Reflections on "Interrupting Caesar" Luke 2: 1-3; Psalm 126

The Chapel sermon was interrupted by a coughing spell that seized me.  It was sort of sweet, though to look out at the congregation as tears streamed down my face from the coughing, and see such concerned looks on everyone's faces.  Of course, the coughing impacted my effectiveness as the preacher and the congregation's ability to hear the sermon.

This is the type of sermon I enjoy -- rather nuanced and take a little bit different perspective than might normally be taken -- but it is also a harder sermon to communicate a particular message.

I was really struck in my preparation by the gap between Augustus, who can command Mary and Joseph to travel to Bethlehem, and Jesus, who is born in manger in a  stable.  I'm not sure the sermon emphasized enough the difference between worldly power (as seen by Augustus) and God's power, that appears in the person of Christ.  I also think it's hard for most of us to appreciate that gap since we are closer to Augustus than Jesus on the power hierarchy in our world today.

"Interrupting Caesar” December 14, 2014; FPC, Troy; Advent 2 2014; Bit Players series; Luke 2: 1-3; Psalm 126

Introduction: We continue our Advent series looking at bit players in the Christmas story. This week the bit player is Caesar Augustus – he is barely mentioned in the story; not one of the faithful like Elizabeth; he does not make a live appearance in the story; but it is his demand as Emperor that everyone return to their ancestral home to be counted in the census that sends Joseph and Mary scurrying back to Bethlehem and sets the stage for the birth of Christ to take place there. who does not really make an appearance, but his demand that Joseph come to Bethlehem to register sets the stage for Jesus being born there.

Move 1: Why? Why in this story that is told through the lens of faith to people of faith in the hope of evoking a faithful response to Christ, why mention Augustus.

a. in the midst of the narrative of Jesus' birth, why the focus on historical details?

1. Maybe it's just Luke – very storyteller knows that some concrete details lends credibility to the story, so perhaps Luke wants to give Jesus' story a credible setting?
2. Or maybe Luke keeps hearing the question – “Why was Jesus of Nazareth born in Bethlehem? - so he wants to clarify why Jesus ended up in Bethlehem?

b. Not sure why, but we do know that by placing the story in its historical framework, Luke reminds us that Jesus' story is a real story.

1. The birth of Christ is not a fairy tale that we read to kids at night before we put them to bed.
2. not one of Aesop's fables with an interesting plot twist and a good moral at the end.
3. The birth of Christ is an historical event that takes place in the realm of human history.

500. It ought to impact us in real ways.

1. We can outgrow the fairy tale, but the birth of Christ impacts our lives forever.

2. A fable can affect our moral compass, but the birth of Christ calls us to give our lives over completely to the God who comes in Christ.

3. The story Luke tells about Christ's birth matters because it makes a demand on us in real ways in the daily living of our lives.

Move 2: The mention of Augustus also reminds us that in Jesus' time there were big dogs and little dogs, and Jesus was one of the little dogs.

a. “in those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus...”

1. Those brief words establish that Caesar is the big dog of Rome, and Rome is the big dog in the world.

1. Quirinius, the governor of Syria, is next one down on the pecking order of power.
   3. then I suppose there is King Herod.

4. way down on the pecking order, almost off the list, are Joseph, Mary, and their about to be born son Jesus.

b. Jesus is one of the little dogs in his world.

1. Jesus begins his life as one of the many nameless, faceless people who needs to be counted.

2. for the census, Caesar can command Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, and they do, even when Mary is about to give birth to her child.

3. They have to obey.
4. In fact, whatever Caesar Augustus might decree, Mary and Joseph have to do.
5. Not many options for people at their place in the power structure.

6. Most of us do not know what it is like to be at this low a spot on the power structure, but that's where Jesus made his appearance.

100. This reality links Jesus with the displaced people, who are strangers to the place where they are,
     1. people who are subject to the whims of the world,
     2. people for whom there is no place at the inn so they end of spending the night and giving birth to their child among the animals in the stable.

3. No surprise that as Luke tells the story the first people to come see Jesus are shepherds. You don't have to be an expert on the social classes in 1^st century Israel to know that shepherds arriving from the fields to see your baby is not a sign a royalty!

4. no surprise that as Jesus grows up he continually gets in trouble with the people in the positions of power.

5. by setting up the contrast between Augustus and Jesus, Luke makes the point that Jesus is a nobody by the standards of the world.

d. But, as Tom Long describes Mary and Joseph: if these these “faceless nobodies” are to “have any hope at all, [it] is not in Caesar Augustus, who commands their trek, but in the God of Israel who accompany them even when they walk through the valley of the shadow of death” (12/10/14 christian Century, 21)+

Move 3: Their hope is in the God who interrupts history.

a. By placing the story of Jesus in a concrete historical time, Luke reminds us that God intrudes in history -

1. That's who God is.

2. that's how God acts.

b. Psalm 126 recalls a specific time when God acted in history and calls on God to do so again.

1. The Israelites remember that when they were in exile, God restored them and brought them back to Jerusalem.

2. Not remembering some fictional story that makes them feel good, but laying claim to what God had actually done previously.
3. Now in their difficult time, they need God to act again.

4., their hope is not in the powers of the world, but in their God, who has saved them before.

100. You may remember the movie The Polar Express.
     1. An imaginative film that follows the adventures of young kids who ride the magical train the Polar Express to the North Pole.
     2. At the ideological center of the movie Santa Claus says, “just remember, the true spirit of Christmas is in your heart”

3. It sounds good, but that makes Christmas a sentimental holiday that is dictated by what's in an individual's heart. (“Apocalyptic Christmas” Journal of Preachers, Advent, 2013, Joshua Rice, 33)

d. But the world does not need a sentimental attitude that each of us defines in our own hearts.

1. The world needs God to interrupt and intercede.

2. In world with violence and bloodshed breaking out, we need God to interrupt and change it.

3. In a world where loved ones battle diseases and people struggle along their medical journeys, we need God to enter in, to be in our midst.

4. In a world where we worry about our jobs, our families, our futures, where it sometimes feels like we're standing on quick sand rather than firm footing, we need the God who comes in real time to arrive.

Conclusion: As Santa arrives in the movie Polar Express, one bell breaks loose from a harness and the hero boy retrieves it. He first hears nothing but when he believes, he hears a sound. Santa entrusts the boy the bell as “The first gift of Christmas”.

As the movie ends with the boy back home opening a present of the bell that his parents cannot hear ring, the narrator tells us that the bell only rings for those who truly believe ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Polar_Express_%28film%2)

a wonderfully sentimental ending for a movie.

Luke tells another story. Not a sentimental story, but a story that begins, “In those days” and then tells about the birth of Christ, the coming of God into the world to save and redeem.

Believe it.

+I think Long's reference to walking through the valley of the shadow of death plays off of Psalm 23 (obviously), but also references the fact that the walk to Bethlehem would have been difficult with challenges along the way.