Be with us, O God, for if
you are with us, nothing else matters; and if you are not with us, nothing else
matters. Amen.
This text from Matthew is an extremely challenging one to
preach on. Sometimes this event is referred to as “the slaughter of the
innocents.” The word slaughter should never be used in a story about children,
and that is what makes this so hard. When an elder dies, we mourn the loss and
reflect on what happened in the past. But when a child dies, it is a loss of
the future. My stomach is in knots even considering what would happened if we
ever lost our dear Ellie. Exactly one month after Ellie was born, I sat on the
couch at home, holding an innocent newborn in my arms, while the news on the
television was that 20 children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I
simply cannot imagine.
Apparently, the authors of our lectionary couldn’t bring themselves
to deal with the topic. The Gospel reading prescribed for today omits those
middle verses that speak about the slaughter of the innocents. But I can’t
stand that. We don’t need to be protected from the Bible. If we can’t wrestle
with the tough questions of the faith in church, then where can we? A faith
that can only speak to blessings and not in the darkness is a faith that will
fade away faster than Frosty the Snowman. And the way that Matthew tells the
story, the Christmas story is both about the birth of the Christ child, but
also the killing of the Holy Innocents.
A mentor of mine once commented that he doesn’t worry
about the commercialization of Christmas because that’s just stimulating the
economy and people trying to show love for one another. But his worry is the sentimentalization
of Christmas. And I think that’s right. The issue is that Christmas is too
often a season of warm fuzzies, and not enough of the subversive message of
Jesus. People saying “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” doesn’t
cause me any stress. Do you all remember the Supreme Court case of Lynch v.
Donnelly? You probably know it better as the “Reindeer Ruling,” which allowed government
sanctioned Christmas displays, so long as they included secular symbols along
with religious ones. So you’ll find the crèche with Joseph, Mary, as well as
snowmen and Santa. And that watering down of the Christmas message does worry
me.
If you pay attention to older Christmas hymns, you’ll
find a darker tone. “The Holly and the Ivy” is a somber hymn that talks about
thorns and blood. “The Coventry Carol” says this about today’s reading: “Herod
the king, in his raging, / charged he hath this day. / His men of might in his
own sight / all young children to slay.” This isn’t “Joy to the World” or “O
Little Town of Bethlehem.” Secular songs say that this is “the most wonderful
time of the year,” but try telling that to the mothers who lost their children
at the hands of Herod’s soldiers.
In The Four
Quartets, TS Eliot writes “Go, go, go, said the bird: humankind cannot bear
very much reality.” Death is hard to face. But the deaths of innocent children
is perhaps the most gruesome evil that our world knows. So we’d rather skip
over this part of the Christmas story. But if we want to “keep the Christ in
Christmas,” we must wrestle with this aspect of the Nativity story. A
sentimental Christmas won’t sustain us throughout the year. When you are facing
darkness, “Twas the Night Before Christmas” isn’t going to give you any
strength, but the Gospel will. As St. John puts it “The light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
We
cannot run away from suffering, but we do have a God who will help us to face
it. Episcopal priest and author Barbara Brown Taylor has a new book out in
which she says “I have learned things in the dark that I could never have
learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again.” As
much as we might prefer to always walk in the light, our world is full of dark
places, but we give thanks that we have a faith that speaks to tragedy, and a
God that brings light to the darkness.
Herod was an evil man. Historians tell us that he
murdered his wife and two of his sons because he was concerned that they would
try to overthrow him. It is a reminder that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
For those of us in places of power, let this reading be a warning to us about
how we exercise that power. And for those of us who see abuses of power, let
this reading be a call to stand up and speak out against injustice. The magi
from the East come to King Herod and ask about the child who has been born “king
of the Jews.” That title, “king of the Jews,” was one that Herod claimed for
himself. He was enraged that someone else might be trying to take his throne.
When the magi don’t return to his palace to tell him where this child is, he
decides that the only way to preserve his rule is to kill all of the children
in Bethlehem.
I wish that the murder of those children was the only
historical example of the Holy Innocents. Just last month, 132 Holy Innocents
were killed in a school in Pakistan at the hands of the Taliban. Countless
undocumented children at our borders are modern day Holy Innocents. Unarmed
black men that have been killed at the hands of those in power are Holy
Innocents. Palestinians whose homes are destroyed by Israeli forces are Holy
Innocents. Children who never breathe their first breath due to miscarriages or
still births are Holy Innocents, and their parents are, unfortunately, often
not allowed to properly mourn their loss. Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, the New
York police officers who were assassinated on job, are Holy Innocents. Our
world knows too many Holy Innocents.
If such horrendous evil doesn’t make you question your
faith, I’m not sure what will. In a well-known scene from The Brothers Karamazov, the character Ivan says “it’s not worth the
tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little
fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to ‘dear,
kind God’! It’s not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for.” Ivan
continues his arguments against God based on the absurdity of a “good” God
allowing such evil to happen to such a Holy Innocent. And his point is a valid
one- if there is no atonement, then God isn’t worth it. What Ivan could not see
though, is the light that shines in the darkness.
Why is it that God warns Joseph to flee with Mary and
Jesus to Egypt, but not the other parents? Why is that such atrocities are
allowed to happen? Why did my older sister die when she was two days old in
emergency surgery after being born without complications? Why is it that “A
voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her
children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more”?
I don’t know. I have some thoughts that deal with the
idea of free will, love, and God’s providence, but in the face of suffering and
evil, those theories often crumble. A faith that is not born out of the
darkness will have difficultly sustaining our souls through the journey of
life. But Christmas has us face the tough reality of the world. This story of
the Holy Innocents strips us of whatever false sense of naïveté we may have.
There is pain and darkness in this world, and we can’t think, will, study,
rationalize, ignore, work, eat, drink, or drug it away, as much as we may try.
As the
prophet Jeremiah in today’s reading writes “See, I am going to bring them from
the land of the north, and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth… With
weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back… I will
turn their mourning into joy, I will comfort them, and give them gladness for
sorrow.” That is our hope, that our suffering will not remain unredeemed and that
we will not be alone in our sorrow.
The
Gospel gives us two pieces of Good News in the face of such evil. The first is
that Herod dies. That doesn’t undo the evil that he did, but it is a reminder
that God’s people lasted longer than he did. The other part of it is the
message of Christmas: of Emmanuel, that God is with us. Isaiah wrote that “the
Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones,”
and throughout the Gospel narratives, Jesus is described as one who has
compassion. The word “compassion” is derived from two Latin words and literally
means “to suffer with.”
The nature
of the universe is such that time moves forward and actions cannot be undone.
Pain cannot be erased, but it can be transformed through a loving community.
The source of this love and transformation is the present and loving God. In
several sermons, I’ve quoted William Sloane Coffin who said “God gives us
minimum protection with maximum support.” This week, I looked up the context of
those words and found them to be even more powerful than I had ever realized.
Coffin served as the Senior Minister at the prominent
Riverside Church in New York City. In 1983, his 24 year old son was killed in a
car accident. The story is that at his son’s funeral, the preacher said
something about the accident being a part of God’s will. At that, Coffin stood
up in the middle of the sermon and screamed “The hell it was! It wasn’t God’s
will at all! When my son died, God was the first one who cried.” Ten days
later, Coffin returned to the pulpit and said “My own broken heart is mending… for
if in the last week I have relearned one lesson, it is that love not only
begets love, it transmits strength… I know all the ‘right’ Biblical passages,
including ‘blessed are those who mourn,’… While the words of the Bible are
true, grief renders them unreal.” He notes that many “were using comforting
words of Scripture for self-protection, to pretty up a situation whose
bleakness they simply couldn’t face. But like God, Scripture is not around for
anyone’s protection, just for everyone’s unending support. And that’s what
hundreds of you understood so beautifully. You gave me what God gives all of us
- minimum protection, maximum support. I swear to you, I wouldn’t be standing
here were I not upheld.” Amen to that.
I sincerely wish that I could explain suffering or make
it go away. But what I can tell you is that a sentimental faith won’t help. God
is with us and knows our pains. God is with us even in the darkness, and calls
us out of it. So in the face of suffering and evil, we give God thanks for
Emmanuel, for God’s abiding presence with us. Open yourself to God. Invite God
to enter more fully into your life and into your grief. Rely on and trust the
people of God to be there as a manifestation of God’s love. Pray for the grace
to act as instruments of God’s healing and peace to those who need it. As
theologian Karl Barth said “to clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an
uprising against the disorder of the world.” So we pray for the strength to
stand against evil, for hardened hearts to soften, and for the transformative
presence of God to be present with us.
Christmas is about the reality of this world. As much as
we wish that Christmas was a sentimental story about a world that received the
Messiah with open arms, it is not. As St. John writes, “He came to what was his
own, and his own people did not accept him.” Jesus was born into scandal and
his birth was met not with reverence, but by a maniac who ordered the killing
of children. Our faith may not provide us with an explanation or end to
suffering, but it does give us the compassion of God which allows us to endure.
Maya Angelou once said that “to survive is human; to thrive is divine.” God’s
presence with us in Jesus allows us not just to survive, but to thrive, even in
the darkness places of life.
Let us pray, using the collect for the Feast of the Holy
Innocents: We remember today, O God, the slaughter of the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem by King Herod. Receive,
we pray, into the arms of your mercy all innocent victims; and by your great
might, frustrate the designs of evil tyrants and establish your rule of
justice, love, and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns
with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
