The Innocents
Sermon by Bob Hardman
12/30/07
It seems that whenever or wherever Christ comes, even as a babe in swaddling cloths, darkness seems to overthrow the light. The dramatic story in Matthew emphasizes this point. Herod the Great is juxtaposed with Jesus the babe. The embodiment of wealth, control and power comes up against the embodiment of defenselessness. And with that juxtaposition, the image of Bethlehem as “the most innocent place on God’s earth” groans under the burden of cold hard reality.
It is a reality not limited to the Herods or Caesars of the ancient world. It is a terrible reality known in all ages, for all time. Whether this event actually took place or not, the point is made; that is, children are expendable. Little people, young people, when it comes to adult priorities, usually get the shaft. “Holy Innocents” suffer and die under the devices and desires of the adult world all the time.
I watched a video for a second time about a Northern Ugandan child named Innocent, who was living away from his family at night in a camp with other boys as a way of protection against Northern Ugandan rebels who snatch young children from their families and force them to kill sometimes members of their own family just for the sake of killing. Innocent studies hard, loves to dance and rap, thinks of a future in politics and yet always has to be wary of his safety.
Who knows how Herod slew the innocents in Bethlehem – by spear or sword presumably. In our past century and this century children got gassed in Auschwitz, napalmed in Vietnam, starved to death in Sudan, massacred in Rwanda, sold into slavery and harlotry from Asia or smart – bombed in Iraq. More indigenous to America, they get dumped in trash bins, drowned in bathtubs, abandoned on benches in Disney World, shot by troubled youths in schoolyards or are denied healthcare because of poverty and inadequate government health support.
Jesus made two promises to his disciples. One was that “in the world” they should have constant difficulty. The second was that God would be with them always. That “cold, hard reality” and the accompanying “Gospel promise” of unfailing companionship were true for the Holy Family. Yes, they did undergo what had to have been a traumatic displacement into Egypt. Yes, they would be terrified when their young son had stayed behind in Jerusalem without their knowing. Yes, Mary would have to endure seeing her son barely escape a vigilante mob made up of neighbors of her own hometown. Yes, Mary and Jesus’ brothers and sisters would have to live with the accusations that he was out of mind or that he was acting in league with the devil. Yes, his family would witness the wordless shame of the crucifixion.
As long as you live in a world with Jesus at the center of your life, you will have Herods after you – and not just political ones either. It doesn’t take a Jungian analyst to tell us that a Herod lives in each one of us, a Herod that's threatened by anything that gets in the way of running his or her own show. A Herod that abhors the Light and prefers darkness – and often lives under the banner of progress and respectability. A Herod that longs for self interest to have primacy over the spiritual. Salvation is about despots like King Herod, systems that allow a few to prosper while many suffer, and predators that steal time and joy. That means politics, economics and culture – the very forces that Jesus came to redirect, the very forces that crushed him.
The good news, of course, is that God is doing for the Holy Family what they cannot do for themselves, just as God will do for us. Maybe it is through a dream, or a family intervention, or a friend’s call or a serious illness, or a voice heard or a vision seen or a Scripture read – but God’s providential care comes through our lives. And the more we rely upon this care, the more we trust in it, and proceed upon it, even when it means venturing onto dangerous ground, as Joseph, Mary and Jesus ventured back into Israel, the more efficacious grace becomes.
In the 5th Century non-canonical work, The Gospel of Pseudo Matthew, the writer says that when the Holy Family fled to Egypt, they were protected from dragons and revered by lions and leopards who wagged their tails in homage, and that they were fed by palm trees that bent down before them as they passed by. When Jesus told his disciples to be of good cheer because he had overcome the world, somehow I don’t think he was alluding to dragons with miraculously closed mouths, or to lions wagging their tails or to palm trees bending over to make coconuts available. But what Jesus pointed to was God’s unfathomable grace. God’s love which, despite all obstacles or whatever degree moves in mysterious ways to fulfill the Divine will.
