I don’t know about you but I don’t like being disturbed. Especially when it has taken me a while to get everything just the way it should be, and I can finally settle down into the comfort of the conditions I have created. Whether it be the way my office administration operates, or something smaller like settling down to have a cozy evening read; I dislike disturbance.
On this feast of the Epiphany Matthew tells us that Herod and the whole of Jerusalem were disturbed. It was all because some exotic Eastern mystics, called Magi, who drifted into Jerusalem, wanted to know where the child was who had been born as the king of the Jews.
I am puzzled as to why this should have made troubled Herod, and why Herod’s perturbation should have been so infectious as to disturb all of Jerusalem with him?
But when I remember how I dislike being disturbed I begin to understand Herod’s agitation. He had built himself a comfortable kingdom that worked for him. Obsequious enough to Rome, he was rewarded with “homeland” rule, much like the puppet leaders of the old South African regime were rewarded for their loyalty to the Pretoria Nationalists.
The mere thought that there was another “king” out there who could threaten Herod’s comfort was cause enough to disturb him. The fact that the whole of Jerusalem was agitated too, is testimony to the fact that there are very few societies that embrace change. Despite the graces of a Gandhi, Mandela or Obama, we still find change from our familiar power bases disturbing.
As we read on into this chapter however, we are given deeper clues as to the reason for the agitation. Herod like so many power players was agitated because at a deep level he knew that there were ethical issues at stake.
Shepherding is not associated with political power is it?
Rulers rule. Presidents preside. Leaders lead. Executives execute.
Shepherding implies compassion, care and a courageous life-sacrificing quality that few powerful people would understand or want to practice.
Yet this had always been the basis of Godly rule from the inception of the monarchy in Israel. The very first king David was called from the flocks to be the shepherd king, an archetype which was espoused and fulfilled in Jesus the good shepherd.
Herod, power player and man of maneuvering, could not begin to think of his leadership in those terms, and even though his scripture scholars may have pointed out that this was the scriptural paradigm, Herod knew that this was not how he came to power, and this was certainly not how he was going to stay in power.
So he turned his focus to bloodshed and destruction and is forever remembered as the butcher of the Bethlehem innocents.
I wonder how we are reacting to the reality that there is one amongst us who challenges our illegitimate power bases? This holy child whose birth we have totally over-celebrated, once again, last week.
Do we also want to “put him away” this Epiphany? Of course not in butchering bloodshed! We are too subtle for that. No we can simply pack this shepherd king away with the Christmas tree and lights, as we dismantle them on the twelfth day of Christmas and assign them to the musty cupboard till next Advent?
Are we also agitated and troubled by the thought that allowing this child to continue to grow in our “homelands” may cost us too much, and disturb our comfortable kingdoms more than we care for?
Herod hid from grace and terrible destruction was the fate and fruit of his life from then on.
Could we do it differently?
The mystical magi are knocking on the door. They speak of stars and destiny, and shepherd kings who can lead us to God.
Will we allow them to disturb us enough that we might join their caravan of change?