Matthew 2:1-12 (13-18)
Epiphany
January 6, 2013
Epiphany
January 6, 2013
Rev. John M. Caldwell, PhD
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, IA
First United Methodist Church
Decorah, IA
What a strange and
disturbing story Matthew tells us!
Epiphany rounds out the Christmas season, the thirteenth day of
Christmas as it were. And we who have
basked in warm Christmas feelings, hoping for a parting blessing from Matthew,
are given instead this story of visiting magi.
Some of the story is
okay. At least we’ve managed to
domesticate it by weaving it into the story that Luke tells. And the result is a Christmas pageant,
complete with towels, beards and bathrobes:
Joseph and Mary journey to Bethlehem from Nazareth (that’s Luke, not Matthew),
Mary gives birth to Jesus in a stable (again, that’s Luke, not Matthew), angels
appear to shepherds who rush to see the baby Jesus (Luke again), the shepherds
exit stage left, the magi enter from stage left (that’s Matthew at last), give
their gifts and exit stage right. Cue
the organist for “Silent Night” and light our candles.
But Matthew’s story
isn’t finished, not by a long shot. For
one thing the Christmas pageant left out the visit of the magi to Herod. We don’t really know who the magi were, not
for certain. They were not kings; we
know that. We don’t know how many they
were or where precisely they came from.
This vagueness is probably deliberate: it creates some mystery around
these figures.
They were astrologers. Like most ancients they believed that the
cosmos was arranged so that the events in the heavens and the events on earth
were linked in some way. Interpreted
correctly, the dance of stars, planets, moon and sun could unlock the secrets
of things that were happening or were about to happen on earth. These magi had claimed to have seen a star
that belonged to the newborn king of Judea.
So they came to Judea, looking for him.
This was news to
Herod--and not good news. There had been
no births in his palace. Any newborn
king was a security threat to his regime.
Once again his intelligence community had let him down. Oh, sure, they could tell him where Messiah
was to be born, but if they missed the fact that he had been born, what
good were they?
Threatened autocrats
are dangerous. If we have any doubt of
that we have only to ask the folks in Libya or Syria. Herod was a threatened autocrat and with
plenty of reason Jerusalem was frightened.
Herod held a secret
meeting with the magi and squeezed as much from them as he could. He extracted promises of updated intelligence
once they had found the child. So he,
too, could go a worship him, he said.
But of course this was a lie.
Herod never had any intention of worshiping his rival; he only wanted
the intelligence so he could have his rival killed.
It was nothing
personal, you understand. The political
situation was delicate. Unless they were
managed carefully and skillfully, the Romans threatened Judea’s very
existence. And Herod knew how to manage
them. Any threat to Herod was a threat
to Judea itself. So anything that Herod
did to preserve his power had to be done for the sake of his country. That’s how Herod thinks.
In that way, of
course, Herod is not unique. He thinks
like the Empire he pretends to manage, that is in fact managing him. There are always plenty of Herods. And there is always an empire. And that is how empires and autocrats think. In their own minds their actions are always
justified for the sake of the greater good.
When push comes to shove, though, they will do anything it takes to hang
on to their power.
We leave this part
out of the Christmas pageant. We might
or might notice in the Christmas pageant that the magi were not born
yesterday. With or without helpful
dreams they know better than to go back to Jerusalem. So, while they came in from the left, they
leave to the right.
But Herod is not
going to be turned aside so easily.
Herod lacks the precise intelligence that he needed to have Jesus
assassinated quietly. But he knows the
district in which Jesus is to be found.
At least his intelligence community could give him that
information. Thanks to the magi he knows
when Jesus has been born, more or less.
So, just to cover his bases, and for the sake of the greater good of
Judea, he orders a special op to murder all the boys who are two years of age
or younger in the district of Bethlehem.
I’m sure he didn’t call it murder.
I’m sure he said “take out” or “interdict” or something like that. But it was all the same to the children and
their families. In Herod’s mind
preserving the fragile peace of Judea was a necessary goal that was worth the
few dozen toddlers who had to die to make it happen.
Herod may be long
since dead, but his way of thinking is very much alive.
On October 9 of this
year, a fifteen year old Pakistani girl named Malala Yousafzai was shot in the
head and neck by Taliban gunmen as she rode home on a school bus. She had become an outspoken champion of the
education of girls. Doubtless the
Taliban regards her as a threat to their version of Muslim culture. For them the death of this bright and
beautiful young woman would be an acceptable price to pay for the greater good.
We ourselves have
been engaged in a global war against Al-Qaeda and allied movements. One of our tactics is the use of remotely
operated aircraft, commonly called drones.
We use them to kill militants in remote areas or in places where it is
politically impossible to reach them with troops on the ground. Parts of Pakistan fit this definition. By definition, any male who is in the area of
a drone strike is considered a combatant, and we do not count civilian
casualties. But among those deaths we do
not count have been over 175 children[1] in Pakistan alone. But this is an acceptable price to pay for
the greater good.
Of course we have
had our own “slaughter of the innocents” in Newtown, CT. This event, unlike any other that I can
recall, has prompted a national conversation about how we can protect a right
to own and use firearms for legitimate purposes and protect our children and
each other from gun violence. There are
many thoughtful and caring people who have entered that debate and they
represent a variety of opinions. I'm
sure they are all well-represented right here.
There are serious disagreements, but I believe that if we pursue this
conversation we will prove wise enough and caring enough to figure it out.
But of the gun and
ammunition manufacturers I have a different opinion. We don’t have many autocrats in our country,
but we do have large corporations. If
corporations are persons, as the Supreme Court seems to think, then I think
they tend to be sociopathic persons.
Sociopaths look pretty good from the outside. They are often charming. But they do not care about the feelings of
others. They only thing they care about
is getting what they want. And they want
what they want because they want it.
Corporations, too,
especially large ones, have nice headquarters buildings with lots of gleaming
steel and glass. They have effective
public relations departments to put a good face on their actions. But they only care about two things: profits
and growth. The people who work for
these corporations don't often act that way, but the corporation itself
does. Certainly, this picture fits the
gun manufacturers who for the sake of nearly a billion dollars in profits last
year are willing to accept the deaths of 20 children in Newtown.
What is their
solution to gun violence? Their solution is more guns—guns in schools, guns in
movie theaters, guns in offices, guns in churches, guns in every store, guns in
every home, guns everywhere. This would
certainly expand their market and increase their profits. And this is what they care about.
Herod and the
empire, in whatever guises they appear, do not care about toddlers in Bethlehem
or brave Pakistani girls or first graders in Newtown. They care only about their own power and
profit.
This would be an
awful way to end the Christmas season if Herod and the empire had the last
word. But they do not.
Jesus and his family
escaped Herod’s attempt to assassinate him.
Even Pontius Pilate, who succeeds in putting Jesus to death, does not
have the last word. That word is
pronounced by the angel at the tomb: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are
looking for Jesus who was crucified. He
is not here; for he has been raised…”[2]
The empire does not have the last word.
Two days ago Malala
Yousafzai walked out of a British hospital, waving at hospital staff members
and holding her head high. The empire
does not have the last word.
A star shines its
light into the empire’s darkness and nothing that Herod can do can stop
it. The empire does not have the last
word.
In these dark days
the light of that star still shines. And
when it seems that the empire is too big and too powerful to resist, let alone
reform, let us remember and never forget: The empire does not have the last word.
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[1] “The
British-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) has calculated that by
August 2011, 2,347 people had been killed by drone attacks in Pakistan alone.
The total included at least 392 civilians, 175 of them children. The Obama
administration refuses to tally civilian deaths, arbitrarily labeling all males
within a drone target area as “combatants” unless there is evidence proving
otherwise.” O’Connor, Patrick. “New US Drone Attacks in Pakistan and Yemen |
Global Research.” Global Research: Centre for Research on Globalization,
January 4, 2013.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/new-us-drone-attacks-in-pakistan-and-yemen/5317718.
[2]
Matthew 28:5b-6a.
