The Work of Christmas

 

A Sermon preached on Christmas II 5 January at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden

Jeremiah 31:7-14, Ephesians 1;3-6, 15-19a, Matthew 2:2-12

In the Gospel reading this morning we heard the story of the visit of the Magi or wise men. Not kings, you will note, and nowhere are we told how many of them came to see Jesus! The tradition of them being kings was a later development, by least the third century they were increasingly identified as kings, as that conformed with an interpretation of those Old Testament prophecies that the Messiah would be worshipped by kings. Also, they are clearly wealthy as they have treasure chests and give Jesus valuable gifts! And the tradition of there being three figures developed simply because there are three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Traditionally, this would be the reading for the Feast of the Epiphany, which is tomorrow. Today being the 12th and last day of Christmas. But I suspect I would not be able to persuade many of you to come to church again on Monday morning, and the Church also offers this as one of the three gospel choices for today. In the reading from Luke’s gospel that we heard on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, heaven represented by the angels, and earth, represented by the shepherds have already rejoiced in the Incarnation, in that moment when God became a human in Jesus for our salvation. The visit of the Magi takes this to another level. Now, not only Israel rejoices, but also the East, that part of the known world that was outside of Roman control, and also that part of the world from where in earlier times with the Assyrians and Babylonians death and destruction had come!

There has always been a tension in scripture, both in the Old and New Testament, between a universal God and a purely national God, between a restricted relationship between God and God’s chosen people, the Jews, and them acting as a beacon of faith and hope to world, between an expansive view of the people of God such as we find in the books of Ruth and Jonah, or a narrow and almost discriminatory view such as in Ezra/Nehemiah. Then in the Gospels we hear on the one hand of Jesus sending the disciples and limiting his mission solely to the “lost sheep of the House of Israel,” (Matthew 10:6) and on the other - also thanks to some strong, faithful women - healing, forgiving, saving and empowering Gentiles. And this tension continues into the first part of the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters until the Gentile mission is fully established and accepted.

But, although Matthew’s Magi refer to the child as the king of the Jews, which really does not go down well with Herod who already claims that title, their visit is a sign from the very beginning of Jesus’ story that this king and this messiah may well be from Israel, but that he is Lord of all and that his mission of salvation extends to the ends of the earth. God is the God of all people and so the Magi from the East, traditionally shown as coming from Persia, Arabia, and Africa, come to visit and pay Jesus homage, that is to acknowledge him as their lord and to pay him respect, by kneeling and giving him gifts.

The other tension inherent to this story, one that we already encountered in Luke when Jesus’ parents are sent from Nazareth to Bethlehem to take part in a census ordered by the Roman occupying power, is between faith and the powers of the world. True religion should always be uncomfortable to the powerful. For Herod, the claim that Jesus is lord, and the true king is a threat to his own somewhat tenuous claim to power, and so he tries to have Jesus killed in that tragic event known as the massacre of the innocents: “When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under.” (Matthew 2:16)

And when Jesus is perceived to be a threat to Roman power, they execute him. Another solution to this tension is for the State to coopt the church, to make it a servant of the state. Emperor Constantine did this. One result of the Reformation was to strengthen the ties between state and church. Most recently the Russian Orthodox Church, at least the official part of it, has become part of Putin’s national project of conquest and oppression and can no longer be said to represent Christian values. We see such tendencies in the West too. While the PiS party ruled Poland, they sought and gained a too close relationship with the Polish Roman Catholic Church and sadly the Hungarian Reformed Church is also too closely linked with Viktor Orban’s regime. All that is the opposite of the message of the universality of God, of God’s love for all people and for the rule of God that is ultimately what we base our lives on.

Nation states as discrete historic, social, cultural, geographic units are not inherently wrong or un-Christian. And strong and healthy democratically organised states are in principle a good thing. Only a well-functioning state with a healthy economy and successful companies can fulfil its core role of protecting those who live within its boundaries, taking care of those who cannot take care of themselves, and ensuring the provision of infrastructure, education, social services, and healthcare. And though I have personal preferences, there is no one single “Christian” model of what that state should look like or how it should be organised. The role of religion, of the Christian Church is however not to serve that state, or have it serve us. Instead, our role is to ensure that all are served by the state, including “the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labour” to quote from the Jeremiah reading (31:8) and that our common, shared humanity is never forgotten. In his letter, James (1:27) defines “religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”  We are the conscience, we advocate for justice, equity, peace, cooperation, and collaboration at home and abroad. Our mission is (Amos 5:24) to “let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

The American author, theologian, and civil rights leader Howard Thurman wrote a wonderful poem called “The Work of Christmas.” Christmas is not just a passive gift, not just something done for us. Properly understood it should change, empower and motivate us to be agents of peace, love, reconciliation and transformation in the world:  

When the song of the angels is stilled,

When the star in the sky is gone,

When the kings and princes are home,

When the shepherds are back with their flock,

The work of Christmas begins:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart.

Amen.