Christmas 1
Preaching
PREACHING MATTHEW'S GOSPEL
A Narrative Approach
The Matthean text assigned for the First Sunday after Christmas is very difficult to dislodge from its larger context in Matthew. Richard Edwards, for example, refers to the whole of Matthew 1:17--2:23 as the "Infancy Gospel." In this "Infancy Gospel" Matthew has
established major elements of the framework of the story. Its primary purpose was to verify the reliability of the narrator who reports to the reader that these events are in full accord with God's intentions. With a minimum of dialogue and with a liberal use of OT quotations, pinpointing the correlation between the OT and these narrated events, the reader is now ready to view Jesus from the "proper" perspective. There can be no doubt about the authority of the narrator, nor can there be any doubt about the Messianic nature of Jesus.1
One can seriously consider, therefore, treating this so-called "Infancy Gospel" as a whole for preaching. Robert Smith proposes another way of reading the unity in 1:17--2:23. We'll come to that at the end of these remarks.
Matthew 2 continues to be dominated by places: Egypt, Bethlehem, Galilee, Nazareth. It is also time to pay some attention to the role that dreams play in the telling of Matthew's story. In today's story it is a dream that sends Joseph with his family to Egypt (2:13); a dream that is the signal for their return (2:19); and a dream that guides them to Galilee (2:22). It was a dream that saved Joseph's marriage (1:20) and a dream that guided the Magi to return to their distant land without reporting in to King Herod (2:11). The only other reference to a dream in Matthew is the dream of the wife of Pilate that Jesus was a righteous man (27:19). As readers we are constantly alerted that there is more to this story than appears on the surface. In the ancient world dreams were a recognized manner for the divine to communicate with humans. Very clearly, God is in charge of this story. The dreams tell us so.
Because of Herod's wrath and warned in a dream, Joseph takes his little family off to Egypt. The family is no longer safe. The Prince of Peace has been born and war has broken out! On Herod's orders baby boys are being killed in and around Bethlehem. So Jesus is bundled off to Egypt. Ancient readers would have immediately sensed the narrative analogies at work here. All of Israel was once in Egypt. Moses led the people out of Egypt. The story of Moses comes into our mind's eye here as a story with many links to the Jesus story. "The echoes of the story of Moses and the exodus ally Jesus with God's liberating will, placing him in continuity with God's previous actions of liberation on behalf of God's people and in association with such significant figures as Moses."2
We remember that the majority of scholars hold that Matthew's purpose was to identify the Christian community as the true heir of God's promises to Israel. This early identification of Jesus with Moses and the Israelite ancestors who had sojourned in Egypt would thus be Matthew's way of telling us of the meaning of Jesus by yoking the Jesus story to the story of the ancestors and Moses. That's how narrative analogy works!
Matthew sees the trek to Egypt as the fulfillment of prophecy. "Out of Egypt have I called my son." Matthew quotes this word from the prophet Hosea (11:1). Scholars see this as the first mention in Matthew's Gospel that Jesus is the Son of God. This reality is certainly implied in Matthew 1:18 where we hear that Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. (The Son of God theme is dealt with in Chapter 5 of this work.)
We note that this part of Matthew's story is marked in almost every paragraph by a quotation from one of the prophets. See 2:15, 17, 23. There seems to be no independent evidence that Jesus went down to Egypt's land. It is mentioned in no other Gospel.
Matthew anchors the Egyptian diversion, therefore, in the word of God.
The reference to prophecy in 2:17 is to Jeremiah 31:15. Rachel is weeping for her children. The media images of women weeping for their lost children all over the world today ought to flood our minds at this reference to a mother's tears. The tears of all of these women, past and present, is a bitter reminder to us that we live in a fallen world. Where does hope lie? Open your Bible to the Jeremiah text and keep reading! "Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for there is reward for your work, says the Lord: they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country" (Jeremiah 31:16-17).
Rachel's tears are not the end of the story. God is in control here. This entire story in Matthew 1-2 looks on the outside as if it is driven only by human madness. On the inside, however, it is clear that this story is fully in God's hands. Rachel and her tears of sorrow are not the only reality in the story. Mary and her tears of joy are also part of the larger narrative. And Mary's son, Jesus, is set against the woeful wickedness of this world as the One who will ultimately wipe the tears from Rachel's eyes.
Reference has been made to Robert Smith's interesting reading of this narrative. Sometimes the chapter and verse headings simply put blinders on our eyes so that we miss the larger shape of the story.
Matthew has neatly plotted the material in 1:19--2:23 so that five successive scenes feature alternately Joseph and then Herod.... Joseph and Herod respond in exactly opposite fashion to divine revelation and to the child Jesus. The advent of Jesus is God's direct and potent eruption into human history, and that intervention provokes two totally different reactions, as the thoughts and deeds of Herod and Joseph vividly reveal.3
Homiletical Directions
A number of possibilities for biblical storytelling preaching present themselves to us in this text for the First Sunday after Christmas. One could tell the parallel stories of Israel's ancestors and Moses in Egypt and Jesus' sojourn into Egypt. To this day the people of Israel celebrate the deliverance from Egypt as their central event. God liberated them from bondage. For Christians, Jesus is the central event. Jesus, too, has come out of Egypt, like Moses, to bring liberation to God's people.
A second preaching possibility is to deal with the "Infancy Gospel" as a whole. Tell this story once from the perspective of all things gone awry. Herod will be the center of this story. This outer story is a story under the power of sin and rebellion.
Tell the story a second time from its inner side. The focus this time is on the way God moves this story forward for God's own purposes. The dreams are a big part of this inner story.
The second telling of the story should be told from the perspective of God's child born in the midst of a world gone mad. It is precisely this child who will wipe the tears from Rachel's eyes and from our eyes as well. There is hope for us who live in a sinful world in this narrative that presents God as the inner mover of history's story. We mustn't let the tears in our eyes blind us to the hope of history whose birth we have just celebrated.
A third preaching possibility is to follow Robert Smith's suggestion and tell the interweaving stories of Joseph and Herod. The Joseph stories are told in 1:18-25; 2:13-15; and 2:19-23. The Herod stories are in 2:1-11 and 2:16-18. One of the very first things we learn about Joseph is that he is a righteous man. See 1:19. Righteousness may be the key theme in this Gospel. (See the discussion of righteousness in Matthew in Chapter 5.) We might just note here that Jesus' first words in this Gospel are spoken on the occasion of his baptism by John the Baptist. Jesus said: "Let it be so now [that is, that you baptize me]; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:16). Righteousness is at the heart of Jesus' mission to the world. Jesus came to make sinners righteous: 9:13.
Jesus came to make us righteous. What would that look like? Well, look at Joseph the "righteous one." Matthew "...loves stories which connect divine epiphany and human obedience. The story of Joseph is the first picture of discipleship that Matthew offers in his Gospel."4
The righteousness of Joseph consists of his dreams and his obedience. This is clear in the first story centered in Joseph: 1:18-25. When he awoke from his dreaming he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. In the second Joseph story (2:13-15) he once again hears, obeys, and acts. In 2:19-23 he dreams for the third time. God is revealing divine plans to Joseph! Joseph once again hears the word of God, obeys this word, and acts upon it. Such is Matthew's picture of a righteous one.
Matthew also gives us a portrait of an unrighteous man. Herod is his model of unfaith and unrighteousness. In 2:1-11 Herod is troubled immediately at the prospect of one being born "King of the Jews." See the list of Herod's negative characteristics in Chapter 2. We quoted there from Jack Kingsbury who lists as Herod's qualities: spiritual blindness, fearfulness, conspiratorial scheming, guile, mendacity, wrath, and anxiety about the future. Tell the two Herod stories focusing in on these characteristics. They are the hallmarks of an unrighteous man.
This sermon would follow the structure of the "Infancy Gospel." Tell the story first of Joseph, then Herod, then Joseph, then Herod, then Joseph just in the order that Matthew puts them. Tell the story in such a way that your hearers see clearly that there are these two responses to the Christ child. The question that the interwoven stories ultimately raise is the question of our response. We have just celebrated the birth of the Christ child in our time. How shall we respond? Do we follow the model of Joseph or the model of Herod?
Let the sermon close on an open-ended note. Whose model will you follow? It comes down to Joseph or Herod. This sermon can simply end with a challenge to believe. In his catechism Luther writes: "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to him. But the Holy Spirit calls me through the gospel." Following Luther's lead, do not leave people to their own inner resources to choose to follow Jesus. If we had such inner resources we wouldn't need a Savior at all!
Our inner resources are sinful resources! So, invoke the Spirit, invite God's participation with us in our decision making. Close with a hymn that calls upon God to empower our decisions of faith.
____________
1. Richard A. Edwards, Matthew's Story of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 15.
2. Warren Carter, Matthew: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 16.
3. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1989), pp. 35, 38-39.
4. Ibid., p. 38.
established major elements of the framework of the story. Its primary purpose was to verify the reliability of the narrator who reports to the reader that these events are in full accord with God's intentions. With a minimum of dialogue and with a liberal use of OT quotations, pinpointing the correlation between the OT and these narrated events, the reader is now ready to view Jesus from the "proper" perspective. There can be no doubt about the authority of the narrator, nor can there be any doubt about the Messianic nature of Jesus.1
One can seriously consider, therefore, treating this so-called "Infancy Gospel" as a whole for preaching. Robert Smith proposes another way of reading the unity in 1:17--2:23. We'll come to that at the end of these remarks.
Matthew 2 continues to be dominated by places: Egypt, Bethlehem, Galilee, Nazareth. It is also time to pay some attention to the role that dreams play in the telling of Matthew's story. In today's story it is a dream that sends Joseph with his family to Egypt (2:13); a dream that is the signal for their return (2:19); and a dream that guides them to Galilee (2:22). It was a dream that saved Joseph's marriage (1:20) and a dream that guided the Magi to return to their distant land without reporting in to King Herod (2:11). The only other reference to a dream in Matthew is the dream of the wife of Pilate that Jesus was a righteous man (27:19). As readers we are constantly alerted that there is more to this story than appears on the surface. In the ancient world dreams were a recognized manner for the divine to communicate with humans. Very clearly, God is in charge of this story. The dreams tell us so.
Because of Herod's wrath and warned in a dream, Joseph takes his little family off to Egypt. The family is no longer safe. The Prince of Peace has been born and war has broken out! On Herod's orders baby boys are being killed in and around Bethlehem. So Jesus is bundled off to Egypt. Ancient readers would have immediately sensed the narrative analogies at work here. All of Israel was once in Egypt. Moses led the people out of Egypt. The story of Moses comes into our mind's eye here as a story with many links to the Jesus story. "The echoes of the story of Moses and the exodus ally Jesus with God's liberating will, placing him in continuity with God's previous actions of liberation on behalf of God's people and in association with such significant figures as Moses."2
We remember that the majority of scholars hold that Matthew's purpose was to identify the Christian community as the true heir of God's promises to Israel. This early identification of Jesus with Moses and the Israelite ancestors who had sojourned in Egypt would thus be Matthew's way of telling us of the meaning of Jesus by yoking the Jesus story to the story of the ancestors and Moses. That's how narrative analogy works!
Matthew sees the trek to Egypt as the fulfillment of prophecy. "Out of Egypt have I called my son." Matthew quotes this word from the prophet Hosea (11:1). Scholars see this as the first mention in Matthew's Gospel that Jesus is the Son of God. This reality is certainly implied in Matthew 1:18 where we hear that Mary is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. (The Son of God theme is dealt with in Chapter 5 of this work.)
We note that this part of Matthew's story is marked in almost every paragraph by a quotation from one of the prophets. See 2:15, 17, 23. There seems to be no independent evidence that Jesus went down to Egypt's land. It is mentioned in no other Gospel.
Matthew anchors the Egyptian diversion, therefore, in the word of God.
The reference to prophecy in 2:17 is to Jeremiah 31:15. Rachel is weeping for her children. The media images of women weeping for their lost children all over the world today ought to flood our minds at this reference to a mother's tears. The tears of all of these women, past and present, is a bitter reminder to us that we live in a fallen world. Where does hope lie? Open your Bible to the Jeremiah text and keep reading! "Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears; for there is reward for your work, says the Lord: they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country" (Jeremiah 31:16-17).
Rachel's tears are not the end of the story. God is in control here. This entire story in Matthew 1-2 looks on the outside as if it is driven only by human madness. On the inside, however, it is clear that this story is fully in God's hands. Rachel and her tears of sorrow are not the only reality in the story. Mary and her tears of joy are also part of the larger narrative. And Mary's son, Jesus, is set against the woeful wickedness of this world as the One who will ultimately wipe the tears from Rachel's eyes.
Reference has been made to Robert Smith's interesting reading of this narrative. Sometimes the chapter and verse headings simply put blinders on our eyes so that we miss the larger shape of the story.
Matthew has neatly plotted the material in 1:19--2:23 so that five successive scenes feature alternately Joseph and then Herod.... Joseph and Herod respond in exactly opposite fashion to divine revelation and to the child Jesus. The advent of Jesus is God's direct and potent eruption into human history, and that intervention provokes two totally different reactions, as the thoughts and deeds of Herod and Joseph vividly reveal.3
Homiletical Directions
A number of possibilities for biblical storytelling preaching present themselves to us in this text for the First Sunday after Christmas. One could tell the parallel stories of Israel's ancestors and Moses in Egypt and Jesus' sojourn into Egypt. To this day the people of Israel celebrate the deliverance from Egypt as their central event. God liberated them from bondage. For Christians, Jesus is the central event. Jesus, too, has come out of Egypt, like Moses, to bring liberation to God's people.
A second preaching possibility is to deal with the "Infancy Gospel" as a whole. Tell this story once from the perspective of all things gone awry. Herod will be the center of this story. This outer story is a story under the power of sin and rebellion.
Tell the story a second time from its inner side. The focus this time is on the way God moves this story forward for God's own purposes. The dreams are a big part of this inner story.
The second telling of the story should be told from the perspective of God's child born in the midst of a world gone mad. It is precisely this child who will wipe the tears from Rachel's eyes and from our eyes as well. There is hope for us who live in a sinful world in this narrative that presents God as the inner mover of history's story. We mustn't let the tears in our eyes blind us to the hope of history whose birth we have just celebrated.
A third preaching possibility is to follow Robert Smith's suggestion and tell the interweaving stories of Joseph and Herod. The Joseph stories are told in 1:18-25; 2:13-15; and 2:19-23. The Herod stories are in 2:1-11 and 2:16-18. One of the very first things we learn about Joseph is that he is a righteous man. See 1:19. Righteousness may be the key theme in this Gospel. (See the discussion of righteousness in Matthew in Chapter 5.) We might just note here that Jesus' first words in this Gospel are spoken on the occasion of his baptism by John the Baptist. Jesus said: "Let it be so now [that is, that you baptize me]; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:16). Righteousness is at the heart of Jesus' mission to the world. Jesus came to make sinners righteous: 9:13.
Jesus came to make us righteous. What would that look like? Well, look at Joseph the "righteous one." Matthew "...loves stories which connect divine epiphany and human obedience. The story of Joseph is the first picture of discipleship that Matthew offers in his Gospel."4
The righteousness of Joseph consists of his dreams and his obedience. This is clear in the first story centered in Joseph: 1:18-25. When he awoke from his dreaming he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. In the second Joseph story (2:13-15) he once again hears, obeys, and acts. In 2:19-23 he dreams for the third time. God is revealing divine plans to Joseph! Joseph once again hears the word of God, obeys this word, and acts upon it. Such is Matthew's picture of a righteous one.
Matthew also gives us a portrait of an unrighteous man. Herod is his model of unfaith and unrighteousness. In 2:1-11 Herod is troubled immediately at the prospect of one being born "King of the Jews." See the list of Herod's negative characteristics in Chapter 2. We quoted there from Jack Kingsbury who lists as Herod's qualities: spiritual blindness, fearfulness, conspiratorial scheming, guile, mendacity, wrath, and anxiety about the future. Tell the two Herod stories focusing in on these characteristics. They are the hallmarks of an unrighteous man.
This sermon would follow the structure of the "Infancy Gospel." Tell the story first of Joseph, then Herod, then Joseph, then Herod, then Joseph just in the order that Matthew puts them. Tell the story in such a way that your hearers see clearly that there are these two responses to the Christ child. The question that the interwoven stories ultimately raise is the question of our response. We have just celebrated the birth of the Christ child in our time. How shall we respond? Do we follow the model of Joseph or the model of Herod?
Let the sermon close on an open-ended note. Whose model will you follow? It comes down to Joseph or Herod. This sermon can simply end with a challenge to believe. In his catechism Luther writes: "I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or come to him. But the Holy Spirit calls me through the gospel." Following Luther's lead, do not leave people to their own inner resources to choose to follow Jesus. If we had such inner resources we wouldn't need a Savior at all!
Our inner resources are sinful resources! So, invoke the Spirit, invite God's participation with us in our decision making. Close with a hymn that calls upon God to empower our decisions of faith.
____________
1. Richard A. Edwards, Matthew's Story of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), p. 15.
2. Warren Carter, Matthew: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 16.
3. Robert H. Smith, Matthew: Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament (Minneapolis: Augsburg Press, 1989), pp. 35, 38-39.
4. Ibid., p. 38.
