Sermons are always contextual, of course; this one included acknowledgement of a particular pastoral leave-taking which I have omitted, it being most meaningful to the parish in which it was preached. Here’s the rest of the sermon, on the holy family’s flight to Egypt as described in Matthew 2
Today, we pick up the story after the wise men, the magi have visited Bethlehem with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and after they have accidentally alerted Herod that there is something seismic happening among the people, affecting even the heavens, with the appearance of a bright new star. Warned in a dream not to return to Herod, having paid homage to the holy family and to Jesus, they have left for their own country by another road.
Have you ever had one of those dreams that was so vivid and lifelike that when you woke up you weren’t altogether certain it was a dream? The dreams that make you reach for the phone just to check in with a loved one, or to look out for the promised sign on the way to work, sure that God is speaking through the birds and the bystanders?
Joseph, too, was a dreamer, and it served him well. As he made the cruel and arduous journey toward Egypt, surrounded no doubt by other refugees from Herod’s atrocity, I wonder if he remembered the stories of his namesake, Joseph the dreamer, with the coat of many colours, and the brothers, and the exile to Egypt, the imprisonment, and the eventual redemption. I wonder if this Joseph remembered that Joseph’s words to his brothers as they fretted over his forgiveness: what you intended as evil toward me, God has repurposed for good toward all, for the saving and sustaining of many people.
It is not God’s will that people should do evil. It is not in God’s nature to create chaos, but to bring comfort to God’s people, mercy to the lost, love to those most in need of it. The backstory of this flight to Egypt is one of the most awful examples of evil in the Christian canon – yet the message of Matthew’s gospel is not one of humanity’s horrors but of God’s persistent and providential love and mercy. The warning to Joseph to flee comes even before the order of Herod to kill. The message to Joseph, through his dreams, through his faith, is that no matter how hard it becomes to see it, the grace and protective love of God surround this holy family, that God is with us: Emmanuel.
The inhumanity in this story belongs to us alone: to humans jealous of their power and influence, drunk on the dregs of empire and determined to hold on to whatever worldly rewards that they can. Herod, fearful of the interventions of God to redeem God’s people, to remake the world in the image of the kingdom of God, goes to unimaginable lengths to resist that vision, that mercy, that light.
But you don’t have to be Herod to resist the call of God’s kingdom. A little hoarding here, a little envy there. The ranking of those deserving and undeserving of help, of dignity, of a home and safety and love. The temptations of the human heart to choose hardness are legendary. How many of our new year’s resolutions have to do with maintaining or improving our own status, rather than easing the way of others?
If we saw the holy family fleeing violence in their homeland, on the run with whatever they could muster, surrounded by fellow refugees, fueled by nothing more than fear, faith, and dreams – would we find room for them?
No, God does not cause harm to happen – we are well equipped to do that for ourselves – but God does give us the opportunity to participate in the healing of our humanity, the repairing of the breach, the resistance of evil, the resurrection of hope. What one intends for evil, we can, with God’s help, turn toward something better.
That said, I am, as I suspect many of us are, still processing the news of this weekend, how this world seems addicted to acts of war or aggression, despite the angels’ songs of peace on earth; we wonder how to act on the side of the angels when all around is on fire.
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Still, we are called to continue wherever we find ourselves to echo what we have heard from angels and from one another, and from the birth of Jesus himself: that God’s love is more powerful, more persistent, more present than the work of empire, and worth more than any amount of gold, frankincense, or myrrh. Because despite the siren songs of the world, even the wail of the air raid sirens, we do know when it is God who is speaking to us. We have heard the angels singing peace. We know that the dreams are real.
We are sustained by the same love that supported Joseph, and when there are disruptions or upheavals, whether excitedly anticipated or wildly unexpected, it is the same providence that visits us, and lets us know that God is with us in it all: Emmanuel.
That was the vision in which Joseph placed his faith and his family: that God is with us, God’s promises endure forever. It didn’t make life easier, by any means. God knows it didn’t remove the obstacles of grief and the graft and grimness of the world or the wilderness, its empires, its wars, its little kings.
But what it did mean is that he, Joseph, spent the rest of his days in the close and intimate presence of the love of God among us, Jesus. And who knows how many were saved, through one man’s dream, and courage, and faith, who listened to the Word of God crying in the night and heard and heeded the voice of God among us, the kingdom of heaven drawn near.
Amen.
over the water 