"And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road." (Matthew 2:12)
And just like that, the Magi ride off into the sunset (well, sunrise, I suppose, since they would have been heading back eastward) on their way home, and we never hear from them again.
I used to think that this abrupt ending was unsatisfying, because we never find out what happened to them on their return trip. But the more I sit with this verse, the more I think that this farewell to the Magi gives us all we need for the moment, because Matthew tells us they realized they didn't have to follow Herod's directions. They were free, because they found another way, one that didn't resort to the way of Herod's cruelty and violence. The story of the Magi tells us that it is possible not to get sucked into the sway of tyrants and bullies. We do not have to participate in their tactics, their goals, or their agendas. We can find another way.
The Magi haven't come to that realization by their own intellect or reasoning; it takes a message from God in a dream to get through to them. But of course, that's often how things go for us in our own lives, too. It is so easy to be swept up in what everyone else says "This is just how the world is," or "You have to do things the way the world does them" that we never question, "Wait--why does it have to be this way?" Sometimes it takes a message out of the blue to wake us from our passive slumbers and to remind us we don't have to be complicit, that we don't have to go along with the powers of the day--not even when they lie to us and tell us we have no choice. God gives that wake-up call to the Magi (literally) to awaken them to the truth that they do not have to comply with Herod. They can find another way.
Of course, part of the problem for the Magi up to this point of the story is that they didn't realize that they had been bamboozled by the "great" king, and he was only using them as a means to get to the baby he sees as a threat. These supposedly "wise" men couldn't see that they were being manipulated, just as the scribes and priests had been duped into working for Herod and supporting his paranoid campaign against the rumored infant Messiah. God's message in the dream lets them know that they don't have to obey Herod, and that they are in fact free simply to walk away. In a very real sense, God instigates a direct action of civil disobedience on the part of the Magi and frees them from being strong-armed into the "But I was just following orders!" mindset. Perhaps it had never dawned on them that they were being played for fools, or perhaps they didn't realize they could defy the local king--but God makes sure they see both truths and sends them in a new direction.
I want to sit with this important concluding turn in the Epiphany story because all too often in the history of Christianity, Respectable Religious Folks have not had the same insight. All too often, we have allowed ourselves to be cajoled into complicity with evil or peer-pressured into supporting cruelty, injustice, or violence, without coming to the realization that we do not have to go along with what the Powers of the Day tell us. From crusaders and conquistadors with crosses emblazoned on their shields, told they had to kill and dominate others in faraway lands for "the sake of the gospel," to Christians who dutifully (they thought) supported slavery, protected the slave trade, or profited from its continuance, to the mass of people swept up in regimes like the Third Reich, church-going Christians have committed atrocities ordered by the Herods of their day because they believed they had to obey. Perhaps we have forgotten stories like this one from the Gospel of Matthew, where God's action is the catalyst for the Magi to find another way home, one different from the path Herod wanted them to take. Perhaps we need to be reminded and awakened.
There are going to be times in our lives when the prevailing powers would have us believe we have no choice but to be cruel... or to be greedy... or to turn others away when they are in need. They will tell us we can't speak out again endless war because war is "just how the world works," or that we cannot speak up for those whose homes are reduced to rubble after a drone or missile attack. They will tell us that "Me and My Group First!" is just the way of the world and there's no use fighting it and no way of changing it. They will tell us we had better just fall in line and do as they say, and then everything else will go so much more smoothly. They offer us the excuse of saying later, "I was just following orders!" in exchange for not ever questioning them. When it happens, it's worth remembering the lesson of the Magi, who discover that they do not owe Herod their allegiance and they do not have to give him their support.
When the voices from the palace tell us we have no option but to support their agendas, no matter how rotten they are, the story of the Magi gives us the freedom to say "No" to Herod's way so that we can say "yes" to finding another, better path to follow.
Lord God, lead us on your way and give us the wisdom and courage to distinguish it from the other competing ways and voices around us.
I've asked my husband more than once if as a policeman he would obey an order that he knew was wrong. On the one hand you have to work to eat and support your family. On the other hand you have to live with yourself. He hasn't been able to give me an answer because he never had to face that choice. I pray for anyone who might have to choose.
ReplyDeleteI know it's never easy in those positions. I think that's part of why stories like these (or of civil disobedience like resisting the Nazis or the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s) are so important to remember, because they shape us and train us for responding with integrity if we are in situations of our own that call for saying "no."
Delete