Sermon of Dec. 30, 2007 by Michael Bradley

First Sunday after Christmas
December 30, 2007
Matthew 2:13-23

BEING REAL

by Dr. Michael R. Bradley

How strangely modern this story from the gospel sounds! Refugees fleeing in fear of their lives; families seeking refuge in a foreign land to escape violence in their homeland; children dying because of corrupt political decisions. Is this the text of an ancient document or is this the headline from today’s paper? Have we lived so long only to see so little changed? Is the course of human history caught in a circle which leads nowhere? Are we condemned to repeat the same sorry actions over and over, never learning to be better people? Where is God Almighty in all this? I do not want to contemplate the scene recounted in Matthew, not today, not on the day I have baptized my grandson!

Matthew, like all the gospel writers, wrote for a purpose. It seems that Matthew worked most diligently at making the link between the prophetic writings of the Hebrew scriptures and the life of Jesus Christ. As a result, Matthew’s is the most literary of the gospels and the most fanciful. My friend, the novelist Howard Bahr, says that in his line of work he is free to tell the truth without being encumbered with footnotes. That is the position of Matthew. We cannot “footnote” the events he records in Bethlehem; but we have, in the lesson this morning, an “escape and survival” story which references the prophet Jeremiah and which is imposed on the account of the birth of Jesus. The purpose is to establish further the legitimacy of Jesus’ place in the gospel by asserting that Jesus is saved for a reason, is saved to complete the purposes of God.

A casual reading of this account runs the danger of assuming that the suffering inflicted in Bethlehem was necessary for the sake of Jesus’ sovereignty. This sort of interpretation is flattened out for common consumption to something like “no pain, no gain” and postulates that some must suffer in order for progress to be made. This line of reasoning suggests that suffering is necessary for God’s work in the world and, therefore, God is the author of suffering.

Certainly, suffering is real and has been a part of the real world ever since the beginning but we must also be real in our thinking about God and the divine purpose of the advent of Jesus Christ.

God’s will for humanity does not require the imposition of suffering. Whether in disease, death, trial, warfare, or dominion, God’s reign does not call upon the believer to impose suffering on others, even upon those whom we believe should suffer. The lesson today cannot be rightly used to justify the existence of suffering; neither can the lesson be ignored or dismissed. While we cannot “footnote” the acts of Herod in Bethlehem the passage does convey the truth of God’s will for this world.

God does not impose God’s power on the world, but rather invites the world into true power—the power to recognize that suffering is the place in which we might become real. God’s advent as a little baby does not overturn the power of the world, it does reveal the power of the world as the power to cause suffering. God’s presence in the child Jesus caused a convulsion of power that showed itself for the cowardice it is by destroying the innocents of a backwater town in the name of security for the wealthy and the powerful. Whether it takes place in Bethlehem, in Chiapas, in Dafur, or in Iraq the presence of God shows us that suffering is wrong and calls us to respond. God did not/does not cause the suffering of these infants so that we would know God’s coming in Christ; God came into the world where there is such suffering so that we might see it and stand against it for the abomination that it is.

Matthew also tells us that God’s presence does not overcome suffering. The knowledge of the presence of God has not kept the troops safe, stopped the fires in California, relieved the water shortage facing Atlanta, or fed the starving in Sudan. For some people this suffering becomes proof that God does not exist. For those who see with eyes of faith, it is evidence that God keeps saying “I love you” and we deny that love with more energy than it would take to accept it.

In Jewish tradition there is a song in which the Cantor sings: If our God has simply saved us, merely brought us out of Egypt, only opened up our prison, and the Congregation responds It is enough. The point is that God does not rescue us from suffering nor is the will of God imposed on the world in such a way that suffering is eradicated; the point is that God suffers with us and invites us to respond to the suffering around us so we can become real, really the image of God, really Christ-like. Power is not imposed on us, but we are invited to take up the power of healing, reconciling, and loving. That is enough, enough to become real.

When we reject God’s sufficient power, God’s “enough,” we ignore the presence of God among us; we become selfish, indrawn, uninvolved. Our lives focus on avoiding suffering, for ourselves, and in the existence of others.

But to engage with suffering—our own and that of others—with the understanding that God suffers with us leads to maturity and insight, and even to joy in the midst of suffering. When we engage with the suffering of others, those we hold dear and those we do not really know, we know without doubt that we are loved. Knowing that we are loved, we know we are real. Being real means living life, knowing that being a child, a parent, a husband or wife or friend involves suffering, loss, and disappointment. Those things are transformed by love even amidst the loss of innocence.

As my grandsons grow up, as they come to love me not as someone to play with, but to love for who I am, as I become real to them, there will be times when it will hurt. But when you are real, you don’t mind hurt. Reaching that point doesn’t happen all at once. It may be that by the time we learn to be real most of our hair has been loved off, our eyes have grown a little dim, our joints a little stiff, our appearance a little shabby. But that is not suffering! It only means we have matured in the suffering world confident of God’s love for us, and willing to offer that love to others, knowing that suffering is never God’s will, but that God is willing to suffer with us so that we might become what God intends us to be—Loved--Given to the world as Christ was given to the world. Real.

In the name of God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

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