“Gathering Up the Fragments”

A Sermon by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett

Preached at Pleasantville UCC, January 4, 2009

Jeremiah 31:7-14; Ephesians 1:3-12; Matthew 2:13-23

“With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will…
to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.”
(Ephesians 1:8-10)

For a brief moment it all looked so beautiful – and so perfect.  The house was glowing with the light of the tree.  The presents were beautifully wrapped and carefully placed beneath it.  The cookies and eggnog laid out for Santa as they are every Christmas Eve.  Our home never looks more beautiful than it does on that holy night, when the lights are kept low and the signs of age in this 100 year old house are not so visible.

And then, within a few hours, it was as if an explosion went off in our house.  Where there had once been beauty – even superabundant beauty -- and order and things carefully set in their places, within hours there was in its place an explosion of disarray; mounds of wrapping paper and things which had just moments before been carefully and neatly restrained in their boxes were out and all over the living room and there would be no putting them back again.  There are things that come out of boxes that no amount of coaxing and careful folding will ever be able to put back into boxes.

The baby Jesus has gone missing this year.  Each year, as we decorate our home, we place the crèche in the midst of the Christmas decorations and we hide the baby Jesus in the hutch because of course, he cannot come out until Christmas morn.  But this year when we went to find him, he was not to be found, and there was no baby Jesus in the crèche on Christmas morn.  I keep hoping that we will find him when Christmas ends on Tuesday of this week, and we pack away the signs of the Season.  But it is unsettling to lose the baby Jesus.

The longer I am a Christian, and the more time I spend living in the Church, the more I love the rhythm of the Church’s Year; the turning of its seasons; the wisdom of its Holy Days and the things which can be learned by being deeply attentive to this sacred rhythm and cadence.

The song reminds us that there are 12 Days of Christmas.  The Season of Christmas lasts 12 whole days and does not end until this Tuesday when we celebrate Epiphany.  When Epiphany falls in the middle of the week, as it does this year, it’s a little hard to know when to celebrate it.  Do we begin our festivities this Sunday, before the end of the Christmas Season?  Or do we wait until next Sunday?  This year at Pleasantville, we will celebrate Epiphany next Sunday with Communion in worship and the Visit of the Three Kings to the Church School.  Christmas is such a wondrous season; it seemed a shame to cut it short.

The Confirmation Class is learning all about the Church’s Year.  We have restructured the class so that it moves with the Church’s seasons and the Confirmands are learning the biblical stories associated with each season.  During Advent, they studied the prophecy of Isaiah; they read the story of the Annunciation – Gabriel’s announcement to Mary that she would bear the Son of God.  They learned about the Visitation – Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, and how the babe within Elizabeth womb leapt within her in recognition of the Messiah.  And they read about Joseph and his dreams, and his courageous decision to stand with Mary and not abandon her in her time of need.

In anticipation of Christmas, they read the birth stories of Jesus as told in Luke and Matthew’s Gospel.  They read about the Visit of the Magi, and they read less well-known stories also: the Escape to Egypt and the Slaughter of the Innocents (Matthew 2:13-23); the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus (Luke 2:21-40); and the one story we have about the childhood of Jesus, when he slips away from his parents, and they find him teaching in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52).

Their studies reminded me that in other places in the Church there is one story traditionally told in the days following Christmas that we do not tell very often in our tradition, and perhaps you can understand why.

The Slaughter of the Innocents is traditionally remembered on the First Sunday after Christmas.  It is a story told only in Matthew’s gospel, and we read it here this morning.  Some traditions observe December 28^th as the Feast of the Holy Innocents; a day of remembrance for those children killed because of Herod’s rage against Christ.  While many good and faithful Christians are still digging out from under the celebrations of Christmas Day, others observe a religious calendar that invites them to remember the presence of suffering in the world; and more specifically, to remember the suffering of innocent children.  It is a religious practice that has been a curiosity to me.  Why, in days when the holy light of the Incarnation illuminates so much beauty in the world – why stop to remember the places where the suffering continues?  Why turn our eyes to look at the world’s pain and brokenness?

On December 27^th, two days after Christmas, a new military offensive began in the Middle East.  Fed up with the constant barrage of Palestinian rockets volleyed from Gaza into southern Israel, the Israeli government began a massive bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip which has, so far, cost the lives of 430 Palestinians and 4 Israelis.  Many of the casualties are children.

Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail the Son of Righteousness!
Light and life to all He brings
Ris'n with healing in His wings

Maybe it was the fact that the words of this beautiful Christmas carol were still ringing in my ears when the bombs began to fall in what we call ‘the Holy Land.’  Maybe it was the fact that I really believe that the world can be a different place with the Advent of the Prince of Peace.  Whatever it was, the story we seldom read in the days following Christmas, the story of the Slaughter of the Holy Innocents, leapt off the page and into my heart.

Why do faithful Christians remember this dark story in a season of light?  Because it’s true.  It was true then, and it’s still true today.  The Prince of Peace is born into our world and we are still solving our conflicts with violence.

            In an article he wrote for the Christian Century magazine, Norman Bendroth, a UCC pastor in Massachusetts, remembering his childhood and an accident which changed his life forever, called December “the cruelest month.”  He writes:

Perhaps it is a heavy sense of incongruity that marks this season with its persistent, engineered cheerfulness.  Set against our holiday parties and buying sprees is a different mood – dark, reflective, even mournful…Whoever has lost a child or spouse or parent or friend remembers it especially in December.  When the sun is lowest, we remember that we are losers of the light.”[1]

Perhaps it is the incongruity of singing Christmas carols and opening the paper to yet more horrific images of human suffering during wartime.  Perhaps it is the knowledge that anyone who has ever lost someone they love feels it especially in December.  Whatever it is, we are meant to feel the violence of this spiritual dislocation. 

             My thoughts are scattered on this second Sunday morning in the season of Christmas.  But “scattered” may be a suitable condition on a day when the title of the sermon is “Gathering Up the Fragments.”  The truth is our scripture readings for this morning are also a bit scattered – filled as they are with both promise and some uneasy truths with which we must contend.

Jeremiah begins with a promise about the very nature of God:

It is God’s nature to gather.  The Scriptures are permeated with promises of how God will gather together God’s people.  God will gather the remnant Israel home from exile; God will gather the wandering sheep in God’s embrace; “…God will bring us back from the far edge of desolation…”[2]  God will gather up all the fragments of our lives, making sure not to waste a one.  These are the promises of God as told us by the prophets and the apostles.  And these are promises we cling to. 

But the story from Matthew is there also and we are meant to turn and face it.  The story of the Holy Innocents has remained in the church’s readings for the season of Christmas in churches the world over because the Prince of Peace may have come into the world, but the world still receives Him not.  And this is a truth we are not supposed to turn away from.

There are some tragedies in this world which can be avoided.  The slaughter of the innocents at the hands of a deranged mind like Herod’s was one of them.  There are every day more.  The birth of the Prince of Peace into our lives does not eliminate the presence of evil and violence in our world.  But the presence of Christ in our hearts can restore our hope in a future that belongs to God and renew our strength so we have the inner resources to fight the world’s injustices where we find them.

It will be a few days yet before we dismantle the Christmas Tree and place all the ornaments back in the box.  I am intent on finding the Baby Jesus amidst all the clutter.  I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow we misplaced him.  But one thing is certain: I will gather up every item in my power to seek him out.  It’s something I learned from the Bible.

May the beauty, the mystery, and holy demands of the Season be with you and those you love.  Amen.