Rachel’s Children
John Shuck
First Presbyterian Church
Elizabethton, Tennessee
December 30th,
2007
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who
has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and
have come to pay him homage.” 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 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 wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem,
saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him,
bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”
When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazorean.” Matthew 2:1-23
After the New Year we begin our quest to read the Bible
cover to cover. I have been helped along
the way by those who have provided a way to read and to help me find renewed
appreciation for the texts of the Bible and of the Christian tradition and of
other spiritual traditions.
One of my guides has been scholar Marcus Borg. He has told the story of his spiritual
journey in his various books and articles.
We just finished one of his books, The
Heart of Christianity, in our Thursday study group.
Borg grew up in the Lutheran church in North Dakota. His early experience of faith was like mine
and possibly yours. In this period, he
read the Bible with what he calls pre-critical naiveté. He didn’t question the stories as to their
historical validity. He accepted them
as written. Noah really did put all the
animals on the ark, two by two. Jesus
did walk on water and was born of a virgin and so forth.
With pre-critical naiveté we see Matthew’s story of the magi
following the star and Herod killing the innocents and the great escape of the
Holy Family as something that happened.
Later in life, he went through a period of critical thinking
about the Bible. He recognized that the
Bible was a human work. He put the tools
of historical and literary analysis to the texts. This
analysis showed that the stories of the Bible were compiled over long periods
of time. They borrowed their legends
from other sources. You could call this
a period of deconstruction. The stories
of the Bible and Jesus were likely not historical but legendary. I also had this experience, perhaps you have
as well.
With deconstruction, we recognize that Matthew’s story is
not historical. The story of Herod
killing all male babies under two in an attempt to get to Jesus is a retelling
of the story in the first chapters of Exodus where Pharaoh kills all the male
children in order to get to Moses.
Pharaoh fails and well as Herod in getting the promised child. These stories as well as the magi and the
gifts and the star are themes drawn from the Hebrew scriptures.
Deconstruction tells us it didn’t happen. The birth stories, to put it bluntly, are
fictions. While that is true enough from
an historical perspective, it can leave one rather, well, deconstructed.
Marcus Borg tells us of a third step. He calls this move post-critical naiveté. From this standpoint one recognizes the
legendary quality of the stories, but then asks, “Why are they here? What is their truth? What do they mean?”
Rather than stop at deconstruction, by dismissing the story
as a fiction and not worth our time, post-critical naiveté enters the story as
story and invites the story to provide a critique of the self.
Post-critical naiveté asks what this story tells us about
life, about the world, about whatever it is we call God and about
ourselves. We enter the story to seek a
word of truth for us.
We don’t ignore deconstruction. In fact we continue to use the best critical
tools at our disposal to try to discover the context of these texts and why
they were written. Yet we also move to
the next step. We put ourselves in the
position of the characters.
The infancy narrative in Matthew is the Gospel of Matthew in
miniature. Jesus is presented as the new
Moses. The same forces at work to
thwart the liberation of the Hebrew people from slavery by Pharaoh are at work
in Herod. The good news from Matthew’s
viewpoint is that God finds a way.
In their latest book, The
First Christmas, Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan write that any first
century hearer of this story would know the connection between Herod and
Pharaoh. Borg and Crossan write that
the story could be put into a headline that reads:
Evildoer Kills All Male Children Under Two:
Chosen Child Escapes
This is the story that is repeated throughout
literature. It is the story of the
hero. It is an archetypal story. The hero has a divine blessing, a guardian
angel. From Moses to Homer’s Ulysses to
the legends of King Arthur to Star Wars we find this theme. The chosen one is protected, guided, and
escapes at the last minute so that he or she can complete the larger mission to
save the people.
The story did not happen. It always happens (at least in
storytelling).
The story of the hero is told by the vantage point of
time. The hero doesn’t know she or he is
a hero. At the moment in these stories
they are as confused as anyone. The
storytellers know and the hearers know.
The storytellers look back and say, “See, the hand of Divine Providence
was in it all of the time.” In the case
of Matthew’s Gospel, the author uses the tool of prophecy. Matthew in his infancy account uses the
prophetic technique five times.
Matthew writes the gospel to inspire and empower those in
his time to trust. This story will
repeat again, and you will be the hero.
At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus is on the mountain and he says to
his disciples, “Go into the world, make disciples of all nations, and remember
that I am with you until the end.” Jesus
is assuring them that they are not on their own; Divine Providence is with them.
The hero’s story is one in which the Divine must be
present. No hero completes the quest
without the blessing of the Fates, or the Force, or God, or Goddess or
something. In the Christian story, Christ.
The hero does not choose to be a hero. The hero is chosen. The hero is not chosen for special status but
for service. This service will require
of the hero great sacrifice. Jesus goes
to the cross to demonstrate the way of the hero.
In addition to Divine blessing, the hero must also have some
characteristics. The hero must be
courageous, compassionate, trustworthy and pure of heart. Above all, the hero must have integrity.
The hero goes through tests.
Jesus goes into the Wilderness for forty days and nights to be
tested. The hero must always be ready
to look at herself to see if her motives are pure. The hero must be honest. The hero must take an inventory of
herself.
In Matthew’s Gospel the Sermon on the Mount, particularly
the Beatitudes describe the characteristics of the hero:
Blessed are the pure in heart.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Blessed are the meek.
Blessed are you when you are accused falsely.
And so on…
Matthew’s Gospel could be called The Making of Heroes. In Matthew’s Gospel, the disciples of Jesus
are called, chosen, to be heroes. For
Christians, baptism is the sign or the symbol of being chosen by God for the
task of heroism.
And you thought it was just about getting into heaven when
you die. Baptism is the sign of the
call to demonstrate the realm of God on Earth.
The tragic flaw of the villain in these stories is that the
villain wants to be the hero, but the villain’s heart is not pure. The villain has a hardened heart. In many of these heroic tales, the villain
starts out as chosen and has all the characteristics of the hero: strong, courageous, intelligent, but lacks
the purity of heart. The villain wants
to control events rather than be guided by Divine Providence.
When the hero becomes Herod, all kinds of bad things
happen. Rachel weeps for her children, for they are no
more. When the hero becomes Herod,
cruelty reigns. The strange thing is
that in Herod’s mind, he is doing what needs to be done. How many leaders have killed the innocent
for a cause?
Our world is filled with the blood of innocents who are the
collateral damage for those who want to make the world in their image.
When we enter this story of the birth of Jesus, this heroic
story, we are asked by the story itself, if we are going to be the hero or
Herod? That question calls us to look
inward. Do we have purity of heart? Are we concerned more with controlling events
or by trusting and being guided by that which is good? That is why taking that inventory of self is
so crucial on a regular basis. We must
look within to name and to ask God to remove all defects of character.
I have heard that we live in an age without heroes. That could be.
It also could be that each of us is being called to the
heroic quest.
