Refugee

Refugee

Matthew 2:13-14

I had a professor in college, Dr. Gerry Thorson, who was a sacred person in my life and a key figure in my growth as a thinker.  Dr. Thorson was an English professor who loved 19th and 20th century American literature.  Over a number of courses, we moved from the literature of a very agrarian America—people like Willa Cather and Ole Rolvaag—to the literature of the great wars—William Styron and the like.  He was an unassuming presence in class—humble and smiling most of the time, but in his own subtle way, he helped us not only become readers but grow as writers, ourselves.

In retrospect, I realize that he taught us just as much about life as he taught us about literature. He was a wise man who looked with depth at what was going on in the world around him, teasing out the “plot” and the “characters” and the “themes” of the day.  There was meaning to be found in a book but there was also meaning to be found in a day.  He invited us to see that meaning by asking, “What’s really going on here?”

The very last lecture that Dr. Thorson gave centered on a lesson that I’ve carried with me ever since.  He had a room full of seniors.  As we sat there, at the wise old age of 21 or 22, with four years of college nearly finished, the wisdom that he shared was this:  “You only know as much as you can communicate.”  In a variety of different ways, he looked us in the eye and said, “Okay, so you know more now than you knew four years ago.  That’s good!  However, if the only use you make of what you’ve learned is to make yourself feel smarter than someone else, that knowledge will be wasted.” Whether we are writing or speaking, we have to think about our “audience.”  If we have something that is worth saying then we need to ask ourselves, “Am I communicating this in a way that actually speaks and invites that “other” into this conversation.

This genuinely humble and brilliant man challenged us to be humble ourselves.  “Okay…you know a few things…but…do you know how to connect to the person in front of you and be understood.  Do you know how to use what you know in a way that deepens and enriches someone else’s life?” It was like he planted a “bulb” deep inside of us which, I suspect, has grown and blossomed over the years inside of any number of the students who sat in that classroom that day.

You only know as much as you can communicate.  So, you know what you want to say.  Good for you?  However, just as importantly, do you know what it is going to take to bring what you know to life for the particular person standing in front of you?

I was thinking about Dr. Thorson this week as I was working on the texts for Epiphany.  There are two accounts of what happens to Jesus and Mary and Joseph—one in Matthew and one in Luke.  I honestly believe that they are irreconcilable.  If you are a Biblical literalist, they both can’t be true.  In one, Jesus and his family are living a pretty normal life, going through the rituals that a Jewish family would have observed when they had a baby.  In the other, Herod slaughters children and the family flees to Egypt.  

Thankfully, I’m not a Biblical literalist.  Chances are you are not a Biblical literalist either or you would have stopped listening to me long ago.  I do believe that the Bible tells us powerful truths.  I also believe that part of the fun of reading the Bible is watching master writers and communicators try every which way to communicate with their audiences.  “Here’s a story.  Here’s a poem.  Here’s a song.  Here’s some history.  Are you with me?  Do you follow? Do you understand? Do you see what I mean?”

I believe that we have two different writers trying to communicate deep truths to two different original audiences.  Luke was writing to the broader Gentile, non-Jewish world.  Matthew was writing specifically to the Jewish community.  Twenty centuries later, we shouldn’t be either so arrogant or so naive as to think that we won’t have to work to understand what they intended to say.  Living in a radically different world, references will be made that elude us.  We have to be ready to raise our hands and say, “I’m not sure that I understand.  What do I need to know here?”  The question is whether something written 2000 years ago can communicate to us.  (Remember, I’ve staked 40 years of my life on the notion that it can…)

So, today, we are in Matthew’s Gospel—the one written for a Jewish audience.  If I wanted to communicate a great truth to you and I knew that you were a die-hard Cubs fan, I would use that knowledge to make every reference to Cubs history that I could, knowing those references would have power.  So, if I wanted to talk about something heart breaking and you were old enough, I would slip in a reference to the ’69 Cubs and their August death spiral that year: “It was like that.  It was that sad!”  Good communicators make use of what they know already speaks to their audience in order to help them wrap their heads around something new.

This is why, when we read Matthew’s account of Jesus’ earliest days, we need to hunt for the connections to Jewish tradition.  Matthew wants to tell us a few things:  that foreigners were early visitors to the child; that King Herod felt threatened from day one; that God was working to keep this family safe, right from the beginning.  He deepens these truths by presenting them in a way that would have provoked the sense that somehow this all sounded so familiar.  That may have been Matthew’s deepest truth—that surprising things happen but when they do, sometimes what we recognize is that God is acting in some pretty familiar ways.

So, let’s piece this together.  Last week, we watched as the Magi followed the star, as they waltzed into Herod’s court and asked about the newborn king.  Stop there and ask yourself, “If I was steeped in Jewish tradition, what would I be thinking at that point?” Last week, I pointed out one thing people would have struggled with, namely, that God was working through foreigners.  This culture despised foreigners (and don’t we all fall prey to the belief in our worst moments that God must certainly despise the people that I despise?). At another level, though, the notion of outsiders marching into the halls of power and announcing change to the powers that be would have been so familiar?  Ask yourself, how?

Here’s the answer.  The whole history of the slaves who were liberated by God begins with the story of an outsider named Moses who listens to a burning bush and then waltzes into Pharaoh’s court and announces, “Guess what?  You’re going to let the slaves go free!” Bells and whistles would have been sounding for Matthew’s audience:  “This sounds so familiar…” Again, the “Gospel” addition to the story is of God working through whoever God chooses to work through and how those foreigners get it and worship the child.  What makes it possible to go there, though, is that there is enough that is familiar that the story has a chance to bring the audience along toward that truth.

So, if Herod is a modern day Pharaoh and the Magi are a sort of collective Moses, then another unique aspect of the story in Matthew is people fleeing.  The story of the people’s exodus from Egypt is not a story of a God who sends thunderbolts and lightning to strike Pharaoh dead.  God doesn’t overpower the situation.  Instead, there are plagues.  Things get difficult and painful and heartbreaking for the Egyptians.  However, in the end, all that does is open the possibility for the slaves to grab a few things and run.  God’s first intervention occurs when the Magi are warned in a dream not to go back to see Herod but, instead, to go home by a different way.  God doesn’t destroy Herod.  However, God cares enough to lead the Magi to safety. 

The central story of the people’s Exodus from slavery is Passover, when the final plague was the death of the first born Egyptian’s sons. (The children of the slaves were spared.  The plague passed over their homes.) This is a heartbreaking horror that is still remembered during the Passover feast when people at the table taste salt water and remember the tears of the Egyptians.  Just before our text, children are dying again but not to anyone free but simply and horrifyingly as Herod’s attempt to hold onto his own power.  Herod is ruthless and orders his troops to be the same.

Here’s the thing.  There were historians in those days who  documented Herod’s ruthless acts with precision.  They made sure that the world knew what an awful king he was.  However, despite all that documentation, there is absolutely no record of this slaughter of children.  In fact, I think it is a reasonable conclusion that this slaughter never happened.  Instead, Matthew is doing what great story tellers have always done.  He’s exaggerating things to make a larger point, namely, that the powers that be will almost always do whatever it takes to hold onto power.

All of this leads us to the central moment of Matthew’s account.  The defining moment at the dawn of the people’s history was of fleeing Egypt and running through the parted Red Sea and making their way into the wilderness.  Now, Matthew presents a new defining moment.  Jesus in born.  God is with us and one of us.  However, the land is so corrupt and the ruler is so ruthless that there is only one way that this child will survive.  Joseph, the father of Jesus, has a dream, (which would have made everyone remember another Joseph in the Old Testament to whom God speaks in dreams—more connections.) In the dream, God’s first words are, “Get up.”  “Times up.  Let’s go!”  Then, God says something that would have blown Matthew’s audience away, “Get up and take the mother and child and flee to Egypt.”

“Egypt?  Really, Egypt?” Matthew’s audience would have been left with their hands on their knees, gasping for air.  Their ancestors fled Egypt and barely made it out at alive.  Though they were tempted to go back when they realized how terrible the wilderness was, Egypt was worse.  It was a God-forsaken place.  Now, Egypt, not Israel in this families only hope.  Israel, under Herod, is now that God-forsaken place.

For us, this moment really ought to push our buttons, too, not because of how we feel about Egypt but because of how we seem to feel about refugees.  There’s an amazing commercial floating around the internet these days. (You can find it if you search, “Jesus was a refugee—commercial” on YouTube.) In one minute they paint a contemporary picture of a family who had a life until one day they learned that their government’s soldiers were coming.  They realize that they have to flee. The images are contemporary.  The voice that is speaking is a woman with an accent.  Then, we realize that they are, in fact, telling the story of Joseph and Mary and Jesus.

When the truth is communicated, it resonates both with things that have been true forever and what remains true today. Sometimes, faithful people have to flee.  Sometimes, Jesus, the child of God, was a refugee.  Refugees remain God’s children today.