Enough!
Sermon
Time's Up!
Sermons For Advent, Christmas And Epiphany
There are many things that could be said about this passage. It is an amazing story. You have heard it before, but for just a few moments I would like for you to remember it with me one more time.
Christmas has come and gone. The baby is born, the angels have sung their songs and have gone back to wherever it is that angels go after a performance, and the shepherds have gone back to sit with their sheep and tell and re-tell the story of their exciting night in Bethlehem. Everything is back to normal. Almost everything. Everything except King Herod. Herod has heard the story of the birth of this new King, and has made it clear that he intends to eliminate this future threat to his throne. So the angel returns in a dream and warns Joseph to take the baby and his mother and run across the border as fast as their feet will carry them. Just how long they stayed in Egypt, and where they lived while they were there we are never told, but finally after Herod dies, the angel hunts them down and tells them that it is safe to return home. However, now that Herod is dead, Bethlehem and Judea are under the control of his son Herod Archelaus, who was as dangerous as his father had been. So, Mary and Joseph decide that the safest thing for them to do is to forget about going back to Bethlehem, and go straight back to Nazareth. They apparently make the trip safe and sound and that brings an end to this little part of the story.
There are many sermons that could be preached on this story. We could talk a while about the power of this God who can show up in the middle of dreams and pull his people out of a really messy situation. We could flavor the sermon up a bit by throwing in some examples of how God has pulled some of us out of tight spots and led us around the danger rather than right through it. Or we could spend some time wondering why sometimes God just lets us stumble along all by ourselves. There is plenty to talk about there.
Or we could preach about how God sometimes uses people from the outside to get done what God wants to get done. According to the old prophecy, the Messiah would come out of Egypt, and would have ended up in Nazareth. Isn't it interesting how old King Herod actually brought that prophecy true through what he did? We could throw in a few more examples of how people who have no intention whatsoever of helping God, who actually do a better job of helping than those of us who make it our profession.
The idea of prophecy itself would make a good sermon here, or maybe we could talk about angels. No, there is no shortage of material. However, what I believe needs to be looked at now is something that the selected passage leaves out, or really, just skips over. If you were reading along with me earlier, you noticed that there are a couple of verses that are left out of the reading. That's probably because there really isn't much holiday spirit in them. They aren't very Christmasy, and they certainly aren't very joyous. But they are real, and with only a few days remaining until the beginning of a new year, perhaps reality is a good place to be. So with apologies to the fine folks who put these lectionary passages together, we are going to hear the story within the story, the one they left out.
All the rest is true. The baby is born and everyone has gone back to whatever they had to do. It just so happened that one of the things Herod felt he had to do was to kill that newborn baby. Politics, you understand. The angel appeared and warned the family to flee, and flee they did. But then, in the part that got left out, Herod flew into a rage. No one raged like Herod could rage. In previous rages he had killed several of his own sons. He was ruthless. The saying was, "It is better to be Herod's pig, than to be Herod's son." Today we would call him psychologically unbalanced but then they just called him "Sir."
It was in this rage that Herod sent an elite group of storm troopers into the little village of Bethlehem with orders to kill every child under the age of two years. And it was done. From house to house, or in the front yard, they were killed. Now scholars point out that, fortunately, Bethlehem was a small village, and we are most likely only talking about 30 or 40 children who were killed. But if you ask any one of those 30 or 40 families I'll bet they thought it was too many.
Yes, we want to celebrate the fact that Mary and Joseph, and their baby, were safe across the border in Egypt. But we must remember the others. We must remember that long afternoon of funerals back in Bethlehem. We have to remember both sides.
That's the way it happens. We see it every day. You work and work to do something good, something that will help someone, and it does. Then, later, you find out that what you did to help one, ended up hurting another. The angel's warning saved the three, but sealed the fate of the 30. You make the decision to improve your career, which you hope will help your family, but the more time you spend on the career the less you have for the family, and it suffers. You see one of your children needing attention. You make the effort to spend more time with your child, only then to find that another child, or your spouse, feels cheated. Your intentions are the best, but the result is split. It is good here, but not good there. It gets to the point where you are afraid to decide anything.
We make decisions that are good for business, or good for the people, only to find that they are not good for the environment. More animals are nearing extinction, the holes in the ozone are getting bigger, and the water table continues to fall. Boy, this is depressing. It's almost enough to make you believe in evil, isn't it?
And it is depressing. So depressing that some of us have thrown our hands up in surrender and quit. Some have decided that they simply can't decide anymore. Life is nothing more than getting up in the morning and taking your chances. No matter what you do, you lose, so why try? Evil has won. As you might guess, this group is a lot of fun at parties. This group is also missing out on a lot of good out there. This isn't the answer.
Some do not get depressed. They get even. There are some here who have decided that good and bad aren't worth worrying about anymore. "Take care of yourself" is their motto. They go for the gusto, and reach for the mountains, and plan on only going around once, so they go with a vengeance. This group also has a unique ability to redefine good and bad. They begin to understand that "good" and "bad" don't really exist. Anything can be good, and anything can be bad. It all just depends. I'm not sure they could sell this theory to those parents back in Bethlehem. No, this isn't the answer either.
So, what then? How do we continue, knowing that the good will always be shadowed by the bad? What do we do?
We lose sleep. We lie awake at night and wonder if we have really made the right choices. We sit by the bed of our children as they sleep and pray that we are doing a good job with them. We dance and rejoice with the three that got out of danger in the nick of time, and we stand and cry with the 30 who never had a chance. In plain words, we care.
Loving people and caring for them, isn't enough to change the way the world works overnight. It isn't enough to spare the life of the dying, or to bring back the one who has died. It isn't enough to protect your child from the hurts and pains that are waiting for her out there. Our caring isn't enough to guarantee the safety of all the whales in the ocean, or the purity of the water in the ground. Our caring isn't enough to change all "bad" into "good."
But it is all we are asked to do. And it is enough.
Christmas has come and gone. The baby is born, the angels have sung their songs and have gone back to wherever it is that angels go after a performance, and the shepherds have gone back to sit with their sheep and tell and re-tell the story of their exciting night in Bethlehem. Everything is back to normal. Almost everything. Everything except King Herod. Herod has heard the story of the birth of this new King, and has made it clear that he intends to eliminate this future threat to his throne. So the angel returns in a dream and warns Joseph to take the baby and his mother and run across the border as fast as their feet will carry them. Just how long they stayed in Egypt, and where they lived while they were there we are never told, but finally after Herod dies, the angel hunts them down and tells them that it is safe to return home. However, now that Herod is dead, Bethlehem and Judea are under the control of his son Herod Archelaus, who was as dangerous as his father had been. So, Mary and Joseph decide that the safest thing for them to do is to forget about going back to Bethlehem, and go straight back to Nazareth. They apparently make the trip safe and sound and that brings an end to this little part of the story.
There are many sermons that could be preached on this story. We could talk a while about the power of this God who can show up in the middle of dreams and pull his people out of a really messy situation. We could flavor the sermon up a bit by throwing in some examples of how God has pulled some of us out of tight spots and led us around the danger rather than right through it. Or we could spend some time wondering why sometimes God just lets us stumble along all by ourselves. There is plenty to talk about there.
Or we could preach about how God sometimes uses people from the outside to get done what God wants to get done. According to the old prophecy, the Messiah would come out of Egypt, and would have ended up in Nazareth. Isn't it interesting how old King Herod actually brought that prophecy true through what he did? We could throw in a few more examples of how people who have no intention whatsoever of helping God, who actually do a better job of helping than those of us who make it our profession.
The idea of prophecy itself would make a good sermon here, or maybe we could talk about angels. No, there is no shortage of material. However, what I believe needs to be looked at now is something that the selected passage leaves out, or really, just skips over. If you were reading along with me earlier, you noticed that there are a couple of verses that are left out of the reading. That's probably because there really isn't much holiday spirit in them. They aren't very Christmasy, and they certainly aren't very joyous. But they are real, and with only a few days remaining until the beginning of a new year, perhaps reality is a good place to be. So with apologies to the fine folks who put these lectionary passages together, we are going to hear the story within the story, the one they left out.
All the rest is true. The baby is born and everyone has gone back to whatever they had to do. It just so happened that one of the things Herod felt he had to do was to kill that newborn baby. Politics, you understand. The angel appeared and warned the family to flee, and flee they did. But then, in the part that got left out, Herod flew into a rage. No one raged like Herod could rage. In previous rages he had killed several of his own sons. He was ruthless. The saying was, "It is better to be Herod's pig, than to be Herod's son." Today we would call him psychologically unbalanced but then they just called him "Sir."
It was in this rage that Herod sent an elite group of storm troopers into the little village of Bethlehem with orders to kill every child under the age of two years. And it was done. From house to house, or in the front yard, they were killed. Now scholars point out that, fortunately, Bethlehem was a small village, and we are most likely only talking about 30 or 40 children who were killed. But if you ask any one of those 30 or 40 families I'll bet they thought it was too many.
Yes, we want to celebrate the fact that Mary and Joseph, and their baby, were safe across the border in Egypt. But we must remember the others. We must remember that long afternoon of funerals back in Bethlehem. We have to remember both sides.
That's the way it happens. We see it every day. You work and work to do something good, something that will help someone, and it does. Then, later, you find out that what you did to help one, ended up hurting another. The angel's warning saved the three, but sealed the fate of the 30. You make the decision to improve your career, which you hope will help your family, but the more time you spend on the career the less you have for the family, and it suffers. You see one of your children needing attention. You make the effort to spend more time with your child, only then to find that another child, or your spouse, feels cheated. Your intentions are the best, but the result is split. It is good here, but not good there. It gets to the point where you are afraid to decide anything.
We make decisions that are good for business, or good for the people, only to find that they are not good for the environment. More animals are nearing extinction, the holes in the ozone are getting bigger, and the water table continues to fall. Boy, this is depressing. It's almost enough to make you believe in evil, isn't it?
And it is depressing. So depressing that some of us have thrown our hands up in surrender and quit. Some have decided that they simply can't decide anymore. Life is nothing more than getting up in the morning and taking your chances. No matter what you do, you lose, so why try? Evil has won. As you might guess, this group is a lot of fun at parties. This group is also missing out on a lot of good out there. This isn't the answer.
Some do not get depressed. They get even. There are some here who have decided that good and bad aren't worth worrying about anymore. "Take care of yourself" is their motto. They go for the gusto, and reach for the mountains, and plan on only going around once, so they go with a vengeance. This group also has a unique ability to redefine good and bad. They begin to understand that "good" and "bad" don't really exist. Anything can be good, and anything can be bad. It all just depends. I'm not sure they could sell this theory to those parents back in Bethlehem. No, this isn't the answer either.
So, what then? How do we continue, knowing that the good will always be shadowed by the bad? What do we do?
We lose sleep. We lie awake at night and wonder if we have really made the right choices. We sit by the bed of our children as they sleep and pray that we are doing a good job with them. We dance and rejoice with the three that got out of danger in the nick of time, and we stand and cry with the 30 who never had a chance. In plain words, we care.
Loving people and caring for them, isn't enough to change the way the world works overnight. It isn't enough to spare the life of the dying, or to bring back the one who has died. It isn't enough to protect your child from the hurts and pains that are waiting for her out there. Our caring isn't enough to guarantee the safety of all the whales in the ocean, or the purity of the water in the ground. Our caring isn't enough to change all "bad" into "good."
But it is all we are asked to do. And it is enough.
