Sermons

“Mama Said There’d Be Days Like This”

Psalm 148; Matthew 2:13-23 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – January 1, 2017

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that your everlasting hope might carry our hearts into the future with strength and light. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

I suppose it’s an act of mercy that the compilers of the lectionary save the difficult parts of the Christmas story for this moment after the festivities are mostly over. In just 11 short verses at the end of the story in Matthew, there are three stories told of horrible, tragic events, related to Jesus’ early years. What are we to make of this?

First, of course, we have the escape to Egypt. Joseph was warned in a dream that Herod was going to come after his new baby son, so they must flee to the next country. They’ve just had this extraordinary experience of becoming parents, and now they must become refugees. They didn’t travel all the way to Egypt in one night, of course. How far do you suppose they got that first night, under cover of darkness? Did they rest and hide during the day, or keep going? How far did they have to get before they could relax a little? What were they going to do when they got there? Did they have any connections, anyone they could turn to for help? It had been a long time since the Israelites had lived in the land of Pharaoh, and they didn’t exactly leave on good terms. Can you even imagine what this would have been like?

Then, of course, Matthew tells us about the folks who didn’t get a warning in a dream. They didn’t know that Bethlehem was about to become a killing field. Was it even made clear what Herod was attempting to do by exterminating an entire generation? Would it have made any difference to a grieving mother or father to have the reasons for their loss “explained”? Was there enough time that some people were able to spirit their children away to cousins in faraway villages, or hide them somehow from Herod’s executioners? How long would they have to stay hidden to be safe? What does it mean to live your life ‘refusing to be consoled’?

Finally, of course, there is the return of Joseph and Mary and Jesus, a little older now, from Egypt. But as it turns out, the new king is likely just as dangerous as the old king, though perhaps without the memories to constitute an immediate threat. He’s scary enough that Joseph decides the prudent thing to do is to settle in Galilee, the far reaches of the nation, in order to escape notice. Now, this is a place where Matthew’s gospel and Luke’s gospel are inconsistent. Luke has the holy family coming to Bethlehem from Nazareth. But in Matthew, this is the first mention of that particular remote village, and the writer makes it sound like they’ve never lived there before. Since we’re reading from Matthew at the moment, let’s go with his understanding. A short geography lesson: Bethlehem is about 6 miles from Jerusalem, the capital where things were happening. Nazareth, on the other hand, was 90 miles to the north. Ninety miles without a vehicle, mind you. Even with the donkey we so generously provide in our nativity scenes, Nazareth was basically a world away. Especially if, as in Matthew’s gospel, you’d never lived there before. There is a reason Nathanael asked if anything good could come out of Nazareth in the first chapter of John; it was pretty much the boondocks. If you’re returning from exile in Egypt, maybe even Nazareth would be comforting. But on the other hand, it could feel like a situation of ‘so close and yet so far,’ – having gotten to ‘come home’ and yet having to start over once again in a place you don’t really know, where no one knows you, and everyone has a funny Northern accent.

So again, eleven verses and three horrible stories. And each one followed up by a reference to Hebrew scripture. The writer of Matthew had an agenda, of course. He was trying to convince a mostly Hebrew audience that Jesus was the Messiah, by matching up all these stories of his origins with quotes from their Bible. So for each event, he provides an explanation of how it connects to the broader story. These explanations are not all created equal however. They’re not even used quite the same way. “Out of Egypt I have called my son” is from Hosea, and referred originally, of course, to the Exodus of the Israelites. Matthew says the flight to Egypt “was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet.” Likewise, the return, not back to Bethlehem or Jerusalem but to Nazareth was “so that what had been spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled.” Except that there isn’t a clear place in Hebrew scripture that says “He will be called a Nazorean,” and if there is, it’s likely referring to a Nazirite, a special religious calling, not a person from Nazareth. But okay, he’s trying to find all the connections we have, so we can forgive a little stretch.

It’s the distinction between these two and the middle one that is probably most important however. The language Matthew uses to connect the story in the middle to its explanation is different. Rather than saying something like ‘so that the prophecy might be fulfilled’, the Massacre of the Innocents, as it has come to be called, is connected to Israelite history with the words “then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah.” It is important to recognize that there is no causality here, no implication that God willed this to happen, in order to carry out his plan. It is simply a recognition that the world’s response to the arrival of the Messiah – or at least the response of those in power – was a fearful and violent one, and that this is not a new or surprising thing.

This is where things get a little deep. On this first day of a new year, what are we to make of these terrible stories, framed as they are, as parts of history with significance and meaning? Some of you spent time last month exploring the question of evil and God’s role in our lives by looking at the Book of Job. These 11 verses from Matthew could also provide worthy fodder for that question. I believe that it makes a difference that the significance of the Massacre of the Innocents is treated differently than that of the stories of God protecting Jesus from infant assassination. Our God – the God who is with us always – is a God of rescue, not a god of destruction. The God who is with us is the God who weeps when our children are killed. The story of the other babies dying doesn’t actually affect the life of Jesus, and yet it is included. Why else would that be, other than to show us that God weeps with those whose children have been taken from them? Our evil is never part of God’s desire for the world. All the ways humanity lashes out in fear have nothing to do with what God is doing in our midst. God’s presence with us is always one of creative love, the protecting of the vulnerable and the binding up of the broken-hearted. To frame the difficulties of our lives through the lens of scripture is not to say that God wills each and every up and down, but to remind ourselves that God’s people have always had challenges amid the occasional triumphs.

It reminds me of a song we used to sing in Junior Choir when I was young. “Nobody said it was going to be easy. Nobody said it would always be fun. If you want to have a life that’s simple and breezy, don’t take up your cross, don’t ever follow the Son.” Or as the Shirelles sang in the early 60s, “Mama said there’d be days like this.” The scripture references attached to each of these tragic stories are a similar way of shifting perspective. We don’t want to zoom out so far that we lose sight of the human cost of what was happening. But to back off enough to see that God’s presence remains constant – as protector when possible, as witness when protection isn’t possible – helps us to hold onto hope.

As we begin a new year, with a world in turmoil and a national future that is very much uncertain at the moment, it is vital that we turn to our faith for courage. Our holy writings will not tell us that everything is going to be fine. Everything is not fine. Many things are not going to be fine. But the promises of scripture do assure us that God will be present – the God who has carried his people through more trials than we can even imagine. We will struggle, and God will struggle with us. We will take the risk of protecting those in danger, and God will be with us. We will mourn, and God will mourn with us. This is not new, but rather the way it has always been. What must be renewed is our conviction that God’s presence is our hope. What must be renewed is our commitment to living out that hope, with courage and compassion and generosity. As the prophets and your mama said, there will be days like this. May we be ready to face them faithfully, with hope and love. Alleluia and Amen.