Sermon 12/30/07
Prince of Peace: Wisdom and Folly - Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Matthew 25:31-46, Matthew 2:13-23
(view lectionary notes for this text)
At the advice of Sue Senglaub I recently watched movie The Nativity Story, a portrayal of the Christmas story that is vivid and moving. It was a good recommendation – I really enjoyed seeing Jesus’ birth come to life on the big screen, and I felt like the movie did a good job of portraying Mary and Joseph and the struggles they faced. I was also particularly intrigued by the portrayal of King Herod, whose acts we read of in our text today framed the story – Herod lashing out at weak and innocent children in an attempt to eliminate anyone who would be a threat to his power. This part of the Christmas story isn’t usually part that makes it into pageants. We celebrate the angel’s message of peace to all the earth on Christmas Eve – but it’s hard to find a place for this text, usually referred to as “the slaughter of the innocents,” in our Christmas celebration.
Our story is a little bit out of order – right before our passage for today is the text with the Wisemen visiting Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus – that story is what we celebrate on Epiphany, January 6th. The Wisemen travelled to find the child that the star seemed to point to – by the time they arrived there Jesus was probably no longer a newborn, but a bit older, a toddler even. They’d stopped to see Herod on their way to find Jesus, assuming Herod would be interested in the birth of the new King. They were right – Herod was very interested – but only because he wanted to stop this potential threat to his position and status. The Wisemen are warned in a dream to return a different way after seeing the child, since Herod’s intentions are for evil and not for good. But although the Christ-child himself is protected, as we see in our lesson today, there are serious and horrifying consequences to Herod’s awareness of the birth of the Messiah. He has all male children in and around Bethlehem under the age of two put to death. The baby Jesus is safe, but countless others are not so lucky.
For weeks we’ve been preparing and waiting for Christmas. Now the Christ-child has come, and we’ve celebrated with our loved-ones, we’ve opened gifts, we’ve sung carols. And now comes perhaps the most important part of our Christmas celebration: how do we react? God is with us. Are we with God? God has given God’s very self as a gift to us, an offering of love to us, in the most intimate way possible. How will we respond? King Herod’s actions represent his response to the arrival of the Christ-child. King Herod reacts in fear. He senses that things are changing, and that something is threatening the way things have always been, threatening the power he has always held. Herod is not about to wait around to find out who this Messiah is, or what this child could mean to the world, or how God will use this child, or how Herod could be used by God in this new world. Herod reacts in fear – he’s afraid someone will take what is his, take his power, and take his position.
How do you react to Christmas? What is your response to the miracle that’s unfolded all over for us? I think so often our reaction is simply nonaction. Christmas is just a time to exchange gifts, a time for some vacation, or a time to be stressed and overwhelmed. How do we react when Christmas comes? Maybe we should ask if we react to Christmas’ arrival at all. Obviously, we don’t want to react in fear as Herod did. But at least his reaction of fear shows that he felt Jesus’ birth was extremely significant. His actions show that he took the first Christmas very seriously. Do our actions and reactions toward Christmas say the same thing? How are we reacting to Christmas? Christmas has come. Has it made a difference to you?
If Herod has reacted with fear, others in our gospel accounts react with hope, and with a willingness to follow God, a renewed commitment to answering God’s calls. Matthew sticks with Joseph’s side of the story. We see that just as Joseph listened to God about taking Mary as his wife and accepting that this child was from God, Joseph continues to listen to God’s voice, following wherever his dreams lead him, willing to be guided by God even though he surely can’t see the purpose or reasons behind all he is commanded to do. Mary and Joseph have trusted God entirely, but it will be a long time before they see God’s plans and promises fulfilled in Jesus. After Jesus’ birth, we find one story of Jesus at twelve, and then nothing until Jesus is thirty. Do Mary and Joseph ever wonder if they got it all wrong? Do they wonder if their child wasn’t the Messiah? What we know is that when they heard that God was using them to bring the Messiah to the world, they responded with trust, with faith, with hope. God was doing a new thing in the world, and they were ready to be part of it.
How do we react to Christmas? Can we react with hope? Can we believe that God is doing a new thing in the world, in this congregation, in us? Or do we react in fear, protecting our power, or protecting the way things are from what God would have us do? Or worse, do we fail to react at all? This past week my mother told me about a bit about my great-grandfather. He was an inventor of sorts, a creative thinker, and he was a dreamer, full of hopeful and innovative ideas. But his wife, my great-grandmother, was anxious about his dreaming and hoping. She didn’t want him to risk what was known, what was sure and guaranteed. She didn’t want him to risk and fail and so be left with nothing. And so he played it safe. The result was that he worked for years for a company that used many of his ideas. The owners became very successful, and he continued to struggle to make ends meet. Even today, the family he worked for is one of the best known families in the area. My great-grandfather had many gifts that he wasn’t quite willing to use, and so he never reaped the benefits of putting those skills and abilities to practice.
There are so many ideas and plans that flit across my mind when I think about what we can do as a congregation, a community of faith, or when I think about what I can do in my ministry, what God could have planned for me. So often, though, I worry that before I’ve even really considered the idea, the plan, the hope that I have, I’ve thought of a thousand reasons why the plan just couldn’t work, why it’s bound to fail, how I’ve tried something similar before that didn’t work and I won’t risk it again. In my congregation in Oneida, we spent some time at a visioning event trying to brainstorm ideas for the church. Anything. No limits. No qualifications. No saying it couldn’t work. No saying the idea was outrageous or silly or impossible. We just wanted to get the ideas out there. But it was hard – practically impossible – for us to do. No sooner would someone mention an idea than five people would be ready to say why the idea couldn’t work. How often do we fail to let God work among us because we don’t believe that God can really change us, use us, lead us, do anything through us? How often do we play it safe, instead of stepping out in faith?
God said that an unwed teenager would give birth to a child that would be a savior. Impossible! Too risky! God said a king in the line of David would change the world. Already tried that. Didn’t work out well the first time around. We’ve done that before. God said a Messiah would come who would be God-is-with-us, Emmanuel. What a crazy idea. God would never do that. It would never work. But even Herod believed it, even if he only reacted in fear. Joseph believed it. Mary believed it. Even a bunch of shepherds believed it. Even some Magi from far-off lands believe it. And they reacted in faith, and with hope. And through them, through this baby Jesus, God changed the world.
How do we react to Christmas? It’s easy to say we believe. But it’s not always easy to show we believe. Today we’ve also read the parable of the sheep and the goats from Matthew. I love this passage, because it reminds me that Jesus isn’t asking us to have the right words, or to know fancy creeds or doctrines, or to be a theological genius in response to what God is doing, how God loves us, the grace God offers us. Jesus calls us to react, to take action because of the hope we have in him. The parable of the sheep and the goats is a reaction, a response. We have faith, we have hope, and so we respond, by loving others, by serving others, by taking care of those around us, by seeing God-with-us, God’s face in each person we encounter.
How will you react to this Christmas? A new year is upon us in just two more days. How will you let God use you this year? Will you take risks for God? Will you react to the good news with hope and faith? Trust that God can do in us what we thought was impossible? Today we’ll have a chance to participate in a modern covenant renewal service. A covenant is a holy promise between two parties – between us and God. God always keeps covenant with us, even when we fail to keep our part. But our God of grace is always ready for us to renew our covenant, to commit again to a life of discipleship. Participating in this act of covenant is just one way to set the tone for the year ahead, one reaction you can have to this Christmas. But whatever you choose to do, I hope that this Christmas won’t just pass you by as another few days to mark of the calendar. God is with us. And with God with us, anything is possible. What will God do in you in 2008 and beyond? How will you react? With fear? With no action at all? With faith? With hope?
Amen.