The Epiphany, 3rd January 2021
Austwick, Clapham and online
“There are angels singing new songs - at the king's court;
There the bells are ringing - at the king's court. O that we were there!” [1]
The last verse of In Dulci Jubilo gives us a sense of the spirit in which those magi travelled on their journey to find a special new-born king. Their mood of anticipation, confidence, hope.
To be clear, they weren’t kings, those mysterious magi, but they were at home in the company of kings. They are likely to have been priests of the Persian empire or seers, magicians, interpreters of dreams in the court of their king. Either way they would be deeply embedded in the courtly scene. Little wonder that on their journey of exploration they made for Jerusalem’s palace to meet up with Herod’s coterie of priests and scribes.
They didn’t find angels singing new songs in King Herod’s court. His rage and its consequences are another story told on another feast, the Feast of the Holy Innocents, but those dark doings hover on the edge, or just below the surface, of the events narrated here. The only bells ringing in the ears of those sage travellers at Herod’s court would be alarm bells - for they were wise enough to tell the difference between the truth and the lie in Herod’s expressed desire to go and worship the new-born king. By becoming foils to the king’s blatant deception and calculated manipulation, by failing to return to Herod with directions as he’d requested, these courtiers took a great risk. For Herod’s rage at their betrayal would have doubtless sounded all the way back to Persia. [2]
What - besides their heads - might they have lost by breaking courtly conventions in this way? Their reputations as trustworthy employees of princes and kings; their priestly integrity in the eyes of their peers. Their protection of the infant Jesus was an act which we can imagine may have cost them dearly. What was it about Jesus that made them feel it was worthwhile risking giving up their status, giving up their established, secure positions in life, giving up being sure about what their future would hold? What meaning did they find in the songs they heard the angels singing, what inspiration in the bells they heard ringing at the court of the new king? What made them so willing to give up so much, and take a new direction in life, for the worship of this child?
Giving up our old ways is never easy: kingdoms in terminal decline resist all efforts by their people to take a new direction. Consider the kingdom of Herod the Great, his power established through a colossal programme of building projects throughout Judea including the renovation of Jerusalem's Second Temple. Herod’s achievements were built on a taxation system that heavily burdened the Judean people, who resented his frequent lavish spending on expensive gifts to enhance his reputation which emptied the kingdom's coffers. Late in his reign - around the time the magi called - Herod the Great was fiercely protecting his gains by prohibiting protests and having opponents removed by force. He had a bodyguard of 2,000 soldiers, and built five fortresses in which he and his family could take refuge in case of insurrection. [3]
This story calls out to us today, for it no longer seems ridiculous to suggest that we are in - or moving rapidly into - the last days of the kingdom - the world-system - which is all we’ve ever known. The signs of this terminal decline are all around us. 2020 began with record-breaking floods in Indonesia and Australian bushfires creating a smoke cloud 620 miles wide and 21 miles high, three times bigger than anything seen in the world before, spreading so far that black charcoal reached Antarctica, [4] whilst in east Africa and west Asia swarms of locusts bigger than cities, larger and denser than any in living memory, darkened the skies and devoured the land. [5]
This year begins with the world’s nations in a social and economic turmoil brought on by a pandemic which shares its root cause with these extreme material events: the disruption of nature for human exploitation, to serve what we might call a kingdom which for two centuries has greatly enriched much of humankind, but for what has turned out to be short-term gains at the expense of the earth, its creatures and our human future.
The distinguished writer Ursula K. Le Guin has said, “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” [6] Of course, resistance to change is fierce, from those who have the most to lose by giving up these ways of our industrialised, globalised lives. It feels like the last days of Herod over again. Even down to the greatest threat to the kingdom coming in the form of the smallest, most vulnerable child. Greta Thunberg, who turns 18 years old today, once said of her diagnosis with Asperger's syndrome, OCD and selective mutism, 'That basically means I only speak when I think it's necessary. Now is one of those moments.’ [7]
It will be hard for us to give up some of those things necessary for the flourishing of Greta’s grandchildren’s generation, and the earth which they will share. But - you know from your own experience - you will give something up if you sense it’s for a higher cause, if you’re sure it will make something better. I’m so thankful for those who have given up things for me: those who have given their time and talents to nurture me as a child, their gifts to teach me, their skills to heal and restore. I’m so awed by those who give up their retirement time to volunteer for community efforts which help the vulnerable ones or bring joy to the lonely ones around. I’m humbled by young people who, in the prime of their life, put their heart and soul into activities like restoring old woodlands or working in animal sanctuaries or coaching younger children in sports.
What is it that makes such people feel it worthwhile giving up their time and skills for others? What meaning do they find in the generous activities they perform? What makes them so willing to give up so much, and take a new direction in life, for the sake of others? There’s something of an Epiphany theme going on here.
As the writer and community activist Bill Wylie-Kellermann has said, ‘Epiphany is marching orders for the community of faith. It sends. As much as any other season it sets before us a public agenda. We ought to be both be sobered and encouraged, for by it our authority to preach to the nations, to speak truth to power, is spelled out. Not, however, an abstract truth, but an incarnational one, a truth rooted in Christ which manifestly must first take form in our own life.’ That same light which the magi followed, that light which enlightens all who give up in the cause of goodness, ‘Let the light be in us.’ [8]
Notes
[1] Bach Cantatas Website: Chorale Texts used in Bach's Vocal Works: In dulci jubilo: Text and Translation of Chorale.
[2] This paragraph reworks material from Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Seasons of Faith and Conscience: Explorations in Liturgical Direct Action, p.154.
[3] Wikipedia: Herod the Great.
[4] Jonathan Watts, Floods, storms and searing heat: 2020 in extreme weather. Guardian, 30 December 2020.
[5] Andreas Malm, Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency: War Communism in the Twenty-First Century. p.2-3.
[6] Ursula K. Le Guin, Acceptance Speech, The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, 19 November 2014.
[7] Wikipedia: Greta Thunberg.
[8] Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Seasons of Faith and Conscience: Explorations in Liturgical Direct Action, p.156.
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