Living Like a Refugee

Matthew 2:13-15a

Now after they 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.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.

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You don't ha-ave to live like a refugee
(Don't have to live like a refugee)

"Refugee" by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell recorded by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on the "Damn the Torpedoes" album.

The Christmas Story is a wonderful and glorious tale. And in Matthew's gospel it doesn't last very long, it begins in the middle of chapter one and ends in the middle of chapter two. That's all. The Christmas Story ends abruptly with Joseph's dream from the angel of the Lord warning him to  “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt.” How long? God only knows... literally God only knows.

Of course, in the first century as well as in the twenty-second Egypt is not a good place for a Jew on the run. He would go to a place where he was not welcome. This allowed me to think about the racial and ethnic lines that were crossed with the simple words “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."

The Holy Family had to live like a refugee. In a way, we are like refugees. It is said that we are not citizens of this world. We are citizens of heaven. In a way, that makes us refugees. We are refugees in a world that is not ours. Our hope is that our Lord Jesus Christ also lived in this world. He lived like a refugee. He lived like a refugee in Egypt and like a refugee in this world in general. There is no where that we can go that Christ hasn't also gone. That is truly our hope.

Because Christ has lived like a refugee, we don't have to live like a refugee, because we know where our home is.

The Wind Cries

Luke 1:26-33

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

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A broom is drearily sweeping
Up the broken pieces of yesterdays life
Somewhere a queen is weeping
Somewhere a king has no wife
And the wind, it cries Mary

"The Wind Cries Mary" by Jimi Hendrix

We are currently in the sixth month of the year according to the Jewish calendar. That makes the date of our dear Savior's birth nine months away. It seems like the wrong time to consider Christmas, but a nine-month pregnancy being what it is, the time is upon us to consider this passage.

So imagine you're a teenage girl. I don't mean eighteen or nineteen either, I mean thirteen, maybe fifteen if you're an old maid. You're a virgin because you've followed society's rules. Then you hear these magical words, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Can life get any better than that?

Then you hear these words, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” Have you ever noticed when people, even angels say “Do not be afraid” it's time to duck? Those may well be the international signal for “Look out!”

Mary was in for something different. She was a good girl, she did the right things the right way and suddenly everyone is going to think she's a whore! It's logical, it's sensible. Then again, God's wisdom is our folly and vice-versa. You can't blame her for thinking “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you” is a cruel hoax.

Mary was told of her son's future. She was told that he would be great, the Son of the Most High. She was told that he would have the throne of David and reign over the house of Jacob forever. She was told of his infinite reign. It must have been a reassurance, but still...

Mary's life suddenly featured a broom sweeping up the broken pieces of yesterday's life. It wouldn't be easy. She would eventually be shipped off to her cousin Elizabeth's house. There she would be blessed by Elizabeth and her child. It wouldn't be easy, but she would be blessed.

By her blessing the world would be blessed.

Her pregnancy would not be easy. She would be doubted by her betrothed and by her people. She would be forced to ride in the dead of winter in the wilderness. She would give birth in a cave and her baby placed in a feed trough. He would fulfill what the angel promised and more.

"And more" happens next week, Holy Week. Mary wasn't told about this. Surely it would have broken her heart then as much as it did thirty-some years later. And as it was on Easter Sunday so it is today, the wind cries Mary.

Where the Love of God Goes

Mark 4:35-41

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

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Does any one know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?

"The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," written and performed by Gordon Lightfoot, from Summertime Dream

In ancient times, water was the embodiment of chaos. Genesis 1:6 mentions God building a barrier, a firmament, between the waters of order and the waters of chaos. God would later use the waters of chaos to wipe creation from the face of the earth in the story of Noah and the flood. The chaos of the sea is the home of the Leviathan, the ancient dragon of the sea. The Behemoth of Job is a creation of the seas and the waters. The abyss, the depths of the oceans and seas is the place of the bottomless, unfathomed, and unfathomably deep underworld. The sea has been considered the personification of death itself. Ultimately, the scriptural view of the waters and the seas and the storms and the winds is one of danger.

In our enlightened age, even for people who do not know this part of the history of or the mystery; storm-tossed waters continue to be a frequently used metaphor for the turmoil of living.

In 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, and in 1976 singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot recorded a haunting ballad in honor of and as a tribute to the ship and the men who lost their lives. He called it “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.” The Fitzgerald, labeled "the pride of the American Flag," was a giant ore freighter, 729 feet in length, and was the largest carrier on the Great Lakes from 1958 until 1975.

On November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald was hauling a heavy load of ore to Detroit when it ran into a severe storm. This storm generated 27-30-foot swells. During the evening hours the ship disappeared from radar screens; apparently it sank in a matter of minutes. It now rests on the bottom of Lake Superior broken in two with the bow upright and the stern upside down still loaded with its cargo of ore and all 29 hands.

In Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad about the sinking of the freighter Edmund Fitzgerald, he asks: “Does anyone know where the love of God goes/When the waves turn the minutes to hours?” That’s quite a question, but it’s not the first time it has been asked. Both the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and this gospel reading remind us of one of the most well known stories of the Old Testament, the story of Jonah. In the case of the gospel, this literary flashback is quite intentional.

As the book of Jonah begins, Jonah receives the word of the Lord and does his level best to avoid his vocation. He buys passage on a vessel to Tarshish and goes below deck for a nap. By the fourth verse, the Lord made the sea boil with a storm. In the fifth, everyone on the vessel was praying to one god and another for deliverance. In the sixth verse, the captain of the vessel wakes Jonah pleading, “Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”

Here is the answer to Gordon Lightfoot’s question; the same question asked by the apostles; the same hope that the ship captain had when imploring Jonah to call on his god. The love of God is ever present. In this love lies our one peace. In times like these that doesn’t seem so very likely. In times like these, asking “where has the love of God gone?” or as it is asked in our gospel reading, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?” are the questions that are on our minds. At times like these, we hope and pray the Lord will spare us a thought so we will not perish.

As one of the most problematic questions asked in scripture; its answer is one of the most wonderful. Jesus does not promise that there will be no more storms. He promises that he will be with us in the storms. Jesus doesn’t promise to end the pain. He promises to be with us while we are in pain. In Leipzig, Martin Luther was asked, “Where will you be, Brother Martin, when church, state, princes and people turn against you?” Luther answered: “Why, then as now, in the hands of Almighty God.” So it was with Martin Luther, so it was with Jonah, so it was with the apostles, so it is with us today. Our one peace is in the hands of Almighty God.