Comments for Jim Other sermons.                 

The story of the birth of Jesus is found in two gospels, Matthew and Luke. Traditionally we put them together in the attempt to harmonize them into one narrative. This works, but it makes for a very crowded stable – Mary, Joseph, Jesus, shepherds, animals, wise men, and angels. But if we look at the stories separately, we find that each, Luke and Matthew, is complete and self-contained, and has its own internal dynamic. While Luke has a Greek audience in mind, Matthew is intent on placing the birth of the Messiah in a Jewish context. Matthew is concerned with the fulfillment of the prophecies. The story of Herod’s slaughter of the innocent boy babies of Bethlehem for him parallels Pharaoh’s attempts to kill the baby Moses. Joseph in this story clearly reminds Matthew of the patriarch Joseph who found himself in Egypt over a thousand years before. And the plight of Mary, Joseph, and the babe evoke for Matthew the destiny of the Hebrew people who went into exile.

If we look closely at the text of Matthew, we find that there is no mention of the registration under Caesar Augustus, requiring Mary and Joseph to make the arduous journey from Nazareth in the district of Galilee, to Bethlehem in the district of Judea. Instead it appears that Bethlehem is home. No inn, no stable, no manger. When the wise men (who appear only in Matthew’s Gospel) precipitate the crisis with King Herod, Mary, Joseph and Jesus are forced to flee to Egypt. Like Joseph in the Old Testament, all these messages come in dreams. Then, after perhaps several years in Egypt, Joseph receives word that Herod has died. Though apparently they wish to return to Bethlehem, because Herod’s son, Archelaus, is reigning instead, they travel north to Nazareth in Galilee. Why Nazareth? Because the scriptures say that the Messiah is to be a Nazarene. This is, of course, different from Luke’s version. In Luke there is no flight into Egypt. In Luke, the family stays in Bethlehem, traveling the few miles to Jerusalem for Jesus’ circumcision and his mother’s rite of purification after his birth. Then they return home to Nazareth. The whole round trip takes only a few weeks.

Why is Matthew’s story so different? Matthew is intent of making these scriptural connections, to show that everything that happens fulfills the Hebrew prophecies: the virgin birth, the wise men, the location of Bethlehem, the murder of the children, the flight into Egypt, and the eventual settling in Nazareth; and, the overall parallel between the Holy Family and the Hebrew people.

The story of the Hebrew people is the story of bondage and liberation. Of exile and restoration. And through it all, it is the story of a God who remains faithful to the covenant with God’s people. Matthew is intent on making this connection between Jesus and the Hebrew people. Matthew’s point is that this family lives a refugee existence; that is, living an extended period of time in a foreign land, and then resettling in an unfamiliar city in a unfamiliar region. In each instance, they are driven elsewhere by a very real threat to their lives. Jesus lived as an external and internal refugee.

Matthew is asking us to see the world from the perspective of the refugee. In our time, as with the family of Jesus, this means physical danger, hardship, dislocation, and living out one’s life in a strange land. Nobody knows today how many refugees there are in the world for sure, but official estimates suggest some sixteen million. They are people uprooted from their homes and even their homelands. They are forced to flee either because of war or oppression. This cross I wear in worship every Sunday was purchased in a refugee camp in Honduras when a group of folks from CCC traveled there. At that time the Mesa Grande camp contained 11,000 Salvadoran refugees. They had fled the continuing civil war at home. After several years there were a growing number of children who had actually been born in these camps. Creating religious art such as this cross was a way for the camp residents to earn money and ease their pain. Thankfully, that camp no longer exists and the people have returned home. I wear this cross each Sunday as a reminder to myself of such refugees, then and now.

The largest single group of refugees in the world today is believed to be some four million Palestinians. The ongoing struggles that arose with the establishment of the state of Israel have created the largest long-term displacement of human beings in recent history. Everyone knows how complex, ferocious, frustrating, and seemingly intractable is the struggle between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people. Many Americans have professed great surprise to learn that millions in the Arab world see the United States as indifferent to the struggles of the Palestinians. I don’t believe Americans are indifferent to anyone’s pain in the world. But we Americans don’t always pay attention to the wider world until we have to. I hope our attitudes reflect not so much callousness as ignorance. When we grasp the importance of our role in the world, we can behave with great generosity, as with the Marshall Plan which followed World War II. But the sad fact remains that today, despite high levels of military aid, our economic and humanitarian assistance to the poor countries of our world is meager, given what we are capable of doing. I believe Matthew’s Christmas story can help us be clearer about what the Christian Church and people of faith can say with conviction about all this.

First, a world in which there exist extremes of wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness, is a world in serious trouble. For wherever the blame is assigned, the reality is that the rich and powerful oppress the weak and powerless. The rich and powerful of the world consume the lion’s share of the world’s resources. We may be blasé about this fact, but others are not. This has to have consequences. The world’s majority feels angry and helpless. Today as then, nothing justifies terrorism. But that is a meaningless statement to someone who feels he has nothing to lose. Such a person is ready to be exploited by terrorist organizers.

Second, in season and out of season, given this world reality, God’s message is nearly always a message of comfort to the oppressed, and affliction to the comfortable. Mary’s Magnificat at Christmas repeats this theme: woe to you rich, blessings to you poor. God’s message to the afflicted is "I will be with you in your suffering." To me, it is as if God is saying, "I know how helpless you feel, I know you are filled with rage, I know you are brimming with hatred, and I know you want to lash out and destroy everything and everyone. But I will be with you. I will deliver you. Vengeance is mine." Martin Luther King, Jr. understood this as no other modern Christian prophet has, when he stressed the use of a non-violent response to oppression. To act out of hatred poisons one’s own soul and drags one down to the level of the oppressor. This message is not new, of course. But an important thing to remember is that this is God’s message to the oppressed. God’s message to the oppressor is different. Here God’s message is "Soften your hardened hearts. Open your eyes to the suffering of others. Unless you understand their pain, you will not understand their behavior. Open your eyes to what you are doing and the responsibility you bear."

Third, Matthew’s Christmas story shows that we are always faced with a choice between compassion and vengeance. Whether it be by Hamas or Islamic Jihad in Palestine, or El Queda, or the terrorist zealot party of Jesus’ time, violence by the oppressed ultimately evokes ferocious retaliation from those with the real power – be it the Romans of the First Century or us Americans today. But Jesus was a non-violent revolutionary. He knew and taught that we must love our enemies, because if we hate them, it is our humanity that is destroyed. Vengeance destroys the hater, even if the cause is just. But this message also applies to the powerful. Matthew shows us that Herod’s destruction of the baby boys was not simply a cold and calculated political act. Matthew tells us that when Herod learned that the wise men had fled without reporting back to him, he flew into a rage and lashed out. The world is a dangerous place when there are extremes of poverty and wealth, and the refugee is full of despair and hopelessness, believing there is nothing to lose. But the world is an especially dangerous when those with the real power lack compassion and are full of rage and vengeance.

Let me close with a story I heard recently told by an expert on terrorism. He related that a group, I think it was Black September, had specialized in recruiting angry and alienated young Palestinian men to be suicide bombers. Young men with nothing to lose, they readily threw themselves into training, which, in addition to learning about bomb-making, also included further inflaming their hatred of Israelis and feelings of vengeance to a fever pitch. They would be martyrs. Their deaths would make them famous. Then, however, came a time following the Munich attacks when radical Palestinian leaders decided to disband this terrorist group, and stop such suicide attacks by them indefinitely. But they were now faced with a problem. They were stuck with a group of young, angry, vengeful men eager to blow themselves up and kill as many Israelis as possible. They were now a threat to the current strategy of their own Palestinian leaders. What should be done? Should they themselves be eliminated before they became a danger to their own movement? The leaders finally hit upon a novel approach. They called the group of young ultra-terrorists together and announced that, as a reward for their loyalty, they were now being given wives, homes, and jobs. They were to settle down and await terror assignments at some future date. The men did as they were ordered and started peacefully raising families. Then, sometime later, to test this approach, the leaders called upon these men to accept assignments for suicide missions. And without exception, the young men all refused. Why? Because they now had something to lose; something to live for. They had families and homes and jobs. They had found a taste of happiness.

This story has the power of a parable for me. When each person in the world begins to feel that his or her life is worth living, attitudes change. Behavior changes. If those terrorist leaders, as evil as they may be, understood this, how much more should we? AMEN.

Return to CCC Home Page