Sermon 30th Dec 07, Datchworth & Ayot St Peter                                    Colin Hull

Texts

Isaiah 63: 7-9

Matthew 2: 13-end

Theme: Sharing in atrocity

Introduction

O sisters too, how may we do,

For to preserve this day

This poor youngling for whom we do sing

By, by, lully, lullay.

Herod the king, in his raging,

Charged he hath this day

His men of might, in his own sight,

All young children to slay.

Words from the "Coventry Carol" is a Christmas carol dating from the 16th Century, performed in Coventry as part of a mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. The play depicts the Christmas story from the Gospel of Matthew with the visit of the wise men and Herod’s orders to kill all male infants in Bethlehem. The lyrics of the carol represent a mother's lament for her doomed child.

December the 28th has been remembered as Holy Innocents Day in Christian tradition for many centuries. The reading coincidentally occurs today in the lectionary readings. The story of the killing of the infants has been questioned by many as being unhistorical because there is no other evidence for it contemporary records of Herod’s reign. But some scholars defend the massacre as something that Herod was cruel enough to do and event was local enough around Bethlehem enough to pass without remark outside the Gospel of Matthew. The contempary Jewish historian Josephus records Herod's execution of two of his sons and his wife Mariamne because he believed they posed a threat to him and there are several other examples of Herod’s willingness to commit such acts to protect his power against perceived threats. Josephus suggests that not all such acts were recorded, as he summarizes that Herod “never stopped avenging and punishing every day those who had chosen to be of the party of his enemies. So therefore the killing of the infants at Bethlehem is quite in keeping with the character of Herod.  

The gospel mentions the event as part of the emphasis on fulfilment of a prophecy by Jeremiah about the weeping of the Ramah women.

If we want to be true to the Jeremiah reference as well we should recall  it is historically linked with the destruction of Ramah in the Babylonian conquest of Judah in 597BC and hence the destruction of the town and the killing of many, including children in the conquest.

The killing of the Bethlehem infants is therefore part of that ever present evil that touches the innocent in every age, in cruelty and warfare.  Jesus born into the world is involved in this early threat to his life, as many others are.  Atrocities against the innocent are never far away and the Son of God is at potential risk as he comes into the world.

 

The story of the Bethlehem massacre is more than the hatred of one man.

Herod could not have carried it out without the willing help of the Roman soldiers.

 It could not have happened without them. It takes more than one person to create and carry out such and atrocity.

 

Before Christmas I was reading a book Unholy Alliance, by Mark Ellis, an American Jew. In it he reflects on the fact of the Nazi death camps that could not have captured and killed so many Jews without the willing co-operation and complicity of many thousands of the  people. The already existing prejudice that was centuries old made it possible.

 What was it that enabled a possibly loving family man to write letters to his wife and children in the evening, and then do this horrendous act the very next day. How could people turn away? How could one race of people so treat another?

Perhaps we should recall that Martin Luther, well celebrated for starting the Reformation by his criticism of the Pope and the RC church, was also anti-Jewish. Luther advocated the killing of Jews. Generations of pious and sincere Christians despised Jewish people and other races.

 

Ellis goes on to raise other historical acts of atrocity. He includes the European Settlers that settled all over the Americas enslaving the indigenous people and occupying their land.

The so-called “savages” were not seen as people with any rights of their own.  

Because of their different culture and religion the indigenous people were seen as ripe for exploitation. The settlers believing they had a God give right to occupy and take over the land, like some kind of new fulfilment of the OT exodus and settlement in the Promised Land. There were some better examples of Christian communities like the Quakers trying to live alongside the Indians and some priests in South Americas who tried to fight for Indian rights but they were an exception to the main events. In the name of God people’s rights and cultures have been trampled on and abused by people professing to believe in the Prince of Peace. In the name of Christ so-called Christian civilisation enslaved much of the world and the effects of it still reverberate in the present time.

Perhaps it has taken the massacre of the Jews in Nazi Germany to wake the world up to the extent of atrocity that can happen, with the prejudice and blindness of even religious people to anyone outside their own groups and culture. And since then the very idea of “ethnic cleansing” has become seen as an international criminal act. However, the involvement of religious people in slavery and atrocity should make us alert to recognise our own tendency to religious blindness and the reading of religious texts that support or own cause and outlook while ignoring others that are inconvenient and might actually judge our way of life. 

 

But there is another form of sharing in atrocity and massacre.

 

People were shocked when the suicide bombers flew planes into the two towers. We were all shocked because of the few thousand that were killed or injured that day.  But behind the scenes on the same day, away from cameras and newspapers several thousand children died around the world from preventable diseases, due to poverty and lack of drinking water we take for granted.  Others died in refugee camps. The inequalities of the world are a silent war on the poorest of the earth and a war is waged against the environment.

                                                                                                                             

These are Holy Innocents of another sort and in various ways we are held in a web of connection to them. We are all involved in an unwilling suffering of the innocents. The recent banking crisis has revealed again that we are all caught up in our financial institutions in which many are victims of unjust trade, debt and poverty.  Our cheap food in supermarkets can be the cause of poverty for others because they are not paid enough for their crops or their labour. As many of us drove here today we were each adding to global warming and the pollution of the environment. Ours may be a sin of neglect rather than deliberate intent to cause harm but we are still caught in it.

 

Collect

In thinking about an answer to this I think of the Collect for Holy Innocents in Common Worship.

Heavenly Father

Whose children suffered at the hands of Herod,

Though they had done no wrong:

Give us grace neither to act cruelly nor to stand indifferently by,

But to defend the weak from the tyranny of the strong

In the name of Jesus Christ who suffered for us..

 

Today's holy innocents are the frightened children in Iraq and Afganistan, the starving children in Darfur, the maimed and sick Palestinian children without medicine in the Gaza strip, the abused children in our own neighbourhoods. The list can be expanded to include single mothers struggling to feed their child, the mentally ill, the elderly -- all who are innocent and neglected. What can we do to insure their human dignity, assuage their fear, dry their tears? To stand with the mourning parents of Herod's realm is to face the fact of suffering and evil in the world and to ask "Where is God in all this? What is he calling us to do?”

We can of course always protest about situations of injustice we come to know. Lobby and campaign locally and nationally for changes. We can of course campaign about the causes of suffering and use our own time and talents to support others in their work. Beyond that there are ethical choices to be made in our spending habits; where we shop, what we buy. What we can ourselves do to be less polluting and to be more energy efficient?We may not be able to escape all the consequences of our involvement in the webs of injustice over which we have no control but we should do what we can do with whatever means we have.

I have for some time kept in touch with the Anglican Church of Jerusalem and the former Palestinian Bishop  Riah El-Assaal.  He continues to be involved in peace movements in the Middle East. In his Christmas message published for supporters he writes.

Christmas becomes real when we truly realize that a smile on a child’s face is worth the treasures of the world;

It is Christmas whenever we sweep with kindness the tears of lonely widows;

It is Christmas when we become parents to orphans who lost their fathers and mothers;

It is Christmas when we un-break the hearts of all who have broken hearts;

It is Christmas when we give food to those with empty stomachs;

It is Christmas when we replant uprooted nations and lands with the seed of liberty and brotherhood;

It is Christmas when the leaders around our globe wake up to their humanity;

It is Christmas when Justice prevails and Truth overcomes

 

 

In conclusion

 

We have to recognize that many horrible and horrendous things have been done by Christians and others of religious faith throughout the ages. They did so believing it was for God. We must recognize that we are often part of web of life that is inflicting injury on other Holy Innocents.

 

Christian discipleship today must be more than our personal and individual walk with Jesus. It is more than our prayers and church going. It has to include our whole life and the choices we make. I end again with words from the collect for Holy Innocents

 

Give us grace neither to act cruelly nor to stand indifferently by,

But to defend the weak from the tyranny of the strong

 

A-men