Amy McLaughlin-Sheasby 12-28-25

Good morning, Highland. It is a tremendous joy to be with you. It is a really cool thing to be a part of a church that rolls so deep in gifted preachers. And so the honor is all mine this morning, getting to be here up on this platform. It's a funny thing to be asked to preach the Sunday after Christmas.

One of my favorite preachers of all time, Fred Craddock, was once invited to preach on the after Easter. And he remarked that Easter would be a terrible thing to waste. You know, we. We pour so much anticipation into these holidays, so maybe I should start there. That Christmas would be a terrible thing to waste.

All the energy that you've been pouring into this season, the travel plans and the shopping and the cooking and the baking and the gift wrapping, family photos, and probably a great deal of anxiety that you've just been trying to manage so it doesn't spill out at the wrong time. And then with one rapid, chaotic sweep of torn wrapping paper and bows being flung about, it's all over now. I don't know what your holidays looked like this year. Maybe they were perfect. Maybe they were peaceful and restful.

But I would also be willing to bet that many in this room, if not most of you, would say that the holidays, we're a mixed bag. And if for no other reason, then because family can be a really complicated thing, either because you are grieving losses or navigating broken relationships or just wishing that a whole host of things were different. So we welcome the cheer and the wonder and the magic and the goodness of the season, because for everything, there is a season. But Christmas would be a terrible thing to waste. And I think we just might waste it if we don't acknowledge the full scope of it.

That is the joy and the heartache, the magic and the stress, the rest and the work, the joy and the sorrow. And Christmas holds all of this by necessity, might I add. So I hope that through our time together this morning, we can linger for a while longer in the fullness of it. May we allow the story of Christ's arrival to drive us deeper into the character of God. May we have eyes to see and ears to hear and the humility to receive both the wonder and.

And the challenge of the Incarnation. Amen. So I've been thinking a lot about Nativity scenes lately, particularly how goofy we have gotten with our Nativity scenes. People have gotten really creative, arguably too creative. I have seen Lego Nativities and Star Wars Nativities and Furby Nativity scenes.

I recently saw a video where a man Presented his wife with a nativity scene made entirely, entirely out of pickles. Maybe she's pregnant, I don't know. But one quirk that's always gotten me with our nativity scenes is the presence of the three Magi, or wise men. I mean, I'm sure you know this, but, like, scripture never says that there were three of them. There were three gifts, right?

What were the gifts? Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Yeah, but we have no idea how many Magi there were. Nevertheless, there are always three. No more, no less.

Another thing that has tickled me lately is the appearance of the little drummer boy next to the manger.

What secular nonsense is this? He's a made up character from a 1940s Christmas song. How did he wiggle his way into our biblical nativity scenes? I digress. There is one more nativity scene quirk that has really captured my imagination this season, and it was actually brought to my attention by an Instagram post, of all things.

And the Instagram post shows a medieval painting of a nativity scene. And there Jesus is being cradled by his parents in the foreground of the painting. And they're surrounded by the usual suspects, you know, the shepherds and the Magi and. And the farm animals. But there, hanging on the wall behind the holy family is a crucifix.

And the Instagram post just says, spoiler alert.

I'm glad that you also have dark humor. I wasn't sure how that was gonna go down. It is funny, and it's funny because it's anachronistic. Like, obviously, nobody at the time of Jesus birth knows how he's going to die. So in a very characteristic move for me, I stayed up way too late that night when I saw that post, just trying to find out why an artist would do this in their nativity scene.

And I found some helpful tips. So, first of all, medieval artists often include these kinds of anachronisms in their paintings. It's not uncommon to see, like, five centuries of events all stacked together and alluded to on top of each other in one scene in a painting. And then further, these artists are not, like, overly concerned with maintaining the correct timeline of things. So, for example, in the Gospels, the Magi and the shepherds are never there at the same time.

But of course, in our depictions of the Nativity, they're all there together. So why did the artist decide to put a crucifix on the wall of the stable behind infant Jesus? I mean, maybe the artist is just playing into this kind of Stylistic anachronism. Or maybe the artist is trying to tell us something, something really crucial about Christmas, something that is at the core of the incarnation.

Our text for today from the lectionary begins right after the Magi have left the scene. And do you remember the story about the Magi, these Persian astrologers who traveled all the way from the EAS to Jerusalem because in their reading of the stars, they have discerned that the King of the Jews has been born. And right off the bat, with this story, we are brought into full contact with the primary mission of Matthew's Gospel. And that is to show us that Jesus is not just a rabbi and not just a miracle worker and not just a rebel rouser and not even just the Messiah. Jesus is king.

There is a royal claim at the heart of Matthew's Gospel, which, as we heard in our text for today, turns out to be a pretty dangerous claim. You see, because King Herod is not so keen on sharing his throne. I mean, he's already merely a client king of Judea, meaning he does not have absolute power. He has to answer to Emperor Augustus. And we're familiar with this kind of like, awkward power dynamic, right?

Like we've seen this before. The overzealous second in command. I remember when I was in elementary school, one time our teacher had to step out into the hallway to talk with our principal about something important. She didn't have a teacher's assistant there that day. So she goes to her star pupil, you know, the student who's very eager sitting on the front row doing everything right, goes to that student and says, I'm putting you in charge.

I want you to stand in front of the class. And anyone who misbehaves, you put their name on the whiteboard for me. What do you think happened? All of our names ended up on that whiteboard. We call it a power trip.

You know, the moment when someone's given some control and they relish in it with embarrassing fervor. And why do they do it? Well, maybe because deep down they know that the power was given to them and could just as easily be taken away. Or maybe it's because they spend their days telling themselves that they earned the power or that it's theirs by birthright or by virtue of their social superiority. And they're kind of terrified that this story they tell themselves every day might be just one big lie.

I think we could all agree that the most fragile egos in our world tend to belong to the people who most abuse their power. So here's Herod, client King of Judea. And as far as he's concerned, there can be only one king of Judea. So with the power of his title and the moral bankruptcy that so often accompanies these kinds of titles, he lies to the wise men so that he can figure out where the infant king has been born. Now, a lot of our hymns and our Christmas carols rightfully make the observation that it is really surprising to see God incarnate as a defenseless, totally dependent baby.

And, yeah, that's very surprising. The word that creates the universe becomes the most vulnerable creature there is. But you know what's even more surprising? Jesus could have been born to a powerful family. He could have been born to a king's family, which would have been very befitting of his kingship.

He could have been born to money, to affluence, or maybe born to a family of Sadducees, people who have religious and political influence. But no, he is born to this young, scandalized mom and a dad who's doing his best to roll with the punches. And now In Matthew, chapter 2, verses 13 through 23, we see that God incarnate is none other than a migrant, a foreigner, a refugee. Under the threat of. Of political terror, the Holy family must get up from their home in the middle of the night and flee for their lives, gathering whatever they can.

I can see it. Mary scurrying around in the dark, barefoot, panting in terror with the moonlight cascading in through their window. She's hurrying with determination as her brow is furrowed and she fights back tears. Joseph grabs a bag for them and they begin to fill it with everything they might need to survive.

We can't leave the shawl that my grandmother gave me. I'm sorry, Mary. There's no room. Only the necessities. That's what we said.

But Jesus is going to need more clothes than this. We're going to have to figure it out on the road. We have to go now. But what road will we even take? Herod has eyes all over this place.

That's why we must leave now. We have to get to another country. And they leave. They flee for their lives. They cross borders and they become strangers in a strange land.

God, a king. But God, a terrified migrant. God, a foreigner. God, imperiled by a heartless tyrant. God, whose mom and dad are doing the best they can.

God, whose mom chokes back her tears as they leave the only home they have known. God, whose dad has a crazy look of desperation in his eyes. God, whose Mother would do anything to spare her baby from the danger.

What kind of king is this? Not a king like the world has ever known. Herod, as the text says, is furious when he realizes that he's been duped by the wise men. So he sets out to kill all of the children in and around Bethlehem who are two years and under. And this part of the gospel is known as the slaughter of the innocents.

This one of the oldest plays in the book of worldly empires. If you want to exterminate your enemies, go after their children. Now, I do know that we have children with us today, and I do want to be mindful. And when I saw that this was the lectionary text this morning, I. Well, I nearly ran from it.

But I also want to be an honest witness.

Matthew puts a portrait of terror before us. And then he adds a soundtrack too. Rachel weeping for her children, Mother of the twelve tribes of Israel, wailing, lamenting. And she will not be consoled.

In August of this year, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, who leads the Italian Bishops Conference, led a prayer visual in which he set out to read the individual names of every child that had been killed up to that point in the Gaza Israel conflict. That prayer took seven hours.

Seven hours to read the names of all those children. The document was 469 pages long. It listed the names of 12,000 children, 211 Palestinian children, as well as 16 Israeli children.

As the dust settles from the conflict, a more comprehensive picture of the death toll has been rolling in. And it is estimated now that somewhere between 17,000 and 20,000 Palestinian children have been killed and 38 Israeli children as well.

If we held one minute of silence for every child that has been killed in that two year period, we would hold silence for 334 hours or just shy of two weeks straight to bring it closer to home. And in the way of creative nativity scenes, there have been a whole host of nativity scenes cropping up outside of churches around the United States this season. And these nativity scenes have created quite a scandal. They've been making a lot of headlines because churches are depicting the holy family as being detained by border agents, restricted behind barbed wire, or being held in detention facilities.

And while these images may shock us or even offend us, I think if we allow them to, like, I mean, if we really let these images rattle us, like, get under our skin, maybe they can actually drive us into a deeper reading of Matthew Chapter two, because we live in a world that has always been preoccupied with the maintaining of borders the fight for more land, the fight for more power. We live in a world that fears the other, that demonizes those who are different, all for the sake of grabbing at more power. We live in a world that is so heavy with sorrow. I don't think Rachel could ever stop crying.

I told myself when I started writing this sermon I should probably try to keep it light. You know, it's Christmas and all. I actually told my mom on the phone, I don't think I want this sermon to pack much punch, because we are all still trying to digest the holidays with our families. But then I remembered the witness of Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of San Salvador, who was martyred for advocating for the poor and the defenseless against a militarized government regime. And across many of his sermons, he would argue that that while we might want and crave preaching that's comfortable or makes us feel secure and happy, we cannot risk compromising the gospel.

And we will, if we desire comfort more than we desire to join God in the wounds of the world.

The gospel never sidesteps these wounds. Scripture does not avoid our suffering. God does not bypass the terror and the brokenness, no. And Matthew refuses to tidy up his nativity scene. According to Matthew, the good news of God's reign does not emerge apart from trauma and grief, but rather it emerges from within it in a weary world, in sin and error.

Pining God is born in the underbelly of political terror. Now, I already told you that the Gospel of Matthew has the primary mission of showing us that Jesus, as God incarnate, is king. But Matthew is also doing this in a really particular way. You see, for Matthew, there's actually nothing all that shocking or novel about Christ showing up as a stranger in a strange land. Because Matthew is always trying to show us how Jesus emerges in continuity with the Old Testament, that Jesus emerges in continuity with the character of God as God's character has been revealed prior to the arrival of Christ.

So that God would arrive in the flesh of the vulnerable or the marginalized is not a bug in the biblical story. It's a feature. You see, God always is siding with the vulnerable and the innocent and the marginalized, the father, foreigner and the migrant. God repeatedly anchors Israel's identity in the fact that they were foreigners in a strange land, mistreated by political oppressors. God repeatedly declares to them, I am the God who brought you out of Egypt.

Right? God reminds the people of that relationship that God is the God who brought them out of Egypt, all through Torah, all through the prophets and the Psalms. It's all over the Old Testament that this is who God is in relation to God's people, Egypt, the God who brought them out of Egypt. And in their laws, they are commanded to welcome the foreigner and treat migrants with kindness to protect the refugees. Because you were once slaves in Egypt, God declares, they are reminded that they were once slaves in Egypt dozens of times.

So how fascinating is it then, that the infant Immanuel will actually flee to Egypt? If you were a Jewish reader encountering Matthew's Gospel in the first century, you would know exactly what Matthew was up to, because you would have grown up reciting the Exodus story with your family at Passover every year. You would have grown up singing psalms and hearing scripture that proclaim God's care for those who are trapped under oppressive regimes. And you would always know what Egypt means. Egypt represents exploitation, control, domination, erasure.

Egypt represents death and destruction, families divided, children killed. Egypt represents oblivion. God incarnate is tangled up in a world ensnared by oppressive powers. At the core of the incarnation. And something that we cannot forget if we are to even begin to grasp the wonder of Christmas is this.

God has always been coming to us as a foreigner, innately other and precariously present with the marginalized and the exploited. Now, this is not an easy word for us to receive. I want to acknowledge that we, like so many of Jesus's most earnest first followers, would really prefer a modified image for our king, Jesus. Right? I joke with my students at ACU oftentimes, like, you can really tell when you're reading the Gospels that Jesus did not have a PR manager.

You know, we like the gold and frankincense and myrrh because these are befitting gifts for a king. And we love the choir of the angels, the heavenly hosts. But does Jesus really have to be, like, a political refugee? That seems kind of scandalous and polarizing. And we love when Jesus teaches with great authority, but why can't he be just, like, a little more palatable to a popular audience?

I mean, how are you supposed to get butts in churches with these kinds of complex messages, right? And we love that he's surrounded by an entourage, but who let all those people in, right? We love that he can outwit anyone, but why is he doing it while sharing a meal with his enemies? We love the triumphal entry, but would somebody go ahead and swap out that donkey for a stallion? Get him a proper robe.

We miss the irony of the sign on the cross. We love the resurrection, but we flinch when he shows us his wounds.

The late Old Testament theologian Walter Bergman once said something like that the word of God often comes to us in ways that we would easily miss because we don't know quite what to look for. I think we are so desperate to transcend the pain of our world, and it makes sense why we would be. But we can be so desperate to transcend the pain of the world that we will soar right past the word of God standing right before us. God in raggedy clothes, God's face marked with grief and fear, God's hands bloodied from refusing to let go of this world. This is a word from beyond us, sent to disrupt us, to convict us, to confront our ways of seeing and identifying.

A word that emerges in the flesh and bones of our neighbors, of the migrant, of the poor, of the detained, of the silenced. A word that we might fail to hear and fail to receive. If we always expect God to look like us, or if we always expect God to be familiar and comfortable to us, God is often residing in the very last place that we want to find God. But this is the gospel. It is good news for a weary world.

As Howard Thurman once said, it is for those people whose backs are pressed up against the wall.

This king who violates every expectation that we would have for power and royalty, is the one and only true king. All other kingdoms pass away. All power is on loan. No oppressor will outlast or overrule the mission of God in our world. And the mission is, there will come a day in the name of God.

There will come a day where all abusive power is dismantled, where no person is treated like an animal, where human dignity is cherished, where creation thrives as it was intended. There will come a day when in his name all oppression shall cease.

And as we wait, God is already at work. The Gospel of Matthew puts all worldly kingdoms on notice. There's just the one king, and that king of heaven can be found among the least of these. The question is, can we see him? Can we recognize him?

Because we are not going to want to miss what happens next. Christmas is just the beginning, and it would be such a terrible thing to waste. Let's pray.

Gracious and merciful God, we ask that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear. We want to know you. We want to be like you. Convict us, confront us, move us and shape us. Humble us as you modeled God.

We don't want to miss what you're up to in this world.

Correct our vision, correct our desires. So that we can meet you where you are and join you in your healing work. In Jesus name, Amen.

Amy, thank you.