January 11, 2009
Rev. Patricia L. Liberty
Silent Stories
Well, it’s officially over. The holidays are put to rest for another year. The decorations are gone (at least here) the twelve days of Christmas are past and you can go into any public place and not be assaulted with some ugly rendition of just about any Christmas Carol.
I think I have vacuumed all the pine needles from the family room and I finished my thank you notes this week. I have given away or eaten, mostly eaten the goodies we received and am dealing with the consequences….Let’s have a corporate sigh of relief.
What is the part of the holidays you are glad to see gone?
Most of what causes distress around Christmas has to do with the expectations of the season, ones that have little to do with all things religious. Most people won’t think their holidays are ruined if the Christmas sermon doesn’t peg the phenomenal meter (though both Rick and Linda’s did) or there’s a typo in the bulletin, or we didn’t sing your favorite Christmas carol…though I think the jury may be out on that one.
It’s the family stuff, getting the right gift, facing the empty place at the table, the memories of Christmas past or perhaps remembering the way it never was.
We are a sentimental lot. And it not only sets us up for stress and disappointment and sadness during THE HOLIDAYS which in truth are just three days, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, but it also misses the point of what the coming of Christ is really all about.
Joy Wallis writes, “…we need to beware! Our culture loves a sentimental Christmas, and the Christmas carols that we sing are a big part of that. The words often paint an idyllic picture of sanitary bliss that has very little to do with the reality of what Jesus came into this world to do.
But this sanitization of the Christmas story is a relatively recent development. It's interesting that before the Victorian era, Christmas songs were much more likely to reflect the reality of Jesus' entry into our world. Carols would not hesitate to refer to the blood and sacrifice of Jesus or the story about Herod slaughtering the innocent children.
As an example of the contrast, read through the words of "Away in a Manger." Jesus is the perfect baby, and "No crying he makes...." My guess is that Jesus cried a lot. We know from the gospels that the more Jesus saw of the world in which he lived, the more he mourned and wept regularly. A Jesus who doesn't weep with those who weep, a Jesus who's just a sentimental myth, may be the one that our culture prefers, but that Jesus can do nothing for us.
As Evangelical Covenant Reverend Dr. Michael Van Horn said, "We must be careful not to lose the connection to the truth of the story because it is that story that shapes our identity as the people of God." And if all we can muster is a sentimental Christmas then the other stuff of our life will remain a silent story.
Another danger of sentimentality is that we tend to lose interest in the parts of the story that are not so comfortable. We smile at the warm cozy nativity scene, but think about it, how much time have YOU spent in a barn. Have you ever slept in barn?
I have bedded down to be close to sick horses and cows in all kinds of weather. In the summer it is hot and there are flies, in the winter it is cold and no matter what time of the year it smells. There’s nothing romantic about it.
Can you imagine giving birth in a place like that?
And did you ever stop and think about why Mary and Joseph didn’t stay with Joseph’s relatives or friends who live in Bethlehem? Most scholars suggest that in Luke's account it's not just that the inns were full but that Mary and Joseph were forced to take the barn because their family had rejected them. It appears they were not received hospitably by family or friends, but in some way were shunned. Family and neighbors are declaring their moral outrage at the fact that Joseph would show up on their doorsteps with his pregnant girlfriend.
The angel may have spoken to Mary and Joseph about what was happening but apparently he forgot to clue in the rest of the family.
No sooner have the wise men left the stable then King Herod plots to kill Jesus. He is so determined that he is willing to sacrifice many innocent lives in order to get to this one baby. Herod recognizes something about Jesus that in our sentiment we fail to see: that the birth of this child is a threat to his kingdom, a threat to that kind of domination and rule. Jesus challenges the very power structures of this evil age. Herod has all the male infants in Bethlehem murdered. Not so cozy. This is the Jesus who entered the bloody history of Israel, and the human race.
And this is the part of the story we just as soon leave out. It’s rarely read in worship and when it is, the focus is usually on the flight to Egypt. I remember this story from Sunday School, it sounded like Mary and Joseph were super heroes on a wild adventure rather than homeless refugees running for their lives. And think how many people in our world know that truth…
But we don't want to think about Herod. Van Horn calls him the "Ebenezer Scrooge without the conversion, the Grinch without a change of heart."
Herod represents the dark side of the gospel. He reminds us that Jesus didn't enter a world of sparkly Christmas cards or a world of warm spiritual sentiment. Jesus enters a world of real pain, of serious dysfunction, a world of brokenness and political oppression. Jesus was born an outcast, a homeless person, a refugee, and finally he becomes a victim to the powers that be.
Jesus is the perfect savior for outcasts, refugees, and nobodies. That's how the church is described in scripture time and time again - not as the best and the brightest - but those who in their weakness become a sign for the world of the wisdom and power of God.
And yet, when we come to church we put on our best face and check our stuff at the door. We raise our prayer concerns for the sick and those who grieve, but we rarely say a word about the host of other pains that pierce our souls. We call Jesus the Savior and healer yet we seldom name what needs to be healed in the community of people who bear his name.
It is the subtext of all our lives. Our hearts are broken by more things than sickness and death…our children are broken and we don’t know how to help or perhaps have given up trying. We are recovering from incest and rape and miscarriage and abortion and battering and alcoholism and drug dependency, or perhaps we are the ones who batter and abuse and don’t know where to turn for help. We live with depression and anxiety and mental illness. We hide the illnesses that are not “socially acceptable” and suffer in silence. Our children are in the military and we are afraid they may never come home. Our financial lives are in tatters and we don’t know how we are going to make it. We are frightened and frustrated by so many things.
And we walk in the door on Sunday morning and someone says to us, “Good Morning, how are you today?” and we respond, “fne thanks and you?”
The church is not a gathering of people who have it all together, who look and act alike, who have no problems to speak of. The church is a community of people who are broken and needy, who in their weakness trust in the grace of God.
And the Jesus who has come into the world; born in a barn, a homeless refugee who never has a home to call his own and lives on the margins with the dispossessed and needy is our founder and our model, welcoming those who are like him so that we might become like the God he came to make known.
Herod might not be character we want to see on our Christmas cards, but making room for him in the story is a start to making room for the rest of us and the brokenness we bring as we gather here
This is the kind of church that Jesus the outcast refugee has created. The gospel that acknowledges brokenness, pain, and the tragedy of life is good news for us all. There is hope for all who find this season tinged with despair or pain.
The Jesus of the Bible came to give life to those who are living with real grief and pain. This is not often the stuff of our Christmas carols, but it is the stuff of our lives. Embracing the silent part of the story is far more hopeful than constantly posing for the lives we wish were ours or used to be ours. So, make room for Herod…he’s part of the story too. Amen.
References:
Joy Carroll Wallis, Putting Herod Back Into Christmas
Brian Stoffgren, Exegetical Notes
Pam Fickenscher, Remembering Rachel, the Slaughter of the Innocents
Klaas Schilder, The Weeping of Rachel