One Door Closes, Another Door Opens

Matthew 2:13-23        Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

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, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.”

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The comedian, Louis CK went on late night TV a few years ago and talked about why he doesn’t want to get cell phones for his kids.  You can watch it here:

He thinks they insulate us from life in some ways.  Anytime you begin to feel uncomfortable, your instinctive reaction is to make it go away.  Cell phones – smart phones in particular – are good at that.  Your iPhone or your Galaxy or your Droid provides the perfect distraction.  Just pick it up and start swiping and tapping and texting.  Text someone, check your email or facebook or twitter feed or anything to get your mind off the bad feeling.  It’s a substance that you can use to avoid feelings you don’t like, not so different from alcohol or pills or food, or so many things that we can abuse. 

I know exactly what he means because I have done it.  It’s not a good habit.  The problem is that trying to make the feeling go away by using a distraction is counterproductive.  Because even if you ignore the sadness or the anger or the boredom it’s still there.

I was thinking about these things because someone at the roundtable made a remark that stayed with me all week.  The things that have happened to us in our lives – the happy things and the sad things and the crazy things, all the things – they stay with us and remain a part of who we are, and who we shall always be.  Our life experiences, all of them and not just the ones we choose, make us the men and women we are.  The good, the bad, and the indifferent – all of it.  We can’t do anything about that.  But one thing we can do is decide how we will remember it all. 

The ways in which we remember things are important for how they affect us and shape us.  Remembering gives our lives meaning.  Without it we would be blank slates, rewritten every day.  But with memory we are formed into unique multifaceted and complex people.  The act of remembering is about telling the story of who we are. 

This is, in large part, what the Bible does. Remembering is essential for the people of Israel. Even more, the way of remembering is important for Israel – the way of blessing.  Jewish tradition says that a person should recite 100 blessings a day; there are blessings for everything under the sun – the good, the awkward and embarrassing, and everything else.  Everything is accepted and remembered with gratitude, for those who follow the way of blessing.  “I will recount the gracious deeds of the Lord, the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, because of all that the Lord has done for us,” says Isaiah. 

If you have actually read the Old Testament, it may seem remarkable that Israel can say this.  With all the hardship and persecution they suffered, it is amazing that they would remember with gratitude and blessing.  It isn’t because they suffer from Pollyanna syndrome, forgetting how bad the bad things were.  They very clearly remembered the suffering, and they do it quite intentionally.  They know that the good and the bad all go together in making them the people they are.  I appreciate that Israel takes care to remember the hard things as well as the easy things.  Even if it makes my job harder.

Texts like this one from Matthew do make my job harder, because along with the rescue of the baby Jesus we have the slaughter of the innocents.  While Jesus was being whisked away to Egypt by Joseph, who was warned by an angel, Herod ordered the murder of all the infants and toddlers in Bethlehem, because he was enraged.  The most spiteful of all spiteful acts.  It gets its own paragraph right in the middle of the nativity story.  We are not allowed to ignore it.

Oddly enough, we did ignore it at the roundtable.  We put on our rose-tinted lenses and talked about the hopefulness in this story.  It was easier than facing the hard – dare I say, appalling – part of the story. 

So here is the challenge for us:  can we look at our stories – our faith stories, our national stories, our family stories – in their totality, the good things and the bad things, the gains and the losses, and still see hope?  Can we see the hand of God in all of it?  It is what the people of Israel do and what we might do too. 

As we cross over into a new year, we think about all of the events of the past year, perhaps with some relief about putting it behind us.  Sometimes you can’t close the door on the old year soon enough.  We would be happy to shut all the hardship and heartbreaks away with 2016 and start anew.  Yet, in some way the hardships and heartbreaks follow us into the new year because they are part of who we are. 

The loss of a job … loss of money … a death, an illness … the end of a relationship, these things we experienced become a part of us.  We carry them into the new year with us one way or another, so the question I want to ask you is this: how will you carry these things?  In the light or in darkness?

Christians like to say, “when God closes a door, he opens a window,” or “when one door closes another door opens.”  There is always hope with God.  Alexander Graham Bell said, while that is true enough, we are often caught looking so longingly and regretfully at that closed door, we never find the one that has opened.

This past year has known its share of hardships and heartbreaks.  As individuals, each of us has suffered our own hardships and heartbreaks, our own losses and failures.  As a congregation, we have suffered losses – members who have left us, failures we have experienced, perhaps even a loss of hope about the future.

And the world has suffered collectively, perhaps the most poignant image of the suffering being Aleppo – the symbol of our cruelty toward our fellow human being.  Herod’s slaughter of the children of Bethlehem has nothing on the spite and cruelty we have looked upon this past year.

The task for us, as people of faith, is to find the open doors.  Where are the moments of generosity and compassion?  The potential for new relationships?  What are the gifts God is inviting us to open and develop, the opportunities for new flourishing?  We have seen the doors shut.  Now where are the doors opening, inviting us to walk through?

Our faith allows us to carry the hardships along with the beauty and remain hopeful and thankful.  We know that because God is present in our lives, there is reason for praise along with lament.  We know the truth that evil is pervasive in this world – it truly is – but God is just and good. 

This story from Matthew tells us two things:  Joseph’s dream tells us that God’s goodness rescued the little holy family from some awful things, guarding and protecting them.  And this horror they needed to be rescued from tells us just how much the world needed a savior. 

As we step into this new year, let us remember the year that has passed – the good and the bad, because we carry it with us.  Let us acknowledge the doors that have closed behind us and look for the doors that God has opened for us.  Let us give thanks to God for all God’s mercies, for the abundance of God’s steadfast love that is present with us through joys and heartbreaks, and even the dull moments. No matter what befalls us, God’s very presence saves us.