Magi travel to Jerusalem in search of an Epiphany, seeing God in a child born to goodness. They encounter a ruler trained otherwise, King Herod. Herod is “greatly troubled” by his meeting with these Wise Ones. The king has “assembled his chief priests and scribes” and deceptively tells the Magi, “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage.” But, after “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they traveled to their country by another way.”
Magi, wisely committed to goodness, discern that Herod is committed to destruction. Herod is deceptive and elaborate in spectacle to hide his destructive intent. As it was 2,000 years ago, so it is currently with the GOP who are also deceptive. They speak of democracy, but they plot destruction; in their tactics for a new House ruler and in their submission to a deceptive Mara Lago ruler who, like Herod, plots the destruction of many a Christ child. GOP officials need fools deceived by spectacle to accomplish their destruction – denying people first amendment rights, curriculum, health care, marriage equality, Social Security, voting, and so much more – while at the same they plot destruction through incessant gun rights. How to instead be Magi, committed to goodness and wisdom, to be committed to starlight found inside and out, whose guidance is sometimes strong and sometimes subtle. In our commitment we are thus not swayed by rulers and their spectacles. But what has become of commitment in the age of scrolling through spectacle? It is the question Pete Davis asks in his book, Dedicated: The Case for Commitment in an Age of Infinite Browsing. Davis asserts, we “yearn for the purpose, community, and depth that can only come from making deep commitments.” But we are dissuaded from deep commitment, especially to goodness and wisdom, by the many options screens put at our fingertips. We are dissuaded by deceptive rulers whose real and digital algorithms are set not for commitment but for all that constitutes its antithesis: passivity, disaffection, detachment. We are “lulled into indecisiveness” as we go from one spectacle to the next, one post to the next, one relationship to the next, and one ruler to the next. FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out, surfaces. FOMO keeps us continually connected, for example to House Speaker Herod, but mostly digitally, as if on autopilot, and mostly to the spectacle of what others are doing but not to its goodness. Neither are we connected or committed to goodness in ourselves. We ‘browse’ through our own lives in a state of passivity, disaffection, and detachment. We are lulled into false equivalence believing one minute with a social influencer who entertains us or confirms our bias is as good as, or perhaps better than, one meaningful encounter with a conscientious human being who nurtures wisdom in us. We are disempowered of the depth of our goodness and share little wisdom. We become MAGA, not Magi, and foolishly we “return to Herod.” It is the path of citizens, especially conservative citizens, who are fools to the spectacle and deception of rulers who will keep us scrolling through oddities and opinions, posts and pageants, circuses and conspiracies. Author Aurelia Davila Pratt would have us be Magi, committed to goodness and wisdom. In A Brown Girl’s Epiphany, Davila Pratt advises we “Step Out of Harmful Paradigms,” like Hierarchy, Autopilot, and Shame. She advises we “Step Into Our Power,” like Mystery, Embodiment, and Goodness. Take a Magi journey, “committing yourself to seeing God, seeing God in me and seeing God in you.” It is a commitment to seeing God in Herods and not destroying them or going around them but challenging their deception and spectacle through our commitment to goodness and wisdom.
“I saw my life branching out before me like a green fig tree… From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned… One fig was a husband and a happy home… another fig was a famous poet… and another fig was… a pack of lovers with… offbeat professions… and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind… and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground.” (The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, I live committed to goodness and wisdom.
Question: In what ways do I go around a commitment to goodness and in what ways do I hold steady?
January 8, 2023 Gospel Matthew 2:1-12 The Epiphany