Well, the writer of Matthew doesn’t mince words, does he? This story is way worse than simple post-Christmas letdown. But then, the Bible doesn’t romanticize Christmas the way we tend to do. 

Now, I’m as guilty of that as anyone. I have a small collection of nativity sets (which I didn’t put out this year because… puppy). Of course, these all have the figures of the baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Some also have animals (not all of them indigenous to Palestine). Some have an angel. Some have a shepherd or two. Most of them have three kings. Always kings — you can tell by their crowns — although the word magi doesn’t really mean kings. And always three — although Matthew only indicates that there were more than one.

See, we have been adjusting the Christmas story for centuries. One of the ways we modern Congregationalists do that is by, often, conveniently skipping over the end of Matthew’s second chapter. Yet, in burying the raw horror of soldiers killing babies, we do the Bible and the world — and our own souls — an injustice. This sort of thing has been going on for millennia and continues today. Why do you think there are so many refugees everywhere you look?

Oscar Romero pointedly called us to account: 

“We must not seek the child Jesus in the pretty figures of our Christmas creches. We must seek him among the undernourished children who have gone to bed at night with nothing to eat….”

It’s no use turning away. It’s no use thinking, “It’s not my problem.” It’s no use saying, “There’s nothing I can do about it.” Elie Wiesel spoke often and urgently about the necessity of hearing the cries of those who suffer:

“In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. In the face of injustice, one may not look the other way. When someone suffers, and it is not you, that person comes first. Their very suffering gives them priority. . . . To watch over one who grieves is a more urgent duty than to think of God.”

Again, Wiesel noted, “To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.”  

And what is sin but the wounding of one’s own soul, the building of a barrier between oneself and love, between oneself and joy, between oneself and God? Indifference is a kind of death.

So, what then? I don’t pretend to have any more insight than you, or to feel any less powerless than you. When it comes to putting faith into practice, I am as reliant on the vision of others as anyone. Worse, I am as lacking in courage as anyone.

But the important thing is simply to start somewhere. I have decided to find, write down, and post inspiring quotations that will keep in the forefront of my mind and prayers the necessity of doing something. I trust that what that “something” is, will become apparent when I am ready — when we are together ready — to act. I need to keep reminding myself of this in order to keep hope alive, in order to resist the temptation to pull the covers over my head, roll over, and go back to sleep. 

Oscar Romero again:

“We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.”

The saintly bishop was not so naive as to think there wouldn’t be a cost to what he advocated. There is an emotional cost to doing what is right. “There are many things that can only be seen through eyes that have cried,” he said. Whether it is our own suffering that brings tears, or identifying with the suffering of others, I believe a hurting, broken heart is an opening for grace, whether we want it or not. Of course, for Oscar Romero, the cost was his earthly life.

He gave it in the conviction that, “A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed — what sort of good news is that?” 

“Oh,” I hear some of you thinking. “My life is too busy to do one thing more.” Or, “I’m too old for that now.” Or, “I don’t have the faintest idea where to begin.” I know you’re thinking it because I’ve tried out those excuses, too. These are the same kinds of excuses we use for not doing many things we think we ought to be doing, no? I make excuses when I don’t really want to do something.

I knew a woman in her nineties who could no longer get out of her apartment very much, except to go down the elevator to dinner. She called herself a “worker bee.” “Worker bees are the ones that can sting, you know. Sting people to action.” So she set herself a goal of writing so many letters a week to people who, she believed, had power to make changes — to officials at all levels of government, to newspapers, to church committees (!). She was blessed with more money than she felt she needed, so she gave generously to various organizations that helped people. She knew she didn’t have much longer to live, so she was going to make it count.

I seem to remember that she liked the famous Edward Everett Hale quotation:

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

A bee that can sting (although it gives up its life in doing so), a mosquito that can keep you awake with its whining all night, a spider whose very appearance can make a good many people freeze or shriek — These are tiny beings, but far from powerless.

It’s also a relief to think of ourselves as little, as ordinary folks. Everything is not all up to us. We are in a long line of people who have made positive contributions, large and small, to bettering the world. There are people all around us attempting to do their part — some famous, many more unknown. One of the famous ones was Congressman John Lewis:

"Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."

Little Ruby Bridges, desegregating an Alabama school. For all her courage, she still couldn’t have done it alone. She had her family and church, U.S. Marshalls and an unnamed benefactor who bought her clothes. 

Or Greta Thunberg. She has had to have the support of her parents, plus people willing and eager to give her a platform on which to speak. This is not to diminish her bravery and intelligence, but to note that for every remarkable individual leading the way, there must be many others contributing whatever they have, as well.

As I said, I am dependent on the wisdom of other voices, past and present, for whatever insight I can offer you this morning. These are reminders to myself as much as gentle counsel to you, if you wish it. John Lewis repeats what so many have insisted is true:

“You are a light. You are the light. Never let anyone – any person or any force – dampen, dim or diminish your light. Study the path of others to make your way easier and more abundant.”

Christmas has consequences that demand both courage and hope. More than that, however, is the promise that God, Emmanuel, is among us, around us, within us, still at work birthing the divine realm. 

Here is Amanda Gorman’s astonishing poem describing what this feels like.

Hymn for the Hurting

Everything hurts,

Our hearts shadowed and strange,

Minds made muddied and mute.

We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.

And yet none of it is new;

We knew it as home,

As horror,

As heritage.

Even our children

Cannot be children,

Cannot be.

Everything hurts.

It’s a hard time to be alive,

And even harder to stay that way.

We’re burdened to live out these days,

While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.

This alarm is how we know

We must be altered —

That we must differ or die,

That we must triumph or try.

Thus while hate cannot be terminated,

It can be transformed

Into a love that lets us live.

May we not just grieve, but give:

May we not just ache, but act;

May our signed right to bear arms

Never blind our sight from shared harm;

May we choose our children over chaos.

May another innocent never be lost.

Maybe everything hurts,

Our hearts shadowed & strange.

But only when everything hurts

May everything change.

Whatever we fear, whatever stands in the way of our speaking out against violence, whatever impedes our acting in the cause of justice, whatever excuses we want to cling to, may God open our minds and hearts to a new way of living. May we give each other both courage and kindness. May we value the smiles of children more than anything. 

Jesus does. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Art Attribution: “The Massacre of the Innocents” by Léon Cogniet
1824, Léon Cogniet/Musée des Beaux-Arts, via Alamy