Does it confuse you that this story of the Holy Family's flight to Egypt is out of sequence? We only get this story once every three years, the years that Matthew is the lectionary gospel. According to Matthew, Joseph didn't get the warning to leave Herod's territory until after the wise men visited the Baby. We don't hear about that visit until Epiphany next week. So why the trip to Egypt this week? What does it reveal about God and about us?

When I read today's text, my heart sank. "Holy smokes!" I thought, "I can't read that part about killing the babies!" Not only is the "slaughter of the innocents" part of the story, it's the part of the story that I hate the most. Which means, of course, that it's the part that I am called to wrestle with the most. Nuts.

Consulting scholars was little help. Some scholars argue that "only" twenty babies died, which in their minds makes the slaughter of the innocents more historically plausible. As if that is good. This is a horrendous part of the Christmas story - babies being killed because a new king of the Jews has been born. But "who is the real king of the Jews?" isn't today's story. That's next week. I only mention that question because we need to know that there was a reason Herod ordered the death of all those babies. Which makes one scholar's comment more disconcerting. "There's a little bit of Herod in all of us," he wrote. How does that make you feel? He wrote that not to raise sympathy for Herod, but to remind us what happens when we are threatened.

Biologists call Herod's reaction part of the "fight or flight" response. When living organisms are threatened, they respond with either a "fight" response or a "flight" response. Mother bears attack, turtles pull into their shells. Gangsters pull guns and start shooting, rabbits take off running. Sometimes a cheetah comes on with teeth bared, sometimes it skedaddles. Some animals have characteristic and consistent fight responses, others only do flight. Some species will do either. What triggers whether either the fight or flight option is exercised is an instantaneously taken decision as to which course of action is most likely to preserve life. If one is vulnerable, the best course of action is flight - provided you are also fast. If you're not fast, it's best to be either big or ferocious - or both. Herod had personal ferocity and the weight of the Roman Empire going for him when he felt threatened.

Joseph didn't weigh options, but he did have dreams. Flight was the only viable option for such vulnerable people, so it's a good thing the dreams were explicit and gave them a head start. They were so vulnerable. A mother and a baby in the company of Joseph - a dreamer, a guy who acts. There's a banner today about what they did. Flight.

Joseph is not the part of today's story that irks me. What irks me is Herod. "There is a little bit of Herod in all of us." Herod's response to being threatened seems like "fight." Since we have a new banner about "flight" and not "fight," this might imply that your pastor is saying that the Christian response to threat is "flight" and that it is heathens like Herod who fight. Which runs into some conflict with the message we get in our culture. The popular heroes we admire - the John Waynes and George Pattons - stand in contrast to "flight." They make flight look like an act of cowardice. Stand your ground. Fight for what you believe. Stay and fight like a man. Even our cliches reinforce the idea that "fight" is the honorable course of action. The alternative is to turn tail and run. Hightail it out of town. Cut your losses. Run for the hills. What both of these images ignore - fight or flight - is the "why" of the trip to Egypt. I'm not talking about the dreams. I'm talking about that Baby, about why we have this story today, the first week after Christmas. I'm talking about what this tells us about God and about us.

What we have in this story is a third way. Instead of either fight or flight, we see vulnerability. The vulnerability is God's, of course. Can you see Herod choosing personal helplessness in the face of anything, let alone threat? This is the guy who killed three of his own sons because they threatened his throne. Why would he scruple about twenty babies, as long as their deaths got rid of the one purported to be the new king of the Jews?

But here is God, choosing the vulnerable course of action. The Creator putting on the body of the created, with all its limitations. This same God who, since the beginning of interaction with humans, has always opted for the vulnerable ones, despite the fact that these same humans, given half a shred of power, have undermined and subverted God's salvation plans since Eden. Yet, this God takes matters into divine hands by submitting to vulnerability, by pouring God's self into the nature of those who need salvation. Instead of responding to human threat with a fight response (which would knock the whole planet out of commission) or a flight response (which would abandon us to our own devices and eventual destruction), this God takes a third way. God leads by vulnerability.

Where is God leading creation? The divine purpose, God's direction since the creation of the world, has always been salvation. Even though we humans do our best to un-do it. Herod didn't know what he was up against with that Baby, but he was working on un-doing the salvation plan. Herod was threatened and his response, seen in light of God's salvation plan, was flight. We do the same thing. Not by slaughtering the innocents, but by undermining God's plan of salvation. When we run from God's plan for our lives, this is a negative use of the "flight" response. Some of the most miserable people I know are people who respond to God's call on their lives by running in the opposite direction. Go to seminary? Are you nuts? The whole lifestyle would have to change. What about the kids' music lessons? Spend 15 minutes a day in quiet time? Are you crazy? Where am I going to get 15 minutes on my own? Deliver meals on wheels? Surely you joke. I have enough trouble getting my own food on the table! A mission trip? I only get two weeks of vacation a year! God's salvation plan often seems a threat to us - to who we think we are, to how we think our lives ought to be. We've been hearing a lot about "freedom" and "liberty" since the events of September 11. I'm here to tell you that "freedom" does not mean, "I get to do whatever I want whenever I want." "Freedom" means living into who God created you to be. Which can threaten your sense of who you are. And when we are threatened, we little Herods respond with either fight or flight.

When God leads humanity to salvation by the third way - by adopting vulnerability instead of fight or flight - we are given the option of a third way as well. Because Jesus took on all of the vulnerability of human-ness, including vulnerability to death, our choices are no longer either fight or flight. Our choices now include the option of freedom - the freedom offered by the God who leads us by vulnerability. That freedom starts in obedience to God and ends in nothing less than the glorious fulfillment of God's kingdom. In our lives. Hallelujah!