a better choice…and one that
leads to freedom.
We see once more that Joseph is receiving
divine messages through his dreams…giving him the wisdom and guidance of how to
move his family to avoid the rage of an insecure tyrant…namely Herod the Great…the
head of the whole Herod clan that we read about in the Scriptures.
This Herod started as the Governor of
Galilee…and was a shrewd and capable manipulator as the Roman Empire clashed
with the Parthians to the East in modern day Afghanistan. Caesar Augustus named
him “King of the Jews”…a title his Jewish subjects found offensive as this
so-called “king” was really more in league with their Roman oppressors.
He had ten wives…and there was constant
turmoil…and jockeying for position of ascendancy… as often seems to plague those
who claim supreme kingly power.
If any family member posed too much of a
threat to his throne…Herod would kill them.
He tried to ingratiate himself to the
Jewish population after the Romans made him king by rebuilding the Temple in
Jerusalem.
But his lust for power and supremacy
over others was greater than his desire to win approval from the Jewish
citizenry.
He added an emblem of an eagle to one of
the gates to the Temple…as a nod to the Roman Empire.
The Jews saw this as pagan idolatry and
when a group of them pulled it down…Herod the Great had them arrested and
executed.
So much for making nice with the natives.
Herod’s brutality is best known to us in
the story that our lectionary skipped over in the Gospel reading this morning…a
tale that Matthew included and is the basis for another feast day during the
Christmas season…the Feast of the Holy Innocents.
The way the story goes…King Herod…upon
learning that there was a Jewish baby boy born to be king…decided to round up
all the Jewish toddler boys in Bethlehem and had them killed.
This was the dire warning Joseph
received in his dream…and why he moved the family with haste to Egypt.
It’s also a story only Matthew tells.
There’s no historical record to back up
this tale of a mass murder of infants.
But historic accuracy isn’t really the
point of that story.
Matthew wants us to see that Herod had a
reputation for wholesale killing of anyone who dared to cross him.
And it also serves the purpose of once
more drawing a distinction between an earthly king such as Herod…with his need
for power over others through fear and violence…and the kingly power of Jesus…a
small…vulnerable baby yet one who already commanded attention and awe by being
the embodiment of God’s Love.
A child who will grow to be a man who sought
to be with the people…not above them.
A leader who made his company with the
poor…the sick…and the disenfranchised.
And a king whose survival depended on
his impoverished human family being obedient to God and taking the risk of living
as refugees.
This story of the Holy Family fleeing
violence and moving from one region to another resonates with our current world
crisis of those escaping from war and civil unrest.
The United Nations Refugee Agency reports
that last year…there were more than 117 million people who had to flee their homelands
due to violence…persecution...human rights violations or other types of
conflict.
In most cases…they left for neighboring towns
or countries.
But still many others had to seek asylum
much farther away from places where war and gang violence made it impossible
for them to stay.
We’ve all heard the stories of people
coming to the United States seeking a better life…or at least one where they can
breathe free and live without the fear of being assaulted or kidnapped.
And we have taken pride in the words of
our national anthem…that we are the land of the free and home of the brave.
This is why the imagery of masked
government agents grabbing men and women…sometimes pregnant women…and shoving
them into unmarked cars…whisking them off to prisons miles from their homes…has
shocked the conscience of a majority of Americans.
The reason Venezuelans have been coming
here was to flee from chaos in their own country…a country that we’ve attacked …even
as we are deporting people back there.
Violence and aggression have always been
in the playbook of the tyrants and bullies of the world.
We’ve seen it with Pol Pot in Cambodia
and the civil wars in Rwanda and Sudan…and even in Gaza..
For us as Christians…images of people
fleeing oppression conjure up this picture that Matthew creates for us of the
Holy Family trying to escape the terror that Herod was inflicting on the people
of Galilee.
And it’s important for us to keep in
mind that for every Herod that has ever lived…there have always been many more like
Joseph.
People who have trusted in the voice of
God…and kept hope alive in their hearts…stayed faithful to the cause of Love…as
they struck out for a better life.
Joseph understood his assignment…that he
was to listen to the command of God…even if meant taking a risky trip into
Egypt…so that his family would be safe.
Because the child in his care…born into
a nightmarish situation…was the fulfillment of God’s dream.
This portion of Matthew’s Gospel shows
us what we know to be true.
Tyrants and bullies will die…but God’s
Love will find a way and will lead us to freedom.
The name of Jesus…trusted by millions
through the millennia…continues to be the foundational strength from which people
draw upon to keep putting one foot in front of the other each day….whether it’s
crossing a desert or the Darien Gap….or even crossing the street into a
treatment center to seek help.
It is a power which rises like the
breath in our bodies and helps carry us through the troubled waters and rising
tides of our lives.
May we continue to stick to the source
of Love which sets us free.
And
once we feel our burdens ease…may we use our freedom to bring peace to others.
In the name of our One Holy and Undivided Trinity.
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