United Church in the Valley

7

United Church in the Valley

Student Minister: Matthew Heesing

January 8, 2016: “Looking Out for the Little Ones”

Scripture Reading:

Matthew 2: 13-23:

An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream:

“Get up,” the angel said, “Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt.

Stay there until I tell you, for King Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother during the night,

and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet Hosea:

“Out of Egypt, I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the wise men,

he was furious,

and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity

who were two years old and under,

in accordance with the wise men’s information.

Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice is heard in Ramah,

weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted,

because they are no more.”

After Herod died,

an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream

to Joseph, in Egypt,

and said,

“Get up, take the child and his mother,

and go to the land of Israel,

for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.”

So Joseph got up, took the child and his mother,

and returned to the land of Israel.

But when he heard that Herod’s son, Archelaus,

had taken his father’s place in Judea,

Joseph withdrew to the district of Galilee.

He went with Mary and Jesus,

and lived in a town called Nazareth.

Sermon:

In 2016, just last year,

a lot of famous people passed away.

From pop icon Prince,

to Florence Henderson of the Brady Bunch,

Kenny Baker, the actor for RD-2D,

Gene Wilder, widely known as Willy Wonka,

Alan Rickman, from the Harry Potter films,

and Glenn Frey, founding member of the Eagles,

not to mention,

David Bowie,

and George Michael,

Muhammad Ali,

Leonard Cohen,

and the author of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee,

as well as William Christopher, the minister on MASH,

Jim Prentice, our former premier,

Fidel Castro, Cuban revolutionary—

and only a couple weeks ago,

Carrie Fisher,

famous for portraying Princess Leia

in the Star Wars franchise.

Furthermore,

Carrie Fisher was closely followed

by her mother, Debbie Reynolds—

who died of a stroke only one day later,

which made the breaking of a mother’s heart

even more tragic.

Many of you, I’m sure,

were already aware of these prominent passings.

People have noticed these particular deaths:

they’ve been reported in the papers,

announced on the news,

publically mourned on Facebook pages and Twitter posts.

And rightly so:

these were influential individuals,

giants in the industry,

powerful, prolific men and women

who changed the world

through politics, poetry, music, movies and professional sport.

But what about the deaths we didn’t notice?

Those that didn’t make the front page,

those that weren’t recognized,

the less-illustrious and seemingly-insignificant?

What about the tragedies

that are never, ever talked about?

We’ve lamented the loss of big celebrities—

but what about the baby boys in Bethlehem?

The Biblical text this morning is bleak and distressing.

We don’t usually read this passage from Matthew,

but move right along from

the manger to the Magi to the adult ministry of Jesus.

For some of us,

this might be the first time hearing

of the holy family fleeing to Egypt,

frightened refugees far from home,

Mary, Joseph and Jesus

running away from the wrath of Herod.

The wrath of a King

so insecure in his own political empire,

so anxious of this possible threat—

so afraid of the predictions of a future Messiah,

the rumors of an infant who will overthrow his kingdom—

that he kills all the baby boys in Bethlehem.

To protect his power,

to show his strength,

to sustain his status quo,

King Herod murders all the boys in Bethlehem

between the age of zero and two.

Today, we’d call that infanticide.

But only if we noticed it at all.

Now, some scholars question

whether this massacre of the innocents

actually happened.

Matthew is the only Gospel author to mention it,

and no other histories of the time

talk about this specific atrocity.

Perhaps, one can argue,

Matthew is exercising some creative license.

Because it’s clear, in the larger literary context,

that he wants to compare Jesus with Moses:

Moses, the man who also escaped

a horrid slaughter of infants,

who fled his home

and also found his way to Egypt

to free the Hebrew slaves.

In Matthew’s interpretation,

King Herod is another kind of Pharaoh,

and Jesus is a more far-reaching Moses;

the promised savior of all God’s people.

So maybe Matthew embellished the story:

maybe this passage is just a plot device

to emphasize his overarching point.

But maybe this tragedy did take place.

After all, to quote Brian McLaren,

“dictators [like King Herod]

certainly have their ways of keeping atrocities secret.”

It’s certainly possible,

through censorship and silencing,

that the whole situation was shoved under the rug.

Bethlehem was a small town—

the total number of casualties

would have been around twenty or thirty.

Those in the neighboring region, or the next town over,

might not have even heard the news.

And in a world of violent chaos,

where rebels were crucified,

and peace was enforced with an iron fist,

this particular act of murder—infanticide—

might have gone unnoticed by many.

For these infants were not influential.

They had no power or prestige,

no prolific status or special impact.

These were not big celebrities—

these were baby boys in Bethlehem.

Yet Matthew mentions them.

Matthew makes them part of our story.

And whether or not this story happened in history—

maybe it did, maybe it didn’t—

the deeper truth

is that it does happen,

every single day.

The death of the Bethlehem infants

draws our attention

to all the little ones that die unnoticed.

All the little ones, in age or status,

who suffer in ways we don’t always see.

Matthew’s version of events

unveils the victims of injustice

and the casualties of violence;

it reveals the most vulnerable among us,

it reveals the voice that echoes through the ages—

A voice that was heard in Ramah,

back in the time of the prophet Jeremiah,

but also heard in Bethlehem,

back in the time of Jesus,

but also heard today

in Baghdad and Beirut

and Brussels and Sudan,

Palestine and Pakistan,

Aleppo and Iran,

Colombia and Korea,

Syria and the United States,

a voice heard in Canada,

even here, in Turner Valley,

a “voice of weeping and great mourning,

Rachel weeping for her children

and refusing to be comforted

because they are no more.”

This is a hard voice to hear—

a voice we don’t want to hear—

a voice that often goes unnoticed.

It’s a voice of weeping mothers

and mourning fathers,

frightened siblings,

and grieving friends.

It’s a voice crying out

for more than a million children

currently trapped in human trafficking.

It’s a voice refusing to be comforted

for the 21% of Canadian children living in poverty.

It’s a voice lamenting

the 10-20% of Canadian youth

affected by a mental illness or disorder.

It’s a voice that mourns

more than 582 cases

of missing and murdered

Aboriginal women in Canada.

It’s a voice that aches

for the 29,000 children under the age of five

who die every day from preventable causes.

This voice heard in Ramah,

Rachel weeping for her children,

is repeated by the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo,

and the Mourning Mothers of Laleh Park, Iran,

and the Saturday Mothers in Istanbul

and the Ladies in White in Cuba

and the Mothers Against Drunk Driving across North America,

and all the parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters

who have lost someone dear

to depression,

addiction,

accidents, alcohol,

cancer, abuse,

birth complications, bullying,

civil unrest

or simply being

in the wrong place at the wrong time.

This voice,

crying out for the baby boys in Bethlehem,

still cries out today.

So this Epiphany,

let’s pay attention.

Let’s listen to the anguish and sorrow

so often unacknowledged.

Let’s listen to the bleak, distressing stories

that don’t always get shared.

Let’s listen to the tragedies that no one ever talks about.

And as we listen,

to the cries that come up,

to the weeping and mourning

across time and space,

let’s learn to be uncomfortable.

Let’s learn to grieve and struggle.

Let’s linger in the spaces with no simple solutions,

the crises where clichés won’t cut it,

the situations where we don’t know what to say or do.

Let’s keep looking—

looking out for the little ones,

the ones left behind, lost, or forgotten,

the ones ignored, oppressed, or silenced,

the victims and vulnerable among and around us,

the individuals that often go unnoticed.

And let us listen and learn

and linger and look together,

as a people of faith, as a family of God.

For we know,

that even as kings try to keep their throne,

even as mothers mourn their missing children,

even as a family flees across the desert,

even as we echo the voice heard in Ramah,

we know

that even in the midst of suffering,

even in our most shadowy moments,

even in our weeping and crying

our listening and looking out,

we know

that even as lives are lost,

whether big celebrities or baby boys in Bethlehem,

we know

that in life, in death, in life beyond death,

God is with us.

We are not alone.

Thanks be to God.