Religion and Conflict
Matthew 2:16-23
January 18, 1970

John M. Buchanan

The principals of the story are easy enough to catalog. Several astronomers
from Babylon who had been observing a star for two years: Herod the Great, King
of the Jews by an act of the Roman Senate in 40 B.C., a brutal man who murdered
many people including several relatives and his own son, a very efficient, “law and
order" type, about whom Augustus the Emperor onco said he would rather be Herod's
pig than his son.

Bethlehem, birth place of the beloved King David, and thus as significant for
the patriotic Jew as Mount Vernon or Valley Forge for us. Egypt, land of mystery
land of captivity out of which God brought his chosen people centuries before;
geographically not far from the small town of Bethlehem.

Mary, Joseph and their new son whom they called Jesus, a son whose birth
precipitated some very strange events involving shepherds, magi and the rhetoric
of peace, hope and love.

It's interesting that nowhere else in the New Testament is this bizarre affair
mentioned. In fact, it will be found nowhere in the preserved, historical records
of the era. Josephus, the scholar, upon whose records we depend for insight into
the times, doesn't mention it. And secular historians have always pointed out
that had Herod done something so horrendous a slaughtring all male children in
Bethlehem under the age of two it certainly would have been recorded somewhere.
Maybe so, but maybenot. It was not an uncharacteristic thing for Herod to do; he
did other things equally as horrible: we don't know how many boy babies were in
Bethlehem at the time — 500, 100, 50, 25. And so perhaps it did happen. Speculation
of course, on both sides. But there it is; part of Matthew's account of the Birth;
part, really, of the Christmas drama. Although we have never seen it celebrated
on Gisbkthas. cants.\.-Piere it is - important because it is there: important be-
cause it tells of two perplexing phenomena. Life is a difficult paradox: that
which is good comes out evil sometimes: life is 4 complex of conflicts - people

get hurt when they are caught in the middle, mostly children, of course. Little

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German children in Dresden, Japanese children in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Vietnamese
babies in My Lai, American children in Chicago and Lafayette and Natchez, Waniselente
Nobody set out to hurt them - but it happened and happens. Conflict. The Gospel A
of Jesus Christ in the world. And people get hurt in many ways.

The other phenomena is the existence of evil itself. Why do things like this
happen? We've asked that question - and we must ask it again if we read a story
about 2 child's birth, the first visible result of which was the slaughter of a lot
of other children who were guilty only of being born in Bethlchem.

We H. Auden, one of the truly great poets of the English language has captured
the tragedy and ambiguity of this affair and life in general in his "Christmas
Oratoria". Herod is bewildered —- Herod must make a decision and he says:

"One needn't be much of a psychologist to realise that if this rumor is not
stamped out now, in a fow years it is capable of diseasing the whole Empire, and
one doesn't have to be a prophet to predict to consequences of it should ....

Naturally this cannot be allowed to happen. Civilization must be saved even
if this means sending for the military, as I suppose it does. How drearye.+..

0 dear, why couldn't this wretched infant be horn somewhere else? Why can't

people be sensible? I don't want te be horrid. Why can't they sce that the notion
of a finite God is absurd? Because it is..... I refuse to be taken in..... I've
worked like a slave. I want everyone to be happy. I wish I had never been born."
[The Collected Poctry of W. H. Auden, Random House, New York, p.p. 454-460,

As I thought about that this week I couldn't help but be reminded of the ritual
of self-justification joined by the military and the people of this nation after
My Lai. Apparently children were killed. And lo and behold there spoke among us
many who could excuse it. After all - war is hell = the children sometimes are
the enemy - it's an unfortunate but necessary method to save the country from
Commimism. And after all + the other side doos it too. Even more tragic than
' the ‘crime of My Lai, is this casual justification of what happened, this ability ~~
’ to wash our hands of whatever was done.

There is a play by a German writer (Von Schlegel) in which the opening curtain
rises to reveal another audience waiting for the curtain to rise. It does - only
to reveal another audicnce, ond at this point people get uneasy and begin to look
around to see if they too are on stage. The story of Herod - does that to us, if
we are honest. For that kind of thing is not confined to the first century. It
continues to happen. And the fact that it occurred, in the first context, as a
direct result of tho birth of Jesus Christ, ought to give us pause. It ought to
force us to probe deeply - into our hearts - and into the nature of the life we
are living.

The troible with a lot of religion is: that it doesn't do this to us, or for us.
I had lunch last week with several other ministers and some members of the Sociol-
ogy Department at Purdue who are academically concerned with the Sociology of
Religion. We talked about why people go to church: why they are motivated to do
what our culture defines as the "religious thing +0 do."" We concluded that there
are two basic types of churches that are successfully motivating people to be
religious: churches that provide all the answers and rigidly structure a man's
behavior, and churches that avoid - at all costs - conflict. Churches, that minister
by helping, providing advice on how to succeed, how to overcome lonliness, tigi
to be a bester person, Our conclusions are not unassailable, of course ,but it
does appear that a type of religiosity which is honest about conflict — in the
world, between the Gospel and the world, between the Gospel and individuals, will
probably be experiencing a decline in constituency and financial support. That
is, people aren't coming to church to have their fur rubbed the wrong way.

And yet the Bible ought to rub our fur the wrong way on occasion, if not
regularly. When Josus was born in Bethlehem, Herod was disturbed, "and the whole
city with him". The story of the slaughtered innoconts is there, right at the

beginning. As a man be got involved in conflicts with all the structures of his

-eulture; he argued with the very best - the roligious leaders. The conflict was

so bad that he ended up on a cross as a common crimminal. .

John R. Fry, pastor of Chicago's Pirst Presbyterian Church, a man who for i
better or for worse is constantly at the center of a malestrom of controversy
knows what conflict means. Very perceptively he writes: "The Bible is a fantastic
book..... It has these great stories. A perfectly amazing point of view, once it
emerges out of the goo and iron bars and hymms and candles. It is against civili-
zation. Money. Religion. Greed. War. Demons. Disease. Death. Poverty.
Propaganda. Injustice. Sin. Lics. Repression. Reader's Digest. The Bible
believes in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, in the Church. The Holy People.
Joy. Forgiveness. Lovo. Life. Justice. Peace. Truth. Passion. - Ecstacy.
Health. Prosperity. Affluence. Rssurrection" [Fire and Blackstone, J. B.
Lippincott ]

John Fry has chosen to be the precipitator of a lot on crises in areas where
dakp-eiatod conflicts already exist. And one can be critical of his stratogy, his
methodology, but not of his point. Because there is overwhelming biblical precedent
for the Gospel being deeply involved in the world and, in fact, being the direct
precipitator of conflict in the world.

But perhaps we waste our words talking about the church as if it were some
corporate entity that has nothing to do with me personally; or the world, as if
that means everything. other than my realm of experience. Perhaps our real problem
is that we have refused to see the conflict the Gospel precipitates in ourselves.

Herod saw it clearly in Audon's poem: "And suppose, just for the sake of
argument..ece.» that this story is true, that this child is in some inexplicable
manner both God and man, that he grows up, lives and dies, without committing a
single sin? Would that make life any better? On the contrary it would make it
far worse. For it could only mean this; that once having shown them how, God
would expect every man, whatever his fortune, to lead a sinless life in the flesh
and on earth. Then indeed would the human race be plunged into madness and dispair.
and for me personally at this moment it would mean that God had given me the power

to destroy himself.... He could not play such a horrible practical joke. Why

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ahould he dislike me so?" Op cite Christmas Oratoria
Well, it is no practical. joke, but what God has done in Jesus Christ is not
only to introduce something into history that conflicts with a lot of what men do,
but also to confront every individual; to confront us, if you will, in a way that
lays bare the conflict botween our wills, our desires, ourselves - and His will.
Raymond Stramm has said that the task of preaching is "not so much to show a
man a way out of his predicament. It is rather to confront him with the radical
nature of his predicament." The Gospel ought to comfort the distressed, but before

it dees this - or rather - in order to do this = it must distress the comfortable.

_ And Paul Scherer (The Word God Sent) writes that "It is quite possible that we

never hear the Gospel until we have been made uneasy by it". [p. 75]

You see, the roal conflict is within each one of us. And while we may never
have to resolve it as dramatically be Guccene it is nonetheless still there. We
have heard the Gospel: we know about Jesus Christ: we have learned what he said
and did. And through it 211 we have perceived that God wants nothing from us but
everything. He wants our devotion — our obedience. He wants us to acknowledge
that we do wrongly, and hurt cach other - even when we are trying not to. He
wants us to confront the predicament wo are in -— the demonic force that seems to
use us as its instrument - to acknowledge that we are out of harmony with him and
with each other — to confess that and to expeirience oun forgiveness.

But that is casier left undone and theroin the conflict. It isn't comfortablo’
to know myself on that lovel. It isn't pleasant to bé that honest about my life.
It isn't-fun to go to church to be told I'm in a predicament from which I oannot
extract myself.

And yet that is the Gospel: that is the kind of conflict precipitated by
Jesus Christ the man. And its resolution is an intonsely personal matter for
each one of us. The Now Testament calls it salvation, and it means opening myself
totally to the redeeming love of God: laying my aeen on the dino, no holds barred, oe #:

no secrets hidden, no assumptions, prejudices, goals or desires on a hidden wep Re

“. c

It means allowing the redeeming love of God to take my life and use it as its
instrument.

We don't have altar calls in wth Soeait ey Presbyterianism - because that quickly
becomes a meaningless ritual subject more to social pressure than the urgent call
of Christ. And yet I am convinced that we need, everyone of us, to confront, on
the deepest possible level, the conflicts that do exist between ourselves and what
we affirm religiously. We need an occasional experience of gut-level honesty and |
a@ renewed dedication to our Lord. We need to open our eyes to the reality of the
conflict betweon the Gospel and the world, and to throw ourselves into the fray -
on the side of Jesus Christ.

Herod chose to deal with the coming of Jesus Christ in a very tragic way.

For us the issue remains. If we are honest with ourselves we will no longer call
Herod by his namo. The child has come to disturb all of us.

Amen.

Our father — disturb us with the truth of the Gospel. Grant us the courage
to look honestly at our lives.’ Grant us the grace to ask forgiveness. Grant us
the power of your Holy Spirit to live new lives as obedient disciples. Through

Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen