Have Mercy On Us

I am weeping today, so I went back into a sermon for Epiphany from a few years ago: the Gospel of Matthew has hope, slaughter, earthly unjust rulers,…how does it challenge and guide us today?

(You may want to read Matthew 2:1-12)

Mary, Joseph and Jesus—these 3 were refugees. According to Matthew, they were in Bethlehem until the visit of the Magi. Once the magi left, the angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt and stay there til I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child and destroy him.”

Jesus, Mary and Joseph were asylum seekers in Egypt. They had no documents, they crossed borders, they were running for their lives, seeking sanctuary. And I wonder what was in their bag—maybe just enough to get them to Egypt to find safety.

Remember, though, the grim details in this story, known as the “slaughter of the innocents.” It sounds like our news headlines. Herod is back in Bethlehem angry that the magi did not tell him the location of Jesus. So he orders the killing of all the children in and around Bethlehem under the age of 2.

The Gospel of Matthew includes wailing…certainly God’s saving grace seems far off from mothers who mourn…from a city that mourns. The promise of Jesus seems far off from the refugees carrying bags. The threat of Herod is gone, but there are new Herods, aren’t there and new innocents. Friends, Jesus returns. Refugee Jesus returns to Jerusalem all grown up. He enters into the history of every wailing parent and every at risk child and every wailing city.

The birth of Jesus is not cheap; all the sweet carols that were sung and all the little kids' Christmas pageants and even all the social service programs in the world do not ease the mourning of the slaughter of the innocents: the sick child, fleeing refugees, the weeping parent, the violence in our city. This story tells the truth. The truth of our messy, joyful, sorrowful, glorious, hard lives.

But if God is with us, if refugee Jesus is with us, and he is, maybe we can bear to listen to the wailing. Nothing can keep God from hearing our wails. We can listen to the cries for justice, we can listen to the cries of sorrow, trusting that Jesus gathers them, trusting that Jesus has entered in, God made flesh, entering every nook and cranny of human life.

God calls us to tell the truth, stand for justice, act with courage, wail in lament. How might we seek this Holy One who weeps rather than seek the Herods who rise with the powerful? 

Christ have mercy on us all as we seek to follow Jesus.

Pastor Sonja