A sermon preached by the Rev. Christine Jerrett at Central United Church, Sarnia, Ontario on December 26, 2010.
Scriptures: Matthew 2: 13-23
Over the past few months, the website Wikileaks has made headline news as they began publishing on the internet some of the 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables that they have in their possession. On December 6, 2010, Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, was arrested in England on a charge of sexual assault by the government of Sweden. Assange claims that he is innocent. The charges, he says are trumped up. They are a vendetta of the U.S. government, trying to silence him. They are trying to punish him for embarrassing them. He claims that he had expected all along that something like this would happen. Those who hold power will defend it fiercely when they are afraid that their privilege is threatened. “The Empire always strikes back”.
Matthew tells the story of Jesus as a clash between two claims to power. Christ’s kingdom of love and mercy and grace stares down one of the most powerful forces in the world — the army of the Roman Empire. The Prince of Peace takes on the Pax Romana — the Roman peace enforced with great brutality and violence. It would seem to be an uneven contest.
Herod was the public face of the Roman Empire in Palestine where Jesus was born. Rome needed someone out on the fringes of the empire to keep order and to enforce the Roman peace. Herod was their man. He knew how to work the system and how to make the system work. He was a builder — keeping the construction industry busy building large, impressive, public buildings — palaces, theatres, stadia. He was also cruel and paranoid. He had his favourite wife killed when he suspected that she had been unfaithful to him. He had three of his sons murdered when the thought that they might be trying to stage a coup.
Then some foreign scholars showed up, asking dangerous questions: “Where is the child who is born to be King of the Jews?” “King of the Jews” was Herod’s title. It had been given to him by Rome. He had no intention of giving it away to some baby. “We’ve come to worship him,” they said. However, it was Herod’s job to make sure that the people pledged their allegiance to Rome and to worship the Roman emperor. Hearing such threats to his power, Herod’s paranoia kicked into high gear. He summoned the religious leaders of the city. Convincing them that national security was at risk, he persuaded them to do whatever they could in assisting the intelligence services in finding the child. He tried to recruit the foreigners to act as spies and collaborators as well. However, when they disappeared under the radar, Herod had every child in the region under the age of two slaughtered. Then, once again, the wounded cry of grieving mothers filled the air.
We are a long way from the soft glow of candlelight on Christmas Eve. This is a hard to story to tell. It is a hard story to tell on the day after Christmas; yet, from very early on, it is the story the Church has told and sung soon after the nativity, when the Church tells the story of God’s entry onto this planet. It is the kind of story Christian communities tell when they are hanging on by their fingertips. The names change; the players change; but this is where the gospel is born.
Much of human life is surrounded by powerful forces that threaten human creativity and freedom. We give those forces names like terrorism, climate change, global pandemics, corporate greed, political corruption. When those threats grab the headlines, they can also fill our imaginations. Then, they rob people of energy; they destroy hope for the future. Any faith worth having is a faith that can makes its way in the midst of such troubles.
Matthew does not hesitate to name the evil that is in the world. “Herod,” he says. Four times he says it in the short passage we read this morning. Herod. Herod. Herod. And, after Herod died, his son Archelaus took his place. He was no better than his father. Yet, says Matthew, as powerful as Herod seems, there is another player at work who is more powerful still.
Herod has all the resources of the Roman Empire at his disposal, but he cannot control the scholars from the East. They bring news from outside the system. This is news that should have been kept secret. It should have been classified as a danger to national security, but it was not long before all of Jerusalem was buzzing with it. Angels, messengers from God, are afoot, undermining Herod’s carefully cultivated control.
It is much like C.S. Lewis’ story, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. At the beginning of the story, Narnia is ruled by the white witch. She makes it always winter but never Christmas. If any creature steps out of line, she turns it to stone. Then, rumours begin: Aslan has arrived in Narnia. Nobody has actually seen Aslan yet. It is still very much winter and there is no sign of Christmas but the whispered rumours spark hope. They spark hope, at least, among the creatures who have not given up or given in to the white witch’s power.
Matthew writes to struggling churches and say, “Herod is powerful and dangerous, but he is not God.” At the edges of his power, a very different future is coming to birth. This future, God’s salvation, is being sheltered, protected, carried by angels who speak into people’s dreams. This future is being protected and carried by Joseph who is open to alternate voices. He pays attention to them and dares to follow where they lead.
It does not seem like much, does it? All the power of the empire is pitted against an old carpenter from a small town in Galilee. Yet, this is how our God works. God works on the margins, behind the scenes, among small gatherings of faithful folk who are willing to listen to the word from God and to follow it into a new and different future.
We do not know much about Joseph. The few times we do encounter him in Matthew, he has a dream in which a messenger from God sends his life in a very different direction from what he had planned. He follows the word, even when it seems crazy to do so. By doing that, he ends up carrying the salvation of the world in the midst of powerful forces that try to destroy it.
There was a time within the memory of most of us here when, to be a Christian, was to have special access in the corridors of power of the nation. To be a Christian was to have a predominant say in shaping the values of the culture. That is not the case anymore. We now carry the gospel in the midst of powerful forces that threaten it.
It is not just the viability of our congregations that is threatened (although that is also true). It is that the way of life which Jesus forms in those who follow him is rapidly disappearing. It is increasingly rare to find people who are committed to living in truth. It is increasingly rare to find people whose imaginations are nurtured by the biblical hope that comes form a God who makes new beginnings where none seem possible. More and more people are willing to trade their freedom for the sake of comfort and security. So few people know how to shape their relationships by God’s grace and mercy and forgiveness instead of by selfishness and greed. All those practices and habits are basic building blocks in creating communities where all people can thrive. That is what is threatened in a culture where Herod dominates.
Like Joseph, we are summoned to carry this precious, fragile treasure that comes to us in Jesus Christ. It will mean travelling down paths we would not have chosen on our own. However, we have been warned: we cannot stay where we are. We cannot stay the way we are.
It is easy to feel helpless against the challenges that face us. We may wonder if what we are doing is making any difference at all. So, we gather on the day after Christmas and tell again the story of our God who works through a poor family on the edge of empire to bring salvation into the world.
It does not sound like a revolutionary or powerful strategy; except, over 2000 years later, Herod is a minor footnote in a few history books. The story of Mary and Joseph and the child named “Save” is shaping human communities around the world. Among Napoleon Bonaparte’s last words are these: “Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I founded empires; but on what foundation do we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded an empire upon love and, at this hour, millions of people would die for him.”
Our God’s power resides in the mystery of grace and truth and hope. It is carried down through the ages in the ordinary lives of people who are willing to hear and to receive and to obey that Word. Thanks be to God.
Read Full Post »
Christine Jerrett 