Carolyn L Roberts
Matthew 2.19-23
2 January 2011

            We all know the rituals. Funny hats. Lots of noise. Maybe watching the ball drop at Times Square. Gathering with friends and strangers. Singing Auld Lang Syne. Making resolutions...only to join company with Dr. Samuel Johnson, who famously observed that “Hell is paved with good intentions.” So maybe we shy away from the resolutions. After all, there’s no reason to set ourselves up for failure. Because unless your experience is vastly different from mine, even the very best of our resolutions depends upon summoning up our personal resources and making yet another attempt to bolster our will power.[1] Fortunately, our reading from Matthew suggests that Christian living has more to do with entering into a new covenant than with making resolutions. After all, according to Matthew, Joseph had resolved to put Mary away quietly once he learned of her pregnancy. Instead, he lived into  covenantal relationships with God and with Mary. And look where it gets him.

            He has a brand new baby on his hands, and now an angel tells him he needs to move to Egypt for the safety of the child. And for his own safety and that of Mary’s too. Not that he needs an angel to provide a reality check. In league with good storytellers of any age, Matthew takes license with historical accuracy: it isn’t Herod who orders the search and destroy carnage Matthew refers to. It’s Herod’s death that temporarily releases the pressure of Roman occupation. Revolts spring up all over Israel. About the same time Jesus is born, Jewish defiance against Rome is so great that the Syrian governor Vargus brings three out of his four legions to quash the rebellions. The city of Sepphoris in the Galilee–roughly four miles from Nazareth–is decimated. Burned to the ground. Men and boys killed. Women raped, survivors enslaved.[2] The angel only confirms what Joseph already knows: it’s time to get out of Dodge.

            It’s unlikely that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus actually find sanctuary in Egypt, of course. That suggestion has more to do with Matthew’s efforts to draw comparisons to the Moses story. Since no other writer makes the claim that the Holy Family has any connection to Egypt, it’s probable that the truth in Matthew’s story of the flight to Egypt is that Jesus is born in exceedingly volatile and politically dangerous times. Not unlike the even more volatile and dangerous times after which the gospel itself is written. Only then, it isn’t Sepphoris that is decimated and burned to the ground: it’s Jerusalem.

            Volatile and dangerous times seem to mark the human condition in any era. Do we, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet ponders, “take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them?” There is no one answer. But when world seems to be falling apart, the gospels remind us that Jesus takes bread and breaks it; that he takes the cup and shares it and invites his followers to do the same in his memory.

            So what does this suggest for the beginning of a new calendar year? The fact is that resolutions have their place. Reality TV would be hard pressed for subject matter without building up the strengths and shortcomings of human resolve. But faithful living calls us into covenant to care not just for ourselves, but for those who depend upon us as well. That is Joseph’s gift–that he upholds covenantal living even when his personal and political worlds are falling apart around him. Within that covenant he hears God’s voice–encouraging him to take Mary as his wife; within that covenant he finds sanctuary, and once the danger is past, within that covenant he returns, but moves to a new home, a fresh start.

            When I was in my first parish in Palo Alto, I referred in a sermon to something that was black and white. Before entering the ministry, I taught middle school English and journalism; I understood the phrase as a term from the early days of printing. However, one of the Black men in our congregation heard it very differently: he heard it as racist comment. Fred’s church world didn’t exactly fall apart–but it was disturbed. Fortunately, he sought me out and we had a chance to work through the issue. We had a God-shaped chance to make a fresh start. How? By recognizing that being faithful to the covenant which binds us to one another and to God does not rely on personal willpower or on keeping score, but on using our gifts to work in the best interests of the other. What better way to renew that covenant than beginning this new year with the celebration of communion!

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[1] Martin, W.B.J., Sermons for Special Days, Abingdon, © 1975, pages 11-17.
[2] Crossan, John Dominic, God & Empire, HarperSanFrancisco, © 2007, pages 109-110.