Every One Into His Own City

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.

Admittedly, my knowledge of Roman imperial taxation policy and census registration (remember, we have established that the same word applies to taxing and registering in the King James Version of this story) is scant to nonexistent, but if we take just a moment to compare it to registration and taxation in our own day and time -- and at this point I have to go with how it is conducted in my limited view as a citizen of the United States of America -- we may get some insight. Perhaps it is not enough to build a sermon on, though I am convinced that you can take any verse in the Bible and make a sermon from it! But if this one leaves you high and dry, there are 31,172 others to choose from. It seems an unusual requirement, having all the families pack their bags and travel back to the city where they were born (what "every one into his own city" means; more on where Joseph and Mary were traveling from next installment).

But when we read this in context and apply what little we know twenty centuries removed from the event, it makes sense. It is a fulfillment of prophecy -- there is a passage in the Old Testament book of Micah (which just so you know is the earliest chronologically of all the Old Testament "Minor Prophets", from the second half of the eighth century BC), specifically Micah 5:2-3, that establishes the future king of Israel is going to be born in Beth-lehem, about sixty-six miles south of Nazareth as the crow ... no, wrong analogy, as the donkey plods, since Mary who was very pregnant at the time would most likely be riding one with Joseph guiding the animal by the reins. And it would take some time to get there, not only with Joseph walking an average of four miles per hour but slowed down by keeping at the speed of the donkey and the traffic of others riding and walking to Beth-lehem but also having to stop for the Sabbath days of rest and dealing with those charming Romans.

Or did we forget that Galilee and Samaria (which any faithful and orthodox Jew would have traveled AROUND despite its being in a straight line from Galilee; seriously, check a map) and Judea were all under Roman occupation? By the time of this story, those areas have been under Roman occupation for seven decades and never been citizens of the Republic or the Empire -- that privilege is largely limited to those on the Italian peninsula and those who willingly accept Romans as the top dogs -- and unlike (in theory) our modern societies, the principal burden of taxation and registration was upon those least able to pay the costs. It was a poor world Jesus would be born into and grow up in, and I believe we would agree that very little has changed save the names. But as we continue reading from our vantage point perusing the Gospel of Luke, we will see that what could have been an unrecorded uneventful UNevent will become THE Event that still affects us.