Sun, Dec 29, 2019
Experience and empathy
Matthew 2:13-23 by Craig de Vos
Series: Sermons

“You were always advanced for your age”––

so my dad used to tell me when I was growing up…

almost ad nauseam.

“You first walked at six months…

and, by seven months, we used to have to tie you to the front veranda…

to stop you running off up the street.

Then, when you were only two…

you watched me plant a lemon tree in the garden…

and, when I went back inside…

you dug it up… 

and replanted it upside down”.

Having heard those two stories, so many times

I grew up simply accepting them as fact.

They helped to shape the image that I had of myself when I was young.

It was only when I was in my mid-thirties…

after dad had died and I was cleaning up his house…

that I discovered my “baby book”––

in which were recorded all of my “firsts”––

and I learned the truth.

It turns out that I took my first steps at eleven months of age––

not at six months, as I had always been told.

I can’t say that discovering the truth caused my whole world…

or my whole sense of self…

to unravel…

but it did make me question many of the stories that I had been told.

And, not having uncovered any evidence to corroborate the lemon tree story…

I’m inclined to take it as apocryphal.

But I do remember––

upon learning the truth––

thinking that I’m not as special as I had been led to believe.

It also caused me to reflect upon why dad had told me those things.

Of course, it might simply have been the product of a dodgy memory…

overlaid with some misguided parental pride.

But I’m inclined to think that it was also dad attempting to encourage and inspire me––

trying to get me to believe that I was special…

even gifted…

in the hope that I would live into that reality.

After all, my dad was an ardent devotee of Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale…

and a great believer in ‘the power of positive thinking’.

But it’s true, isn’t it, that what we’re told as kids tends to stick?

What we’re told by significant adults has a marked impact on what we believe…

and on who we become.

And it’s not just the things that we’re told.

The things that we experience as kids can profoundly shape who we are…

or who we become…

what we believe…

and the values that we hold.

 

This morning’s story from Matthew’s Gospel takes place some time after Jesus’ birth––

which, in this Gospel, is told very briefly, very matter-of-factly, almost in passing.

In this story, King Herod––

fearing a potential rival to his throne–– 

slaughters all of the baby boys in Bethlehem. 

Joseph––

having been warned of Herod’s murderous plot in a dream––

escapes to Egypt with Mary and Jesus.

Now… 

while we know from contemporary historians that Herod was completely paranoid, even deranged…

and he spent much of his reign disposing of anyone whom he saw as a threat––

including most of the old Jerusalem nobility…

two brothers-in-law… 

a mother-in-law… 

one of his wives… 

and even two of his sons––

this event, the so-called “Slaughter of the Innocents”, didn’t actually happen.

If it had, it would have been noted and recorded elsewhere.

Clearly, it’s something that the author has concocted…

which functions as a narrative plot device––

albeit a dramatic one.

The story that the author constructs… 

is replete with echoes of the Genesis-Exodus narrative involving Joseph, Egypt, and Moses.

Here, then, we have another Joseph… 

who is also a dreamer;

and we have another Moses––

namely, Jesus––

who is saved from the murderous plans of a wicked ruler.

The parallels are quite intentional and deliberate.

The story that our author crafts was an attempt to explain who Jesus was…

and how he came to be who he was.

It was an attempt to explain––

differently than the way that the author of Luke’s Gospel does––

how, as a faithful Israelite, Jesus was born in Bethlehem but grew up in Nazareth.

But, because the author of Matthew’s Gospel understands Jesus as the new Moses…

somehow he needed to get Jesus to Egypt.

This story, then, was an attempt to explain how Jesus came to be the new Law-giver––

which we see in the Sermon on the Mount––

and the one who would lead not just Israel but all of humanity out of captivity.

 

And yet, I can’t help thinking… 

that the author is also suggesting that an experience such as this was a formative one for Jesus. 

The story is one that is full of tragedy and pain.

As the author constructs it…

in the middle of the night the family up and leave…

taking with them only what little they could carry––

leaving behind their home…

along with treasured memories and possessions;

their extended family and their livelihood;

everything that was familiar;

everything that gave them identity and meaning and status––

and they embark on a treacherous journey.

Given what we know of the first-century world…

they may have had to pay someone to smuggle them out of the country;

and they almost certainly would have had to pay some bribes along the way;

and then they arrived in a totally foreign land…

where they didn’t speak the language…

where they were alone…

without security or shelter or work…

and were probably treated with suspicion and contempt by the locals.

I think that the author is suggesting that such a formative experience… 

played a significant role in shaping Jesus in terms of his empathy and compassion.

The author of Matthew’s Gospel is effectively asking,

“Could it be that Jesus healed the sick…

ate with the despised…

stood up for the outcast…

cared for the marginalised…

and railed against the hardness of heart and the oppressiveness of the rich and powerful…

because of his family’s experience of being refugees?”

 

The Australian novelist––

Alex Miller––

has written a short reflection on his experience of emigrating to Australia from England as a teenager.

He says that he discovered here a people who were welcoming and generous.

But, he laments, “Australia is much less open to inviting the stranger in than it was when I came here”.

There is, he believes, a “nastiness” warping the national soul.

He’s speaking, of course, of our nation’s inhumane treatment of asylum seekers.

And he lays the blame for this hardened attitude on Australia’s rapid rise in wealth––

which, he suggests, is feeding an attitude of self-interest and selfishness.

Perhaps–– 

opposite to what the author of Matthew’s Gospel suggests for Jesus––

it’s our lack of national tragedy and suffering… 

that’s shrivelling our capacity for empathy and compassion.

 

But, as Christians––

who claim to follow the values and example of Jesus—

we are likewise called to a life of empathy and compassion towards those who are suffering;

and not least, for us, that must include those who come here seeking asylum.

And, this story from Matthew’s Gospel also challenges us…

to look at those who come seeking asylum…

and to see Jesus in them;

and to see Jesus in their experience.