Naming the Villain--January 7, 2020

Naming the Villain--January 7, 2020

When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, 'In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet: 

    And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, 

        are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah;

    for from you shall come a ruler

        who is to shepherd my people Israel.'

Then Herod secretly called for the Magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, sayin, 'Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I also may go and pay him homage'." [Matthew 2:3-8]

I'm not sure which is most terrifying: do you suppose Herod knew he was the villain in this story?  Do you suppose he really thought he was being a good and just ruler by trying to hunt down the rumored messianic baby?  Or do you suppose he didn't even care if he was being righteous or ruthless here?

To be honest, I'm not sure which is the most horrifying possibility to me, because they are all terrible.  And, to be even more honest, I know that nobody likes to spend much time at all thinking about this part of the Bible story.  Somehow, nobody's Nativity set includes a Wicked King Herod figurine, but lots of people shell out extra money for the "Three Wise Men Expansion Pack," carrying their obligatory jars, boxes, and bottles.  And yet, truth be told, Herod gets more speaking lines and screen time, so to speak, than the Magi do.  We don't want to ask the unpleasant questions about Herod's place in the story, because they mess up the sentimentality we try so hard to cultivate at Christmas-time, and because those questions end up poking us as well if we think them through.

Because, here's the thing: even if Herod doesn't realize that he is the villain in this story, we should be able to say it.  We need to be able to recognize that there is no good "spin" to put on Herod's choices, his actions, his words, or his trickery.  He may not realize that what is doing is terrible and wicked, but we need to be able to say that about him. We have to be able to name the villain, or else we lose the ability to say anything credibly.  And the Respectable Religious People in this story--the people who have cashed in their integrity and leveraged their positions as Religious Professionals to lend support to Herod without question--they should know better.  They should have been able to see that Herod is neither just nor wise in his plotting to hunt out the rumored Messiah, and they should have realized that this quest to find out from the Magi about the appearance of his natal star was a cowardly and cutthroat plot to kill a possible rival, not a show of true faith.

And this is what frightens me about saying this out loud, or writing it down so my eyes can't ignore it: other voices, including Jewish voices, of the time, were able to see the truth about Herod... and they saw he was despicable, insecure, and narcissistic.  And they said so.  Josephus, for one, was a Jewish historian who lived just after the time of Jesus in the first century, was critical of Herod as basically unfit to reign.  Herod was cruel, paranoid, and in need of near constant ego-stroking.  He was, in other words, known far and wide not to be faithful doer of justice or even a wise ruler, but was often petty, violent, and cruel.  And yet, when a "frightened" King Herod summons the priests and scribes (the biggest names in Respectable Religious Professionals at the time), they help him in his quest for finding the birthplace of the rumored child, and they do not speak out or see his true intentions.  They are complicit, by their silence, if by nothing else.  

And maybe, most frightening to me (a religious professional myself... cough, cough) is the possibility that someone could be so swayed by someone like Herod that they would no longer be able to see what was righteous and what was ruthless any longer.  Maybe after so long, accepting Herod's ways bit by bit over time, they lost the ability to see it... or they lost the courage to say it.  But by the time the Magi actually visit, these chief priests and scribes, these big-name Respectable Religious leaders of the day, they can no longer name the villain for what he is, whether by inability to see it, or cowardice to face the truth.

Our older brother in the faith, Martin Luther, famously pointed out that Herod surely knew how to present himself like he was a defender of truth, justice, and national security. In one Christmas sermon, Luther says, "Doubt not that Herod would find a plausible defense so that people would regard it, not as tyranny, but as necessary severity…. He could plausibly argue that it were better to bereave a few hundred fathers and mothers of their children that to ruin the whole land. Thus Herod and his men took the sword, and became frightful murderers even though they put out such a persuasive defense that everyone thought they were keeping the peace."  That, I think, is the most haunting thing about this part of the story of the journey of the Magi: that their presence interrupts and exposes how Herod had convinced even many faithful and devout people into thinking that he was good and wise and just, and that God wanted him on the throne.

But the fact that the Respectable Religious Leaders in Jerusalem all gave their support to Herod (or were willing to look the other way, or to stay silent in their complicity) forces me to ask for myself: are my senses so dulled that I would not have spotted Herod's rottenness?  Am I so afraid--of what people will say, of being unpopular, of losing a comfortable situation, of all of the above--that I would, like the Religious Professionals of Herod's day, have just kept my mouth shut and implicitly endorsed Herod's treachery and cruelty?  Because, if Herod couldn't even recognize that he had become the villain, I suspect that the Respectable Religious Leaders could no longer recognize what they were doing as complicit in his wickedness, too.  They could not see that they were henchmen to the villain, which is no better than being the villain himself.  And I am reminded of that famous Pogo cartoon which ends with the line, "We have met the enemy.  And he is us."

If the Respectable Religious Leaders of Herod's day were either fooled or intimidated into aiding him, what will keep me from being so fooled or fearful myself?  

And in this day, what are the ways I, and all of us who dare to name the name of Jesus, allow our silence to keep terrible things happening?  What are the ways we allow ourselves to be coerced into cowardice or to have our sense of right and wrong dulled so that we do not see any longer what rottenness is all around us?  What are the ways we get so used to our comfortable way of life that we don't want to make waves or be the ones to stick our necks out?  And what would give us the holy courage to see the ways we ourselves are the enemy, that we ourselves are part of the problem, and that we ourselves are in need of God's transforming presence to cleanse the rottenness in our own hearts, to shake up the complacency in our spirits, and to clear our vision once again?

If we dare to ask such questions about the Respectable Religious Folk in first-century Jerusalem during the time of Herod, we are going to have to ask the same uncomfortable questions of ourselves, and how each of us either helps or hinders the work of Christ in the world.  In the end, God is going to get done what God wants to get done--even when the preachers, priests, and holy folk fail and fall silent in complicity, God finds other ways to get the Magi to the Christ-child and then to rescue the Christ from Herod.  But what a shame--what a literally damned shame it is--if God has to work in spite of the religious folks to advance the mission of Christ.

I am afraid to ask it, but I keep needing to ask: how can each of us look in our own hearts, our own actions, our own words, and our silences, to see where we have allowed ourselves to become obstacles to God's purposes, to be ruled by fear, or to be complicit with Herod?  And how can each of us turn from those old ways to be used to bear Christ for the world?

It starts with being able to name the villain: and including in that recognition that we are, each of us, part of the problem, too.

Lord God, give me the courage and clarity to speak and act for the sake of your love for the world in Christ.