Are you having a nice Christmas? Despite the Valentine’s Day cards in the stores and the St. Patrick’s Day decorations available, for Christians today is the 12th day of Christmas. Christmas tells us that God has done a new thing – – coming into the world as an infant. And yet, Christmas tells us that God’s new thing, God’s once-and-for-all-time intervention is part of the age old story of God’s love. Christmas reminds us that in the beginning God created us in love, that throughout history God sustains and protects us in love. In love God calls us back and forgives us when we wander away and put our own selfish interests ahead of God’s will, and over and over again God claims us as and keeps us – – in love.
Many of us know the theological term midrash. Midrash is the retelling of a biblical story, a retelling based on an earlier part of scriptural tradition. Midrash tells us that clues to understanding God’s action today can be found in ancient memory. Such as …
Jeremiah has reworked the events of the original exodus. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah wrote during the time of the return of the Jews from exile in Babylonia, 700 or more years after Moses led the children of Israel out of their bondage in Egypt into freedom in the promised land, yet he reworks the events of that original exodus which probably took place about the year 1250 B.C.E. But, here in Jeremiah there are differences. There are happy differences. Here Israel leaves captivity in peace and joy to head for its ancestral home; it left Egypt in fear and stealth. The remnant returning to Israel from exile in Babylonia travel a level road; its ancestors negotiated rocky mountain passes.
Here’s another example of midrash. In your scriptural insert you can read the alternative Gospel selection of Joseph heeding God’s warning and taking his family into Egypt for protection against Herod. Midrash again. This time Matthew reworks the story of Moses birth and the Pharaoh’s attempt to murder the one who was predicted to deliver Israel out of bondage.
There are patterns in the ways God deals with his people, with us, dependable, reliable patterns: following exile comes return; following suffering and struggle, comes joy and relief; following death comes life. This is our story and it repeats and repeats and repeats again.
On this second Sunday after Christmas, this first Sunday of a new calendar year, we are welcomed with wonderfully optimistic biblical messages. “Sing aloud with gladness …” and “I will turn their mourning into joy, I will give them gladness for sorrow” from Jeremiah. “No good thing will the Lord withhold,” and “happy are those who put their trust in [the Lord],” from Psalm 84. “Spiritual blessings, hope, riches, and a glorious inheritance,” from Ephesians. And from our Gospel story of the wise men, ah, such gifts.
In Barbara Brown Taylor’s imaginative retelling of Matthew’s account of the Magi, the wise men leave their inappropriate gifts (according to Taylor instead of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, they should have brought goat’s milk, a warm blanket, and something shiny to hang above the crib) and then they line up in front of the baby Jesus to thank him for the gifts he has given them. “ ‘what in the world are you talking about?’ the baby’s mother laughed, and they told her so she could tell him later.”
“For this home and the love here,” said the first wise man.
“For baby flesh,” said the second wise man.”
“For a really great story,” said the third wise man.
Wise men indeed. As we, too, begin another year here in this “home,” let us, too, give thanks for the love and community here at St. Stephen’s. Let us praise God for the holy food we receive every time we kneel at this altar, and let us rejoice as we retell the great good tidings of our savior’s birth. This year, let’s retell it – not just with words – let’s retell it with how we live our lives.
And then, let us begin to live midrash, let us trust the Lord’s never-failing care for us and live our personal – and our congregational stories in a new way. Let us, too, like those of old who rewrote scripture, rewrite our stories. As God has done a new thing in the Incarnation of Christ and as those wise men did not leave Bethlehem for their homes by the same route they had come in order to avoid murderous Herod, let us resolve this new year not to travel dangerous routes, let us not cling to outworn ideas and repeat ineffectual kneejerk patterns.
What would it mean for you to go home by another way? Someone once said “to get what you’ve never gotten, do what you’ve never done.” This new year, 2020, what do you want to get that you’ve never gotten before? My hope and prayer for 2020 is that we, too, will travel “home by another way.” Merry Christmas … and, Happy new year!