The Forgotten Cast Member of the Christmas Play

December 29, 2013

1^st Sunday after Christmas

Isaiah 63:7-9; Matthew 2:13-23

The Forgotten Cast Member of the Christmas Play

            Somehow, in just 15 months, my daughter, Isabel, has acquired three nativity sets.  And for some reason, I found myself comparing them.  They all have Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus, of course, as well as an angel, an assortment of animals, and three wise men.  What’s missing in two out of the three of them is a shepherd, which I find rather interesting.  The wise men make it to the manger, but not the shepherds, the first people the angels go and tell about baby Jesus and who are actually there shortly after his birth.  The wise men don’t actually make it til a bit later, and we’ll hear their story next Sunday.   However, in reading today’s story, it occurred to me that someone else is missing, too, and not just from Isabel’s nativity sets but from all of the nativity scenes I’ve ever seen.  There’s another player in the Christmas story, one whose role we tend to forget about.  And he’s even a named character, unlike the shepherds or the wise men: King Herod. 

            Herod the Great ruled Judea from the year 37 BC to the year 4 BC.  Although he was appointed by the Roman Empire, he had to fight for four years to firmly take control of his kingdom and, as a result, he never felt his power was fully secure.  Herod’s domain was only 1,350 square miles, which is just a little larger than the state of Rhode Island, but he built at least seven major fortresses so that he was never far from a defensible stronghold.  He was known for rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem on its grandest scale ever, and this is the temple that Jesus and his disciples knew.  Perhaps these are the reasons he is known as Herod the Great.  However, King Herod was also known for ruling with an iron fist, violently suppressing all opposition and was not above killing his own family members, such as his first wife, his brother-in-law, and three of his own sons, when he suspected them of wanting his throne.  Given this background, today’s Gospel lesson fits right in. 

            The wise men had stopped at Jerusalem on their way to Bethlehem and had a conversation with Herod about the baby who was born king of the Jews.  Now, Herod was king of the Jews.  He had worked hard to secure and keep his kingdom, and now there’s a baby?!  When the wise men didn’t return to report back to Herod, it’s no wonder he took matters into his own hands: kill all the baby boys two years old and younger.  This is a part of the Christmas story we tend to not pay a whole lot of attention to.  We don’t want to hear about the “massacre of the holy innocents”; we don’t want to connect Jesus’ birth with the murder of babies.  We don’t even really want to think about Mary, Joseph, and Jesus living as political refugees in Egypt, fleeing political persecution.  And yet that’s Jesus’ early childhood.  It wasn’t idyllic, it wasn’t innocent; it was life as a refugee.  It was escaping a cruel despot.  This is the side of Christmas that we’d rather forget. 

            This Advent we’ve focused on moving from darkness to light, as in: “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in a land of deep darkness, a light has dawned.”   On Christmas Eve this year at the 7:00 and 9:00 services, we chose to not end in somber darkness following “Silent Night,” but in cheerful light, singing “Joy to the World.”  It created a different feel to the service, to move from darkness to light and end with the light.  The prologue to John’s gospel tells us that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it.”  However, that does not mean that there is no darkness and that’s what Herod reminds us.  Even at Christmastime, we can’t ignore the darkness because ignoring the darkness is ignoring reality. 

At a time when we put up lights and decorations, when we strive for perfection in our festivities and our gifts, all the busyness can make it easier to forget the darkness.  We live in a fallen world that is being redeemed, but when possible, we’d rather forget the fallen-ness.  We’d rather forget the King Herods out there.  We’d rather live in a bubble where everything is a great.  In the most recent James Bond movie, “Skyfall,” just before the bad guy bursts into the room and attacks, M gives a speech before the Intelligence and Security Committee defending her department.  M and her department are accused of being irrelevant and unnecessary , because we now live in a world that has become transparent, with so much information available at our fingertips.  In response, she says, “I'm frightened because our enemies are no longer known to us… Our world is not more transparent now, it's more opaque! It's in the shadows. That's where we must do battle.”[1]  Jesus Christ, the light of the world, has come, and yet we cannot forget the darkness.  We cannot forget those who continue to walk in darkness, we cannot forget those who dwell in sin because Jesus came to save them, too.  We are called to shine the light in the darkness, not to ignore the darkness.

This problem is especially prevalent during the Christmas season because we have this idea that we’re supposed to keep the hardships of the real world away from Christmas.  There’s this notion that Christmastime is supposed to be perfect, the meal should be delicious, the decorations should be beautiful, the presents should perfectly fit the recipient, everything is warm and joyous and merry this time of year… and yet.  Just because it’s Christmastide doesn’t mean the darkness goes away.  King Herod is still part of the Christmas story.  Just because we feast and put on our best manners for visitors doesn’t mean that everyone eats their fill or has family to visit.  There is this romanticized idea that everything about Christmas should be just right, when the truth is that it’s not.  Last year I received a Christmas card from a family who had to photoshop their family picture in order for all three kids to look normal in it.  In every picture they took, and we’re talking about 30 pictures here, by a professional photographer, one kid was making a weird face, another kid wasn’t looking at the camera, or the baby, who had just learned to walk, kept trying to exercise her newfound skill.  That’s Christmas.  More than that, that’s life.  It’s not perfect.  Food will burn or someone will say something inappropriate or the cat will get in the Christmas tree.  Imperfection is part of life.  Darkness is part of this world, since its creation.   “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.”[2]  And everyone lived happily ever after.  Unh-unh.  That’s not how the story goes.  Sin came into the world shortly after creation and darkness continues to threaten the light.  

That’s why God sent Jesus, even during the reign of King Herod.  Christmas is God’s response to our sorrows and our darkness.  God made flesh, God in human form, God in the form of a slave.[3]  Christ came to be in solidarity with us in the midst of our darkness and to care for us.  We have not been left alone.  Darkness does not have the final word.  Jesus was not born to a wealthy family or one of prestige.  His birth caused the death of many baby boys.  His early childhood was spent as a refugee in a foreign country.  And that’s where God comes.  God isn’t floating on a cloud up in Heaven, watching you and rewarding you according to whether you’re naughty or nice.  God is down here among us, with us, sharing in our places of darkness, bearing our burdens with us.  “This holy season is the promise that God’s joy is deeper than our sadness, that ultimately life is more powerful than death, and that the light shines even in the darkness.”[4]

Despite the existence of darkness, light does triumph.  The greatest example of light defeating darkness came on the first Easter morning when Jesus rose from the dead, conquering death.  That is the final word in the story.  Whatever places of darkness there may be in your life, whatever “King Herod” threatens to overshadow the light in your life, wherever there is sin in the world, God has come into those places in the form of Jesus.  He suffers with you, he understands what you’re going through, because he was human, too.  Remember our Isaiah reading this morning: “For he said, “Surely they are my people” …and he became their savior in all their distress.  It was no messenger or angel but his presence that saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.”[5]  It was no messenger or angel, but his presence that saved them.  So don’t worry if dinner gets burned, that sweater you bought as a gift doesn’t fit, or the in-laws tell you that they’re staying another week.  It’s ok that things aren’t perfect.  Do not fear the diagnosis of disease, the loss of a loved one, or the Sta-Puft Marshmallow Man.  As long as there is darkness, Emmanuel, God with us, will be with us to cast a light into those dark places in our lives. 

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[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1074638/quotes

[2] Genesis 1:1-3

[3] Philippians 2:7

[4] http://www.ministrymatters.com/all/article/entry/4496/lets-keep-herod-in-christmas

[5] Isaiah 63:8-9

Hamster Wheels

26^th Sunday after Pentecost

November 17, 2013

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Hamster Wheels

            There are a handful of truths in this world that are universal – the sun will rise in the east, Jesus will always love you, and hamsters make terrible cab drivers.  They have no opposable thumbs, which makes steering difficult.  They’re only three or four inches tall, so they struggle to reach the gas pedal.  And, most importantly (to our topic, at least), they lack the sense of purpose a cab driver needs to do her job.  The cab driver spends her day purposefully shuttling people from point A to point B, wherever those points may be.  In contrast, the hamster spends his day running in place, going… nowhere, on a hamster wheel.  The hamster wheel spins in place, and while the hamster can run for miles and miles on it, it will never get him from one end of his cage to the other.

Now, one of Isabel’s current favorite books is a bilingual counting book.[1]  Among her favorite pages are “dos caras mojadas, two wet faces,” where she loves to look at the two babies in the picture, “nueve animales de granja ruidosos, nine noisy farm animals,” where we make the different animal noises, and “diez bebés ocupados, ten busy babies,” where she just stares at the picture of all these babies busy playing.  She knows something about that, she herself is a busy baby.  At fourteen months old, Isabel is now constantly on the move when she’s awake.  She’s looking at her books, she’s playing with the stackable rings, she’s up and down the stairs, she’s pulling her clothes out of her dresser drawer, she’s dunking a toy in the dog’s water bowl, she’s pulling her socks off her feet… she’s always up to something.  And there’s a reason behind her busyness: she’s exploring her environment.  She’s learning about how things work, including her body and her muscles and seeing what happens when she does something.  Babies aren’t busy for the sake of being busy.  They’re busy with a purpose.  They’re not just running on a hamster wheel going nowhere but are busy learning and growing synapses and exploring their world.  It really is hard work being a baby, there’s so much to do!

            So what can we learn from hamster wheels and busy babies?  There is a vast difference between busy work and purposeful work.  Hamsters are busy running on their wheels, but not productive.  Babies are busy, and they grow and accomplish new things in their busyness.  And by now you’re probably thinking, well, wait, they’re both busy, which means they’re not idle, which was what Paul was warning against in the passage we just read.  However, look closer at verse 11.  What Paul’s getting at isn’t idleness like sloth and laziness, but people who are busybodies, meddlers, and overall disruptive.  There’s work that is pointless, like spinning a hamster wheel, there’s work that is purposeful and good, like a baby exploring their world, and then there’s work that is disruptive, disorderly, and only stirs up trouble and that’s what busybodies do.  They do not work toward the good of their community; instead they actually tear down the sense of community.  Their work is meddling and they actively work for trouble and mischief, whether they realize it or not.  It’s like the neighbor who takes the HOA covenants a little too seriously and makes it their life’s mission to make sure everyone in the neighborhood is following every single rule to the letter.  This is the person who will come over while you’re at work and measure the length of the grass in your front yard with a ruler, or, true story from a friend of mine, complain to the HOA that the flower pots on your front porch are not the correct shade of blue.  Friends, this kind of work is not fruitful and does not work toward the shalom, the peace, of your community.  Instead, if you are busy doing good things, if you’re busy building up your community, then you don’t have time for all this negative stuff. 

             And work is inherently good.  You know why?  First, because God is a worker.  God works.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[2]  And even now God is still creating, bringing about his kingdom on earth.  Second, God calls us to work.  This goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden when God put Adam in the garden to take care of it.[3]  Moreover, we are co-workers with God when we are about the work God has called us to do.  God has called, is calling, you to a specific work.  It may be your day job or it may be that your day job provides you with the resources to do God’s work.  Either way, discerning your vocation is important.  God is calling you to something, I promise you that.  If you’d like help listening, Pastor Ken and I are always available, as are the rest of our staff, and really, any leader in this church can help and give you some focus and direction.  The work God is calling you to is good work.  It is not aimlessly running on a wheel and it is not causing trouble. 

            It’s important to realize that you may not see the results of your work. This is the discouraging part, the frustrating part, the hard part.  Even when you’re about God’s work, you don’t always get to see the fruit of your labor.  It’s like when Paul addressed the divisions in the Corinthian church because there were different factions according to who had baptized them, or who was pastor when they joined the church.  Paul wrote, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.”[4]  You may be the one who sows the seed and you never know what happens to it.  Or you may water the seed someone else planted, but still don’t see the final product.  Or you may have the privilege of reaping what others sowed and watered, not knowing who those others were and just what they did, but enjoying the harvest.  I think that’s certainly true for many of us at Orange.  Many of us are not related to the saints of Orange who have gone before us, who dreamed and planned and built this church and this building, but we are reaping the benefit of their planning and dreaming.  With the Vision Team, we are now doing our own dreaming and planning for the future of this church, regardless of whether we are still here to enjoy it whenever it comes to fruition.  When you encourage someone in Christ, when you share your faith with someone, when you quietly do the work that God has given you to do, which probably doesn’t include a lot of fanfare or public recognition, you may not get to see the fruit that comes of it.  You have to trust that God will use it, that when you are about God’s work nothing is futile or pointless or menial.  It may be a thankless task that is unrecognized by many.  Guess what?  God doesn’t call you to fame, he calls you to faithfulness.  There is a purpose to his work, even when we don’t always know what it is.

            Finally, we, the church, are more fruitful in our work with you.  As in, working with you makes our work more fruitful.  One of my favorite bible passages over the years has been Ecclesiastes chapter 4, which talks about the importance of community: “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”[5]  Work is done better when done with others.  The more people who serve at IFC, the more who are involved in Homestart or Angel Trees or youth, the easier the work is, the quicker it goes, and the more enjoyable it is.  Sharing the burden, sharing the work, makes it better, makes it easier to recognize the purpose and when more people participate, there is less frustration and less burn-out.  When everyone has a role to play and a task to fulfill and it all works together, what a wonderful example of God’s kingdom come! 

            You’ve been hearing a lot lately from our Finance team because their role to play is to put together our church budget.  As you saw from the skit, our church budget affects… everything.  And while priority is given to things like the electric bill, it also helps other areas like youth and children and outreach to be able to plan on some funds for the year.  In Luke chapter 14, Jesus asks, “Who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you.  They would say, ‘There’s the person who started that building and couldn’t afford to finish it!’”[6]  That’s what your pledge cards tell us.  The pledge cards let us know if we will have the funds to carry out the ministries we have planned for next year.  It lets the youth know if they can go to Pilgrimage, an annual event with thousands of youth from around our Conference, and which 18 of our youth attended last weekend.  It lets the children know if they have the funds to put on The Zone performance twice a year.  It lets missions know which service projects they can plan for next year.  It lets our Financial Secretary and our Treasurer know if we’re going to be able to meet our budget or if they’re going to be extra-stressed this coming year.  That’s what your pledge cards do.  That’s why our work as a church is more fruitful, more vital, and more faithful when you are also involved in it, and not just financially, but also with your presence, your prayers, your service, and your witness. 

We are about to enter a time of the year that is often described as “happy” and “busy.”  The church calendar fills up.  Your personal calendar fills up.  There are parties and get-togethers and big meals and the church Cantata and The Zone performance on the same day this year!  “Busy” is what categorizes the next six weeks.  So take a moment and evaluate what you are busy doing.  Are they activities that build up the kingdom of God or are they troublesome?  What kind of work do these activities do?  Are you running on a hamster wheel or are you learning about your environment and about God?  Are you busy because you’re supposed to be because it’s that season, or busy being a busybody, or are you busy being about good things, being about God things, doing the work that God is calling you to do and the work that God is calling this church to do? 

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[1] It’s what she’s reading in the picture above.

[2] Genesis 1:1

[3] Genesis 2:15

[4] 1 Corinthians 3:5-6

[5] Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

[6] Luke 14:28-30, NLT