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“4But when the
fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the
law, 5in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that
we might receive adoption as children. 6And because you are
children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba!
Father!” 7So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child
then also an heir, through God.”
The author of Hebrews compliments St. Paul’s snippet from
Galatians in saying: “10 It was fitting that God, for
whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory,
should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings. 11For the one who sanctifies and those who are
sanctified all have one Father.”
Are these passages though, in some senses,
apples to apples or apples to oranges when it comes to understanding our role
as disciples?
As we
know, God took a huge risk in coming down to us enfleshed as Jesus… But then for that matter so did Mary and Joe—Joseph
for listening obediently to God and sticking with Mary and Mary for saying yes
to God and bearing Jesus to the world. Risky business for us today IS the journey of
being a freely responsible servant of Christ—this is our fear factor. Responsibility and accountability are both
aspects of that cutting and healing fine line of the Gospel.
Those
aren’t comfortable Words for us, however, we would rather flatten time out as
if it were merely a drawing or documentary of the past. We would rather flatten out the magnitude of
Christ Jesus’ incarnation, the victory of the Cross to defeat sin, death and
the devil and the resurrection into pious platitudes of social justice
propaganda which operates on FEAR and works righteousness over and above
obedience to God alone WITHOUT fear.
Diving
into God’s Word—owning the Truth revealed in the Word is scary stuff. It is much easier to circumvent the Gospel and
the Cross to build a new kind of oppression than preachin’ and teachin’ it as
it really is. This is realizing the
fullness of real “innocence.” In today’s
Gospel Herod out of great fear and rage orders the murder of thousands of
infant boys in and throughout Judea. He
operated out of the worst of human frailty—control, selfishness, power and fear.
Our
own Luther struggled in his famous book, ‘The Bondage of the Will,’ our role in
responding to God: “That is what Reason can neither grasp nor endure, and what
has offended all these men of outstanding talent who have been so received for
so many centuries. Here they demand that God should act according to human
justice, and do what seems right to them or else cease to be God.”
Luther
was responding in kind to the oppression within the Catholic church at the
time. But how are we responding to
thinking about, reflecting on what the slaughter of the Innocents means for us today
in light of persecution and oppression, now?
The Christmas texts reveal spiritually to us how we need to make room
within the inn of our hearts for God.
This week’s text speak spiritually about keeping the incarnation,
keeping Christ ALIVE in us to discipline us as children of GRACE to grow
truthfully into our calling, our appointed roles within the priesthood of all
believers.
There
IS oppression and persecution all around us and it goes beyond and above all
the politicking, all the doctrinal intellectual battles in the church— down to
us and our “choice” to be obedient to the will of God or not. I once heard, and I forget where the concept that
talking about “choice” is not really a Lutheran thing more than being an Evangelical
thing. Could the person making the
statement however been fearful of the implication it has in speaking to
accountability and responsibility?
Today’s
Old Testament passage from Isaiah talks about Moses struggle where in some
senses he was bargaining and testing God till he finally chose to be obedient
to God and answer His call. If choice
should be avoided as a revelation within these texts as well as all of the
texts for this Sunday… God merely sows
and if anything, what time has taught us and where we are as disciples in the
21st century… We ARE NOT good gardeners.
We
avoid nurturing and developing that New Nature planted within us—incarnate in
us when we remove the accountability factor.
If we don’t allow the child of GRACE within us to grow; how will we ever
understand the beauty and innocence of the Kingdom of God? What does it mean? If we are killing Christ daily—spiritually,
in our worldly battles—how can we ever know, live, give GRACE in response—as love
to God and neighbor? Christ becomes merely texts upon a page—closed away by
time and our human frailties!
Former
Catholic Monk, Thomas Moore from his book, ‘Original Self,’ outlines our
struggle spiritually: “Our culture prizes cleverness and self-awareness, but it
should be obvious that this approach merely leads to competition and aggression
spurred on by anxiety. To live from the
mind is to balance in uncertainty on a high wire. The soul is more grounded, and indeed its
proper territory seems to be somewhere beneath the ground. It is the level of ground where we plant our
seeds and bury our dead. Maybe this is
good ground for personal growth, rather than the kind that is full of intention
and from where we can see what is going on.
We may have to surrender. We may
have to become somebody we never intended to be. We may have to let life happen in a way that
challenges our plans, our values and our hopes.”
The
last sentence from this quote is very powerful to chew on for a moment: “We may
have to let life happen in a way that challenges our plans, our values and our
hopes.” As children of GRACE, we are
stepping out boldly taking risks looking to Christ as both the end of the Law
and of a New Law lived through love—the Gospel.
The
transformational message of Christmas today, is growing up into being the child
of GRACE we inherited. We must be obedient in heart wisdom and act upon our
appointed roles as Christian Leaders. Hearing
today’s Galatians passage from Epistles Now! We find our calling: “We who are
Christians need no longer be concerned about identity crisis. We are identified—and we have identity. We are the sons and daughters of God. To emphatically and eternally establish this
fact, God through His spirit, entered our hearts and lives. We belong to Him; He is our
creator-redeemer-Father. Humans created
by God for the purposes of God chose the enslavement of the human will and its
desires.”
The
path to the fullness of innocence and freedom is not fleeing from Christ and
the incarnational reality but taking in Christ deeply and intentionally living
the lifestyle of GRACE. For it is Christ
Jesus as Irenaeus says: “Who was
made flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who made known through
the prophets the plan of salvation, and the coming, and the birth from a
virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily
ascension into heaven of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and his future
appearing from heaven in the glory of the Father to sum up all things and to
raise anew all flesh of the whole human race.”
AMEN
Sunday December 29th, 2013; First
Sunday after Christmas; Year A; SOLA Lectionary
Nicole Collins
Psalm 111; Isaiah 63:7-14;
Galatians 4:4-7; Matthew 2:13-23 & RCL Hebrews 2:10-18
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