Matthew 2:21-23 New Living Translation
21 So Joseph got up and returned to the land of Israel with Jesus and his mother. 22 But when he learned that the new ruler of Judea was Herod’s son Archelaus, he was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he left for the region of Galilee. 23 So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
Jesus’s family returned to Israel when Herod had died, hoping for peace and freedom, only to find more threat. Instead of rooting the family down in the land of opportunity, they were warned to avoid Israel, so they moved to Nazareth, a marginal community. In fact, when the soon to be apostle, Philip, told the other soon to be apostle Nathaniel that he had found the Messiah from Nazareth… Nathaniel responded in shock… “What good can come from Nazareth?”
Nazareth was a small humble town of about 400-500 people and was on margins politically and financially. Yet, it is out of humility that Jesus emerged as the Messiah who would ultimately bring salvation to humanity as well as offer us a model as to how to live in this world.
After the end of slavery, there was a great migration of black folk that moved to small towns throughout the North and Midwest only to be warned to move on. Instead of being warned by angels, black folks faced visible warnings from signs posted on the edge of town, known as sundown signs, that would say things like, “Don’t let the sun go down on you N---!” . Sundown towns were predominantly large white towns that would not allow people of color in after dark. My hometown was a sundown town.
I recently was able to read a personal diary from a resident of Huntington, Indiana dated March 28, 1935: “Huntington citizens became aroused last week when word came that a negro CCC camp of 245 men might be moved from Wawasee and the Calumet district to the edge of Huntington. Both citizens and Huntington officials say they don’t want a camp of negroes near the city. Huntington boasts she has no negro population, and negro transients who stop in the city are told politely but firmly to move on.” I once asked a white Huntington resident why there were so few black folks living in Huntington. She responded, “They (black folk) prefer to live in the city and that there isn’t much for them in the way of jobs in our little town.” The reality is, black folks were driven out of thriving small towns throughout the Midwest and North as slavery ended because of the color of their skin and white people’s fascination with racism. Instead of being included into the community and offered an opportunity to root their families down in healthy communities, they were driven out and many were forced to move to urban communities that often face marginal living situations.
Jesus lived at the margins. As white folks we need to embrace a Jesus at the margins that calls us to love all people.
The threat came from Herod and then his son Archelaus. A corrupt power was passed on and Jesus was forced to live at the margins his whole life. I have heard many white folks say things like, "I never had slaves" (a Herod move) or "I never use the n-word" (Archelaus move) and they do not see the reality of racism that still surrounds us all. It’s easy to blame the previous generation and yet overlook how racism still has an impact in our lives and in our society. There is still a margin. There are leaders merging from that margin. We need to listen to their voices and work with them to overcome the sin of racism in our society.
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