Christmas 1: Here But Not Yet
In fact, judging by the gospel reading this week, of Herod slaughtering children in Matthew 2 with a level of political violence rarely seen in history, things might even be worse.
As Stanley Hauerwas puts it, "Jesus is born into a world where children are killed, and continue to be killed, to protect the power of tyrants."
What do we do with that? Where's the good news?
In the midst of crisis is never the time to say that everything will be okay. To do so is to minimize pain and deny the grieving process.
Rachel refused the be comforted. And rightly so, for Hauerwas reminds us that "the gospel is not a consolation for those whose children are murdered."
Even so, the good news is that the creator, sustainer, and liberator - the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - is with us. It's important, essential, to remind ourselves of this, often, over and over again, when times are good. Doing so builds up resources to rely upon when things go awry.
This is why we must read the psalmist and the prophet before reading the gospel text this week.
Using creation language, Psalm 148 calls the sun and moon and stars, the fire and hail and snow and smoke, the mountains and hills and trees, the wild and tamed animals and birds, kings and princes, men and women and young people, to praise the God who is over all.
Then Isaiah (63.7-9) helps us count our many blessings by recalling what God has done. Not only has God claimed Israel, but God has had compassion and shown affection. When they were in distress, says the prophet, God was in distress too. And God saved them.
This is necessary perspective when faced with genocide against children, if we are to muster the hope to keep going, and the courage to confront Herod, rather than cowering in outright despair.
Hauerwas calls the church to an alternative politics to Herod's politics of murder. By politics, he does not mean Democrat or Republican. There are many ways to be political, Hauerwas reminds us, beyond party politics.
"The movement that Jesus begins," writes Hauerwas, "is constituted by people who believe they have all the time in the world, made possible by God's patience, to challenge the world's impatient violence."
And the reason for both our patience and our resistance: "The good news is that Herods die. Kings come and go, but God's people endure." As such, "those who would follow and worship Jesus are a challenge to those who would kill children."
The very presence of a people who pledge allegiance to one greater than Herod, a people who will outlast Herod, is a challenge to Herod's reign - so long as we have patience.
Writing about the Jesus's temptation in the desert, in Matthew 4, Hauerwas writes this:
The devil is but another name for our impatience. We want bread, we want to force God's hand to rescue us, we want peace - and we want it now. But Jesus is our bread, he is our salvation, and he is our peace. That he is so requires that we learn to wait with him in a world of hunger, idolatry, and war to witness to the kingdom that is God's patience. That Father [sic] will have the kingdom present one small act at a time. ...Jesus's refusal to accept the devil's terms for the world's salvation has made it possible for a people to exist that offers an alternative time to a world that believes we have no time to be just.It is tempting to insist upon justice now. But doing only reinforces the impatient violence of Herod.
We don't have time to wait, but we do have time to be just. We do have time to mourn with Rachel, to grieve with Rachel, to wrap our arms around her and shed tears with her.
And we have time to resist Herod without the violence of impatience, for we know that we belong to a kingdom that will outlast Herod.
