Sermon Audio: 

Audio: Note the recording is a version of the text below, streamlined for oral delivery

Sermon 

“After the wise men had left, an angel of the Lord 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 is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’” 

Holy One, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, Amen.

The Christmas Pageant at St. Mark’s in the Bowery in Lower Manhattan was not your ordinary Christmas Pageant. It was a lovely sort of holy chaos where kids picked up their costumes on the way into the church on the day of the pageant and the script was written on a big pad of paper on an easel stand up at the front. My favorite part was the scene where the Wise Men visit Herod on their way to see the Baby Jesus. As they arrive, Herod, in a makeshift green robe, a scraggly fake beard and a cardboard crown, is being confronted by a crowd carrying No Kings signs and shouting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Herod has got to go!” 

It’s an interesting use of dramatic license, and not a bad take on Matthew’s depiction of a puppet king feeling threatened by unexpected competition. My granddaughter, who was an angel, joined in with the chanting of the crowd, but she admitted later that Herod was pretty scary.

Well, yes. King Herod was scary—the scariest part of Matthew’s Christmas account which, from the complicated betrothal of Joseph and Mary to the joyous arrival of the Wise Ones, from the birth of the Messiah to the massacre of the Innocents and the flight into Egypt, is a study in contrasts. Our Gospel passages from Matthew this morning—I read one of them and will allude to the other–are stories of insiders and outsiders, of despair and hope, of disparate visions of kingdom; and hovering over it all is the presence of the Divine, through prophecy, dream, and a guiding star.

And we encounter it all in a season that mirrors similar contrasts in our own lives; a season of joy often mingled with sorrow and anxiety. 2025 is now blessedly (for many of us) in the rearview mirror, and it is tempting to eye 2026 with our hope mingled with at least a bit of suspicion. So hearing Matthew’s story now is timely—a story, like ours, of mixed feelings, with light and shadow intertwined. The light of the Christ Child illuminates and encompasses it all, and the story invites us in as witnesses. 

They came from the East. From the outside. Somebody at some point decided they were to be called kings, but that’s not what Matthew called them. Wise Ones, sages, astrologers; curious and seeking. Three at least, but there might have been more. They were strangers. Outsiders. They entered the court of the Roman puppet king, unaware of what they were about to unleash.

“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”

His star. The Messiah’s star. Not Herod’s star. And all Jerusalem is shaken.

Outsiders and strangers tend to shake things up in scripture. When people journey from one place to another—think of Abram, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, as well as the Magi– things happen. There always ends up being tension between those who perceive themselves as insiders and those who the insiders perceive as outsiders. There is fear. And where there is fear, there is trouble. Because, as we know from recent experience, insiders like to stay insiders.  And insiders will keep the outsiders marginalized, whatever it takes and whoever it hurts.

For Herod, the outsiders were anyone opposed to the occupation, submission to Rome, and his own kingship. It was Rome First. Herod First. No matter what it took.

First, he tried subterfuge: “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 

And when that didn’t work because the divinely warned Magi did not return to Jerusalem as instructed, but took another route home, Herod resorted to his usual method of dealing with inconvenient problems: Murder. 

Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
    wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
    she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

The other Matthew passage in your bulletin insert alludes to what happens next, but the Lectionary avoids the exact verses that explain the Holy Family’s middle-of-the-night flight to Egypt: Herod’s order that all boys under the age of two in the area around Bethlehem be killed, a tragedy that has come to be known as the Massacre of the Innocents. It is probable that the Lectionary folks sought to spare us from hearing about this horrendous event on a Sunday morning. Scholars likewise seek to cushion the blow by reassuring us that there is no historical evidence that such a slaughter took place (in spite of the fact that the record does show that Herod definitely had a prominent homicidal streak.) But that misses the point on two levels. First, it really doesn’t matter whether the account of the massacre was historically accurate, because any good story holds truth that transcends the narrative. So when we see Herod’s despicable acts in the Gospel, we are invited to consider the ways in which innocents are callously killed in our own day; in Gaza, in Sudan, in Ukraine, in Providence. Due to gun violence, inadequate health care, withdrawal of food aid, war; precious children of God lost because the Herods of our day just don’t care. 

Second, Matthew relates this episode as a challenge to us, not allowing us to avert our gaze from the shadow aspects of the story. He draws our attention to the outsiders and the innocents because they are the ones who illuminate the overarching point of the Good News of the Incarnation: God with us, and God for us. All of us. Transcending boundaries, enfolding the marginalized. 

Matthew reveals, through light and shadow, a study in contrasts. Two kingdoms in opposition: Earthly Empire versus the Dream of God. Earthly Empire is about territory, consumption, extraction, and exploitation, while the Dream of God is expansive, generous, reciprocal, compassionate, and just. Empire fears the Other and demands conformity; God’s Dream embraces mutual relationship and, yes, I’m going to say it, diversity; a diversity that reflects all of Creation. 

The paranoid kingship of Herod stands in stark contrast with the expansive and vulnerable kingship of Jesus, who, in the words of Andrew McGowan, “…is God’s son, not merely because of the curious birth but because he has cast in his lot with the marginal and the displaced. Into a land where invaders and puppets rule this true king comes, not to replace them with a better version of despotism, but to share the plight of his people.”

To share the plight of his people.

God with us. 

God for us.

All of us.

As I’ve pondered this sermon this past week the words, “outsiders” and “innocents” keep coming back to me. Matthew’s story of the birth of Jesus the Messiah–who shares in the plight of his people– is inextricably entwined with those who wander from Somewhere Else, whether that be Gentile sages from the East or a Jewish family fleeing persecution. These images challenge us to see the parallels with the present day, with our world on the move due to climate change, war, and persecution. They, with the innocents of every age who are lost to cruelty, complacency, and complicity of earthly empire, are sought out and embraced by the illuminating light of the One who calls us to reach out to those who are anything but “least” of us. Matthew’s story of outsiders and innocents is our story too; we are witnesses, confronted by two kinds of kingdom vision. Which one will draw us in? To whom will we offer our gifts?  Amen.