Tyrants and Refugees
“Tyrants and Refugees” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! As we head into the depths of cold and snowy winter, we’re going to consider a part of Jesus’ birth story and infancy which is often overlooked — and for good reason. We have very little information, and what we know is disturbing. It involves the newborn, or possibly toddler, King Jesus, and an older and infinitely more sinister king Herod. You won’t find any Christmas carols about Herod or any mirth and good cheer about his role in Matthew chapter 2. It’s tempting to skip this episode entirely, maybe it doesn’t seem to have much to say, and it certainly is a downer to hear after Christmas. But I believe these sections of Matthew chapter 2, known as the Flight to Egypt and the following section, we didn’t read this morning is the Slaughter of the Innocents, have some significant contemporary resonance. In fact, for some people in the world, these biblical passages have an eerie similarity to their lived experience.
Herod — not his name, but his title — was the Herod of Judea. He was also known as Herod Antipas, or Herod the Great (he probably came up with that last title himself) He’s the father of the Herod we meet later in the New Testament; the one who has John the Baptist beheaded. There’s some debate among scholars about how good or evil Herod Antipas was. On one hand, he commissioned some great construction projects, such as rebuilding the Jerusalem Temple. On the other hand, he banished his first wife and son so he could marry another woman, Mariamne, for political gain. He eventually had Mariamne and several other family members executed for suspected treason, and then he married again and made that wife go by the name Mariamne, too. Which just sounds creepy to me. I don’t know how Mariamne 2 slept at night — probably in a separate bedroom.
A tyrant is a cruel and oppressive ruler, someone with absolute power unrestrained by law. Herod is certainly not the first, nor even the worst tyrant we know of from history. You can find a Top Ten Tyrant list on line with tyrants from various nations. Gengis Khan of Mongolia tops the list, but there’s also Joseph Stalin of Russia, Adolph Hitler of Germany, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad of Syria. Any place where a person — all these people happen to be men — has unrestrained power, bad things are bound to happen, sometimes even to their own family members and advisors, always to anyone who tries to stand in their way, and often to innocent people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was the case in Bethlehem, where every little boy under the age of two was killed by Herod’s soldiers, in an attempt to eliminate any political threat from a so-called “King of the Jews.” Pharoah, in OT Egypt did the same thing to newborn Hebrew boys. The tyrant playbook may not be creative, but it is cruel.
Of course we know from the passage which Joe Kohler read for us that Joseph was warned in a dream to get his wife Mary and their young son Jesus out of Judea and out of Herod’s way. They got up in the middle of the night and ran, and this is when Jesus and his family joined a category of people called refugees. I went down a research rabbit hole when I found a UN website with definitions of all kinds of terms to describe people on the move. A simple definition of a refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. The website helpfully noted that “recognition as a refugee is declaratory and not constitutive.” Whaaa? In other words, people who have to leave their country because of war, persecution or natural disaster are already refugees whether anybody gives them that title or not. The Bible doesn’t refer to Jesus and his parents as refugees, but they clearly fit the definition.
Refugees are not a new phenomenon — there have been refugees as long as human being have had the concept of a home country which they might have to leave. Refugees are not an old phenomenon, either. I understand that Elkhart City and the Art Becker family made a place for refugees from Eastern Europe after World War II. There are refugees from Vietnam, Korea, and Russia who have become part of our churches and this country. There are organizations, including Union Center Church of the Brethren, who are currently supporting refugees from Ukraine. There are a lot more refugees than tyrants, but unlike tyrants, the names of refugees are mostly lost to history. They are usually not the wealthy or the elite, and are often vulnerable and powerless — helpless and hungry. If we get to know them, they probably have many of the same hopes and dreams as most of us would. The same love for their families, the same yearning for safety and security, and maybe even for the country which they had to leave behind.
Every refugee, every person — even the tyrants — has something in common which we dare not forget. All of those people, all of them, and all of us are children of God and bear the image of God our Creator. Jesus Christ died to redeem every person on earth. This may seem like a simple thing for me to say, and I hope and pray that you would agree with those statements. I hope that the image of God in every person is in the front of our minds when we consider refugees, immigrants, and strangers in our country and in our midst. The basic humanity of every person is not a political statement, it is a theological statement. And we know, because it has played out in history ever and over again, that when a group of people with power decides that some other group of people is less than human, terrible things happen. That is how slavery in the US was justified; that is why Jews and gypsies and non-Aryan people were persecuted and systematically executed by Germany’s Third Reich; that is why attempted genocide and sexual violence are still being pursued today in the Darfur region of Sudan. Denying the humanity of other human beings is what fuels hatred and tyranny; it is how tyrants are made and how they in turn make Top Ten lists on Google — that list was based on how many people had been killed by those tyrants.
Most of you know that I am a member of the Mission and Ministry Board of the Church of the Brethren. That is the leadership team which is sponsoring the Day of Prayer and Fasting this Thursday. That request came from the Atlantic Southeast District, the state of Florida, which has more immigrants in congregations which identify as Church of the Brethren than any other region of the country. This day of prayer and fasting is intentionally not a discussion of immigration policy, which is understandably an emotionally charged political issue. What I am hoping we can join together to pray for is for the peace and safety of not only brothers and sisters in the Church of the Brethren, but for everyone who lives in this country, and for immigrants everywhere. There is a two-sided sheet with more background, some information and some prayers which you may wish to use to inform and guide your reflections. That will be sent by email, but you can pick up a copy today from the ushers — it’s on a bright green sheet on the ushers’ table.
If Thursday doesn’t work for you to designate for a day of prayer and fasting, see if there’s another day when you can carve out time for reflection and prayer. One congregation in Atlantic Southeast district will be having a service from 6am until 6pm that day. The point is not to see how long you can pray; it is making an effort to pray on behalf of immigrants and their families.
Fasting, or going without food, is a biblical companion to prayer, particularly prayers of confession and repentance. I know that going without food is not for everyone — some people wouldn’t feel comfortable skipping even one meal. Food is a powerful symbol and reality of nurture and care, and to share food with another person or group of people is a way of bridging differences. Whether or not you fast, take some time to consider who has been involved in the production and harvest and processing of the food in your kitchen and on your table: coffee pickers in Costa Rica; children who harvest cocoa pods in Africa; immigrants who work in meat-packing plants or factories in this country; migrant farm laborers who follow the harvest in every season. Unless you have grown it yourself — which is unlikely in Indiana in January — there’s a good chance that immigrant labor was involved in some part of that food which nourishes us.The fact that our Savior spent his early years as a refugee is reminder that injustice and tyranny have long been a part of the world in which we live. Every prayer we offer which affirms and supports the dignity of other human beings is a small light of resistance to that darkness. When we pray for and look for that light in others, the light of justice and hope burns more brightly in us.