As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Most gracious Lord, we gather here in your name and pray that our hearts may be opened to your Word proclaimed. May your presence be felt in us in word and deed and lead us to thy will. If these words are not Your Word, may they be forgotten and come to naught. But if they be Thy Word, may they adhere to our hearts, forever transforming us from glory into glory, into the creatures you would have us be, Thou who art our Rock and Redeemer, Amen.

Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in the gospel of Matthew. Listen for God’s Word for you today. Matthew 2.13-21. The Word of the Lord…Thanks be to God.

I’ve always seen this as a difficult passage. Mary and Joseph have to pack everything up, and like fugitives must run to Egypt. But this is nothing too out of the ordinary for them. They are, after all, used to traveling with stressful situations. Why, just recently they traveled while Mary was extremely pregnant. No, this time the variable is that there are people who want to kill Jesus because he will be King. Herod orders the mass infanticide, just to try to make sure no one will take over his spot. To call it deplorable is an insult to the word deplorable, and doesn’t cover how heinous this edict is. Granted, the culprit is Herod, for whom killing people is regular business. He had members of his own family killed, including his wife, when he suspected them of plotting against him. On his death bed, Herod ordered the slaying of prominent and beloved members of society, just to make sure that there were plenty of people weeping at his funeral. Some guy, that Herod. So, this is nothing new for him, ordering people to be killed. The atrocity of him ordering babies killed is nothing out of his character. He is so afraid that something or someone will supplant his rule, and so he acts in irrational manners.

But that is how the world regularly reacts to Jesus, and to the call of God. Fear can be a powerful motivator. People, good people and good Christians deal with this all the time. “I’m afraid that if we give that much time to the church we won’t have any for ourselves…” or “If we give that much money to the church, we won’t have enough to do what we want to do.” Or, “I’m not going to volunteer to work with this or that mission, with Clifton, or with the Co-op, or at next summer’s mission trip, I’m afraid whose elbows might rub against mine.” Or worse ones, “Those kind of people, I don’t like those kind of people, so let’s exclude them.” We all have our own set of fears that motivate us. And then guilt comes in. Cause we know that isn’t how we are supposed to act, and we know we aren’t worthy of God’s call. Fear has other ways of making us unfaithful to the call of God. We don’t have to kill people to be unfaithful, we can just stop trying. And we read the Bible, and we know that the hero’s of faith didn’t do all of the bad things we do. So, we quit trying.

I’ve read this Matthew passage at least 100 times. Read over it and over it. And one thing I’ve always missed is this. This passage lies. Yeah, I said it, this passage lies. Where? Right there in verse 20. The angel, you see, is responsible. “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel,” here it comes, “for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” {} But we know what happens to Jesus. We know that Maundy Thursday and Good Friday are coming. We’ll sit in these same seats on Thursday the 24^th of March, and on Friday the 25^th, and give testimony to the execution of Jesus, by people who obviously did want his life. \\

Do you think that Mary and Joseph went back to Israel without any reservation? Do you think it was easy? Do you really think that she went back with her family without concern? Consider how this child came to her. Angels, promises of God, a birth surrounded by wise sages and shepherds, with the kingly gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. If something happened to this special child of God, not only would her heart be broken like any mother’s heart, but she would have to answer to these angels, and to God. I’m not sure how she found the courage to go back to Israel, to take her understanding husband, and her new son into the lion’s den. \\ But somehow she did, she went back. Sure she was scared, must have been, but she went where God called her and did what God asked of her.

So, when we shirk away from what God wants us to do, we naturally feel guilty. The human race has yet to disappoint God in the manner in which we do by running from God, right. We’d be the first to run away from God’s call. Well, the first since Jonah. Or Abraham. Or Joseph Abraham’s Grandson. Or Moses. Or Peter.

So, maybe our sin isn’t running, its something else. Surely God will understand our excuses. We aren’t the perfect creatures that God uses. Well, maybe not perfect, but you’ve got to be good enough, and that surely isn’t us. \ Will that excuse fly with God? Let’s look at some of the Biblical heroes, and see just whom God does use.

Moses, the great orator, stuttered. David did not fit the age requirements. Timothy had ulcers. Paul had arthritis. Jacob lied. David had an affair. Jesus was poor. Abraham was too old. Timothy was too young. Peter was afraid of death. Lazarus was dead. Naomi was a widow. Paul murdered someone...so did Moses. Jonah smelled bad. Living in the belly of a whale will do that to you. Miriam gossiped. Elijah was burned out. John the Baptist had a big mouth. Samson’s hair was too long. Martha worried too much. Mary, lazy. Noah got drunk.

Should I go on? Cause I could. Okay, Paul was in jail more often than not. Zacchaeus was short. David put a contract on a man. Esau had back hair. Matthew worked for the IRS. Paul went blind for a time. John the Baptist disobeyed Jesus’ wish to baptize him at first. Peter didn’t want his feet washed. Isaac played favorites with his sons, and messed it up. And on and on.

What each of these folks have in common are these things. They were each deeply flawed humans, as all humans are. They also heard the call of God, and eventually said yes. They got over their flaws, or their fears, and said yes to God.

We too are called. We are called to accept Christ. And fully accepting Christ means fully accepting what Christ wants us to do for God’s Kingdom. This is hard to do. There are so many reasons why God should not have called us. However, we are in good company. Not only does the witness of the saints show that we are in good company, but God’s presence is ever with us as we go forward answering the call of the wild. Fear not, beloved children of God. Amen.

1. This sermon is informed by a sermon of Kathryn Z. Johnston, entitled the same. She first gave that sermon 30 December 2001. She is the pastor at Dickinson Presbyterian Church in Carlisle Pennsylvania.