Third Sunday after Epiphany

 I have been reading this week reflections written by Christian commentators on their weariness and exhaustion – because of events in the US, Europe, in the Middle East and Iran; how their experience of God’s presence feels remote at the moment. It seems their lives of campaigning, listening, holding power to account feels wasted in these times of huge social, political and economic disruptions.  Our certainties are being upended and what we imagined as steadfast and sure has been blown away in a great blizzard of lies, greed and betrayal.

The trauma of war, violence and oppression can last a lifetime.  Practically, people have been imprisoned politically for years, even decades.  Others have been killed: some well-known like Alexei Navalny who was killed in a prison gulag in Russian Siberia, or Nelson Mandela in South Africa released at the end of his life after decades of imprisonment.  Opposition leaders are disappeared, women are contemptuously hidden away and silenced, those of different races and faiths are vilified, abused or killed; while those who march to protest the injustice of discrimination, dehumanisation, and lack of inclusion, find themselves terrorised, brutalised, raped and tortured while silence and compliance is an absolute requirement to live.

Jesus was very familiar with this behaviour. Rome had invaded his country, and occupied it before he was born and the imposition of colonial power was brutal.  Judah was colonised, the people oppressed.  Jesus’ early life had been lived as a refugee in Egypt, and the references to the lands of Naphtali and Zebulun both in Isaiah (9:1-4) and Matthew’s Gospel (4:13-15) remind us clearly of Joseph, surviving his brothers’ great betrayal, with God’s help.  The brothers and their families moved to Egypt to escape a devastating famine.  But in turn, their descendants were betrayed and became slaves until God led them to freedom.  The ancient lands called by the brothers’ names remind us of their exodus and the willingness of neighbours to become enemies without God; and the loving commitment of God always to save and protect, in spite of humanity’s choices for violence and death. The references to enslavement of God’s people evoke a choice for us in how we respond to insecurity, danger and judgement, and remind us how God wants us to treat our neighbours.

Jesus and his people knew all about invasion, death, or enslavement with the brutality of economic hardship, ongoing injustices and the pragmatism of a ruling military power dealing with dissent.  Jesus’ cousin, John the Baptist was imprisoned during his ministry. (Matthew 4:12). John’s talk of faithfulness, repentance, right living, compassion and God, took him inevitably into prison and without appeal.  John had one forceful opinion too many and it found its way into Herod’s throat and there it became stuck.  Herod tried locking him up, but Herod was like a child with a dangerous secret, he couldn’t stop taking out to look at it and test it.  Eventually Rome’s puppet King Herod ran out of patience and for the smallest of reasons, John was killed, with the complicity of the wealthy elite who surrounded Herod.  It feels so familiar to us today as we consider and see the way Empire power is abused and misused for oppression.  

Jesus was personally affected by his cousin’s imprisonment and all it implied for his own ministry: its length, content and likely ending.  Jesus also knew about the weariness of persistently giving witness in dangerous places and with unreliable people watching and waiting.  Let’s be under no illusion, it is exhausting always standing up and being prepared to resist.  God calls us to be prepared always, to wait actively – this takes on fresh meaning for us today.  To sustain, hold onto and grow this type of preparedness consistently, Jesus withdrew to the wild and quiet places for peace and for conversations with God, for reassurance and hope that what he was doing was necessary as he realised there was no other way for God’s Son, the suffering servant to live and die.  Jesus knew we needed to know God’s love.  He withdrew to grieve and for the moments of joy to the high places where the air is crisp and the view is clear, and where God somehow can seem closer; and Jesus also stepped into the valleys where life is real and people are kind. He went to the cities, but returned always to the margins where he was needed.   Jesus knew without any doubt:

‘the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.’  (Matthew 4:16).

The talk of light seems foolish to those who are watching as bystanders, enjoying the show, and whether it leads to death or suffering is irrelevant, just as long as it is interesting, unpredictable and doesn’t affect them.  Those who imagine they have the light already in this life, perhaps find it harder to see God’s light, or to see it as being relevant for themselves.  Why change what is already working for you?

To those who have little or nothing, sitting on the margins in the shadow of darkness, cast over them by those with power or wealth who despise them, yet who have glimpsed God and seen God’s light, there is nothing else worth seeking in life or worth dying for, in all the world.   It is to those sitting in darkness where the light has shined. 

Darkness seems to gather and coalesce in so many places, but although it seems the darkness is gathering strength now and we ask ourselves what is it making us fearful, remember: God’s light can never be put out.  There is hope knowing you can rely on God always, and God is with those listening to God, as there is no entitlement in God’s kingdom, no ‘God given right’ to stand at the front of the queue, or to sit at the high table, or to have all the peace prizes and golden ballrooms.  Alexy Navalny started to get into trouble with the Russian tyrant when he created a video to show the Russian people the palace President Putin had built for himself in spite of his claims of being a ‘man of the people’.  The videos are still available, and the cost of such truth telling for Navalny was death, who as a Christian accepted this truth in trying to save his people.

The Son of God is also truth telling.  He is walking with compassion and love, with those dying in prisons unjustly, in war zones, in brothels and on the streets, in hospitals without medicines, and on park benches.  The margins are where you will most likely encounter Christ; and as we hand out food from Mark’s Pantry, we pray for those who are being ‘disappeared’ in our communities through homelessness, racism and hateful violence.  We remember these are our sisters and brothers, like Christ.  The Christ in whom there is no darkness at all.     The Lord be with you.