The Slaughter of the Innocent and the Birth of God

Transcribed from the sermon preached January 13, 2013 

The Reverend Max Lynn, Pastor

Scripture Readings: Scripture Readings: Matthew 2:1-18

 Scripture Readings: Matthew 2:1-18
The killing of innocent babies is one that portion of Matthew we tend to leave out. It is disturbing. It is frustrating to know that God’s presence in the world does not eliminate such horrible tragedy. And yet, the Gospel remains our great hope. And Matthew’s perspective is the opposite. Despite the existence of evil and its attempt to eliminate God, God and God’s love still comes through.

Regardless of whether the specifics of Matthew’s birth narrative are historically accurate, a star taking a turn and stopping over a house, a virgin pregnant, Herod killing all the male babies in Bethlehem, the story truly reflects the historical context and speaks to important theological truth. Herod was an incredible violent, jealous and greedy man. We hear that around 4 BCE, just a few years before Jesus birth, Rome lined the road to Jerusalem with 2,000 crucified Jews to discourage rebellion. Herod was a man who was extremely paranoid and reacted violently to any perceived competition to his dictatorial authority. When he took his position of pontificate of Jerusalem, he had his eldest son, Antipater, murdered, along with his wife and her mother. Can you imagine that: Nick, Feliciana, Adios? This is power in the first century.  Still threatened, he began eliminating members of the Sanhedrin as well as 300 court officials. So even though we have no other reference to the killing of innocent babies of Bethlehem, I wouldn’t be surprised, given the small number of babies under two in the little town of Bethlehem, if it was just one other mass killing that didn’t register much beyond the community and their grieving mothers and fathers.

But there is more going on than the recording of history in Matthew. He is showing that the circumstances of Jesus birth are similar to Moses. The difference is that rather than a foreign Pharaoh feeling threatened and slaughtering innocent children, this time it is the Judean king. And it is not the religious elite of Israel who discern the infant king’s star on the rise but the foreign Magi.

The point is that it is not bloodline or nationality, which determines that we are on the side of God and his work in the world. The supposed good people and good nation can turn from God and be blinded by greed and violence, and folks who are on the outside may have eyes and ears to discern God’s light and truth and act accordingly.
It is time to recognize that there is nothing about being American, nothing about being the most powerful nation, or a so called Christian nation that forces God to bless us and keep us. I want to take a bit of time to reflect on the general direction of our culture. I am less interested in specific policy, since such discussion tends to be so polemical and bogs us down into narrow conversations.

In an article entitled "Islamic Zealots, Corporate Predators, and the Attack on Democracy: A Moral Perspective On Our Current State of Affairs " Dave Grossman shares an interesting study by Lawrence Kohlberg, a former professor at Harvard. Kohlberg studied “moral reasoning” in response to hypothetical moral dilemmas. He was not concerned with what people did, but focused attention on why they chose a course of action. He established 6 levels of motivation, from lowest to highest: He breaks the six types of moral motivation into three sections: Preconventional Morality, Conventional morality and Post-conventional morality.
Pre-Conventional Morality
(External motivations which will cause action to disappear as soon as the threat or the reward goes away.)
1. Motivation by Fear of Punishment - obedience orientation  (Bring me a beer or I will hit you)
2. Motivation by Greed/Personal Reward - looking out for #1  (Clean the back yard and I’ll wear that new dress. You help me and I’ll help you.)
(These first two would be the level of morality used by Herod)

Conventional Morality
(External motivations which MIGHT remain under certain circumstances.)
3. Motivation by Shame/Saving Face - willing conformity to parents/peers/culture, but as prostitutes selling themselves at a convention know, many people check their morals at the city limits, if they think that nobody will find out!
4. Motivation by Internalization of the Law - obey rules for the law's sake, because you were taught to obey the Ten Commandments, but you don't understand why and if legitimate authority changes the law (i.e., it's OK to kill Jews) [or it is ok to enslave Africans or dehumanize and kill Palestinians or Native Americans or immigrants because they are not part of God’s chosen] then you go along with it.

Post-Conventional Morality (The only true internalized motivations based on abstract concepts. Someone in level 5/6 will generally not change their behavior unless you convince them, intellectually, rationally, of the necessity to do so.)
5. Motivation by Social/Moral Contract - this "pulls up" (sometimes not near enough, but nonetheless discernibly) the general moral level of the population. Example, the United States Constitution, which establishes our fundamental baseline of principles that are used to guide our nation by creating in interactive, amendable contract that establishes laws to serve the majority while protecting basic rights.
6. Motivation by Universal Ethical Principles - the Golden Rule, New Testament, or the Declaration of Independence (or, perhaps, the Preamble to the Constitution), implies a perfect equivalence of duties and rights, but also self-sacrificing love beyond expecting anything in return. This level of morality is the ideal, but is sometimes too abstract for routine day-to-day operations,” says Kohlberg.

The amazing thing in the research is that in totalitarian nations [with rigid worldviews like Marx or Islamic terrorists] where, L-4, blind, rigid adherence to the law (as set forth by the rulers) is the objective, almost everyone functions at L-1 and lives in fear, with a handful in L-2, greed, and anything above that is (almost) non-existent.

In Democracies the average individual exists in level 2/3/4, motivated by greed, shame and law, while there is a small group which has truly internalized their moral values, (often deeply religious individuals) who serve to pull the rest up.

As American culture becomes evermore individualistic, and freedom the highest goal, shame, law and social contract are breaking down, leaving most folks to fall back upon either motivation by fear or greed, personal reward or punishment. We fall back to morality based on what we think we can get away with or what we think will avoid pain and increase pleasure. If we have power, in the form of money, coercion or violence, like Herod, or some of our bankers or gang members, then there is little to keep us in check.

With a lack of other moral motivators, too many take on a “drug dealer morality” which says: “People buy our violence, guns, missiles and sex, so we have the right to sell it!” And since we are in charge and can charge so much, we have the right to earn and pay ourselves as much as we want. Since there are loopholes in the law, business people considered themselves morally within bounds writing bad loans and then insuring themselves on the backs of the American people. And virtually none of them will be charged with a crime.
As to be in and accepted in youth and media culture you need to show how you are unique and supposedly don’t care about being accepted, that you are shameless, and so shock or pushing the envelope becomes the norm. This means that every fad or show needs to be ever more shocking. What was shocking becomes the new norm so the next thing needs to be more shocking still. Ozzy and Harriet are out and Ozzie Ozborn and the promiscuous alcoholic and the plastic witch of a housewife are stars. So boxing is on the way out and full contact cage fighting is in. But not only that, now it is popular to show home movies of someone being beaten on the internet, and there are a whole host of programs showing real people having horrific injurious wipe-outs or real fights with police, or real prison violence, and this is now entertainment. “Are you not entertained.”? My sister posted on her Facebook page: “Help me understand this logic: Watching 2 hours of violence in a movie has no influence on our behavior but a 30 second Super Bowl ad is worth $3.8 million because it will make us run out and buy a product?”

Should we be surprised that our government’s media blitz at the start of the Iraq war was called Shock and Awe! Or that torture and extra judicial detainment becomes expected for our prisoners, and then an academy award nominated movie makes this war into entertainment that we are supposed to enjoy and be proud of. What makes us morally different? Speaking of the new movie of the hunting about Osama Ben Laden, Zero Dark 30, Senator John McCain comments: First of all, the brutality depicted there is very disturbing. The story (and here he means the real story) is that torture doesn’t work. It is hateful. It is harmful, incredibly harmful to the United States of America. And to somehow make people believe that it was responsible for the elimination of Osama bin Laden, is in my view, unacceptable.”? I suspect Shock and Awe would have been a good motto for Herod too. What makes us morally different from Pharaoh, or Herod? Why should we be blessed by God? According to Matthew, it is not because we are Judean or Israeli, American or Christian. There is nothing in a name or our history that guarantees that we are morally qualified to be God’s people.

When we begin to talk about solutions, to the financial crisis or the crisis of gun violence or broken families or the internet or climate change or war or whatever, we can be sure that people will favor those solutions which may inhibit others freedom to gain pleasure or money, but not our own. So gun manufacturers speak of the freedom to own guns, and producers of violent and pornographic media speak of the freedom of expression and speech, and say that they don’t create a culture of violence but just mirror it.

The new Christ Child embodies an alternative not based on fear or greed, not on what we can get away with, or even on simple adherence to the law. Jesus even goes beyond the social contract, as important and valuable as it is. The new king and son of God Herod tries to kill embodies a morality that stands on its own, above fear and greed, above the law or what is equal and fair as the social contract, and he does what is right and loving regardless of what others will do, regardless of how practical or expedient it is.

As Jesus is our God and king to whom we pledge allegiance, we call upon the Holy Spirit to shine from within us and guide our way, in great and small ways. Do we know that regardless of the tragedy and injustice in this world, we are loved by God and called to stand with the power and hope that surpasses understanding? Yes, through the grace of Christ we do. Can we reach out to the lonely outcast in school, work or on the street and show Christ’s love? We can. Can we make tough decisions to curtail spending or energy consumption or waste so that the nation, planet and future generations might have a chance? We can. Can we do the right thing even though there is a way to get around the law and do the wrong thing? We can. Can we choose a vocation whose product or service truly contributes to the common good rather than feeding off titillation, temptation and addiction? Can we resist the temptation to react on fear and become freedom hating zealots or freedom abusing predators? We can. With the light of God shining the way and the love of Christ the King, we can.

Living the love of Christ may not change a thing except our own hearts. Innocent babies may still die, lonely lost people may still do desperate, attention seeking acts, others in government and business may still act out of greed, and people may still be prejudiced and self-centered. There are all sorts of ways others will be tempted to show their freedom, as if freedom without meaning and love were enough. But we can show that we are free for love, free from our sin and free to love. We are free to love, free from fear or greed, or shame or even the law. We aren’t going to let nobody turn us around. And who knows, maybe our God is a God of miracles, and ye though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear evil, for God is with us. Maybe by the grace of God, there is mercy, new life, and resurrection. Maybe not, but let us show we are free to believe, for what would the world and our lives be without it?