January 5, 2014
Detours
- Matthew 2:13-23
- Rev Ruth Chadwick Moore
I finally got a chance to do some significant traveling this past year with my sabbatical and as you all know, traveling is not always easy these days. Actually it never was, but airline delays, security lines, baggage claim and bus and train schedules rarely goes as planned. But for the most part my travels went well – except when I was driving in Northern Ireland.
When I was studying in Armagh at the Centre for Celtic Spirituality, I stayed at this priority or monastery about 15 miles outside of town. Every morning I could find my way into town and to the Centre and every afternoon I got lost going back to the priory. I don’t know why that was – I was just back tracking with the directions – but every day for five days I got lost in the middle of nowhere Ireland. Every day I spent over an hour driving over the same tiny back roads without any sense of where I was going. (Although this is not surprising since I am directionally challenged!) One day I stopped someone walking on the road to ask directions. Another day I went into a nursing home and asked for directions. The third day I stopped at a little country store and another day I asked men who were working on the road. The fifth day I just drove around until I found it.
Detours. Changes in travel itineraries or changes in plans. They’re one of the less convenient parts of life. Still, when you think about it, life is really full of them – and I don’t mean just changes or detours in traveling. The Christmas season can seem like one big detour for many of us. Maybe you took a detour on the way home from work one night to buy one more present, or maybe you didn’t cook dinner last week because you were busy baking Christmas cookies. Our family has had a lot of detours and changes in plans as we moved out of our apartment and into a new house the week before Christmas. Whose idea was it to do that anyway? So, the Christmas season is full of detours and yet it seems appropriate in some ways – a little like we’re continuing a tradition that started years ago with the first Christmas.
Mary and Joseph were certainly not strangers to detours. It’s a safe bet that the circumstances surrounding Mary’s pregnancy were not along the lines she had planned for her life. And we all know what happened when Mary and Joseph approached the inn in Bethlehem for a place to stay – they had to detour straight to the stable. The wise men had to make a detour and leave Jesus and go home a different way to get away from Herod. And that brings us to our story today. Joseph learns in a dream that he must flee to Egypt to escape Herod – so Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus pack up and go on another travel detour.
Detours characterize this season. But today there is another detour that we typically make around this time of year. It’s a detour we make around verses 16-18 in our Gospel reading:
“When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ra’mah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’” (Matt 2: 16-18)
These verses are not ones we usually hear around Christmastime. These verses just don’t fit our story or image of how this nativity scene is supposed to end. But the author of Matthew chose to put this story here, so for some reason it was important to include it. And if we detour around the horror of these verses, leave them out of our tableau of the happy family, we miss something. A detour from these verses keeps us from learning something about the world Jesus was born into, about the hostility Jesus encountered and about the pain that just doesn’t seem to fit. Matthew is telling us about pain inflicted upon innocent children whose mother Rachel cannot be consoled. This is a pain that is so deep that it is difficult for us to comprehend; and yet we understand pain don’t we– even at Christmas – especially at Christmas.
Christmas still remains a time when we imagine all will be well, that families will come together and expectations will be fulfilled. And so often this week after Christmas is spent by some of us in the realization that in some way, it didn’t all seem to fit. Maybe your vision of Christmas took a detour because you couldn’t find your Christmas decorations because they were in packing boxes in the garage somewhere. Maybe your vision of Christmas took a detour because the news carried no fewer reports of suffering, or your children did not like their gifts, or your family fought with each other all day. Or maybe this was your first Christmas without someone you love or loved. Part of what makes all of these things so painful is that we don’t think this is the way we should be at Christmas.
But Christmas, according to Matthew, is also about the real world into which this baby was born – a world of heartache and suffering and killing- a world where many people were poor, homeless and often refugees from their home country. So when we detour around this story we miss the fullness of how much this birth meant. This birth didn’t happen at a time when everything was going right or when people were feeling good about themselves or when no one went hungry. This birth broke in in the midst of tragedy. For a moment there was a peace that passes understanding, a breakthrough of the kingdom, a breaking-in – but it did not and does not deny the pain or hurt of the world – it just happens in spite of it. The power that brings this peace is not apart from this world, but is in its midst. The birth was a detour aimed straight at the truth – the truth of God’s love and presence in the midst of this broken world – the message of peace, hope, joy and love that we have been celebrating all throughout Advent. .
Sharing this story from the gospel of Matthew is not meant to take away from the beauty and joy of Christmas. And I hope Christmas Day was one of fun and laughter, good food, family and friends. But to fully embrace the message of Christmas doesn’t mean we need to deny pain and it doesn’t mean everything will fit together. Christmas doesn’t mean there won’t be detours in our lives. No, the truth of Christmas is this – even and especially for such a time as this, God has come to be with us. God is with us. Emmanuel. Amen.
References:
“Detours” by Dorisanne Cooper in Preaching and Worshiping in Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, First Sunday After Christmas – Year A.