The Rev. Keri T. Aubert 

January 4, 2009

Jeremiah 31:7-14

Psalm 84

Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19

Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

2 Christmas, Year B, RCL

The nativity stories told by Matthew and Luke are very different. Both gospels manage to get Jesus to Bethlehem and Nazareth during his childhood, but the details about how they each do it simply can’t be reconciled. Both Matthew and Luke narrate events that can’t be supported historically, and each have reasons for telling the story a particular way. Luke and Matthew each have their own agendas, agendas apparently not shared by Mark and John, who begin their gospels with the adult Jesus. We might take all this as a warning to be careful about reading too much into the particulars of Matthew’s nativity story.

That being said, let’s look at some of the particulars of Matthew’s nativity story. Three times in today’s reading, and a total of four times in Matthew’s gospel, Joseph gets important information from God in a dream, usually with the help of an angel. Jesus is in danger, and God needs Joseph’s help to keep Jesus safe. Joseph hears what God is telling him and does what is necessary to protect Jesus. As I hear the story, Joseph did what God asked, not to obey God, but for love of his child.

No matter what the gospels say or don’t say about Jesus’ childhood, one thing is for certain: he had one. One might suppose that God could have sent a fully-adult Jesus to earth, but he didn’t. No baby is born self-sufficient, so no matter what the circumstances of Jesus’ childhood were, God needed a lot of help. From birth to adulthood, Jesus went through the usual process of growing up. And he did it in the company of Mary and Joseph and a whole bunch of other people. From the people around him, Jesus learned about kindness and compassion and generosity. From the people around him, Jesus learned about love.

It is from the people around us that we, too, learn about love. If we were lucky, we got our first instructions about love from caring parents. If we were lucky, we had many other kind, compassionate, and generous shepherds along our paths. Whether or not we were so lucky, at some point we began to accept responsibility for the way that we both give and receive love. For better or for worse, our learning to experience love remains a lifelong process. We figure it out as we go. For few of us is it easy.

I’ve learned a lot about love from the volunteers and clients at JUMP, the Joint Urban Ministry Project. Every morning the emergency assistance walk-in center is staffed by three volunteers and one paid staffer—two days a week that’s me. One of the things we do there is offer to hear people’s stories, and hear them we do: homelessness, substance abuse, domestic violence, mental and physical illness, we hear it all. Some days, every client has a story that is hard and not likely to get any easier. On those days, after the last client leaves, it’s all I can do to haul myself over to the volunteers, plop into a chair, and sit in shared sadness over the pain we witnessed. We talk about what we heard, and we try to find some small ray of hope, something that helps us feel that our work there is worthwhile. Often we find that hope in the small kindness shown to us by one of the clients. Despite the challenges, the volunteers keep coming back. I have heard many say that they volunteer at JUMP because they get so much out of it. I think that what volunteers offer is their presence, and their doing so opens up a space for God to also be present. I think what they’re getting out of it is love—the opportunity to give and receive love in a very special way.

It is said that love was born on Christmas Day. I think it’s safe to say that Jesus was incarnate for no purpose other than for love. Like Jesus, we are given a living, breathing body. For us, too, there can be no purpose for it other than for love. Babies aren’t self-sufficient, but, really, adults aren’t, either. Humans are social beings, and so we continue to learn about God, and about love, in the company of others. Loving relationships with the people in our lives have the power to help us to feel closer to God—but fractured relationships with the people in our lives cause us to bee more distant. If we feel closest to God when we look into the eyes of our newborn child, perhaps it makes sense that we feel farthest from God when we lose our spouse or our parent. And yet, even if we go to the wilderness, God calls us home in love and to love.

As Christians we say that God is love. If God is love, then perhaps it makes sense that my experience of God and my experience of love are inseparable. My sense of the presence of one is always accompanied by a sense of the presence of the other. My sense of the absence of one is always accompanied by a sense of the absence of the other. Despite our feelings of the presence or absence of love, despite our feelings of success or failure in love, I think that we as humans feel compelled to continue on the path of love.

When I need to recharge, I often bring my whole body to the task and go outside. My closeness to God—and my sense of love—is increased by my experience of nature. Being outside helps me remember that God’s love is contained in and expressed through all of creation. It helps me to remember that God’s love is contained in and expressed through me, as part of creation. This week I was able to take the short hike to one of my favorite isolated spots on Lake Champlain. It’s a spot that I visit regularly with my dog Cassock. I always see something interesting on the way that focuses my attention in a way that’s like entering into prayer. Every time I visit, the lake is different. Sometimes the waves thump hard against the rocks, sending spray flying and Cassock barking at it as if to protect me. Even on relatively quiet days, the waves still lap gently against the shore.

This was my first visit of the winter with the lake frozen over. The silence was surprising at first. But I lay atop my usual rock perch and listened. After a time I heard the ice creaking with the force of the water underneath. I was reminded that, despite the frozen stillness on top, the surging life of the lake goes on just below the surface.

It is perhaps a bit like this that the mystery of God’s love works in each one of us. Often we have no choice but to do our best to simply get through our days. But just below the surface, God’s living waters move within us. Love fills us and spills over. We might not get visits by angels, but God finds ways of communicating with us, if only we can focus enough to hear it. The message is always love.