Sermons from St Faith's
The Holy Innocents
Revd Sue Lucas, Sunday,
Dececmber 28th, 2014
The Empire of Ancient Rome existed in an
atmosphere of violence. Don’t be deceived by the
picture painted by some recent documentaries –
and I greatly admire Mary Beard, by the way –
but the pax Romana was no peace – simply, the
conflict and struggle that constituted the
social bond of subjugated peoples was ruthlessly
suppressed; sometimes subtly, by cultural
appropriation, or economic manipulation; but
sometimes, an atmosphere of violence broke out,
viciously into actual violence – it was the
Roman way or the highway.
Herod was part of this atmosphere of violence; a
Hellenised Jew, he was made client king over
Palestine and managed, on the whole, to maintain
an uneasy calm whilst barely bothering to
disguise his ruthlessness; never quite taken
seriously by either his Roman masters or the
Jerusalem Jewish elite, for whom he was a
Hellenised Johnny-come-lately, the unease in the
social bond was, at the same time, his own.
Today’s Gospel shows in stark terms how this
uneasily maintained, essentially violent calm,
breaks out in the starkest ways into violence
and the murder of innocents – these are the
tactics of shock and awe. The point is not
simply to remove the threat of the Infant King
to Herod’s dubious hold on power – but to send a
powerful message to the people – do not cross
me.
We do not know about the historicity of this
particular event; but its random and overblown
shock and awe are recognisably those of a tyrant
without legitimacy.
And in including it here – Matthew reminds us
powerfully that Empire has always used the
tactics of shock and awe to suppress
dissent. Jesus is taken into Egypt – like
Moses; and Jesus’ birth is in the context of the
forces of Empire murdering infants; there is a
deliberate echo of the beginning of the Exodus
story, in which Pharaoh also orders the murder
of all the infants of two years and under.
The connection is deliberate: the writer is
showing Jesus as the new Moses, the liberator of
his people, the one who overcomes all the powers
of Empire, and who brings in the Kingdom of God.
But as in the case of Moses and Pharaoh, as in
the case of all power – imperial power is not
going to give up before unleashing horrific
violence, shock and awe – its very horror,
perhaps symptomatic of Empire in its death
throes - a monster that knows when it’s
beaten but lashes out all the same.
This is all too hideously familiar to us; for
don’t we too live in an atmosphere of
violence? Don’t we too live under the
shadow of Empire? Perhaps no longer the
Empire of the USA, but the Empire of global
capital with its economic and social and,
sometimes too, all too often perhaps actual
violence. We see violence unleashed on
children from Bethlehem to Baghdad, and,
recently, and shockingly, in Peshawar; and, lest
we think we can wash our own hands in innocence,
we have heard recently what the Security forces
have done in our name – unleashing the forces of
terror in a so-called war on terror.
In the face of the horrendous atmosphere of
violence in which we live, it is easy to feel
helpless; easy to feel we are power-less and can
do nothing; easy, even to give in to the
temptation to apathy and despair;
Yet, as disciples of Christ, who came to set us
free from all that prevents us from being the
best human beings we can – we are called to do
something and to be something different; we
cannot make every kind of difference; but that
doesn’t mean we can make no kind of difference;
We are called, first, to pray for those who are
innocent victims of violence; and in doing so,
we are not to forget that prayer is a radical
act; it is not manipulating God into doing
something, but recognising that we are called to
live in the faith that God is present despite
appearances to the contrary, and even in the
worst of places;
Second, we are called, in modest but significant
ways to act; some of us sent Christmas cards to
prisoners of conscience; some contributed to
Christian Aid’s Christmas appeal; small acts,
perhaps, but palpable, concrete and real signs
of the Kingdom;
But most challengingly –we are, all of us,
called to repent – for, whilst we are properly
in solidarity with the innocent victims of
violence, we should never forget the violence
that is in each of us as well – the violent
innocence that refuses to acknowledge the truth
about ourselves – that we too can be Herod, or
Pharaoh – that we too can turn viciously on
others when we are threatened; we too can love
being right and being powerful more than we love
God.
And to the extent that we are able to pray, to
act and to repent – to live, in fact, in that
continuous cycle of grace and repentance that is
Christian discipleship we claim our freedom in
Christ – and not for ourselves alone, but as
disciples, to play our part in ending the
atmosphere of violence in which we live, and
making way for the rule of the Kingdom of Heaven
and the Prince of Peace. Amen.
The sermons
index page
Return to St
Faith's home page