Back to Reality

Matthew 2:12-23                                                                      Bethany Presbyterian Church

               Hebrews 2:10-18                                                                     Nancy Willet

December 26, 2004

Well, here we all are—fat and happy after our Christmas day celebrations with our friends and families. I hope all of you have been able to experience some goodwill this holiday season. There have been office parties, Christmas pageants, gift giving, and holidays feasts to attend. Family and friends have gathered and enjoyed each other, and this coming week we will see the New Year in with more celebrations. Then it's back to the real world. Back to the daily grind of everyday living—Back to reality.

For some of you, however, the Christmas season may not be a joyous or happy time. It may not be much different from the reality you face everyday. During the winter months the days are short, without much sunshine. They are dreary, rainy, and cold. Tension, depression, stress, and anxiety may run a little higher. For those of you that have been experiencing these negative feelings, maybe a return to non-holiday routines may be a blessing, or maybe you won't even be able to tell any difference.

What is your reality? Were you altered in some way by the all the Christmas cheer going on around you? Were you full of peace on earth and goodwill toward others that will last throughout the year?  Or was loneliness a constant companion for you, and you don't really feel any different than you did back in September?

Looking at the gospel lesson for today doesn't seem to cheer me up much in the peace on earth, goodwill toward others category, either—what about you? Here we were two nights ago on Christmas Eve singing "Joy to the World!" and "Away in the Manger," about Jesus so peacefully sleeping. Then BOOM! we read today about a massacre of babies. Who wants to read about Herod killing all those innocent babies in Bethlehem so close to the holidays? We want to be experiencing warm fuzzies this time of year, not reading about killings.

You'll have to agree—Christmastime is highly romanticized today, but this story in Matthew is one good way to look at human reality—to acknowledge that life is not always about sugar plum fairies, gingerbread houses, Santa Claus or happy families gathering around the Yule log.         

The Bible's sense of Christmas is well-anchored in our human reality of pain and suffering. This reading from Matthew today shows us some of that reality. This is a story full of allusions to Old Testament stories—stories of hardship and suffering, stories of violence and abuse.

Think about the Exodus story of the Israelites going down into Egypt, then being called out by God to the Promised Land—is this not what the story says happened to Joseph and Mary?  Matthew also alludes to Pharaoh killing innocent Hebrew babies in Egypt, and baby Moses being hidden in the reeds to escape death. This is the same reason Joseph and Mary were fleeing to Egypt with the baby Jesus—because they had been warned in a dream that the ruler Herod was killing all babies under the age of two.

When Herod found out he had been tricked by the wise men—or astrologers, as they probably were, he was furious. He was worried that this new baby that had been born, the one the wise men were calling the "king of the Jews" was going to be a great threat to his own power and authority. Herod didn't think much of having a new king in the land where he was supposed to king of the Jews.

So what did Herod do? He responded with violence. He responded with the type of violence so heinous we would really rather not think about it mixed in with all our Christmas cheer. The God child was kept safe but the world of terror and sorrow became reality as never before.

Herod's story in some ways is a repeat of violence that was told in the Old Testament stories. And, sadly enough, history is still repeating itself today. Matthew's story invites us to move beyond our gaze at the pastoral nativity scene, the wise men, and the sheep, and look out to the real world in which God came. You see, Matthew is not just telling us about the birth of the baby Jesus and how he, with Mary and Joseph escaped to Egypt. Matthew is also telling us about the pain which his own community faced. This pain belongs in the Christmas season, as well as the cheer, if Christ is not to be trivialized.

We have our own pain in our communities today. History seems to relive its abusive cycle of violence and is carried out right here where we live. Violence is used to hold onto power, political or otherwise. The violence we read about in the gospel story was politically motivated. Herod was threatened, and used violence to gain power and control over those who threatened him. It's not too hard to think about politically motivated violence in our state of the world today, is it?

Political power is not the only motivation for violence and abuse in our society today, however. Desire for psychological, physical, and emotional control can also be motivators for violence and abuse. You see, violence and abuse is not about someone being out of control and "losing it." This type of violence and abuse is all about being in control and using whatever means of force to keep that control.

Abuse and violence is not often not talked about from the pulpit, but violence against women and children, and to some extent men, is a pandemic the church cannot or should not ignore any longer.

 This type of violence takes on several different forms: domestic violence—in families or couples—rape, incest, sexual violence, sexual harassment, stalking, exploitation of women in the media, pornography, etc. – all these continue to be rampant in society.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence defines domestic violence this way: A pattern of behavior used to establish power and control over another person through fear and intimidation, often including the threat or use of violence, when one person believes they are entitled to control another.

The statistics on domestic violence are mind boggling. According to The Presbyterians Against Domestic Violence Network, every 18 seconds a woman is beaten…that means that during the fifteen minutes or so that I am preaching, nearly 200 women will be beaten and abused.

One out of three women in the U.S. will be physically assaulted by a partner or ex-partner during their lifetime, according to the American Psychological Association. The next time you are at a movie, or in a crowed mall, or at the grocery store, look around—statistically speaking, there will be people among you that are or have been victims of domestic violence at the hands of a partner.

Domestic abuse does not only occur in relationships between men and women, either. Intimate partner battering occurs within same-sex relationships with the same statistical frequency as in heterosexual relations, approximately 25-30% of relationships.

            In whatever type of family setting domestic abuse occurs, when there are children present, they are victims as well. We live in a relational world, which inevitably means that "every creature will be affected by every other; each individual is involved in the plight of all. Violence perpetrated anywhere reverberates everywhere through this relational structure of life, leading to even further violence."1

Nationally, 75% of battered women say that their children are also battered. Statistics are pretty clear that children use the models they have experienced to form their own families. Boys who experience domestic violence are more likely to batter their partners as adults, and girls who witness abuse have a high risk of being battered as adults. It is important that children who live with family violence learn that their experience of home is not the only experience of family life.

            So where do we find Good News in today's text? One of the things I was taught in seminary is to preach the gospel. Gospel in Greek means "good news." Where is the gospel in this lesson? How do we find good news in a story like this? Over 2000 years later, children are still being sacrificed at the hands of madmen like Herod. We still live in a violent, abusive world, there is no doubt.

As Christians, we live in this same violent, abusive world that everyone else lives. But, through the biblical stories about the life of Jesus Christ and how he lived, we are taught a new way to live. This new way does not run away from violence but faces it. God does not resort to the old way of doing things, which is to fight force with force. Violence only begets more violence.  God will not stop the madness by getting caught up in the same madness. God neither runs away nor gets caught up in the terror, but stands with us right in the midst.

 Jesus was born in the midst of terror and madness and enters into our terror with us today. We have Jesus Christ to show us the way of love, and love refuses to violently snuff out the madness. Love only knows love. As disciples of Christ, we are called to live and follow the new way of life that is shown to us through the life of Jesus. We can do this because Jesus took on our human nature, as our reading from Hebrews told us. He took on our very nature, and his Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, is in the process of transforming our nature every day—transforming us so we can live a life of love, not violence.

            So what can we do as a Christian community to help end this cycle of violence that has repeated itself so many times throughout history? I think we have taken a good first step today. We can talk about domestic abuse and violence and not allow it to gain power in the world by keeping it a secret. Secrets can become powerful, damaging, destroying things. By acknowledging the dark side of the world we live in, we are better able to face that darkness head on and live in the light.

            Like Mary and Joseph, we are called to move out from soft places, from warm rooms and safe havens, to places where innocence is challenged, where lives are at risk. We are called to carry the God Incarnate to those uncomfortable places that we might all be free.

            If you or someone you know is being hurt by another, do not keep silent. Tell someone about what is going on. Seek help from a friend, a pastor, a teacher, or someone you trust. I have placed a Community Resources and National Hotline sheet on the bulletin board in the Parish House. There are telephone numbers there for rape crisis centers, drug and alcohol abuse centers, and the community domestic violence hotline, plus many other helpful numbers. If you need help—call someone, please do not keep it to yourself.

            Some of you may be aware, but not all, that we are in the process of implementing a new Child Protection Policy for our children and youth here at Bethany. Grace Presbytery is in the process of making Child Protection Policies a necessary requirement in every congregation. Teachers, volunteers, staff, and anyone working with children or youth will be asked to submit to criminal background checks in an attempt to keep our children safe. This is a positive step we as a congregation are taking in saying "No!" we will not take any risks with our children.

            As we worship together for the last time in the year 2004, let us go into the New Year not with our eyes and ears closed to what is going on around us, but strengthened by our knowledge of such. I pray we may all be strengthened to be true disciples throughout this New Year, to be transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit, to be new creatures, living the new way of life given to us through the love of Jesus Christ.

For the way of Jesus is "the way that goes through reality, the reality of suffering. Not around it, or over it, but through it. That is the good news for us today as we go back to our post-holiday realities."2 

1"I was only a little angry: Divine violence in the Prophets." Terrence E. Fretheim. Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology. October 2004, page367.

2"Back to Reality," sermon preached by Paul J. Nuechterlein. Delivered at Emmaus Lutheran, Racine, WI. December 30-31, 1995.