December 27, 1998 | 9:30 and 11:00 a.m.

What Child Is This

John Wilkinson
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Matthew 2:13–23

”An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ’Get up, take the child and his mother, and fell to Egypt’”

Matthew 2:13

”When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ’Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel’”

Matthew 2:19

Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay close by me forever and love me, I pray. Bless all the dear children in Thy Tender care, and fit us for heaven to live with Thee there.

”Away in a Manger”
Gabriel’s Vineyard Songs, 1892

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In the rather brief list of movies that we saw this year, one called Simon Birch was not among them. It came and went quickly, which was OK by me, not because of the movie itself, but because the book upon which it was based was so good as to defy the moviemaker’s efforts.

You remember A Prayer for Owen Meany from nearly a decade ago, by John Irving. Simon Birch is based on A Prayer for Owen Meany, but not, as I recall, based well enough to elicit Mr. Irving’s blessings; hence the name change, like Titanic without the boat, or A Bug’s Life without the bugs.

But Simon Birch offered me a little gift, a reminder to return to John Irving’s wonderfully entertaining and enriching novel. I opened the pages and remembered two things—how the novel takes religious questions seriously, but not too seriously, and how funny it is.

Owen Meany is a special boy, too small, haunted and charmed, who speaks loudly, in all capital letters. Owen is the reason the narrator, Johnny, believes in God. Because of Owen’s size, he always played the announcing angel in the Christmas pageants he so despised; there was ”no one cuter,” said Mrs. Wiggins the minister’s wife.

As for the Christ Child itself, Irving wrote, ”Owen was outraged. The Wiggins insisted that the baby Jesus not shed a tear, and in this pursuit they were relentless in gathering dozens of babies backstage; they substituted babies so freely that the Christ Child was whisked from the manger at the first unholy croak or gurgle—instantly replaced by a mute baby, or at least a stuporous one. For this chore of supplying a fresh, silent baby to the manger—in an instant—an extended line of ominous-looking grown-ups reached into the shadows beyond the pulpit, behind the purple and maroon curtains, under the cross. These large and sure-handed adults, deft at baby-handling, or at least certain not to drop a quickly moving Christ Child, were strangely out of place at the Nativity. . . Backstage the mothers fretted; the competition for the most properly behaved Christ Child was keen.”

At this point, Owen’s capital-lettered voice called out,

”FATHER, FORGIVE THEM, FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.” (p. 149–151)

And so this morning, hours after we have celebrated an extraordinary birth, and pondered many things in our hearts, it is yet about the Christ child. It is, as well, about children, and remembering.

We who live on this side of it know the full story. We know the man this baby will become, what he will say and do, what will happen to him, eventually. But for these moments at least, for the sake of that child, for the sake of the children, let us linger at the cradle, let us remember.

In fact, we don’t know much about the life of this child. There are days when I want to know more. Only Matthew and Luke offer us the story that we have been rehearsing these days. There are childhood snippets. Luke tells of Jesus’ presentation at the temple at infancy, the recognition by Simeon and Anna that this boy would be, that he was, the Messiah.

Later in Luke, Jesus the precocious 12-year-old ends up amazing the teachers in the temple. You can only imagine Mary and Joseph pretending to be mad, all the while swelling inside with parental pride and joy.

We don’t know much about this child. I want to know more, not to arm myself with fact, but to fill out impressions. This may be placing too much sentiment on the biblical story, but I want to know about his friends, his toys, his every day village life. What stories did he like, what games did he play?

This morning’s account from Matthew fills out the story a bit, but is told on a grander stage. It is a serious story, the flight and return to Egypt, but even as we encounter it, a constant reminder haunts the edges. This is a little baby we are talking about, a little baby, a child, an unlikely, extraordinary, preposterous, human way for God to enter the world, for the Word to become flesh. A baby.

Three wise men lavish gifts upon him. And then they leave, and the family faces its new life. But not quite. It becomes now, for a brief while, a parent’s story, but always, even as these big and serious events unfold, the baby is always present, as threats develop on the world’s stage.

In a dream, an angel tells Joseph to flee to Egypt, because Herod is searching for the child, to kill him. Herod knows, and knows well, that his political future is on the line, and no defenseless baby will stop him. And in the cover of night, Mary and Joseph take their son to Egypt, where he will be safe.

The babies in Bethlehem will not be safe, however. Herod is infuriated; every child two years and younger in Bethlehem is killed, innocents murdered. This is as bad as it gets, and we grieve and mourn with the parents of those far away babies, whose hope died at the hands of a powerful and evil tyrant. This is as bad as it gets, even now, to lose a little one.

And then, Herod dies, and in a dream, an angel tells Joseph to return to Israel. The child, for now, is safe.

Raymond Brown, Catholic priest and professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, died this past year. He spent much of a good life thinking about these stories; a major work was called The Birth of the Messiah.

Brown looked at this story by looking at two other stories—the exodus and the passion. Like the baby Jesus, the baby Moses was—each baby was the recipient of heroic efforts to save them. In each case, political power gone awry threatens, and in each case, God’s vision sides with the powerless.

Power marches on, as even unto the end, Jesus as the revelation of God’s love is rejected by the powers that be. Even unto the end, we learn that God’s agenda is about transforming power into something new and radical and life-changing.

But let us not move too quickly. This morning’s story is about a baby, infant holy, infant lowly, a child who will be held by his mother, loved by his father, who will cry and learn and grow and run and play, who will be taught of God’s love and justice in the synagogues with his friends.

Let us remember, not because it is cute or sweet or sentimental, but because the power of God’s love is made known this way.

And as we remember the child, let us remember the children as well. Children were in the news this past year. A set of septuplets celebrated a year’s birthday, followed closely by the arrival of octuplets. These happy stories were punctuated by sadder ones, children shooting children, children dying in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

And so we cannot gloss over too quickly the story that happens between the baby’s flight and return.

Children die because of adult sin, and I believe in my heart this morning that we are told this part of the story so that we remember those little ones whose lives ended early and painfully. And by remembering, we pledge ourselves once again to protect any child that is in peril, any child facing hunger or abuse of neglect, any child with needs that we can help to meet, any child whose life does not reflect the happiness and wholeness that God would intend for all children.

We remember the children for at least two reasons. There is a mission imperative. We seek to respond to need around here, through the Tutoring Program, through the Center for Whole Life, through the Children’s Center, through the Day School.

Carol Robb, in a fine essay called ”What We Owe Women and Children,” writes that churches are the best places to provide and advocate for child care, because they understand the vision and mandate of supporting women and families and children. (Carol Robb, ”What We Owe Women and Children,” in Envisioning the New City: A Reader on Urban Ministry, Eleanor Scott Meyers, editor, 1992, p. 250)

The state of Illinois is now working with churches on the issues of adoption. Maybe that is where this story takes you this morning.

It takes us wherever there is need, need for physical support, need for emotional support, need for parental support.

Our church school is booming, and that is a good thing, because this place, with other places, helps children to know the story. It is a baptism vision as we answer questions to support children and their families.

We remember children because our hearts and minds and the world around us tell us to, but we remember children even more so because children are the very heart of God. Jesus would grow up and say let the children come to me, for they are the kingdom of God.

Can we remember that? Can we, this Christmas time, remember that children offer the best insights into the heart of God, not because they are cute or sweet or sentimental, but because they are true?

Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles has spent a career thinking about children: his book The Spiritual Life of Children is a remarkable testimony. At one point in a fifth grade classroom, he asked a simple question. Tell me who you are. A ten-year-old girl responds: ”I’m the one at home who can make our gramps laugh. He’s old, and he doesn’t laugh much. I don’t tickle him. I just tell him jokes. My mom said without me gramps would be sad.”

The girl isn’t sure she likes what she writes, and she crumples up the paper to throw it away. Coles, thankfully, rescues the paper. The girl writes again: ”I’m like I am now, but I could change when I grow up. You never know who you’ll be until you get to that age when you’re all grown. But God must know all the time.”

Children are the best theologians because they are honest and truthful. They are curious and relentless, without guile. They ask questions until they get the right answers. They dance and sing and cry. They wiggle. They empathize and sympathize.

They are not perfect: they say ”me” and ”mine” and ”no.” They say ”he started it” and ”I had it first” and ”you’re not the boss of me.”

Even so, their honesty is, I believe, God’s honesty. We are at our best when we learn from them, and we are at our best when we advocate for them.

And this is for all of us, every one of us. A few weeks ago we affirmed that barrenness is not about childlessness, and so this day we affirm that parenthood is not biological. Our baptism promises re-define who we are to one another. We are family. That is to say, it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes children to make a village.

And so as we remember the child, let us remember the children. And let us remember one more thing.

You know Mr. Rogers, whose children’s program on public television taught me then and teaches me yet. You might also know that Mr. Rogers is Fred Rogers, a Presbyterian minister.

Anyway, one time, Mr. Rogers was asked to write an introduction to a text book for pediatric opthamologists, doctors who care for children’s eyes. Children get scared at the eye doctor, and so Mr. Rogers was asked to help out. Mr. Rogers is a busy man, and he could not write the chapter himself, so he asked a woman who worked with him to write the chapter.

She worked very hard, day after day, until one day she showed what she had written to Mr. Rogers. He read it, and crossed it all out. He wrote one sentence for the doctors who would be reading how to care for children’s eyes. ”Remember, you were a child once, too.” (Tom Junod, ”Can You Say. . . ‘Hero?’” in Esquire, November 1998, p. 134.)

Remember, you were a child once, too.

Perhaps it is the notion of writer Georges Bernano: ”Of all the people I have ever known, the boy I used to be was most important.” Or perhaps it is the notion of the lovely Danish carol: ”Our roses bloom and fade away, our infant Lord, abide alway. May we be blessed his face to see and ever little children be.”

We will know this story, live this story, most faithfully, most honestly, when we remember that we were children once, too.

It is about perspective and a willingness to be open. If children are honest and truthful, sympathetic and relentless, then in the end, that is how we must be.

I was discussing this notion with a colleague last week. He quite intentionally, re-interpreted childlike for childish. That is not what this is about—childishness—playing with Furbies in between mergers and acquisitions, breaking out Twister at a partners meeting or power-lunching at Chuck E. Cheese’s.

I do not know what it will take to remember that you were a child once, how it will be acted out in the living of our lives. I believe it to be important, at the very heart of this Christmas story.

It is intimidating, because we have such important, weighty work to do. It is daunting, because the story’s hope invites vulnerability. We are not easily open to surprise. Our language and activity hide as much, or more, than they reveal. Even the deepest of our relationships offer moments of illusion.

Remember the story, though. Remember that God would have us be honest and open, that the story’s grace calls us into new community and relationship with those we love and the children that we are.

Like the presents we unwrap under the tree, like the divine chaos of a Christmas children’s pageant, this story will bring us honest joy, and the full ability to move through and beyond fear and anxiety. That is the promise this day. It is real. It is for you and for me.

It is true, as true as the hymn we sang on Christmas Eve: ”Jesus is our childhood’s pattern, day by day like us he grew; He was little, weak and helpless, tears and smiles like us he knew; And he feels for all our sadness, and he shares in all our gladness.”

Remember that. And by remembering that, remember the child, that the weak and helpless Christ child is God’s real and true power.

Remember the children that we are called to protect and nurture, and pledge yourself as we approach the last year of the last decade of the last century of the millennium that you will do something to brighten a child’s life.

Remember, too, that you were a child once, and that by God’s grace you will be again.

Haste, haste, to bring him laud; the babe, the son of Mary. Amen.

Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church