We Need a Savior - Or Not
Matthew 2:1-5, 7-8,
16; Luke 2:8-20
Rev. Doug Van Doren,
Plymouth UCC, Grand Rapids, MI
Our theme for this Advent has been, "We Need a Savior."
In my last sermon we clarified that we don't need "A" savior, we need The Savior. The problem is people are looking
for a savior in all the wrong places - one easier to follow than THE Savior,
but those saviors do not free us into the kind of world God intends and Jesus
Christ came to bring about.
Of course, if we don't feel like we need The Savior, or
if we don't think we are worthy, we will not be looking. Two extremes with
something in common - neither are looking for a savior, but for opposite
reasons. The Caesar and his elite on the one hand, the lowly shepherds on the
other.
For the power elite, the Savior is a major pain in the
neck. If you are privileged by the power structure, anything that will disrupt
that place feels like a threat. That is a great deal of what has, and is,
fueling blatant hate crimes against people of color and religious minorities. Some,
who have been in positions of privilege by the circumstances of their birth,
feel that unearned place being threatened.
It is as old as Herod, and as deadly. Herod's was an
active destruction of the threat. Hopefully, we are not aligned with him. But,
if we are more invested in things that serve us well, in how things are, than
we are in the just and peaceable realm for all, then we will not see a deep,
gnawing need for the true savior. We can destroy, by ignoring a whole group of
those for whom the Savior comes! We can treat Advent simply as a time of
preparation for a holiday. We can enjoy the anticipation, the change of
routine, the festive atmosphere. We can admire the sweet Christmas story
complete with a cherubic baby, docile animals, two doting parents, foreign
dignitaries, caring, friendly shepherds, and even a chorus of angels. And there
it will stay - at enough of a distance so as not to threaten us at any deep
level. For this is a threatening story if we take it seriously, so we don't!
But Rome, who thought it was the savior, did take it seriously. It sought to deal with it
not by ignoring it, but by actively seeking to destroy this threat to its
Imperial Theology of domination.
You remember from previous sermons (of course, you do)
that Rome wasn't just a military/political system that occupied Palestine
(which in itself would have been enough). It was a domination system supported,
and legitimized, by Roman Imperial Theology. It was a system that legitimized
its rule with religion. Though it began earlier, that imperial theology was
amplified with the rule of Caesar Augustus who was reigning when Jesus was
born. Caesar Augustus' birth name was Octavian. He was 19 when Julius Caesar
was assassinated and for the next 13 years, he and his legions fought against
Marc Antony until they defeated him and Cleopatra in 31 BCE. Thus Octavian
became Caesar. As a result, he changed his name to "Augustus." Why? It is
because Augustus means, "He who is to be worshiped and revered." Imperial Rome,
through imperial theology, was making the claim that Caesar was divine and, by
divine right, was the ruler to be worshiped and obeyed. Therefore, Caesar had
all kinds of divine titles. One of his official titles was "Lord," as in the
ruler of all things. Another title was "Son of God" which appeared on all the
coinage and inscriptions throughout the realm. He was also called "Savior of
the World," and "Prince of Peace" primarily because he had ended the civil war
with Marc Antony thus ending the drain that war put on the wealthy people's
assets. This "peace" was through repression, of course, and simply meant the
absence of armed opposition to the Roman domination system. It meant peace for
the privileged.
Finally, this Roman Imperial Theology was reinforced by
the claim that Augustus Caesar was the product of divine conception. He was
said to have been conceived in the womb of his mother Attia
by the god Apollo. This claim of divine fathering began with Augustus, but the
same claim was made by all subsequent Caesars.
The Gospel writers knew exactly what they were doing, and
so did Rome. The Gospel writers are saying, it is NOT Caesar who is the
legitimate ruler. He is a pretender to the throne. It is THE Savior, Jesus
Christ, who is the true Lord of Lords, Prince of Peace, Son of God, Savior of
the world. Of course, Herod, Caesar's representative in Jerusalem saw this
Savior as a threat.
Worse than not needing the Savior, thus not seeking him
and letting him pass us by, is not wanting the Savior because he upsets our
world. That is to exercise the oldest sin: usurping God's place, putting
ourselves at the center. If we are to truly be followers of Christ, we need to
put the "We," the world, the human family above the "I." Which is what Jesus did.
To need The Savior is to see the world's need for the Savior, to know that none
of us are free until all of us are free. (Which is what Salvation means -
Liberation). All of us are diminished when some are diminished. I need the
Savior, maybe most, when I don't think I do.
Maybe we have a lot in common with Herod in not seeking
the Savior, but from the other end of the spectrum. Maybe we have given up on
any possibility of change, so we simply try to get the most we can out of where
we are. Maybe we have given up the fight against societal structures and modern
imperial theology. Or maybe we, like the shepherds, don't think ourselves
worthy of a Savior, that we cannot be liberated from our personal prisons, or
societal constraints.
Unlike the Magi who scoured the heavens in search of
signs of The Savior, unlike the religious folks who were in a fever pitch in
expectation for the Messiah. Unlike Herod, who looked in order to kill the
threat, the shepherd had to be hit over the head with the Good News, so far
were they from such hope.
The story in Luke is put together to make a very
important point by putting the shepherds in the center of the story, the first
to get the Good News. They were out in the fields, keeping watch over the
flocks (not their flocks) by night.
In other words, they were staying out of the way, minding their own business, keeping
their heads down, flying under the radar. You know, those you don't make eye
contact with, those you try not to notice.
We likely have a mistaken idea of the status of Shepherds
in Jesus' day because of positive images of God as the Good Shepherd in the
Hebrew Scripture as in the 23rd Psalm, and language of Jesus as the
Good Shepherd.
Of
course, no Christmas pageant is complete without its endearing little band of
gunnysack shepherds, but Randy Alcorn, in Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus points out what it really meant to be a
shepherd in Jesus' day. In Jesus' day, shepherds stood on the bottom rung of the Palestinian
social ladder. They shared the same unenviable status as tax collectors and
dung sweepers. It was only much earlier, during the time of the Patriarchs, when
shepherding was a noble occupation. In nomadic societies, everyone-whether
sheikh or slave-was a shepherd. The wealthy sons of Isaac and Jacob tended
flocks (Genesis 30:29; 37:12). Jethro, the priest of Midian, employed his
daughters as shepherdesses (Exodus 2:16).
But when the tribes of Israel
migrated to Egypt, they encountered a lifestyle foreign to them. The Egyptians
were agriculturalists. As farmers, they despised shepherding because sheep and
goats meant death to crops. Battles between farmers and shepherds are as old as
they are fierce. Egyptians considered sheep worthless for food and sacrifice.
Pharaoh's clean-shaven court looked down on the rugged shepherd sons of Jacob.
Joseph matter-of-factly informed his brothers, "Every shepherd is detestable to
the Egyptians" (Genesis 46:34).
In the course of 400 years,
the Egyptians prejudiced the Israelites' attitude toward shepherding, a once
important identity. Jacob's descendants became accustomed to a settled
lifestyle and forgot their nomadic roots. After settling in Palestine,
shepherding further ceased to hold a prominent position. As the Israelites
acquired more farmland, pasturing decreased. Shepherding became a menial
vocation for the laboring class. Its status was revised temporarily, at least
in the stories of King David, but this may have reflected more literary ideal
or a romantic looking back than reality.
Shepherding had not just lost
its widespread appeal; it eventually forfeited its social acceptability.
Shepherds were despised, they were considered second-class and untrustworthy.
The religious leaders maligned the shepherd's once good name; rabbis banned
pasturing sheep and goats in Israel, except on desert plains.
The Mishnah,
Judaism's written record of the oral law, also reflects this prejudice,
referring to shepherds in belittling terms. One passage describes them as
"incompetent;" another says no one should ever feel obligated to rescue a
shepherd who has fallen into a pit. They were deprived of most civil rights.
They could not fulfill judicial offices or be admitted in court as witnesses. To
buy wool, milk, or a kid from a shepherd was forbidden on the assumption that
it would be stolen property.
Scholar, Joachim Jeremias notes that in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus, "The
rabbis ask with amazement how, in view of the despicable nature of shepherds,
one can explain why God was called 'my shepherd' in Psalm 23." That did not
stop the Rabbis from officially labeling shepherds as "sinners"-a technical
term for a class of despised people.
Yet, the first to get the
astonishing Good News of the birth of the Savior of the World, are that
society's "thugs" and "ne'er-do-wells." (The text is making a powerful
statement that we ought not miss.)
If you are at the bottom rung
of society as a social class, and all the examples of societal success look
down on you and remind you of your despised and suspect state, chances are you
have long ago given up much hope in The Savior. Or if you, as an individual,
have come to believe that you are not worth much, or always get the bad break,
that this is as good as it gets, maybe you too have stopped looking for The
Savior. Maybe that is why it took a whole chorus of heavenly hosts to shake the
shepherds into a new identity, to see themselves as God sees them, to take
their definition and self-worth, not from the demigods who thought they had
successfully usurped God's place, but from God though Jesus Christ.
For the shepherds in our
society, and for the shepherd part of all of us, may the story thunder to us: Good News and a great joy, for the one who said of himself,
"I have been anointed to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to
the captive, recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to
proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. (Luke 4: 18-19)
As Howard Thurman put it,
"There must be in every
person's life some place for the singing of angels. The commonplace is shot
through now with a new glory - old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient
wounds lose much of their old, old, hurting. A crown is placed over our heads
that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear.
Despite all the crassness of life, despite all of the hardness of life, despite
all the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels... If the
theme of the angel's song is to find fulfillment in the world, it will be
through common people becoming aware of their true worthfulness and asserting
their inherent prerogatives as children of God."
May it be so.