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.