Herod, the New Pharaoh, a sermon based on Matthew 2: 1-12, preached on January 4, 2026

Gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Why not a stroller, a Pack ‘n Play, and some diapers? No expectant parent registers for gold, frankincense, or myrrh. They’re not good gifts to bring to a baby shower, yet why did the magi bring them to the manger? We must think of them symbolically. They’re gifts for kings who rule over and control people, and they work kind of like this. Imagine someone leaves a message on your phone: “Do I have an opportunity for you! I’m on the ground floor of a new business, and I need a few sharp, motivated people to join my inner circle. Do you have 15 minutes for a quick chat that will change your life?” That quick chat leads to a meeting in a hotel conference center. There, the presenter lays out the qualities of the amazing product. All we have to do is recruit two people to sell it with us, then those two each recruit two more, on and on the model goes, earning commissions all the way down. “Just look at the math,” they say. “If your network grows just 10 levels deep, you’ll be earning passive income from over 1,000 people. We’re talking six figures a month. Easy money!” Have you ever been in this situation? I have at least twice, both times at the invitation of a trusted family member, and while I was in the hotel conference room listening to the sales pitch, the logical part of my brain was screaming, “This is a scam,” yet the part of my brain that didn’t want to offend my family member told me to sit politely. That’s the power of a ritualized environment. There were no smells nor bells, but there was a stage and lights. It had all the right ingredients to legitimate the one speaking who then told me: “You have to have a little skin in the game. The starter kit costs $500, but it will pay for itself in no time at all.” If you’ve been in this position, you may have taken a deep breath, then handed over a credit card number, but two months later you finally got out, a little poorer and a little wiser than when you first began. That’s a pyramid scheme, and building bricks for Pharoah’s pyramid is not the life that God wants you to live. Follow the magi, who give their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, not to Herod, the new Pharoah, but to Jesus. The gold represents wealth and the promise of it. The frankincense, an incense burned in worship, represents ritual, and whether the ritual takes place in a temple or a hotel conference room, it doesn’t matter. The pharaohs of the world are using conference rooms, board, rooms and press conferences to glorify themselves all the time, in the hopes of using myrrh, an oil used for burial, to magnify their legacy and build for themselves a pyramid off the sweat of your brow. Jesus wasn’t like that. Jesus never accumulated anything, saying, “Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none,” and when someone handed Him a coin with Ceaser’s image on it, He said, “Render to Ceaser what is Ceaser’s.” He wasn’t interested in gold coins bearing the image of Ceaser. Jesus was interested in human beings who bear the image of God. Likewise, while Herod, like the pharaohs before him, would have used the frankincense in religious rituals to maintain control over his subjects and to get them to do what he wanted them to do, the King of Kings kneeled before His disciples to wash their feet saying, “As I have done for you, so must you do for each other. This is my command, this is my mandate, that you love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” That’s why they gave Him the frankincense. It’s because the religion of Jesus is a different kind of religion that humbles the proud and brings dignity to the afflicted, so this cloth that we wear is the sign that we pastors are the chief foot washers in a church called to lift up the lowly rather than keep them in their place, following the Savior, who on the night of His arrest, before He was crucified like a criminal, washed His disciples feet, offering His very body and blood that we all might have abundant, eternal life. His death and burial were the very opposite of a pharaoh’s, for while the pharoah brought honor to himself with that grand memorial, the pyramid, Christ died the death of a criminal and was buried in a borrowed tomb not to bring glory to Himself but to bring salvation to all. My friends, the magi could see what is different about the Savior. Can you see it? Can you tell the difference between King Herod and the King of Kings? George Bailey could. In my mind, there are three essential Christmas movies: It’s a Wonderful Life, The Bishop’s Wife, and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Of the three, the greatest, surely one of the greatest movies of all time, is It’s a Wonderful Life. The hero of the movie is George Bailey. His whole life is lived in service to others. As a boy, he saved his brother Harry from drowning. He postponed going to college so his brother could stay in school. On his way out of town for his honeymoon, the stock market crashed. He and his new wife used their honeymoon money to bail out the Bailey Bros. Building and Loan, and so long as the Building and Loan was in existence, it kept Mr. Potter from having a monopoly and charging as much interest in loans as he so desired. Mr. Potter was in the business of building a pyramid for himself, and so he wanted all the gold, all the frankincense, and all the myrrh, but George Bailey wouldn’t stand for it, launching into an incredible speech in the Building and Loan that goes like this: Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. Just a minute. Now, you’re right when you say my father was no businessman. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I’ll never know. But neither you nor anybody else can say anything against his character because his whole life was… why, in the twenty-five years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. He didn’t save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me. But he did help a few people get outta your slums, Mr. Potter. And what’s wrong with that? Doesn’t it make them better citizens? Doesn’t it make them better customers? You said that they had to wait and save their money before they even thought of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they’re so old and broken-down that… you know how long it takes a working man to save $5,000? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn’t think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you’ll ever be. If you’ve seen the movie, then you know that without George Bailey, Mr. Potter would turn the town of Bedford Falls into Pottersville, a town where the poor are trampled and women are objectified. It is a town without hope, which is the kind of town we’ll all be living in if we give all our treasure to the Herods of this world. I know what he promises. Power, wealth, prestige. Yet think about how being a cog in his wheel makes you feel. On the backs of whom is his pyramid is built. Is a larger paycheck worth sacrificing your morals? Is going along with the crowd filling up your heart with joy? My friends, Herod lives, and his message is still the same: “Do I have an opportunity for you!” Don’t listen, for there is only one way to eternal life. It comes through following Jesus, who promises not a Cadillac but a cross, who came not to be served but to serve. Through serving others rather than glorifying Himself, He leads us from isolation to community and from material wealth to a wonderful life. Remember George Bailey, surrounded by so great a crowd of family and friends at the end of that movie that his brother declares him, “the richest man in town,” while Mr. Potter sits in his office virtually alone. No one is there other than that creepy old guy who pushes his wheelchair around. That’s the message of the wise men, the magi, the three kings or whatever you want to call them. They show us that Herod just wants to glorify himself. Avoid him and people who take all the glory. Avoid those who create monuments to glorify their own name, for there is only one name to be lifted above all others and His name is Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Herod wants our treasure, but do not kneel before his throne. No. Kneel before the manger. Amen.

Refugees in Egypt, a sermon based on Matthew 2: 13-23 preached on December 28, 2025

Words like “refugee” or “immigrant” bring a particular kind of person to mind, and the kind of person that comes to mind depends on what you’ve heard about refugees and immigrants. Who are they to you? Why have they come? What are they doing here? I’ll never hear the word “immigrant” without thinking of my father-in-law, who came to Knoxville, Tennessee as a graduate student from Columbia, South America, longing to learn about how the Tennessee Valley Authority brought electricity to the rural south. He applied and was accepted to the University of Tennessee with a plan to go back to help his home country do what the TVA had done. He learned English well enough to be accepted in their graduate school, yet he learned English in such a way that he was prepared for the classroom and not the real world. He ordered biscuits and groovy in the school cafeteria. A couple of evangelical church ladies asked him if he’d been saved. He said, “I have a checking account, but not a savings account.” I love these stories, and I also admire the man for what he did. Leaving home takes courage, as does living in a country that’s not your home. It can be dangerous and exhausting. One summer, I lived for two months in Argentina as a missionary intern. The first few days I was there, I slept for 12 hours each night because my brain was exhausted from taking it all in. It was a different language. It was a different world. There, I lived with college students who lived in a dorm the church owned. I practiced Spanish with those students as they practiced English. I had never been so far away from home, and I missed so many people that I wore out a long-distance calling card my dad gave me. This was in the days before cell phones, and the dorm I lived in didn’t have a phone, so I’d be out on the corner using a payphone with this calling card, and because I had a card, I never put any money in the payphone, which made a couple police officers suspicious. There are few feelings more terrifying than being questioned by police officers and not being able to understand what they’re saying. To be pushed out of the view of onlookers, to be frisked and questioned by police officers in another country is a much worse feeling than not having access to peanut butter, which they don’t eat in Argentina, or being cold in July since winter in the southern hemisphere happens while we have our summer. What was it like for Jesus, Joseph, and Mary while they were in Egypt? How were they treated? What did Joseph do for work? Did Jesus like it there? In our Gospel lesson for this morning, we focus on the Holy Family who so soon after Jesus’ birth, leave home in fear for their lives. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Get up and go to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for Jesus to destroy him.” Like so many people in the Bible, including Ruth and Naomi in our first Scripture lesson, the members of the Holy Family were refugees. To preserve their lives, they packed quickly and left everything they knew. They depended on the kindness of strangers to make their way down dangerous roads. Surely, they faced many terrifying situations while crossing borders and evading authorities just as many immigrants and refugees do, but when we hear those words: “refugee” or “immigrant,” does the face of Jesus come to mind? Maybe not, yet what else would you call Him? They lived in Egypt until they knew that Herod had died. How many years was it before they could go back home? An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph again, saying, “Those who were seeking the child’s life are dead,” but Joseph was too afraid to go back from where they had come. What about Jesus? When it was finally time to go back to Israel, did Jesus even want to go? By then, did He feel more like an Egyptian than an Israelite? As a church, we know from experience how quickly children assimilate. For 35 years, a profound ministry of our church, we call it Club 3:30, has provided afterschool care for kids who would go home to an empty house after school. For some reason or another, most of our kids today are from the same region of the world, Guatemala, and the volunteers in this program know that while the kids may start kindergarten not knowing a word of English, in no time at all, they adapt, yet their parents are not nearly so fast. I imagine the child Jesus in Egypt much the same way. I imagine Him as being something like one of the Club 3:30 students I got to know. When I first met her, she never spoke because she couldn’t understand what I was saying. Not only did she not speak English, she was from so remote a region of Guatemala that she didn’t even speak Spanish. She spoke an indigenous dialect of the Mayan people, called Kʼicheʼ, but before she had even finished kindergarten, she was given a medal by the Kiwanis Club of Marietta for most improved English speaker. When I imagine Jesus in Egypt, I think of Him this way: shy at first but then learning the language and understanding the culture. Before long, I imagine He felt at home in the shadow of the Great Pyramids. Scripture was fulfilled in this way so that “Out of Egypt God would call his Son,” the Gospel of Matthew tells us. Like the sons of Jacob who went to Egypt looking for food. Like Joseph who rose to power there and was able to save them from the famine. Like the Hebrew people who labored in Egypt so long that generations passed before Moses led them out of slavery and back to the Promised Land, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph fled to Egypt then came back out again that He might lead us all to salvation. Salvation comes through remembering these things. Salvation comes through compassion, understanding, and sympathy rather than the cruelty of Herod, and so as a nation, we boldly put on the Statue of Liberty a poem: Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses Yearning to breathe free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest tossed, to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! Those are the ideals. That we see in the face of the immigrant and refugee the face of Joseph and his brothers, Ruth and Naomi, Joseph, Mary, and young Jesus, that is the ideal. We remember the proclamation of Matthew’s gospel: What we have done to the least of these who are God’s children, so we have done it to Jesus, and yet today many immigrants in our community live their lives afraid. Most of the kids in our Club 3:30 program don’t go trick-or-treating. Their parents don’t feel safe enough to let their children do such a thing, so they trick-or-treat to the church staff offices at Halloween. Then at Christmas, they do something similar. Following a Central American Christmas tradition, like Joseph and Mary, they go to each staff office looking for a place to stay. We all respond as the innkeeper did, “We have no room,” but then we say, “Take this treat for your journey.” The treat we give them for the journey is something small: a toothbrush or a sheet of stickers, but one year I challenged the staff to up their game, telling them that I was going to give all the kids bicycles when they come to my office. I was just joking about that, but later that afternoon, County Commissioner Keli Gambrill called the church telling me that she knew of an organization in town that had 35 bikes to give away. Did I know of any kids who would want them? I couldn’t believe the divine coincidence. I called Tim Hammond, who helped me pick up the bikes, inflate all their tires, and make sure they were in working order. That year, each kid in Club 3:30 got a bike for Christmas, and I hope that there was a group of people in Egypt who did the same for little Jesus. I hope there was kindness. I hope He didn’t have to fear that one day He’d come home to an empty house. I hope He didn’t have to worry every time He saw a police car in the neighborhood. For there’s not always kindness shown to immigrants and refugees, yet remember this story of Jesus and know that His story is theirs. Back home there was danger. They came here looking for safety, and notice with me the way God acted towards them: first warning Joseph in a dream, then calling them back home again. My friends, see the face of Jesus in the immigrant and know that we are called to help them on their way, for we are, all of us, pilgrims in a foreign land who long for home. Let us show kindness to the fellow travelers as the Savior leads us all to our eternal home. Amen.

A Great Light, a sermon based on Luke 2: 1-20 preached on Christmas Eve 2025

I read a quote the other day in a magazine called the Christian Century: Christmas could be perfect were it not for the people. Can you relate to that? Christmas could be perfect were it not for the people. That doesn’t sound like a very cheery thing to say, and yet it may be exactly how you feel and exactly how Clark Griswold felt. In National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Clark Griswold had a perfect Christmas in mind, and then the people started showing up. First, the parents and then, an RV with an extra family pulled into his driveway. Christmas could be perfect were it not for the people. Maybe that’s what my mom was thinking when I set one of the Christmas decorations on fire. Last Sunday night, we were eating dinner with my mom and dad in their home in Hendersonville, North Carolina. My mom put out a Christmas carousel that her now-deceased aunt brought back from Germany. Have you seen one of those things? Cousin Eddie breaks one in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The hot air from four candles moves the fan on the top. On my mom’s Christmas carousel, the movement of the fan moves the three wise men and a shepherd around in a circle, moving in and out of the manger. I wanted to see it in action, so I lit the four candles, which had never been lit before. I watched the procession in and out of the manger a couple times. It didn’t work quite right. The candles were too close to the wooden fan. I left the candles burning when we were called to the dinner table. Before long, dinner was interrupted by a fire alarm because the candles lit the wooden fan on fire. Christmas could be perfect were it not for the people. I remember standing in line at a grocery store and seeing a magazine cover of a perfectly decorated Christmas dining room. The cover promised a how-to guide for perfect tablescapes. I’d not heard that word, tablescapes, before, but there’s no other word to describe what this magazine had captured on the dining room table. Not only were there plates, but there were chargers under the plates, and there were chargers under the chargers. Not only was there a centerpiece, but there were centerpieces. Decorations dominated the center of the table and spread to the edges, so that every surface of the dining room table was adorned with something beautiful. According to one description, perfect Christmas tablescapes blend festive themes with personal style, using layers of texture, a cohesive color palette, and a stunning centerpiece like garland, candles, or seasonal fruit. Do you know the problem with using seasonal fruit to decorate your Christmas table? It’s that clementines are good for throwing, and cranberries fit right up a child’s nose, but they’re too large to get back out. Christmas could be perfect, the dining room table could be perfect, but once people sit down at the table, it won’t be. There are arguments to be had and tears to be shed. Christmas could be perfect were it not for the people. Imagine with me the perfect Christmas tree. A Tannenbaum worthy of Instagram. Do you know what I’ve never seen on a designer Christmas tree? An ornament made by a kindergartener. An angel at the top with bite marks from a dog or limbs amputated by arguing siblings. Christmas could be perfect were it not for the people. Certainly, that’s what Clark Griswold was thinking when onto the curb, coasting in on fumes, came an RV with Cousin Eddie, Aunt Catherine, Rocky with the lip fungus, and Ruby Sue whose eyes got crossed when she fell down a well, then straightened back out when she was kicked by a mule, plus, the dog, Snot. They weren’t invited. They didn’t call ahead to ask if there was room. They brought no money to buy their kids presents. But if they didn’t show up, would the movie be worth watching? Christmas could be perfect were it not for the people, but let’s replace that word “perfect” with “boring.” Christmas would be boring were it not for the people, and the people who really spice up Christmas resemble the shepherds in our Gospel lesson for this evening. On the night of Christ’s birth, shepherds were watching over their flocks by night, and an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel of the Lord said to them, “Do not be afraid, for see I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” You know what happened next because you’ve heard the story before. With haste, they went to visit Jesus, and Mary was about as excited to see them as Clark Griswold was to see Cousin Eddie. I’m sure she was polite, but shepherds sleep outside. Their clothes were unwashed. Their teeth were unbrushed. Their hair was uncombed. Their style was unrefined. Shepherds in the time of Jesus were the lowest of the low. They were the group of people that served as the punchline of every joke. When the conversation died at a dinner party, someone would enliven the conversation by asking, “How many shepherds does it take to screw in a lightbulb?” Or, “If you ever showed up to the family reunion to look for a date, you might be a shepherd.” You get the point. This is literally true that in the backyards of mansions in the Roman Empire, archeologists have uncovered statues of shepherds. Wealthy Romans would install into their gardens depictions of toothless, unkept, shepherds because out of all the people of the Roman Empire, the lowest on the social ladder were those who would have spent their evenings out in the fields watching their flocks by night, and yet our God saw fit to first announce the birth of his son to shepherds. The angel told the shepherds to go and see the baby, and if you are to understand anything about Christmas, then you need to know that when Mary saw them, she said to herself, “Christmas could be perfect, were it not for the people.” Mary and Joseph’s experience had already been far from perfect, but these first-time parents did not want a bunch of shepherds around their baby any more than any first-time parents would have wanted to see them there. First time parents are a little crazy. When Sara and I were first-time parents, if you wanted to hold our baby, we’d ask that you wash your hands and provide a copy of your immunization record. I promise you, Joseph and Mary didn’t want to see those shepherds pull up any more than Clark Giswold wanted to see Cousin Eddie or the Christmas pageant organizers in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever wanted to see the Herdmans. Did you read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever or see the movie? In the Gospel of Luke, there are the shepherds. In The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, there are the Herdmans. Did you hear that? Shepards and Herdman? The author did that on purpose, naming this family Herdman, this family of outcasts, to help us understand the crucial role that the shepherds play in the Christmas story. Without them, we forget the meaning of His birth in the pursuit of perfect. If you remember the plot, in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, plans are unfolding for the pageant to be just the same as it had been for 75 years. Year after year, the same pageant at the church took place. The same lines were recited, the same type of girl played Mary, while all the boys tried to avoid playing Joseph. It was going to be fine. Some would have called it perfect, but that was before the Herdmans showed up. According to the book: “The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken-down toolshed.” Yet on the night of the pageant, Imogene Herdman played Mary, and she cried holding the baby Jesus because she understood that He came for her, and as she realized the meaning of the story, the entire congregation realized what this story is all about. It’s not about being perfect. Instead, it’s all about redemption. It’s not about having the perfect table or tree or Christmas card picture. It’s all about a great Light coming into our darkness. It’s about God coming to save all of us and to bring the marginalized in from the cold. Yesterday, I heard a story of a man who walked into a tiny little church one Christmas Eve. No one knew it, but he had made plans to make that his last night on earth. He was estranged from his family and hadn’t seen any of them in 10 years. His friends had all moved away or died. He saw no reason to go on, but something made him take a walk that cold Christmas Eve, and with freezing fingertips, he quietly snuck in the back of that tiny little church. Sitting down, a woman on the same pew greeted him warmly and then introduced him to the man in the next pew towards the front. One by one and person by person, they greeted this lonely man, not knowing who he was, but welcoming him in as Mary welcomed the shepherds. The next year, the man returned and told the pastor his story, and the pastor said, “That’s what Christmas is all about.” My friends, it’s not when Christmas is perfect that we learn the true meaning. It’s when the shepherds are invited in. It’s when the rejected are embraced. It’s when we stop pushing each other away and start learning to see each other as God sees us. When we welcome the shepherds in, we hear what they have to say: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors.” And whom does God favor? The shepherds. The marginalized. The impoverished. The lonely. The afflicted. The undocumented. The unhoused. God favors them all, so let us favor one another. Make room at your table for imperfect people, and see His great light shine upon you. Alleluia. Amen.