Finally, after all the holiday extravagance, a chance to look at the story itself.  Now, while we are still in the Christmas, but largely out of the Holiday Party, season is a good time to step back and look at the actual biblical Christmas narratives. 

Of the four Gospel writers, only Luke and Matthew tell a traditional Christmas story.  Mark does not mention Christmas at all, and John opts for philosophical musing on the meaning of Christmas (“the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us”) without venturing into a narrative. 

The stories of Luke and Matthew have significant and interesting differences.  They both include visitors to the infant Jesus, but Matthew had Magi and Luke has shepherds.  They both include angels, but one puts them in dreams.  They both worry about including outsiders, but define who is an “outsider” by different criteria.  They are both aware of the tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures, but to one it is central, to the other much less so.  Mary and Joseph appear in both accounts, but each writer presents them very differently.  And this list could be significantly extended.   

How do we get from here to there?   Matthew and Luke offer two different solutions to a problem they both recognized.  The adult Jesus was known as “Jesus of Nazareth” and Nazareth is a town in the northern part of Palestine in the region of Galilee. But everyone knew that the Messiah was going to be born in Bethlehem, David’s home town, which is more than 200 miles south of Nazareth.  So what story would bring into agreement the propositions that “Jesus of Nazareth” was the Messiah, and the Messiah was to have been born in Bethlehem? 

Matthew suggests that the family always lived in Bethlehem, but had to flee to Egypt once Herod, the local king, set out to kill all the newborn boys in that town in order to quash the rumor that one of the infants might be the new “King of the Jews”.  Once Herod had died, it was safe for them to return to Palestine, but instead of returning to Bethlehem—maybe continuing memories of their role in prompting the village-wide infanticide made them unwelcome—they decided to settle up north in Nazareth.  Hence Jesus, though born in Bethlehem, grew up to be known as “Jesus of Nazareth.”  In Matthew’s account, the only journey to Bethlehem is taken by the Magi, and the only King is Herod—Caesar Augustus and his plans for enrollment and taxes receive no mention. 

Listen for the echoes    Note some of the Biblical echoes of the story so far.  Do you remember the other evil King who set out to kill all the Hebrew babies, and how there was at least one miraculous escape?  Moses was the baby, and, of course, Pharaoh was the King.  Moses, whose name means something like “drawn from the water”, was traditionally thought to have been saved by his sister, Miriam, which is the Hebrew form of the name “Mary”.  Read Exodus 1 and 2 for the whole story. 

The account of Moses’ being saved from the water is echoed in the dramatic narrative of the Exodus when Moses once again narrowly escapes death at the hands of the King, leading a whole people this time through the water—the Red Sea—to safety (see Exodus 12-15).  As they reach dry land, Miriam/Mary, who set this all in motion when Moses was an infant, sings a song of triumph and celebration.  Jesus’ mother Mary/Miriam is present at the crucifixion, an event which takes place at Passover, the feast of the remembering of the Exodus escape, and it is another Mary who has the first experience of Jesus emerging through the “sea” of death into the resurrected life on Easter Sunday.  (Jesus’ walking on water, and his feeding of the crowds in the wilderness, also contain echoes of Moses’ escape at Passover and the feeding of the people of Israel with manna in the wilderness as they made their way towards the Promised Land.) 

The one who had brought the Jews to Egypt as a place of refuge from a famine in the book of Genesis was Joseph, and Joseph’s power derived from his ability to interpret dreams—you may remember him as the one with a “coat of many colors” who was sold into slavery by his brothers.  And, of course, in Matthew’s version of Christmas, it is in dreams that the New Testament Joseph learns that Mary’s pregnancy is no cause for shame or disgrace.  Matthew’s own struggles with his fellow Jews about Jesus’ identity and status may have prompted him, in his story, implicitly to remind his readers and hearers of how the majority of brothers rejecting their younger brother, who was their father’s favorite, had been a great mistake within the family of “Israel.” (Israel being, in Genesis, the name of Joseph’s father as well as, in Matthew and Jesus’ time, the name for the Jewish nation.) 

Not exactly the Christmas Pageant  Another element of Matthew’s story perhaps reflects his ambivalence towards the Jewish authorities.  Herod, the Jewish king, wants to kill the Messiah.  The Magi, who are Gentiles, bring the child gifts and seek to honor and worship him. This is not the way anyone would have expected things to unfold:  God chose the Jews as his people; the Gentiles are the unclean outsiders with whom contact is kept to a minimum.   

But the Magi see signs in the heavens—the natural order—of the birth of the child, and they set off to worship and honor him.  But it is only by consulting the Jewish scriptures (Matthew 2:4-8) that they can know the exact place they seek. The careful observation of the natural world (we might say “science”) and scripture are mutually interdependent—neither one by itself will get them to Bethlehem.  And Gentiles who are open to God and willing to be guided by scripture are, in this part of Matthew’s story, more to be trusted than those who claim descent from Abraham but have turned away from God to focus on their own power and self-preservation. 

Whether Gentiles could be welcomed to the early Jewish/Christian communities was a topic comparable in controversy in Matthew’s day to our current debates about sex.  Peter argued that God’s will revealed in scripture prohibited extending full fellowship to non-Jews.  Paul responded that if the Jews had rejected Jesus, and the Gentiles were seeking, in ever larger numbers, to follow him, might it be that the will of God was to see no significant distinction between Jew and Gentile?   

The Three Gay Bishops    So if you can image the story of the Three Magi being told today with the principal characters being three openly gay bishops who journey for miles to find and honor the Messiah, while a prominent and powerful local  leader is seeking the child’s violent death (and the death, say by car bomb, of everyone else in his nursery school), then you might have some sense of the political, and potentially inflammatory, nature of Matthew’s story in his own day.  That the foreign Gentiles would get it, and the local Jewish king would not, was an outrageous claim to make in a religious Jewish community.  On the other hand, if you were one of the Gentile converts seeking equal status, it might become a beloved story very quickly. 

Over to Luke  Remember the Nazareth/Bethlehem problem?  Luke’s solution is the more familiar.  Joseph and Mary were always from Nazareth, Luke suggests, and only go to Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus orders everyone to return to their family’s native town to be taxed, and Joseph being “of the house and lineage of David,” goes to Bethlehem, David’s home town.  (And how it came to be David’s home is itself the result of a Gentile woman, Ruth, seducing and marrying a prominent native, Boaz.  The book of Ruth, only four chapters long, is found just before 1 Samuel in the Old Testament, and is one of the great romance stories of scripture.) 

Just as a non-religious element figures prominently in Matthew (the Star in the East), so the Emperor is a prime mover in Luke.  And Luke, wrestling with that same question of whether Gentiles should be included in the early Christian community, takes the occasion of his story to point out that God used the Prime Gentile, the Roman Emperor, to fulfill the prophecies of the Hebrew Scriptures.  The only thinly veiled suggestion is that the Emperor does what God needs to have done, even though he might not know it at the time—the Emperor may think he is in charge, but we know differently.

I am the Bread of Life   That familiar line, made more famous by the modern hymn, is from the Gospel of John, but it resonates with both Matthew and Luke because the word “Bethlehem” means something literally like “House of Bread”.  And so when Luke describes Jesus as being put into a manger in “Breadtown”, is it any great wonder that at the end of his life Jesus offers himself as food for his followers and, as he offers them bread, says, Take, eat, this is by body.  When he is placed in the manger, he is wrapped in linen cloths (Luke 2:7), a description we will hear again at the end of the story (Luke 23:53). 

And Gentiles?   When Matthew presents his genealogy of Jesus, he only takes his lineage back to Abraham. Matthew’s point is that Jesus is as much a child of Abraham as any other Jew. When Luke presents his genealogy, he goes back to Abraham, but then keeps on going, all the way back to Adam, thereby placing Jesus within the tradition of all of humanity, not just the family of Abraham.  And when the angels appear, both to the shepherds and in the heavens in Luke, it isn’t just with good news for the children of Abraham, but for all of the earth.  (“Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.…Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace,  good will toward men (Luke 2:10, 14, KJV, emphasis added).”   

Near the end of Luke’s infancy narratives, Simeon, singing his hymn of praise to God for the infant messiah whom he holds in his arms, declares that Jesus is “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people, Israel (Luke 2:32 KJV).”  In Luke’s view, Jesus continues the mission Isaiah had centuries earlier discerned for Israel—to be the true messengers of God to the whole world, not a closed community keeping the knowledge of God within themselves.  Giving light to—including—the Gentiles is not a rejection of the Jews, but a fulfilling of their purpose and mission; it is their true “Glory”. 

Who is on the Guest List?  In Matthew, the honored guests are ethnic outsiders—the Gentile Magi. In Luke they are the economic underclass—the angels could have invited anyone, indeed Jesus could have been born anywhere— but the guests who get God’s personal invitation are the night-shift shepherds, and the place of honor is where the animals are stabled for the night.  The obligation of the rich towards the poor is an issue of special concern to Luke.  Whereas Matthew never misses a chance to cite a verse from the Hebrew Scriptures, Luke never passes an opportunity to say that God abhors economic injustice.  After the angel appears to Mary to tell her she will bear the Messiah, she sings, for example, that God is great because, among other things, he brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, he fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich empty away (Luke 1:52-53). 

Luke is also very interested in women as key players. In Matthew, all the preliminary conversation about Jesus’ birth is between angels and Joseph; Mary has no lines and is, in effect, waiting passively on the sidelines to see if Joseph will divorce her or not. 

In Luke, all of the conversation is with Mary.  Indeed, in Luke’s account of the birth of John the Baptist (Luke 1), which serves as a prologue to the story of the birth of Jesus, John’s father, Zechariah, a male priest, is literally struck dumb by an angel and made unable to speak (Luke 1:20) while Elizabeth, his wife (pointedly described as being of an equally distinguished family and character as her husband), takes the lead role. At this point Elizabeth and Mary, Elizabeth’s younger kinswoman, finally have no competition and can say whatever they want without being interrupted by some guy.  And when Elizabeth gives birth to John, Zechariah only gets his voice back when he gives his written consent to Elizabeth’s giving their son the name (over the strident objections of Zechariah’s family) that God had entrusted to her (Luke 1:59-64). 

In Matthew, angels appear in dreams and God’s word is found in scripture.  Overwhelmingly in Luke angels appear in ordinary life and God’s word is found in the midst of daily business.  God is certainly distinct and holy in Luke—angels filling the heavens with song and glory are not an every-night occurrence—but that holiness and glory appears right here and right now without the buffer of dreams or ancient prophecies.  Luke knows the prophecies but perhaps would rather give priority to direct experience. 

It’s still the same old story   So what to make of all this data?  Within the narrative details of Matthew and Luke, it looks as though the writers are processing hotly controversial topics within their communities (who gets included, who gets expelled) which, perhaps surprisingly, still make headlines today. The authors process matters of intense personal interest (Does God marginalize women?  What happens to male religious leaders who are unwilling to hear what God has entrusted to women?), interesting questions of narrative echoes and recurring motifs (Are there certain patterns which God repeats over and over, and, if so, what does that mean?), and reflection on the nature of religion itself (Does God only work through religious people and structures?  Can science help us make sense of scripture, and scripture of science in a way which honors the integrity and distinctive nature of each discipline?). 

Some critics, especially modern, are so entranced by the seeming subtexts of these narratives that they leap to the conclusion that the whole story is fabricated to provide a setting for these various agendas.  I confess that I think that unlikely.  We are always on shaky ground when we try to explain, or explain away, scripture based on our theories and speculations.  Our belief is that God, working in the person of the Spirit, inspires Scripture and makes it the Word of God—it is, and contains, what it needs to be and what we need to know.   

For me, scripture is most lively when it is used to begin, rather than close off, conversations about God and God’s will for us.  I suspect that may be one of its God-given purposes. God gave us, and the Church preserved, four different Gospels, including two Christmas stories very different in many details.  Maybe the point is not to ignore those differences or to explain them away, but to accept them as an inherent part of the gift and a core element of the identity of Scripture.  As our Christmas season draws to its conclusion this year, think of all the time and energy you devoted to things other than considering the stories that created the season.  Perhaps that reflection will prompt you to come back to Christmas as an adult, not to lose whatever you bring forward from your childhood, but to add to it what you now need as a grown-up.  

If you, or a friend, or member of your family goes to the hospital...    

Visiting parishioners who are hospitalized is a priority for clergy and lay chaplains.  Currently, no hospital notifies us when you register.  Even if they ask to which church you belong, they use that information only for their internal records.  It would be a great help to us if you or a friend or family member let us know when you are going to be in the hospital. 

If you are at home but unable to come to church, we would very much like to bring communion to you.  There is a special, and very brief, service for communion at home which uses bread and wine consecrated at a regular service at St. Elizabeth's.  John Hartnett and I have celebrated this service with a great many of our parishioners at their homes or hospital rooms, and we offer it as a reminder that nothing separates us from the love of God, nor does absence remove us from the fellowship of the congregation.

LAC

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