Scripture: Matthew 2:1-8; 1 Corinthians 4:5; Matthew 25:34-40 Series: 2021
Third sermon in the Advent ‘Star of Wonder’ series. Drawing on Matthew 2:1-8, Wilson frames the nativity as a rivalry between Herod and Jesus, Caesar and God. Using flag-football coaching, The Wire, and Herod’s biography, he shows Herod alone among rulers grasped that Jesus threatened his throne. But the Donatist controversy and 1 Corinthians 4:5 teach that grace is unlimited and judgment is Christ’s alone; we cannot sort the righteous from the unrighteous. The Star of Wonder is a rival first to ourselves, calling us to honest self-examination, to love our enemies, and to receive the good news that we need not save ourselves. Closes with Matthew 25’s least-of-these judgment and a prayer for transformation.
Illustrations: packers-flag-football-rivals, ross-football-knowledge-jab, the-wire-marlo-omar, cowboys-giants-ou-texas, herod-the-great-biography, donatist-controversy-augustine
December 12
Rivals
“After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in the territory of Judea during the rule of King Herod, magi came from the east to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We’ve seen his star in the east, and we’ve come to honor him.” When King Herod heard this, he was troubled, and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him. He gathered all the chief priests and the legal experts and asked them where the Christ was to be born. They said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for this is what the prophet wrote: You, Bethlehem, land of Judah, by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, because from you will come one who governs, who will shepherd my people Israel. Then Herod secretly called for the magi and found out from them the time when the star had first appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search carefully for the child. When you’ve found him, report to me so that I too may go and honor him.”” Matthew 2:1-8 CEB
I’ve shared a few times about my experience in coaching Flag Football with the Lake Travis Youth Association. We had a very successful year. We won a number of games. Started off 4-0. One of my cousin’s, Ross, played Division I football at Rice and he had a friend from football who was coaching his kids in flag football for the first time this last year. And his friend was so proud. He told Ross, “We won our first three games. Isn’t that awesome?” And Ross was like, “my cousin Wilson knows nothing about football and he won three games. It’s not a big deal.” Well, I think Ross’s assessment of my knowledge of the game is a little harsh, but it is true I didn’t play a lot of football as a kid. I came to coaching with one year of 7th grade JV right guard experience and a lifetime of watching football and playing Madden. Our flag football team, the Packers, did much better than I expected. I never told the kids that, but we ended up going 5-2 in the regular season and then in the playoffs, we won two games on our way to the championship game. In the semi-finals, we faced the first team to beat us during the season. It was on the backend of a double header and my assistant coach was out and we got clobbered, and they were mean about it. We really wanted to beat the Vikings.
The semi-final game had not started off well and we were down 20-7 at halftime, but the kids didn’t give up. We didn’t let the Vikings score in the second half and went on to win the game 28-20. In fact, I thought that we were losing when time expired and my assistant told me, “no, dude, we won.” And I collapsed on the sideline with joy at defeating the rude Vikings. Their coach had been mean after the first game and he didn’t shake our hands after the second one and called my kids brats, but we had defeated them. We had bested our rivals. We then had to play the championship game against a team we had beaten earlier this season, but on a last second two point conversion so we were pretty evenly matched. However, we were tired and missing four out of ten boys. It was our third game of the day. I was tired. We ran out of steam, but I told the kids that I was proud of them. I told them that they should be proud of themselves and thankful that they earned medals and not plastic trophies. As well, I told them that we had won my Superbowl against the Vikings. We won the important game. Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. In some areas of life, it’s easier to figure out who our enemies are. If you run a business, you know who your competition is. You know exactly who you are competing against. You may be cordial and play golf with them from time to time, but you know who they are. If you’re playing sports, you know who you are competing against. But what about life? My friends, we are continuing our series, in this Advent season, on Star of Wonder. On our first Sunday, we talked about the star itself, theories of the star, and the light which drew the magi from the east to Bethlehem. The light that God has offered for us. Last week, we talked about prophecy and the prophecy of God for the Messiah, but also the righteous prophecy for justice here and now; that God has come to make all things new. Today, we’ll talk about a rivalry, a rivalry that goes deeper than the Cowboys and the Giants, a rivalry that goes deeper than OU and Texas. The rivalry between Herod and Jesus. The rivalry between Caesar and God. In the third season of HBO’s show, the wire . a show from which I cannot show any clips on Sunday morning, we go back to the original gang in west Baltimore. We see what’s going on while their leader is in prison and the second in command is in charge, as they’re selling heroin in Baltimore. But then there is this new kid who comes along and starts taking street corners. His name is Marlo Stanfield. He starts off small, but eventually, by the end of the series, he takes over most of the drugs in Baltimore. He’s a rival to the status quo. He doesn’t play by their rules. Another figure in The Wire who stands above the others is Omar. Omar isn’t a part of any gang. And some people don’t like that and they try and kill him and they fail. And he has this great line, “When you come at the king, you best not miss.” These depictions of gang violence in Baltimore give us an accurate perspective of the rule of Herod the king. Herod was born around 72 BC, the second son of Antipater the Idumaean. His family were Edomites who had converted to Judaism before Herod was born, but they weren’t seen as on the level with other Jews because of their collusion with the Romans and the way they used the Romans to usurp the Hasmoneans, who were the heirs of the Maccabees. Herod’s father, Antipater, was an ally of Julius Caesar, and so when Caesar defeated Pompey the Great and became Dictator for Life, he appointed Herod, about 26 at the time, as governor of Judea. The Romans loved him because he kept good records and always turned in the taxes on time. Eventually, Herod was named King of the Jews by the Roman Senate. Not by the any Jews. He rebuilt the temple, even grander than it had been before. He saw himself as the defender of the Jews, maybe even the savior of the Jews.
He was the rightful king of the Jews (according to him). It was his territory. It was his turf. And suddenly these folks come from the east bearing news that there was a newborn king of the Jews and they want to meet him. And so they go to ask Herod. Now, Herod is one of the few government figures who rightfully sees the threat of Jesus, even as a child. Herod understands what this person could mean. Pontius Piilate didn’t understand. The other government officials didn’t understand. Herod did. Herod saw this boy-king as a threat to his rule. He knew that he was in a precarious position. And so he asked the magi to report back to him so that he could deal with this so-called king. When they never returned, one of the great tragedies in scripture takes place. Herod is angry and declares that all boys 2 years and under are to be killed. Herod sees Jesus as a rival to be eliminated. If Jesus is the Messiah that means Herod is not. If Jesus is the savior that means Herod is not. If Jesus is Lord, that means Herod is not. Later, after the death of Jesus, the Roman leaders still didn’t understand. Romans did not like Christians but more from indifference than seeing them as a direct threat. Paul in his letter to the Romans says that Christians should submit to the governing authorities. Christians should not be the tip of the spear of violent revolution. And yet that was not good enough. Rome tried different levels of persecution to get Christians to fall in line. One of the tricks, in the third century, was to bribe leaders of the church, bribe bishops, and go for the people on the top in order to show that since their leaders can be corrupted, it’s all false. This came to a head, especially in North Africa, in what was called the Donatist controversy. There were some churches who witnessed their leaders betray the gospel by accepting bribes and stomping on the cross, and they said that those leaders weren’t valid anymore. They called them traditores, the root of the word traitor. They felt that only people who were ordained by bishops who never betrayed the gospel were valid, only churches that had priests who never betrayed the gospel were valid. So, this controversy goes on for a while around the Mediterranean. And there were these rival churches that each claimed to be right and claimed others to be wrong. We see here early denominations, in fact. Augustine of Hippo responded often to the Donatists and he wrote and preached about how here and now, the church is not pure and cannot be pure. There are people in the church who earnestly love God and give everything to him. And there are people in the church who use the church for their own ends in order to further their own name or wealth. Both are present, the wheat and the chaff, but our job is not to thresh the church. That is Jesus’s job. He will judge us. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians, ““Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God.” 1 Corinthians 4:5 ESV
Our job now is to be faithful to what God has called us to be. Not to stand out and say, “you are good. You are not good.” Or, “righteous, righteous, righteous, unrighteous, unrighteous, righteous, unrighteous.” In the light of Jesus Christ, there is no rivalry. We are not competing against each other to receive grace. We are never in a position to pick who is deserving and who is not. Grace is not finite like money or time or capacity or market share. Faith is not a holier than thou competition. Grace is unconditional and unlimited.
Advent is not a finished story. Who are we in this season? Are we magi looking for the light? Are we Herod threatened by the news of God with us? Are we threatened by the call God has for us? It may be too much to love my enemy. I dunno if I can handle that. God may be calling me to love the Vikings coach. First of all, we must be willing to be honest with ourselves. God offers us the space to admit where we are wrong, but we have to do it. We have to admit it. There may be times when I act like the Vikings coach. We have to realize that there are times when we may be acting like Herod. But in this advent season, may you realize that the Star of Wonder, that the light of Jesus Christ is truly a rival to the status quo of the world. We are not off the hook even if we know the story. It is truly a rival to the way of life that says it doesn’t matter what we do. It is a rival to thinking we are finished or thinking that if we do it, therefore it is good. It is a rival to the way of life that is indifferent to how we act or that says, boys will be boys. Christ will thresh the wheat from the chaff. And it starts right here (point to heart) threshing the chaff of your heart away so that only the wheat remains. Only the love remains. Emptying ourselves of all but love.
The Star of Wonder is a rival first to ourselves. It is not about other people. Don’t begin this thinking of others, what they need to do to change, but here and now, God’s light is falling on you. Are you going to dismiss it like Caesar? Are you going to be threatened by it like Herod? Or are you going to seek it like the Magi? My brothers and sisters, we are not alone. If you want to go to Bethlehem, we are here to go with you. Let us journey together. God did not create us in order for each of us to have the burden of saving the world on our own. God created us for love. Let us receive the good news that we do not have to save ourselves. Let us receive the good news that we are not our mistakes, we are not our past. We are more in God. Let us receive the good news that Christ has won the victory, that the people of this world who claim to know more, who claim to have the secret insight around, even if they’re dressed up in Christian language, they do not speak for Christ and Christ will judge the wheat from the chaff as he says in Matthew 25.
Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who will receive good things from my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you before the world began. I was hungry and you gave me food to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you gave me clothes to wear. I was sick and you took care of me. I was in prison and you visited me.’
“Then those who are righteous will reply to him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’
“Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you that when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’
May we do likewise.
Let us pray
Heavenly Father, may we not be threatened by the coming of Jesus but open ourselves up to the possibility of transformation here and now. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.