The Proclaimed Word
Preached by the Reverend Canon Durrell Watkins on
Sunday, January 6, 2008, at the 8:40 and 9:50 am services.
I love The Nanny… it’s a television program that was popular in the
1990’s on CBS and all six seasons of the show are constantly repeated even
still on cable television. What is fascinating about the program is that it
borrows shamelessly from previous series in the canon of American television
and film. For instance, the idea that a simple, folksy, charming, and wise if
not learned woman with no child-rearing experience would become the governess
to difficult children who had gone through a plethora of nannies since their
mother’s death is a plot line taken right from The Sound of Music. But
the writers and producers of The Nanny take that familiar theme and
rework it into a brilliant comedy that continues to entertain people a decade
after the series ended.
Of course, if you have ever watched The Nanny, you also know that
the lead actor, Fran Drescher mimics the over the top clowning style of
Lucille Ball from I Love Lucy. She also refers frequently to other
classic television series such as the Dick van Dyke Show,
Gilligan’s
Island
, and That Girl. It’s comedy, it’s pop culture, it’s history.
The Nanny isn’t unique in its skilled way of borrowing old story
lines and weaving them into something new. The Flintstones are an
obvious knock-off of The Honeymooners. The Simpsons broadcast
features a mayor who sounds like John or Bobby Kennedy, and a police chief who
mimics Edward G. Robinson. Family Guy is a New England version of
The Simpsons
. And how many different ways can Dickens’
A Christmas
Carol
be told? Taking a story and re-working it, reapplying it, reclaiming
it is a well-established practice, and we find it not only on 20th
and 21st Century American television, but also in the ancient
documents that make up our bible.
Over and over in the bible, we see themes and symbols reused, recast,
re-examined. The number seven keeps popping up, and the number 40, and 12
also. Dead people are brought back to life in several stories. People are
miraculously cured by being touched by a prophet or a disciple or an angel. A
prophet takes a few loaves of bread in 2 Kings chapter 4 and multiplies them.
We see that miracle being repeated in the gospels. Angelic visitations happen
before the births of remarkable people, from Samson to John the Baptizer to
Jesus. The image of the Human One or Son of Humanity, Son of Man in the King
James text first shows up in the book of Daniel but is reintroduced and
reinterpreted in the synoptic gospels. Lady Wisdom from the book of Proverbs
gets blended with the ancient Greek Logos concept and shows up in a hymn that
opens the fourth gospel.
A story that is well known inspires a new story and in this new way the
ancient message is heard again, in a new way, for a new audience. Borrowing
and reapplying story lines is an age-old practice.
Matthew employs this same technique in communicating Good News to his
community. You see, Julius Caesar adopted his nephew, who later ruled as
Augustus Caesar. Julius was honored as a deity in the Imperial cult, and when
he died, his adopted son, Augustus, was considered a divine son, the son of a
god. In 44 B.C.E., during funeral games memoralizing Julius Caesar after his
death, a comet was supposedly observed in the sky… a falling star. Some people
imagined the event to be a sign that Julius had taken his place in the heavens
as an eternal divine presence watching over Rome . The divine Julius had been
resurrected and even ascended into the heavens where he would always be with
his empire. Those images will resurface in the Jesus story, and not by
accident.
The story of Julius’ star would have been in circulation for more than 100
years by the time Matthew is writing his gospel. So, to take a well known
story about a star in the heavens representing the deified Julius Caesar and
to reshape it into a story of a star that leads to Jesus — someone we
recognize as the symbol of what it means to be a Child of OUR God, someone
Rome executed as an enemy of the state… well, you see how bold a move it was.
Matthew isn’t making the story up, he’s borrowing a tradition and adapting it
to serve and empower and uplift his community. He is taking a story, and
making it HIS story and the story of HIS people… once we see ourselves in a
story, it becomes our story, and as our story it can then encourage,
enlighten, or empower us for our journeys.
But Matthew doesn’t just borrow the story of Caesar’s memorial star. He
also borrows an image from his own sacred tradition. He remembers the story of
his ancestors escaping from bondage in Egypt. And as they traveled, the story
in Exodus 13 tells us, God preceded them… by day as a cloud of smoke, and by
night as pillar of fire. The fiery star in the sky guides the magi at night
just as the pillar of fire had guided the children of Israel in the sacred
stories Matthew had inherited.
And Matthew must have had the prophetic literature in mind also as he
weaves this tale. One of the contributors to the book of Isaiah writes, “Rise
up in splendor! Your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines upon
you.” That same contributor to the book of Isaiah also imagined God saying,
“My house will be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
And so with the story of Caesar rising to the heavens to shine upon his
empire, and with the story of a fiery light guiding people to hope and
freedom, and with the prophetic promise that all people are included in the
love of God, Matthew puts pen to paper to represent these ideas in a new story
and in a fresh way.
In Matthew’s story, it is the Other that is affirmed. Jesus is born of an
unwed mother during difficult days. And yet, this unlikely infant is the
expression of God’s love for all people! Matthew even drives that point home
by giving us Jesus’ genealogy — a genealogy that includes Tamar who posed as a
prostitute to seduce her father-in-law. It includes Rahab the prostitute, and
Ruth from Moab — a country that was considered the enemy of the Jewish nation.
Jesus’ ancestry includes Bathsheba who conceived Solomon with King David while
she was still married to Uriah; and finally there is his mother Mary who
becomes pregnant in a way that more cynical people even in the first century
would have questioned. Jesus’ lineage even includes Ruth’s second husband
Boaz, a man I believe with all my heart to have been gay.
Jesus is the Other… one born in humble circumstances, even controversial
circumstances, and his lineage is filled with stories of unlikely heroes loved
by God, chosen by God, used by God. Even Jesus’ family tree is a testimony of
how God loves the people society says are unlovable!
And then this Jesus… born of an unwed mother, descended from people who
could never make the social register is the one whom we are to call God’s
Anointed? And in Matthew’s version of events, who discovers this Jesus? Magi…
practitioners of the occult arts, astrologers who read signs in the sky that
tell them that a special baby has entered the world… and they follow a divine
light, like the children of Israel had done, to discover and to embrace and
adore and share gifts with this unlikely fulfillment of a divine promise. The
Other, the outcasts, the Queer, the unlikely and unlovable and unacceptable…
these are God’s people… God’s chosen people, the people for whom God seems to
have a preference. If God has a preferential option for anyone, it is for
those who have been excluded, wounded, left out, vilified, or forgotten… or so
Matthew would have us believe.
And finally, to protect the young Jesus from the government that did in
fact execute him when he was a young man, the magi take an alternate route
home. As the people they were, outsiders, Others, practitioners of ANOTHER
religion, residents of ANOTHER country, members of ANOTHER culture, just as
they were they find the light that we call Christ and they returned, just as
they were, to their lives. The magi didn’t stop being magi, but by being the
best possible magi they are blessed and they take their blessing home with
them. By being their authentic selves, they found the same light that we find
in Christ… that is a perfect picture of the unconditional and all-inclusive
love of God.
Oh, Matthew can tell a story! He can take the story of Caesar’s star, and
Isaiah’s promise that God’s house excludes no one, and the story of the Exodus
where fire in the sky leads people to a place of hope and healing, and he
weaves those elements into his own story about an unlikely, humble baby, born
to difficult circumstances, but who was nothing less than the Child of God.
Where is God when discrimination stings? Where is God when illness
threatens? Where is God when violence strikes? Where is God in the moment of
betrayal? Where is God when the money runs out? Where is God in the lonely
night? Where is God when it hurts? According to Matthew, that is exactly where
God is… in the difficult place, in the painful place, in the lonely place, in
the unlikely place. The unwed, homeless, teenage mother gives birth to the
presence of God. The traveling foreigners who risk their lives for the search
find and bear witness to the presence of God. The social pariah and outcast
contributes to the lineage of the embodiment of God. God is there to be
discovered by whoever will search… no one gets left out. The love of God is
right in the difficult moment, waiting to be discovered, and waiting to fill
our lives with hope and healing again. This is the Epiphany of our story, and…
This is the Good News! Amen.