GOD AND OUR MESSY WORLD - (Refugees & Innocents)
Matt 2:13-23 (NRSV)
Christmas is great isn’t it? Family get togethers, wonderful feasts, giving and receiving Christmas cards & gifts, carols, soppy sentimental movies on tv… Last Sunday I spoke of Jesus our salvation and God-with-us. On Christmas day we heard of the word made flesh, the word that is love. We read John’s magnificent hymn to the incarnation. We were off to a great start.
It’s a bit like one of those cartoons, there’s a dog and he sees a cat go flying past and then he’s off - gleaming eyes, pointed ears, enthusiastic barking…. only to be brought up short by the collar and chain he’d forgotten about. That’s how today’s reading feels for us. Matthew’s gospel starts a bit slowly with the genealogy, then the excitement builds - we have the story of the birth of Jesus, mysterious dreams of angels, the exotic visitors from the East. Then “crash bang wallop” (if you went to the all-age Christmas service) the holy family is in danger, they’ve become homeless wandering refugees, leaving David’s royal city and eventually settling in no-name-1-horse-town Nazareth. While Jesus and his family escape there are others who don’t - we read those few lines about the massacre of the infants with horror. What is Matthew doing? Why are these stories here? the other gospel writers don’t include them. Doesn’t Matthew know it will just bring us down? I have to confess at times I want to attack the Bible with some scissors - lets just cut out all the unpleasant stuff we don’t like… it would make life (& preaching) simpler and what would we lose? …..
There are 3 stories in this passage. Two are about refugees. In the first “the escape to Egypt” - Joseph learns of the danger to his family. This plan of salvation which depends on a little baby seems even more fragile - he is sought by a powerful, paranoid leader, a leader who is threatened by Jesus’ designation as King, a leader who has no idea of the kind of Kingdom Jesus is bringing. Joseph is instructed to and takes the child to Egypt - why Egypt? Why this detail?
The Gospels are full of old testament quotes, allusions and images and those who don’t know their Old Testament miss out on a whole world of meaning. Egypt was the place where the people of Israel were slaves for hundreds of years. Israel was called out of Egypt in the story of the Exodus; several times in scripture Israel is referred to as God’s son. Matthew is positioning Jesus as a new Israel. Jesus is the true son Israel was called to be.
By mentioning Egypt, Matthew also wants us to think of Moses - he too was in danger as an infant - not only is Jesus a new Israel, but a prophet like Moses, a new Moses. This is further underlined in the awful story of the slaughter of the innocents - remember in Moses’ time the midwives were told to kill all the Israelite baby boys, there was another powerful, paranoid leader who felt threatened by the growing population of Israel.
This lament about Rachel weeping for her children helps express our reaction, our emotion. W H Auden has a magnificent poem of lament called “Funeral Blues” you might know it as “Stop all the clocks”. It is recited in the movie “4 weddings and a funeral” every time I watch this scene I’m sobbing my little heart out. The poem is quite desolate with the last line reading, “For nothing now can ever come to any good.” Rachel’s lament, however, points to a tiny bit of hope. Rachel is weeping from her grave for her children that have been taken into exile but the next verses in Jeremiah speak of a hope for the future, the promise of return and we know the exiles did return.
There is no easy way to speak of this tragedy, patting the back and saying “there, there it all turns out alright in the end” just doesn’t cut it.
Joan Brockelsby’s poem on the slaughter of the innocents tells the imagined story of one of the mothers, a precious baby (her only one) born after multiple miscarriages, taken from her. She begins to hate the Galilean that they were looking to kill.
Years later she finds herself in Jerusalem where she sees Jesus fall while carrying his cross
“And suddenly I saw your face, and looked into your eyes.
My suffering was there, engulfed in understanding
Lost in pain beyond the compassion of a human heart
You bore the burden of all other’s grief
and as you went, I knew you meant to die, for me….
I thought I heard his infant laugh, who died for you
But now, as you too, walked the way of death
We shared the cross you carried, part of a mighty pattern
you, my babe and me.
I knelt, a woman brought to life from death
as you passed by to Calvary.”
In the midst of joy there is sorrow, in the midst of lament - a kernel of hope - life is messy and unpredictable. This too is part of Matthews message - part of the “why” for this text then and now.
The final story is about the refugees returning home - but even here there is danger and they become displaced people within their own country.
Perhaps we shouldn’t take to the Bible with scissors - after all, we would miss the depths and subtlety of meaning, the mix of glory, mystery and sorrow, hope and lament. Our Bible would become a child’s fairytale, with no meaning for us in the real world. This text reminds us that Christmas is not just for the children - it’s for us all.
2 stories about being a refugee and one about the slaughter of innocent children - what do they have to do with us today? Last I checked I have not made anyone homeless or killed innocent children …
Earlier in our service we had a time for confession. There was a time of silence for us to call to mind our sins. Did you think about whether you had been unkind or dishonest, jealous or angry? Perhaps you couldn’t recall any specific sin you had committed since the last time you confessed here? …
It’s easy to think about individual sin but what about corporate and societal sin. War and climate change are the two biggest contributors to the enormous refugee situation we have today - what purchases or investments have I made that could have contributed? in what ways have I spoken up (or not) for refugee resettlement here? Have I endorsed a political party that has supported war in the middle east (which, like all wars, results in refugees, civilian casualties, the deaths of innocent children and gender violence). Perhaps my hands are not as clean as I thought…
We can look at all the Christmas cheer - but it’s not experienced like that for everyone - there are those who are lonely, hungry, homeless, refugees. We can look at the news and see the overwhelming tragedy, the mind-numbingly huge numbers of refugees but we also see acts of kindness and compassion - it’s not all bleak. There were thousands of volunteers helping out at community Christmas lunches all over the New Zealand this year. God is in all of it - the joy and the sorrow and the mix of the two which is life as we know it. God can work in and through us in all of life - messy and unpredictable as it is.
Let us pray
The world waits for a miracle
The heart longs for a little bit of hope
Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel
A child prays for peace on Earth
And she's calling out from a sea of hurt
Oh come, oh come, Emmanuel
And can you hear the angels singing?
Glory, the light of the world is here
The drought breaks with the tears of a mother
A baby's cry is the sound of love
Come down, come down, Emmanuel
You are the song for the suffering
You are Messiah, the Prince of Peace you’ve come
You have come, Emmanuel
Glory to the light of the world
For all who wait
For all who hunger
For all who've prayed
For all who wonder
Behold our King
Behold Messiah
Emmanuel, Emmanuel
Glory to the light of the world
You have come to our messy world
God in Community, Holy in One,
you fill our hearts with joy,
for you continue to come into this world.
Give us the peace, the joy, the hope to carry
to all who cry out to you this day.
Amen
SOURCES:
Joan Brockelsby’s poem “Slaugher of the innocents”
Words for the prayer adapted from the lyrics “Light of the world” by Lauren Daigle
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