January 2, 2005 - Second Sunday After Christmas Day - Father Barry Woods

FIRST READING: Jeremiah 31: 7-14
PSALM: 84: 1-8
SECOND READING: Ephesians 1: 3-6; 15-19a
GOSPEL: Matthew 2: 13-15; 19-23

Whatever happens this morning from this pulpit is the Rector's fault. Those of you who are here regularly know that I always come pretty well-prepared for the sermon and do a half-way decent job of getting the words across to you. I did that yesterday and got ready for this morning, but I was also the celebrant at the 8:00 service; and, so, I had to listen to the Rector's sermon, and I realized, as I listened to his sermon, that the one I had prepared was simply not going to work. So, you are witnessing sort of a work in process this morning.

This Gospel lesson, it seems to me, has some layers to it - kind of like peeling an onion. The first layer that I see in this Gospel story is the very human side of it - a family seeking refuge, a homeless family on the road, torn from their roots and what they knew and what they thought would be familiar for their lives, and torn away from it; and torn away from it by evil; torn away by Herod and his desire for vengeance and to eliminate what Herod saw as competition. That is the first level - the human level, the family on the run, the homeless.

The second level, it seems to me, might be the level where we see Matthew using this story to proclaim Jesus as the fulfillment of all of the Old Testament prophecies. Matthew uses this story to tell his listeners - his hearers, his readers - that Jesus is the fulfillment, the ultimate of all of God's promises. And that is kind of the second level for this Gospel, perhaps.

And the third level is the deepest of all, because this Gospel proclaims to you and to me, and reminds us that our Lord lived His whole life under a suspended sentence of death.

(Long pauses this morning are not for drama. They are for me to try and figure out what I am going to say next!).

My wife and I were away for the last couple of weeks. We were in Northern California with family and friends, and we were not here for the Christmas services. But I can imagine how beautiful they were - the furnace was working, I'm sure, unlike this morning - but I am sure those services were beautiful and filled with all of you and all of the recollections and remembrances of the shepherds, and the angels, and the warm, furry animals, and the baby sleeping peacefully in the manger. And I am sure it was beautiful, and the sentiment was wonderful. But that is not the real world, is it? Jesus did not come into a world that was filled only with angels and shepherds and furry animals; He came into a world that was filled with Herod, and vengeance, and cruelty, and death, and murder, and disasters, and all the rest of it. That is the world He came into, and He came all the way into it. He came so far into that kind of a world - the real world - He came so far into it that He, Himself, was nailed to a cross and suffered and died. And it was not by accident - this was the way it had to be, because Jesus would brook no truce and no agreement with evil. He had to come all the way into evil, even to the point of allowing Himself to be nailed to a cross; and it was not by accident; it was foreordained. He lived His whole life under a suspended sentence of death.

Now, what can that mean for you and for me? You and I are the Body of Christ. We are the preservers of His presence in the world until He comes again in power and glory. Until that happens, we preserve His presence in the world. That is what we do. That is who we are. We are the preservers of His presence in the world, and that means we go where the suffering is. And we go all the way where the suffering is. We do not hover around it and utter platitudes to try and make it go away. We go where the suffering is. That is who we are called to be. Are there people in hospitals suffering from sickness? We go there - not just we, all of us - we go there. Are there people lonely and suffering from having lost loved ones and experiencing the terrible loneliness that life can bring? Are there people like that? We go there. We don't just pray for them and think about them - we go there. That is who we are called to be. It is who we are. And when people in South Asia are suffering and dying by the hundreds of thousands, and the pictures are all around us, we do not sit in our living rooms and intellectualize about the warning systems and the technology - we go there! And, this morning, the Rector has challenged you, courageously. Do you know what kind of courage it takes for a Rector to say, "Delay your pledge and support this endeavor in South Asia."? Do you know what kind of guts that takes? Well, that is what he said - that is what he said - because he knows we go there. And when you go home today, you are not going to sit and think whether or not you should support this effort to relieve that suffering - it is because to not do that is to not be who you are. We are the people who go there.

I wish the world was like the picture we had before us on Christmas Eve. I wish the world was like that. I wish we had nothing but simple, nice shepherds tending their flocks, and glorious angels singing music, and warm, furry animals to keep us cozy. I wish that was the way the world was, but it's not. It's a very, very different place - a very mixed bag - and so, today, on this first Sunday of a new year, the second Sunday after Christmas and all the rest of it on this morning, perhaps we can remember that we are the ones who call ourselves by the name of a man who came all the way into human suffering. We are His Body, and so that is where we go. It is the fulfillment of our destiny as His people.

AMEN