What do you fear? Let fear fuel a fire for justice.

Good morning again on this first Sunday

of Christmas Tide. I hope that

everyone's Christmas was well

that we spent time with friends and

family

making celebration.

Hear the word of the Lord today from

Matthew 2 13-15 and 19-23.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord

appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up,"

he said. Take the child and his mother

and escape to Egypt. "Stay there until I

tell you, for Herod is going to search

for the child to kill him." So he got

up, took the child and his mother during

the night, and left for Egypt, where he

stayed until the death of Herod. And so

was fulfilled what the Lord said through

the prophet. Out of Egypt I called my

son.

And in verse 19,

after Herod had died, an angel of the

Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in

Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child

and his mother and go to the land of

Israel, for those who were trying to

take the child's life are dead."

So he got up, took the child and his

mother, and went to the land of Israel.

But when he had heard that Archelaus was

reigning in Judea, in the place of his

father Herod, he was afraid to go there.

Having been warned in a dream, he

withdrew to the district of Galilee.

And he went and lived in a town called

Nazareth.

So was fulfilled what was said through

the prophet. He will be called a

Nazarene.

The word of our Lord.

>> Thanks be to God.

>> Thanks be to God. So today we might feel

contented.

Our Christmas shopping is complete. Our

families have opened gifts. We have

gathered around the table and eaten our

fill.

The wood in the fireplace is still

smoldering. The candles drip with wax as

they burn. Our hearts are cozy as we

relax into the season that follows, a

day of great joy and celebration.

But our sermon text today does not quite

allow us to stay in that season for

long. We are hurried along by the

incarnation narrative, which does not

linger at manger scenes filled with

choruses of angels or with cute little

animals.

The plot of the life of Jesus quickly

thickens.

The story of Emmanuel is hardly one of

gumdrops and plum fairies.

The story of the life of Jesus is rife

with drama, with questionable pregnancy,

demands of an empire.

There is no vacancy signs that are hung

and smelly barns in which Jesus is born.

There are unclean shepherds and

religious outsiders visiting and paying

homage to this newborn king.

And as our reading informs us today,

we are confronted with a jealous and

vindictive ruler that will stop at

nothing to snuff out any challenge to

his throne.

In our reading today, the figure Herod

is brought up and again and again in

Matthew's gospel, this person Herod is

brought to our attention. Like in the

first week of our series,

it starts with and in that time King

Herod reigned.

And we looked at that one detail and we

spoke about how that detail really

brings up a sense of fear for many of

the readers.

There in the gospel accounts are many

different Herods that are um in in these

gospel accounts, but the one that we

confront here in this message is Herod

the Great, who was named King of the

Jews uh by the Roman politician and

military general Mark Anthony.

Herod the Great was known for many

things. his architectural prowess just

building like the the temple again and

many other feats of architectural

engineering. But he was also quite known

for his suspicion in which others would

take his throne from him.

Herod had three of his own sons killed,

his wife and her mother killed, all on

the suspicion that they might take the

throne from him.

So when we read our story today,

it is quite on brand for this Herod

to hear of a figure that could grow to

become a threat to his throne and then

order what would later become known as

the massacre of the innocents.

And this massacre we we kind of skipped

over in our text today. We'll revisit it

next week. But the point that we need to

understand is that it is this threat

that creates our inciting incident

for the story today

in chapter excuse me in verse 13 of our

text it says now after the magi had left

an angel of the Lord had appeared to

Joseph in a dream and said get up take

the child and his mother and flee to

Egypt and remain there until I tell you

for Herod Herod is about to search for

the child and destroy him.

The Holy Family's flight to Egypt is

recorded only in the Gospel of Matthew.

And it's essential to understand there

are a handful of details Matthew will

include in his particular retelling of

the life of Jesus uh that are key to his

particular story. his audience, his

initial intended audience for his gospel

retelling was a Jewish crowd, Jewish

people. And that helps us to understand

why Matthew includes particular details

in his retelling of the gospel of Jesus.

Matthew includes details and parallels

from the Old Testament, various themes

and figures in which a Jewish audience

would be intimately familiar.

So when our story today reads that there

was a king who felt threatened by baby

boys in order to have them all killed,

we in our good Jewish brain need to stop

and think, where have we heard the story

before?

See, in Matthew's retelling of the

gospel, he's drawing on parallels of

Herod and Jesus

with that of Pharaoh and Moses.

We remember the Exodus story in which,

you know, Pharaoh felt threatened by the

Hebrews who were growing in number and

and ordered all of the Hebrew baby boys

to be killed. And of course, Moses's

life was then saved as he uh went down

the river in a basket only to be taken

up by Pharaoh's household. Matthew is

drawing parallels between these two

figures. Matthew is keen on presenting

Jesus as kind of a new Moses,

a a new Moses that would continue this

deliverance project, delivering God's

people from the hand of oppression.

This time not

of Pharaoh and Egypt, but of Rome,

the current oppressors of the people.

and Jesus's era uh area.

Alongside these parallel themes, Matthew

is also using this motif, this

reoccurring idea of fulfillment. We

heard it twice in our text today.

Matthew is like giving these ideas,

these parallels and saying, "And it was

fulfilled. So it was fulfilled."

Matthew repeatedly uses this phrase to

show that the life of Jesus fulfills

events that were not fully answered in

the Old Testament.

In this case, Jesus's life mirrors the

person of Moses. And Jesus will continue

to fulfill the work that Moses started

in delivering God's people from

oppression. and not only from Rome like

we had discussed, but also from other

forms of oppression, from social

injustices,

from forms of religion that do not

produce the freedom that God intended.

So, Matthew is kind of clueing us in on

these parallels from the from the Old

Testament and relating that to Jesus's

life.

But one of the most striking details I

think from Matthew's account is not the

parallel and the motif necessarily,

but one striking detail

that Jesus was born into this world and

shortly thereafter becomes a political

refugee.

Upon learning of Herod's insidious plan

uh through an angelic dream, Joseph is

forced to flee the country with his

family to find asylum in Egypt.

This detail of Jesus's birth narrative,

I think, is so eerily familiar today

that churches had depicted in their

nativity throughout our country,

different iterations, different plays on

Jesus as refugee.

Some churches put up nativities that

have Jesus's hands bound with zip ties

in the manger. Others had Jesus not in

the manger at all and with writing on

the wall behind him saying ice was here.

For many, the thought that Jesus Jesus

being born into a violent world and that

he had to flee his country, his home

country for safety for some this is not

a faroff detail of a story long ago but

a present reality.

In the season of Advent, we we often

hear the words of Isaiah read aloud to

us that say, "For unto us a child is

born,

and unto us a son is given, and the

government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called Wonderful

Counselor, mighty God, everlasting

father and prince of peace." We are

familiar with that.

But I think that text can very well

read,

"Unto us a child is born.

Unto us a refugee has been given and his

name shall be vulnerable God, prince,

persecuted prince and a wicked

government he shall be under."

It is this detail of Jesus's life. Jesus

being born on the fringes of society

under corrupt leadership under

leadership that would want him dead. It

is these details that we cannot

overlook.

In a time not too long ago, Father

Gregory Bole recalls a story

um him being a Jesuit priest and founder

of Homeboy Industries. I think we quote

him quite a bit because he does

phenomenal work. and he recalls a period

in the late 80s.

He writes this.

In 1987, Dolores Mission Church declared

itself a sanctuary church for the

undocumented

after the passage of the Immigration Act

of 1986.

Soon, recently arrived undocumented men

from Mexico and Central America would

sleep each night in the church and women

and children in the convent. Attention

followed and lots of it. The media

swarmed the place in its earliest days.

As almost always happens, tension

attention begets opposition.

I used to dread clearing the parish's

answering machine. Boil writes during

this period.

It had always contained a handful of

hate messages and vague and usually not

so vague death threats.

Once while I turned the corner in front

of the church heading to a meeting in

the projects, I was startled by letters

that had crudely been spray painted on

the church's front steps that read, "Wet

back Church."

The chill of it momentarily stops me. In

an instant, you begin to doubt and

question the price of things.

I acknowledge how much better everything

is when there is no cost and how I

prefer being hoisted on the shoulders in

a claim

compared to the disdain of anonymous

spray cans.

I arrive at the meeting and tell the ga

gathered women about the hostile visitor

during the night.

I guess I'll get one of the homies to

clean it up later.

Now, I was new at the parish and my

Spanish was spotty and I understand the

words that this woman said, but I had

difficulty circling on what exactly she

meant by it.

But she said, "You will not clean this

up."

If there are people in our community who

are disparaged and hated and left out

because they are wetbacks,

then she poised herself on the edge of

the couch, practically leaping to her

feet. Then we shall be proud to call

ourselves a church.

I think at the risk of sounding too

political from the pulpit, it would be

easy to glaze over the details of

Jesus's life

that include him being a refugee.

I think it would be all too easy to

chalk up how his status back then was

just somehow different than it is today

for some people.

I think it would be all too easy to skip

over these details of the of the

nativity of the early lives of Jesus.

But I think that we have to we have to

remind ourselves

that Jesus commissions us with these

words. He says, "Whatever you have done

to the least of these, you have done to

me."

In a season in which we remember how God

stepped into humanity and became like

us, we must remember that God became

like us, but not into a position of

authority or great privilege.

Jesus stepped into humanity born in a

barn and soon to be on the run for his

life.

How is it that we can respond to God in

a situation like that? How is it we can

respond to a God who would take up

humanity only then to share these

circumstances?

I think there are two things from the

life of Joseph that we can see from this

text that will help guide us along. And

like we'd said before in the sermon

series, I think dads really should like

Matthew's retelling of the gospel. Uh

because Matthew makes dads look really

good.

In Joseph or excuse me, in Matthew's

account, Joseph is hearing from angels

and dreams and visions and he's

constantly taking action to preserve the

lives of those around him. Joseph looks

really good.

I think there are two insights that we

could draw from Jesus or excuse me from

Joseph in the birth narrative of Jesus.

One is that Joseph was particularly

in tune with the voice of God in his

life. He was in tune with the voice of

God in his life. And second,

that he did not allow fear to

him, but instead responded in action.

Joseph responded in action. So whether

it was an instruction to stay with Mary

after a surprised pregnancy or it was to

flee the country or return back, Joseph

hears from God. Joseph was particular

particularly receptive to the voice of

God. And I'll be the first to admit to

you that when people hear things from

God in dreams, it makes me a little

uneasy. I mean, when somebody tells me

that they've heard something specific

from God in a dream, it usually follows

like with something a little suspicious

about maybe good things that they're

supposed to be getting or what whatever

um kind of things that might make them

look better, seem better, anything.

Anyway,

although I do not think that dreams

could be totally entirely discounted,

when we read from scripture, we see that

God is alive in everything. God is

revealed in all of creation. And not

only that, that God is everywhere. The

psalmist says that like, you know, where

can I go from your spirit, oh God? If I

ascend to the heavens, you are there or

to the greatest depths, you are there.

It is that God is all around us all the

time speaking to us in a voice.

And Joseph was attuned to this voice. I

think too if we can slow down just a

little bit

from all the busyiness of our lives, we

too can be in touch with this voice. And

I think when we do, we will hear things

that say, you know, maybe spa uh pay

special attention to that coworker of

yours because they're going through a

really difficult time.

or give that friend of yours a call

because they are experiencing a time of

great loneliness.

Or when we listen to that voice, we

might be

encouraged to make amends with that

person whom we should forgive.

We should slow down and pay particular

attention to that voice.

So, Joseph not only heard from God and

uh was attentive to the voice of God in

his life, but he also responded in

action.

Joseph was not frozen by fear, but

rather in his situation

understood what he was to do. And this

is where our sermon title gets its name.

Joseph faced a situation that elicited

fear. His family was in danger from one

of the most powerful people in the

region. At Herod's word, he could have

had the newborn baby killed. Yet, Joseph

does not let fear paralyze him, but

rather he responds with action.

I think that we too, as we discussed a

lot during the sermon series, that we

too, when we pay attention to things can

be paralyzed with fear.

I mean, when we pay attention to the

voices and media all around us, when

we're inundated with messages and this

information age and we have smartphones

inches from our faces, we have more

access to to all of the world's

information and possibly more than we

can ever consume.

From climate catast catastrophe to mass

shootings to genocide in multiple

countries,

we are constantly be being flooded with

things that can paralyze us. We are

inundated with fear.

Yet we're reminded

of so many people like Joseph and others

who did not

freeze in the face of fear, but rather

responded with justice.

One such person did this um in um during

the Holocaust. Andre Gillen

was a 20-year-old teacher in Brussels

when she first confronted persecution,

the persecution of the Jews. She was

seeing her students arrive to school

wearing stars that were attached to

their clothing, yellow stars.

And then

at that time she had paid little

attention to the anti-Jewish measure

measures. But in seeing her students

humili humiliation,

she was moved to act. She ordered all

the students to wear aprons disguising

the stars so they couldn't be told

apart. And then soon after uh she was

became involved with the Jewish Defense

Committee.

Using an alias, Guilen helped escort

children to hiding places and worked at

a boarding school that had secretly

sheltered Jewish students.

In 1943, the school was raided by German

uh police officers during Pentecost, a

time in which only Jewish children were

left in the school.

The children were arrested and the head

mistress was deported and later killed.

Undeterred,

Glenn

went underground and continued rescuing

children, placing them with Christian

families and in monasteries.

And over more than two years, she helped

hide hundreds of children, carefully

memorizing details, and secretly

recording their identities so they could

be reunited with their families. After

the war,

there are people who in the face of fear

respond in justice,

with justice.

And I'll admit, it is somehow easy to

turn to stories of of long ago, such as

times of the Holocaust, and applaud

folks who did remarkable things in the

face of fear.

Somehow time and history has made it

clear what is good and what is evil,

what is right and what is wrong, what is

white and what is black. And we read

stories like Glenn.

And it appears in this time so

uncontroversial

to choose what to do to do what is

right.

Yet I think today we are challenged to

do what is right sometimes because we

fear the risk of being labeled as maybe

too political or too radical.

We can often be deterred from standing

up for what we think is right because we

fear being cancelled.

And I'm not sure that we will ever live

in a time in which doing the right thing

does not involve risk.

But if we are ever unsure of what action

to take, if we're ever unsure of what

action to take, let us heir on the side

that supports human dignity.

Let us heir on the side that supports

compassion for the outsider, for the

marginalized, for the weak.

If we are ever unsure of what action to

take, let us in the face of fear always

heir on the side of doing justice.

Amen.