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12.08.2015The Slaughter of the Innocents - A Christmas Reflection
I was at Kwibuka Friends Church, up country, Burundi.
My friend David was showing me his home church, the church of his childhood. We
came in the back door - like family.
They have a bell. I have an affinity for church bells
and gave it a tug. It sang easily. David whirled and said “Don’t ring the bell!
Everyone in the neighborhood will think we want them and drop what they are
doing and come!” oopps. He went outside to find the nearest group of children
to send out the word of my false alarm.
While he was out, I explored. The room behind the
pulpit is like that in any church, full of family heirlooms and trash. There
were miniature shepherd’s crooks and a tiny rough manger. Burundians largely
still live by truck patch and small flocks – close to the Gospel. I caught
sight of something in the manger and reached for it. Up came a small wooden
cut-out of an AK-47. I was more than a bit appalled.
“What is this? I demanded of my friend as he walked
back in.”
He chuckled, “That is what soldiers carry in
Burundi.”
“You are kidding me, they use this is the Christmas
play?”
“Sure – how else are you going to do the part where
Herod goes after the babies?”
Now I was stunned, staring at the tiny weapon in my
hands. Holding back tears, I asked “You re-enact the Slaughter of the Innocents
in your Christmas pageant?”
“Of course, how else would you explain why Mary and
Joseph must become refugees? Don’t your Christmas plays have that?”
“No, we usually stop after the angels and the wise
men.”
“Hmm, our children don’t see many angels or kings –
but they do understand killing and running. They feel close to Jesus when they
see these things in His story.”
Well, America, nobody ever said it was going to be all
Angels and Kings. We have joined our Burundian brethren in their sorrow.
Perhaps we need to join them more deeply in the Story.
It is important to remember that Herod the Great was
not a Roman. He was a terror, but he was not some external terrorist. He was
the same religion as Mary and Joseph and their babe. He was the same ethnicity
as the infants he commanded to be slaughtered. He was a Roman collaborator; he
was a narcissist and a blowhard. And he had too much power. But he was Us, not
Them.
God could have sent an angelic host (army) to Herod.
God could have shaken his house with an earthquake. God could have sent Pharaoh’s
plagues. But that would not be Emmanuel – that would not be God with us. With
us in our pain, our flight, our despair. How would we feel close to Jesus if
God only dealt with Kings?
It is good to remember that the Nativity is the first
wave of a Divine insurrection. Christmas is subversive, and what is a subversion
without a wicked dominant paradigm? The incarnation is an infusion of infinite
love into the very middle of finite human suffering and sin. It is important to
remember which of those things are temporal and which is not.
It is right to remember the words and actions of the
survivors. Did Mary’s Magnificat die in Egypt? It did not. She returns from exile,
and calls for his first miracle, because she knows who He is. At Cana she calls
for a miracle of celebration – water into wine. A wedding celebrated under
occupation. Because survivors know that when we raise a glass to Life in the
very face of death we remind death, and hell, and sin, and sorrow, that their
days are numbered. There will come another wedding feast, the guests will be
the poor and the oppressed, and the joy will be unmingled.
Until that day we will defiantly celebrate Love. We will treasure
what breath we are given. We will light lights in the darkness. And when we are
not celebrating we work – work for love and justice and peace. Because we
breathe today and can, and for those who cannot.
In October of 1993, exactly ten years before I stood
in Kwibuka church, my friend David Niyonzima survived a school shooting just
down the road. He was teaching his pastoral students when the rebels came. They
were also Christians, also Burundians, and they slaughtered the innocent. All
the students died as they fled, only David escaped. He feels very close to Jesus
in that. He also celebrates, and laughs, and enjoys his physical comforts,
because he can. And when he is not playing, he works – hard. Because he knows
that his work is never in vain. He knows this because he is close to Jesus.
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