Infinite Worth: Holy Innocents

The holy gospel according to Matthew (2:13-23).

¹³Now after the magi had left,

       an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

              “Get up, take the child and his mother,

              and flee to Egypt,

                     and remain there until I tell you;

                            for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 

¹⁴Then Joseph got up,

       took the child and his mother by night,

              and went to Egypt, 

              ¹⁵and remained there until the death of Herod.

                     This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord 

                            through the prophet,

                                  “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

¹⁶When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi,

       he was infuriated,

              and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem

                     who were two years old or under,

                            according to the time that he had learned from the magi. 

              ¹⁷Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:

                     ¹⁸“A voice was heard in Ramah,

                            wailing and loud lamentation,

                                  Rachel weeping for her children;

                                          she refused to be consoled,

                                                 because they are no more.”

¹⁹When Herod died,

       an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream

              to Joseph in Egypt and said, 

                     ²⁰“Get up,

                            take the child and his mother,

                            and go to the land of Israel,

                                  for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” 

       ²¹Then Joseph got up,

              took the child and his mother,

              and went to the land of Israel. 

                     ²²But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea

                            in place of his father Herod,

                                  he was afraid to go there.

                     And after being warned in a dream,

                            he went away to the district of Galilee. 

       ²³There he made his home in a town called Nazareth,

              so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled,

                     “He will be called a Nazorean.”

The gospel of the Lord.

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Today’s gospel is not the gospel I want for Christmas—really, I don’t ever want it.

Growing up, when I thought about Christmas, I rarely thought about today’s gospel.  The shepherds and angels from Luke’s gospel would quickly come to mind, the poetic Word made flesh of the incarnation in John and even the magi with the star to follow in Matthew’s gospel would all dance about in my imagination, with Santa and elves and stockings and sleigh rides, but not the flight to Egypt, not King Herod killing all the children.

It wasn’t until I started seminary and consistent worship planning that I realized this story and the commemoration of the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents is in our lectionary each year, sometimes as a feast day, the third day of Christmas, and sometimes as a Sunday of Christmas, like this year.  It doesn’t always make its way into a Sunday morning because we celebrate Epiphany on Sundays a lot of the time, like we did last week, but it is part of the Christmas story—the part we don’t want.

We don’t want a ruler so insecure that he is threatened by a baby.  We don’t want a ruler who has no qualms about slaughtering the children in an entire town.  We don’t want a ruler with power he so easily abuses.

We don’t want parents to have to struggle with pain because they do not have the power to save their children.  We don’t want children’s futures to be beyond our control.  We don’t want to be unable to protect these most vulnerable—to be unable to keep them alive and whole and safe.

We don’t want difficult conversations with children about death and evil.  We don’t want to think about the conversation these parents will have with their child when they return from Egypt and the child looks around and asks why there aren’t any kids his age to play with.  We don’t want to break the child’s heart.

We don’t want this Christmas story.  But this is the Christmas story, because just as God is coming to be with us—just as God is deciding to show God’s immense love for the whole world, humans included, by becoming human, humanity—or one human in particular with several lackeys—is deciding that these smallest and youngest humans are disposable.  They are not only a threat to the one in power, but they are also disposable—worth little enough that getting rid of them is an easy spur of the moment decision.

I was talking to a friend this week and she mentioned theology professor Jeremy Posadas’[1] insight that so many people in this country feel, and are treated as if, they are disposable.  The culture we live in puts our value in what we can contribute to the economy, and even then someone could easily replace us—jobs could be shipped overseas, big farms could replace our family farms, downsizing and machines could take over. 

And if we’re not working, we’re disposable, too. Never mind that we might be caring for children or parents or grandchildren, we might have just retired after decades of work, we might have disabilities that keep us from some jobs, or we might do work on the farm and the garden, but those don’t provide pay checks, or maybe we just can’t find work.  The violence we have seen this last year—against people of color, against lgbtq+ people, against police—and the violent and demeaning rhetoric we have heard just feed into this feeling of disposability.

The message is clear: we are disposable, just like the things in our life are disposable.  There’s always something new or better for sale on TV and in stores and it’s easier to replace a broken toy or appliance than try to fix it. 

So much in life declares everything to be disposable, but whenever I think of things being disposable, an image pops into my head of women spread out at separate tables downstairs, each with her own sewing machine.

These women, as you know, have collected t-shirts—from Grace Place, from people, from the whole community—and these t-shirts that people do not want to wear and that could easily be disposable become diapers for families in crisis.  And then what’s left of the scraps from the diapers becomes quilt squares.  And what’s left from the scraps from the quilt squares become rags to clean with. And what’s left from the rags to clean with goes back to Grace Place to be sent in to be repurposed and the money they receive then helps support the ministries of Grace Place.   

Nothing about that t-shirt is disposable.

And that is where God is.  In the basement of this church building, yes, but more than that—in the families and children that will have diapers and quilts, in the ministry of Grace Place, in the rags and people who clean up and care for shared spaces, and in a landfill that is just a bit emptier because of the hundreds, or perhaps thousands of t-shirts that are not in it.

You all know the worth of things—t-shirts, jars that can be reused for canning and freezing food, plants and animals.  And you know the worth of humans of all ages—from the youngest to the oldest.

We read of King Herod’s heinous acts and we wonder where God is. 

How could God let those children suffer? 

And there are no easy answers to these questions that we ask from 2000 years ago and the questions that we still ask today—from our lives and our place in history. 

Two of the most striking images from this place in history

last year are of a young boy washed up on shore because the boat carrying him and many other refugees didn’t make it safely to the shore, and the image of a three-year-old boy covered in dust and blood, sitting in an ambulance in Aleppo.  And we ask how God could let these children suffer? 

And it’s not just the children halfway across the world.  We know the children suffering in our own community of faith and connected to our own community of faith, and we ask again and again how could God let the children we love who are sick suffer?

Where is God when human lives feel disposable?

As we hear from Jeremiah, echoed in our gospel today, God is “A voice …heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”   

God is weeping over a humanity that is of infinite worth.  

God is weeping over the violence that tears again and again through this world that God came here to love.   

God is Rachel weeping, the mother who has lost her children.   

God is naming your value and mine because even in the weeping and lament, even in our grief and our pain, God is with us.   

Our questions remain, and yet Jesus is Emmanuel. 

Jesus comes as God-with-us, not to give easy answers to our questions, not to solve all the problems in one foul swoop.  God comes to us because you are of infinite worth.  Because you are God’s beloved.

Thanks be to God.

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[1] Dr. Jeremy Posadas is a professor of theology at Austin College and co-led the fight for LGBTQ equality in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America for several years.

God dreams: epiphany a

The holy gospel according to Matthew (2:1-12).

In the time of King Herod,

       after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,

              magi from the East came to Jerusalem, ²asking,

                     “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?

                            For we observed his star at its rising,

                            and have come to pay him homage.”

³When King Herod heard this,

       he was frightened,

              and all Jerusalem with him;

⁴and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people,

       he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.

⁵They told him,

       “In Bethlehem of Judea;

              for so it has been written by the prophet:

                     ⁶‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,

                     are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;

                            for from you shall come a ruler

                            who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”

⁷Then Herod secretly called for the magi

       and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.

              ⁸Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying,

                     “Go and search diligently for the child;

                     and when you have found him,

                            bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”

⁹When they had heard the king,

       they set out;

              and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising,

                     until it stopped over the place where the child was.

                            ¹⁰When they saw that the star had stopped,

                                   they were overwhelmed with joy.

¹¹On entering the house,

       they saw the child with Mary his mother;

              and they knelt down and paid him homage.

                     Then, opening their treasure chests,

                            they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

¹²And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod,

       they left for their own country by another road.

The gospel of the Lord.

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Matthew’s gospel is the gospel of dreams, or so it begins at least.  On the fourth Sunday of Advent, when we heard of Joseph’s dilemma between divorcing Mary publicly or privately, God comes to Joseph in a dream and points to a third, more imaginative option of remaining with Mary and raising the child that will be named Jesus.

Then when Jesus is born, the magi, stargazers whom we could call astrologers or wizards, see a star—a supernova explosion.  For months, maybe even more than a year, they follow the star, trusting the vision set forth in the night sky.  They journey from far away in search of and out of faith in “the child who has been born king of the Jews.”

They make it as far as Jerusalem before stopping for directions.  Their wonder at the star and its meaning is met with fear and then scheming.  King Herod and all of Jerusalem—or at least all of Jerusalem who is close enough to Herod to know—are afraid.  Then begins the planning to remove the threat to Herod’s reign, slyly sending the magi on under the guise of also wanting to pay homage to Jesus.  Herod’s real plan will be revealed in next week’s gospel, but first the magi have more to do.

Having learned that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and having unknowingly tipped Herod off, the magi continue their journey.  The star stops and so do they.  They enter a home—Mary and Joseph will probably have found a more permanent place to stay after all of this time instead of the stable we heard about on Christmas Eve. “overwhelmed with joy,” the magi enter the house, see Mary and Jesus and “they [kneel] down and [pay] him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they [offer] him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”

It is at this point that we usually stop the Christmas story.  The magi arrive, the gifts are given, and our finger is on the fast forward button—but not this year. 

Because the story continues.

The magi, who were so focused on the stars up in heaven and the baby in Bethlehem, have missed the powerful danger King Herod poses.  If left to their own devices, they would return to Jerusalem, handing Jesus, Mary, and Joseph over to King Herod and to death for the threat this baby poses.

But once again God comes in dreams, warning the magi not to return to Jerusalem, but instead to take the “scenic route” home, avoiding Jerusalem and, in particular, King Herod.  The magi, defy King Herod’s orders, engaging in civil disobedience to give this baby, “born king of the Jews,” a chance at life.

Next week will bring another dream – to Joseph again.  It is fitting that these dreams are coming as the calendar shifts from 2016 to 2017.

Today we are beginning a new calendar year.  As we look ahead, we also dream dreams of our own.  For some those dreams stay in our heads or hearts.  For others they are written down under titles like “Resolutions.”  Many of these dreams are dreams for ourselves or maybe our family—dreams of better health: eating more fruits and veggies or being more active.  Maybe it’s a dream of reading more, cooking more, having more family dinners each month, praying together as a family.

What about our dreams for others around the world?  Or for our community?  In many Native American cultures, there is a concept called Seven Generations.  Native theologian Vine Deloria, Jr. understood the Seven Generations—the generations kept in mind in decision-making for many native communities—in a way I hadn’t heard before.  Vine Deloria, Jr. explained the Seven Generations as the generations closest to you.  

 So, when making decisions or dreaming dreams, the decisions and dreams would involve our great grandparents, grandparents, parents, our own generation, our children, our grandchildren, and our great grand children.  Not just the ones directly related to us, but their whole generation.  It is a more connected approach.  Instead of just thinking of ourselves or our own family, or thinking of the Seven Generations as our great, great, great, great, great grandparents or ahead to our potential great, great, great, great, great grandchildren, we think more broadly as well.

We dream dreams with our great grandparents in mind and others in their generation.  Will they live the end of their life in poverty or suffering?  How did they live in the world, reusing and repurposing far more than we who are so quick to recycle or buy new rather than repair?  What lessons have they taught us in our family?

When we dream dreams, we also keep in mind our peers who struggle to make a life or feed their families, who flee from wars as refugees only to face hostility in new countries, or who struggle against illnesses that fight to claim their quality of life, if not their whole life. 

And we think of the great grandchildren—ours or those of friends and family, all who come after us.  What will earth be like for them?  Will the extreme weather of climate change make the places we call home uninhabitable, the lands we farm unfarmable?  Will nuclear warfare have decimated the planet?  Will science, literature, and the arts have discovered cures, bridged differences, and freed us from hatred and fear?

Dreaming our own dreams is important, but it is not just wondering about our own dreams for the future and the present.  What are God’s dreams?  What is God’s dream for our great grandparents’ generations?  For our generations?  For the generations coming into being as we speak?

How do we consider our lives, our politics, our environment, our economy, and our planet with God’s dreams for the seven generations?  What would happen if we took some time today to dream not only for ourselves, but for our community and the whole planet.  

 What if we wrote down our dreams and our wonders about God’s dreams for a community and a planet where all who are hungry receive the food they need?  Where all have shelter from the elements?  Where all can live without fear?  What if we put those dreams up on our mirror, by our nightstand, or in our Bible so that we see them throughout the year and are reminded of God’s dreams for everyone and our dreams for this year? 

How might we live differently then?  How might we live differently if we remembered God’s dreams for us and for the whole world? For the people we do not know?

Every time someone is ordained that I know, my favorite gift to give is the book God’s Dream by Desmond Tutu.  I think I read it last January for a children’s sermon.  And the thing that I put in the front cover is my prayer for them and my prayer for us this year:

May your dreams be God’s dreams and may God’s dreams be yours.

Amen.