From God Forsaken to God is With Us
Text: Micah 5:2-5a
Rev. Dr. John E. Manzo
December 20, 2009
Last week I talked about the prophet Zephaniah and how so little is known of him. Today we have Micah. Micah is a bit more popular than Zephaniah, but not much. The two most famous passages from Micah are Micah 6:8 which came to some awareness when Jimmy Carter quoted the passage in his Inaugural Address in 1977, and when Matthew quoted him in the passage we read from today:
"But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2)
Bethlehem was the city from which David came and that pretty much summarized Bethlehem. It was a nowhere, godforsaken place with one claim to fame. David was from there. In Jesus’ day, Bethlehem was such a place that it inspired Nathaniel to ask in John’s Gospel, “Can anything good come from Bethlehem?” Bethlehem was a godforsaken place.
If you’ve ever heard of Hoboken, New Jersey, Hoboken is a city that has some interesting parallels to describe what Bethlehem would have been perceived like back then.
Hoboken is one square mile, actually two square miles of you include the fact that one of those square miles is in the Hudson River. It is one square mile and has about the same population as New Albany. It is cramped, crowded, and loaded with narrow,
one- way streets. When they were looking for an incredibly dumpy, dreary place to film the movie, On the Waterfront, they chose Hoboken.
If you are from New Jersey and are dealt a hand of cards and have absolutely NOTHING, you have a Hoboken straight. In the 19th century, in New York, Hoboken was seen as such a lousy place to be from, that if you were from Hoboken, people called you a ‘hobo,’ because Hoboken was such a nothing place, you really had no place you were from. The name caught on and a ‘hobo’ became a term for a homeless person. In recent years, Hoboken has had something of a resurgence, a famous Manning brother lives there, but, if you’re from the east coast, it has a certain folklore attached and it’s not a great folklore to have.
There is one thing, however, that always kept Hoboken on the map. The King of Pop, the real King of Pop, Frank Sinatra was born and raised in Hoboken. People from there will tell you that he was from there, but once he left, he left. I guess being king of the hill and top of the heap in Hoboken is not something highly aspired to.
Back to Bethlehem. Bethlehem is now a great tourist attraction, but at the time of Jesus’ birth, it was the Hoboken of the Middle East. It had one claim to fame. David was born there. Other than that, zip. And like Old Blue Eyes, he didn’t venture back.
But Jesus was born in Bethlehem. It went from this godforsaken place, this ‘nowhere,’ this town that made people wonder if anything good can come from there, to the most important city on the planet. God is with us, Emmanuel, is born in Bethlehem and the world changes forever. And, to this day, this one time godforsaken city is one of the most beloved cities in the world.
This exaltation of Bethlehem is a very God thing. God seems, repeatedly, to lift up those overlooked.
In Jewish tradition the birthright was always passed on to the oldest son. Always. No exception. But God made exceptions. Isaac was not the oldest son. Jacob was not the oldest son. Joseph was not the oldest son. David was not the oldest son. The most unlikely, the most overlooked, are exalted.
“But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days" (Micah 5:2)
God, it seems, was and is serious about lifting up the lowly, the downtrodden, or the left out. The entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay "out there" but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, Nothing good could come, or some godforsaken place. The story of Jesus is a story of a Savior who hung out with society’s rejects and the one’s no one would listen to and gave them a voice.
This is a Messiah who was born in a smelly stable, in a godforsaken town, in the midst of a genocide by a lunatic King.
The Jesus born in Bethlehem, in the godforsaken town in the midst of death and chaos and filth came with a simple message of love that we, over the centuries, often miss.
Sometimes when I listen to preachers speak of this angry God who is looking to smite people and portray Heaven as the exclusive domain of people with theological certitude which agrees, of course, with the preacher my thought is often simple. God is not a monster. God is not one who holds human beings in contempt or disgust or even dismay. God loves people so much that the even the godforsaken are sought out and embraced. The people who are the Bethlehem and the Hoboken of this world are sought out and loved and blessed.
It’s often interesting how we exclude people. Years ago I learned a lesson about language. Growing up and learning the English language, I was taught that words like “Men, or mankind” meant everyone. Often people would refer to ‘brothers,’ and say this meant everyone. Perhaps, theoretically, this is true. But often women said they felt left out. In recent years people, often especially in churches, tend to use language that intentionally includes everyone. At the end of Worship we’ll sing an old, favorite Christmas Carol that always began with the words “God rest ye merry gentlemen.” The problem, of course, is that it’s about everyone and not everyone feels included. So it’s slightly adjusted to say ‘gentle folk.’ Some will say that this is an insult to the English language. Some will say it’s dumb. But if we have a Savior who came for everyone, if we have a God who chose the most forsaken place for His Son to be born in order to make a point about including everyone, is it important to protect the integrity of the language or the dignity of people? And is it ever dumb to welcome everyone?
Christianity has always had an interesting relationship with leaving women out.
The first person who said ‘yes’ to embracing the word becoming flesh was a woman. A girl really. When God wanted the greatest miracle ever to take place in the history of the world, He chose a woman.
When Jesus was raised from the dead who did he appear first to? A woman. Christianity has mis-used words written by St. Paul in a specific time and a specific place to exclude women, and people, to this day, make the women in our midst appear to be almost the godforsaken people. But, thankfully, less and less.
I often think this time of the year is a time when we celebrate women in our midst; a celebration of one woman’s amazing courage in midst of a chaotic world. God blessed what others overlooked.
Which brings us again, back to a quirky thing about Bethlehem.
Micah prophesied the Messiah would come from Bethlehem. The Messiah was born in Bethlehem and Bethlehem did not welcome him. Luke’s words just hang there, “There was no room at the Inn...”
The Messiah had come to a godforsaken place; a place people wondered if anything good could come from, and even in the pit of humanity, the worst city on earth, the Messiah was not made welcome.
We are, ourselves, often like this. We are willing to embrace the Jesus we want, the Messiah on our terms, the Jesus in our image, but we struggle with the Jesus God sent.
We are willing to embrace the words and deeds of Jesus we like and agree with; less so the words and deeds we take exception to. Thomas Jefferson once revised the Gospels to exclude portions he didn’t like. I read the other day that a group is retranslating the Bible because, as an example, they didn’t like the words, “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing.” They felt those words were too filled with grace so they are removing them and claiming that Jesus probably wouldn’t have said them.
Bethlehem is this place that is a reminder to us of some special things as we soon celebrate the birth of the Messiah.
God can bless the most godforsaken places and embrace the people we might not necessarily choose to embrace-----especially the people we ought to embrace. Bethlehem reminds us of this. And it also reminds us that it is more than being a godforsaken place; it is being a place that has an open heart to welcome the Messiah in their midst.
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