Caring for the Innocent

Lectionary Reflections for the First Sunday after Christmas Day (A)

By Carol Gallagher

Readings for First Sunday after Christmas, Year A, Dec. 26, 2004

Isaiah 61:10 - 62:3

Psalm 147 or 147:13 - 21

Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7

John 1:1-18

With the birth of the Christ child still fresh in our ears, we move away from the crèche and towards the reality of living in the presence of a living God. We quickly move from the crystal starlight over the stable scene to a scene of warnings, dreams and severe human suffering.

For Mary and Joseph, the consequences of caring for their small infant son, the Emmanuel – the God with us – meant further dislocation and further isolation. These faithful young people, desperate to follow God, were being led away from everything and everyone that would support them while they cared for this child. Our Gospel moves us from the gentleness of the incarnation to the harsh reality of life.

These new parents had to flee from their homeland and their people and go to a strange land that did not know them. They became aliens, immigrants forced to flee away rather than run home to their village. For the families in Bethlehem and surrounding communities the consequences were much worse. Small children were slaughtered because a ruler was tricked by some wise elders from a distant tribe. There was blood everywhere. The consequence of human anger with access to absolute power is clear in our Gospel today. The word of God made flesh reminds us today of the responsibility we have to the innocent and the alien. How easily we forget this lesson.

As a parent, it is this story of leaving home with a young child and returning home after pain and tragedy has struck our land is all too familiar. This is a story of some clear choices – when angels speak we tend to listen – but also some unanticipated consequences. The God child was kept safe but the world of terror and sorrow became reality as never before.

We are invited to see the same broken world that is about us today. We are called to witness this same world, full of terror, in which angry leaders still destroy innocent lives. Jesus came into the midst of terror and enters into our terror.

This story breaks our hearts open. It also invites us to move our gaze from the pastoral crèche scene, the wise men and sheep, to the world to which God came. We are invited to see the same broken world that is about us today. We are called to witness this same world, full of terror, in which angry leaders still destroy innocent lives. Jesus came into the midst of terror and enters into our terror. And we, like Mary and Joseph, are called to move out from soft places, from warm rooms and safe havens, to the places where innocence is challenges, where faithful tender lives are at risk, and carry the God incarnate to alien places so that we might all be free.

My youngest daughter and I recently were in an airport waiting for a short commuter flight. In the next row over sat a family of six, mother, father and four small children. They were all dressed alike in brand new sweats and sneakers and there was a logo on all of their clothes. They huddled together, sleeping fitfully and speaking very little. When they did, it was a language unfamiliar to me. As we boarded the plane, it was obvious that they were very confused by the seating and signs. My daughter tried to help them as best she could but there was little was of communicating except by pointing.

This family of refugees were coming to a place where very little was familiar. How could they raise their children, find their way, communicate their basic needs? And yet they came with a weary willingness to protect and care for their little ones, to find a new life, despite all of the challenges and dislocation that were behind and in front of them. This is what love does within in each of us. It gives us the courage to take on responsibility for the innocent. Love incarnate empowers us to listen to angels, to turn away from the comforting familiar, in order to let love incarnate thrive.

Here is our call, our responsibility this Christmastide and all through the year. God with us, Emmanuel, encourages us to face down the power of this world in order to protect the vulnerable and the needy. This Love made Flesh challenges us to see the face of God in each refugee, each alien, each immigrant, every stranger. The Prince of Peace calls us to look away from the comfortable and the pastoral to see the stark reality of suffering and terror in our world. We are called to see with the eyes of the Word of God – eyes which see everyone as relatives, tribal members, kin, family, equally welcomed at God's table. We are called to see those who scare us the most as those who are sought by the family of God – those who can help us all to carry the Love Incarnate to the world.

May these days of Christmas be times of looking outward, seeking the family which has been left outside, bringing home those who have been refugees, aliens and strangers.

The Rt. Rev. Carol J. Gallagher is bishop suffragan of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia. She is a member of the Episcopal Church Publishing Company board of directors (publisher of The Witness ), and may be reached by email at revcjg@aol.com .