A Light in the Darkness
I watched the New England Patriots play the New York Giants last night. It was a great game. The Giants… who had absolutely nothing to gain by winning… except, perhaps, the satisfaction of destroying the Patriots’ perfect season… played a great game. For three out of four quarters, they actually made the Patriots sweat. In the end, the Patriots got what they wanted… the records that they set out to break when they came to the game… but it was not as easy for them to get those records as they initially thought it might be. With a lot of people looking on, they had to earn every point… every yard. It’s funny, but that somehow seemed more “right” to me. The outcome would have been the same if the Giants had just rolled over and played dead… saving themselves for their playoff game… instead of playing their hearts out last night and risking injury. But, somehow, it just seemed more “right” for them to do what they did… and they almost pulled it off.
What does not seem right is this story about Herod and the slaughter of the innocents. Doesn’t it bother you? How can we move from Christmas and the celebration of the incarnation to the glorification of the death and killing of children? Do you think about it… or do you just skip over this story and pretend that it didn’t happen? Or do you focus… like most of the commentaries do… on God’s gracious protection of his only Son and his surrogate family from harm and ignore the fact that innocent children had to die for that to happen? Does that sound like something our God would do? And how do we couple that disturbing text with a text from Isaiah that is a hymn of praise for what God has done? How do we sing “Praise God!” as the psalmist does in the midst of all this death and destruction? Didn’t Jesus come to advocate for the poor… to lift up the disenfranchised… to liberate the oppressed? What do we do with a portrayal of a God who warns some of coming disaster and not others? And what do we do with a “Holy Family” who flees without telling their neighbors of the danger that surrounds them? Is this an example of who we are supposed to be? How do we then make sense of this story that seems so senseless? It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. Those littlie children did not have a chance. Why would God allow this to happen? Why did God let Herod win this one… at the expense of so many innocent lives?
Once again, though, the key to the story is not God’s abdication of responsibility… but the wanton destruction that is perpetrated by the desires and warped ambitions of human beings. Herod wanted to win… and he did not care how many others suffered so that he could have what he wanted. This is a man who had four of his own sons killed at various times during his reign… simply because he believed that they were plotting against him… and usually when he, himself, was out of favor with Rome. He had his own wife killed so that his marriage to another woman could be legitimized. He killed at least one brother-in-law, one son-in-law, and one mother-in-law killed for alleged threats against him. In addition, his ten wives included both a cousin and a niece… just because he wanted it that way. Herod seemed to be the evil incarnation of that saying that is often attributed to Vince Lombardi, but was actually coined by Red Sanders, a football coach at UCLA in the 1950’s: “Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.” And Herod was obsessed with winning… whatever it took.
When we, as human beings become so obsessed with our own agenda that we fail to see… or to recognize… the pain we inflict on others to achieve our objectives… that is a sin. In the midst of God’s wondrous act in history to save us from the sin that humankind brought into the world, the whole story is almost derailed by one human being who is so intent on his own goals that he actually plots against God! What we often don’t see when we read this story, though, is how often we play the role of Herod… or tacitly support the Herods around us. Do I know how many people at the fringes of my life have been hurt by a decision that I made? Do I even care? How often do I even stop and ask the question? Am I so intent on my own objectives… my own comfort… that I simply act without thinking? How often have I remained silent when others have made decisions that might not hurt me, but do hurt others? Does that make me an innocent bystander… or a silent collaborator? Could the Holocaust have been prevented… or terminated earlier… if those Germans who lived near the concentration camps had spoken up about the injustice that they witnessed? What about other silent witnesses in Eastern Europe… Central America… Africa? What are we doing about Darfur today… watching and waiting… and hoping that it will just go away? Or, to ask a question that might hit closer to home: What are we doing about the homeless in Stephenville? Do we open the doors of our empty church building to them on the nights when the temperature drops below freezing? Do we provide a hot meal or a warm shower… or do we pretend that the homeless don’t exist here… and praise God that we are not one of them? Do we even care enough to ask the question?
The story of Christmas is not a fairy tale. I know that it sometimes can feel that way when we are standing in the sanctuary holding our lighted candles up and singing “Silent Night” together. The baby was born… the angels sang… kings and shepherds worshipped him… and we, too, brought our gifts and sang praises to God on that holy night. But the baby was born into a world filled with sin… and the reality of that is brought home to us in this story about Herod and the massacre of innocent children. The world was not changed by the birth of the baby… the world can only be changed by those who are changed by the baby’s birth. The story did not end when the baby was born… the story only started there… to be taken up by the shepherds… and others whose lives were touched by the One who came. You see, in the midst of Christmas joy when God appears to us in human form, we who have heard the good news are the ones who have to struggle with the question of the world’s reality. We have to struggle with how we stop the senseless dying… the uncontrollable weeping… and the slaughter of innocents… in our own lives… in our communities… and in the world around us. We are the ones who need to act to change the world… not God. God has already acted. God sent his Son. We, whose lives have been touched by God’s action, are the ones who now must act. And there are two things we must do: we must stop being Herod ourselves… and we must stop supporting the Herods that surround us. We must take the responsibility to examine our own lives to discover whether we are slaughtering innocents unaware. We must also speak out against the actions taken in our communities and in the world that do not affirm God’s holy act in history… actions that may benefit a few, but actions that may hurt many more. We are the ones who need to speak for those who do not have the power to speak for themselves… the weak… the poor… the disabled… the mentally ill… and those who live at the fringes of society. We need to act to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
I am not going to ask for a show of hands, but I want you to think about this question: How many of you have ever… ever… written to your congress person about any issue… any issue… that did not directly benefit you? Have you ever communicated your opinion on a topic that did not benefit you, personally, to your elected representative in Congress? Do you know how easy it is to do? Most of these individuals now have email addresses and merely clicking on the link on their web page will generate a letter… an email… to them. And some of them actually respond… or their staff people do.
Second question: How many of you have ever attended a city council meeting… or a school board meeting… that you were not required to attend… just to listen to the decisions that are being made for this community? I know that Eloise Horak has been trying to get us to attend public meetings regarding the library. I don’t know how successful she has been, but I do know that enough people have showed up to influence the outcome of the discussion… and, in some cases, that means three or four people. Yes, these decisions are influenced by those who attend those meetings. Their presence is felt. Their voices are heard.
What can we do to stop the Herods of this world? Maybe not much… but doing nothing is not an option… not for those whose lives have been touched by the baby born in the manger. Doing nothing gives tacit approval to Herod and his minions. If we cannot feed the hungry… restore sight to the blind… or set the oppressed free… we need to speak to those who can. We need to speak out against the injustice that we witness… lest we become counted among those who condone the suffering. We must become Rachel for our generation … crying out for those who suffer… for those who have died… and for those who still struggle.
It may seem like a drop in the bucket… like throwing sand dollars back into the ocean … but it is our faith in God… and our witness of God’s actions in history… that give us the courage to rise up against the Herods of our time and say, “You can’t do this any more.” Together, we must work to bring life where others plot death. It is in these struggles for justice that we all find life, which keeps alive the hope of Christmas. Howard Thurman, an influential author and theologian, wrote this poem:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart.
The song of the angels is stilled. It’s time to get to work. Amen.