January 5, 2020
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The Second Sunday After Christmas
Jer 31:7-14
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a
Matthew 2:1-12
The Rev. Bradley Varnell
Over the course of the next year we’ll be hearing a lot from the Gospel of Matthew, so we will be hearing quite a lot about the “The Kingdom of Heaven,” which is one of the key teachings of Jesus throughout this Gospel – it is used thirty-two times over the course of Matthew’s twenty-eight chapters. The Kingdom of Heaven is the core of Jesus’ teaching. Though it isn’t mentioned today, our Gospel lesson is important in helping us understanding what exactly is at steak when Jesus speaks about “The Kingdom of Heaven.”
Wise men from the east, most likely Zoroastrian astrologers, follow a star all the way from what is now Iran and find themselves standing before King Herod the Great, informing him that they are seeking the newborn King of the Jews. King Herod is not happy. Scripture says that he was frightened – and with good reason. Herod the Great has ruled Judea for over thirty-years, inaugurating the Herodian dynasty and supplanting the Hasmoneon family as kings of Israel. However, he is not popular. He is close to the Roman occupiers of Israel, and his rule is dependent on them, they are the ones who named him King of Judea. During his rule he has allowed non-Jewish forms of entertainment in Israel and seems less than committed to the religious rights, rituals, and uniqueness of the Jewish people. Though he claims to be a member of God’s chosen race, the Pharisees and Sadducees are less sure of his membership. On top of all this, his taxation schemes have put an incredible burden on the poor of Judea as Herod sought to finance his lavish building campaigns.
At the time of Jesus’ birth, Herod’s reign was coming to an end and the future was uncertain. Challengers to the throne were not uncommon and Herod had more than one of his sons assassinated in order to preserve his power. The last thing Herod wants to hear are some foreign astrologers who come announcing the King of the Jews. So Herod is afraid.
Herod helps the wise men out, sends them on their way, but requests that they return to him after finding out where this King is. The wise men travel to Bethlehem and find the newborn messiah with his parents and Scripture says they are overwhelmed with joy – a stark contrast to the fear of Herod. The wise men worship the messiah and offer him gifts, before leaving for their home country “by another road,” having been told by an angel to not to report back to Herod.
The wise men are faced with a choice between two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Herod and the Kingdom of Heaven. What Kingdom will they support? What King will they be accountable to? See, both Herod’s kingdom and the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom which Jesus was born to announce and to establish make equal claims. Both demand loyalty, both demand obedience, both demand everything we have.
Over the course of time the church has often fallen into a way of thinking that says what belongs to the kingdom of heaven, what Jesus is concerned with, what Scripture addresses is our souls, our spiritual lives, the private interplay between us and God. The other stuff, our bodies, our minds, our political and social lives these belong to the Kingdoms of the world: to our nation, our family, our political party, our ideology, etc. etc. This kind of dichotomous thinking is why so many good, faithful Christians could support American slavery for centuries. Scripture’s witness to freedom, to liberation was spiritualized – Scripture didn’t actually want people’s bodies to be freed, it just wanted people’s souls freed. So, Christians felt no pangs of conscience speaking on Sunday morning of how in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, and then going home to plantations where there were in fact, enslaved and free.
Because we convinced ourselves that Jesus’ kingdom was just about the spiritual, good Christians and good slave owners, good Christians and good colonizers, good Christians and good Nazis, good Christians and segregationists. You see the pattern. But our Gospel today shows us that Jesus’ kingdom is as real as Herod’s, that it demands as much from us as any other kingdom of the world. Christ asks that we give our souls, our bodies, our minds to the Kingdom of Heaven, that we seek to conform our entire lives – not just the spiritual parts, not just the Sunday morning parts – to Jesus Christ. We are to live in our bodies and in our souls as citizens of the Kingdom of God. We are to be strangers in a strange land everywhere else.
This doesn’t mean we withdraw from society and establish communes. But it does mean that we, like the wise men, must make decisions. It means discerning what course of action is most faithful to the king we serve. The wise men didn’t protest, they didn’t make a display of subverting or ignoring Herod, faithfulness to Christ doesn’t require a scene. They quietly went to their own country by another road. To be loyal to Christ means we must be prepared to go against the grain, that we be prepared to travel “by another road.”
It means that we live lives that don’t serve
… the kingdom of America
…or the Democratic party
…or the Republican party
…or the Episcopal Church
…or kingdom of your family
or your friends
or your bank account
It means living and serving the Kingdom of Heaven and its King.
Jesus comes bringing the Kingdom of Heaven into our world, Jesus comes challenging the kingdoms of the world, exposing them for what they are: kingdoms built on violence and death. Jesus’ ministry from beginning to end shows us that the Herods and Caesars and Pontius Pilates of the world, the religious and political powers of the earth will secure their kingdoms through violence if need be. Herod is confronted with the arrival of the newborn King, and just a few verses after the end of our lesson we learn that in response he orders the slaughter of the innocence. All boys two-years and younger in and around Bethlehem are to be killed. Herod takes precautions to get rid of any potential threat to his Kingdom – even if it means others have to die in the process.
Violence is deeply embedded in the kingdoms of this world, whether we think the violence is licit or not. Just a few days ago with the assassination of Qasem Soleimani we were offered an example of the way violence is used to ensure our security, our safety, the continued existence of our kingdom. My point isn’t that the assassination was the will of God or wasn’t the will of God, but simply that that kind of violence is part and parcel of a fallen world. Often times violence – physical or otherwise - will appear and will be the most prudential option available to us. In a broken, sinful world that makes sense. It makes sense that violence or its threat are the fundamental tools for securing our kingdoms.
But Jesus comes bringing a different kingdom, a peaceable kingdom, a kingdom that does not need to use violence or coercion to stake its claim, that does not rise or fall on the political maneuvers of its rulers. Jesus comes and offers us a different way, he offers us a Kingdom secured only by God himself.
In just a few minutes before we welcome Victoria into the household of God through baptism, you and I will reaffirm our baptismal vows. We will remind ourselves and each other that through baptism, we belong not to any king of this earth, but to the King of Kings. We will promise, with God’s help, to live our lives – our spiritual lives, our political lives, our personal lives – in light of Jesus Christ; to strive, by the grace of God, to be ambassadors of the Kingdom of Heaven to this world. Our job isn’t to create the Kingdom on heaven, we aren’t called to vote it into office, this Kingdom isn’t a code word for a “Republican majority” or a “democratic majority.” This Kingdom is totally and completely a work of God in our world.
Today is the last day of Christmas. And the message of Christmas is that Christ has come bringing the Kingdom of Heaven to a world filled with Herods. Like the wise men we have heard the good news of the birth of the King, and like the wise men we have to decide – will we serve this king? Amen.