Matthew 2 - Epiphany/Holy Innocents
When we bless homes, we
remember the magi… maybe because who knows who might come to visit, who might
need a shelter, who might suddenly need our hospitality? Here in Minnesota,
although we think of ourselves as friendly, we don’t have the same culture of extensive
hospitality that exists in some other parts of the world today… and the culture
of hospitality that was absolutely necessary in the time of Jesus. If guests
arrived, there was not usually an inn nearby… that was for bigger towns and
cities… if guests arrived, most likely, they were staying with you. And so
there was a culture around taking in guests that was so much deeper than most
of us are used to… For Matthew, it is an incredibly important theme that people
far beyond the people of Israel, people of all nations, were part of Jesus’
family ancestry and that people from many nations recognized who Jesus was.
This was not only an in-house event… this birth was world-changing.
In just the very first
chapters, Matthew has told us the genealogy of Jesus that includes Ruth, a
Moabite woman. Mary has traveled across country to be with her cousin
Elizabeth… taken in as their houseguest for months. And now we hear the story
of the magi—people who have traveled from far away, star-gazers, who have come
to find a king… Magi, who made the big mistake of traveling to Herod’s palace
(because that would be a natural place to find a king), before being redirected
to the humble home of Joseph and Mary (a very unusual place to find a king).
This year, I have wondered
how the magi felt—those star-gazers who brought gifts, worshiped the young
Jesus… but who in the course of their travels unwittingly unleashed terrible
violence… because what followed their visit to Herod (and their refusal to go
back and inform him of the location of Jesus…) was a slaughter. How did they
feel? Did they realize that although their only goal was to honor and bless
this child, they unleashed a fury?
We know too many stories like
this one as we’ve watched, heard about, and experienced places of trauma and
violence this year: Aleppo, Berlin, Chicago, Dallas, Minneapolis, Nigeria,
Orlando, St. Paul… the horrors God’s beloved children experience are not new
and are not over.
In light of these stories
from our own days, Matthew’s story of the senseless violence following the
birth of Jesus seems all too familiar. Herod, a powerful and paranoid dictator,
is worried and angry when he meets the Magi, strange visitors from far
out-of-town, who have come to see a king that is not him… he becomes so worried
and angry, in fact, that he kills all the children, trying to get rid of that
one. It’s a familiar Biblical story because it happened in Moses’ day, too…
Leaders tried to kill off the ones who would one day overthrow them… but as we
know from any number of books and movies, that approach never works.
Instead, warned by a dream,
the family flees. Into the wilderness. In one way, we imagine them as
completely alone, refugees fleeing in the dead of night. From another
perspective, we know that the whole way, they were accompanied by God, by the
angels who warned them to flee, and others trying to escape. They met with hospitality
they experience from strangers all along the way to their new, temporary home.
There are many art images both of the massacre of the Holy Innocents and of the
Holy Family’s flight to Egypt—you have one of them on your bulletin cover.
Maybe you’ve heard of a kind
of prayer called Lectio Divina—or divine reading—where you read a short Bible
passage slowly, listening to each word to hear God’s living word for you today.
This morning, I invite you to a practice one of my teachers called Imago Divina…
praying with an art image for the same reason, to see and hear God’s living word
for you today in this image of the Holy Family’s journey. I’ll begin with some
words with the images… then, hopefully the image will begin to speak God’s word
for itself.
Do you feel alone, in the wilderness? Are you tired? Maybe
there are unexpected oases on the journey… where do you find God providing
along the way? Where is there evidence of a being sheltered, even in unfamiliar
surroundings? What tragedies or deep sorrows still wait for healing in your
life’s journey?
This is a very political
story. Today, where is God crying out for justice? For a new way? How did
Jesus’ own experience as a refugee in Egypt shape his way of treating
foreigners?
John August Swanson, an
artist who also painted this story, included his own reflections about what it
is like to be uprooted, especially considering those who are migrants,
refugees, separated from family because of lack of documents, experiencing
persecution.
|
Swanson
says... few people uproot themselves by choice ... Some know where they
are going,
confident that a better life
awaits them. Others are just fleeing, relieved to be alive.
Many never make it.[1]
|
Who do you know who is
uprooted right now? Is there anything that God calls you to do, calls us to do
to extend hospitality in the wilderness?
In his musical piece,
L'enfance du Christ (English: The Childhood of Christ), an oratorio by the French composer Hector
Berlioz,
based on the Holy Family's flight into Egypt,
Berlioz
imagined that a stranger sheltered the wandering Hebrews in a strange land.
After they were repeatedly denied shelter, finally the father of a family of
Ishmaelites (in other words, unbelievers) takes pity on them and invites them
into his house.
God
continues to build bridges between people and surprise us… who would have
thought that God intended to provide for them that way? How is God transforming
our stories of who is our neighbor?
Our
community experiences get passed on through our story-telling. Story-telling is
certainly a most important part of these days of Christmas, these days of Hanukkah
and Kwanzaa, the moment of turning from an old to a new calendar year. Stories
are how we interpret our suffering and challenges, how we reinterpret and shape
things to move on in life, how we make it through our days, even when it means
going to a place we’d never go except with God’s help. Shared stories help us
find God’s way into the future together. This is why we tell these stories, and
why we need to…
The birth of Christ does not remove the power of evil from
our world, but its light gives us hope and direction, gives us ways to respond
personally and together, as we walk with all the stories of "holy
innocents" today who have suffered. In our gathering around word and meal,
God continues the story--to save us, lift us up, and carry us into a new year,
a new era, each new day, and the new ways God will call us to offer hospitality
and recognize Christ in the stranger, the visitor, people of all nations. God
will work wonders, whatever our intentions and whatever unintended consequences
come to be. And we’re invited to be listening and watching, imagining and
dreaming as God leads us forward.
God is with us, and God is also for us, promising not only
to accompany us through difficult times, offering shelter and sanctuary, but
also to bring us to the other side… where there is deep hospitality and a home.
No comments:
Post a Comment