(This entry is based on three major sources: Chapter 1 of Marianne Sawicki’s “Seeing The Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices”, Lecture #1 of Sharon Betcher’s “Constructive Theology II: Christology” course at Vancouver School of Theology, and a recent sermon that I preached on the Epiphany and the story of the Magi (Matthew 2:1-12).)
In the wake of Epiphany, I have been reflecting on the story of the magi in Matthew 2. So much has been made of this story throughout the history of the church, that isn’t present in the text itself. Much of the elaborations to the story are rooted in medieval and modernist understandings of christology, ecclesiology, and missiology.
Sharon Betcher, in her course “Constructive Theology II: Christology” at Vancouver School of Theology, insists that it is the responsibility of contemporary theologians to “decolonize” christology for the post-modern condition. For lay people, this will mostly consist of removing the lenses of various “-isms” to see the Christ and the christ-story as being multi-valent, mysterious, and life-giving in the here and now. Some of these -isms include:
• ethnocentrism - the belief that one’s culture is superior
• sexism - the belief that one’s gender is superior - this one comes in both feminist and patriarchal forms
• anthropocentrism - the belief that humankind is of supreme value relative to the natural world
• essentialism - the belief that there is one truth to any reality or one answer to any question
• supersessionism - the belief that one’s religious tradition is superior to all others, and renders them obsolete
All of these “-isms” have combined in the church to create a monolithic institution that I and others have come to call “Christendom”. A major piece of the work of public theology in the coming decades will be to liberate the notion of “Christianity” from the burdens of “Christendom” in the imaginations of the people.
What, then, is left when the lenses of these -isms (and Christendom) are removed? Let us use the story of the magi as an example. The tale in Matthew 2 is quite straightforward: astrologers (or “magi”) from afar observe an omen in the heavens, of the birth of a new “King of the Jews”. They travel to Jerusalem and ask devious, brutal King Herod about the birth. He, sensing a threat to his power, finds out where the messiah is foretold to be born, and sends the magi to Bethlehem, telling them to find the child and report back to him, so that he might also go and pay homage. The magi find the house by walking toward the star that first alerted them to the birth. When they see the modest house in the small village, they “rejoice with much great joy”. Then they pay homage to the child and give him three gifts. They do not return to King Herod or Jerusalem, but go straight home.
Chances are a majority of North American readers know something of this story, from nativity scenes, holiday carols, or greeting cards. But the story commonly known in the culture is known through the lenses from which we are asked to “de-colonize” it. Perhaps you are surprised to hear that there are no shepherds or angels in the story. But these elements come from the gospel of Luke, and do not appear in the gospel of Matthew. Including them in the same story is an example of “essentialism”. If there is only one truth, then both stories must be held as one in an act that biblical scholars call “conflation”. When we conflate the stories, we ignore their distinctiveness and lose our grasp on what they are trying to communicate to us.
When, on the other hand, we hold the stories not as one-and-the-same but as separate-and-parallel, we can pick out the relative emphases of their authors and gain access to what they want us to understand. While Luke wishes to make a distinction between rich and poor (shepherds being the “working poor”), Matthew rather chooses to distinguish the ambition of power (Herod) from the love of wisdom (the Magi). When we conflate them, we place all of the emphasis on the baby Jesus (“to whom every knee shall bow”) and lose the mysterious, dynamic energy that can come from holding them parallel, but separate. This is the gift of the post-modern approach to scripture.
You might also have been surprised to read that these figures are not “Kings” but “magi”. Last week I attended a worship service in which we sang the Epiphany hymn “We Three Kings of Orient Are”. This song is based upon a medieval tradition which held that the visitors to the infant Jesus were the Kings of India, Arabia, and Persia. In this tradition we encounter the strength of Christian supersessionism, which holds that all the traditions of the world find their fulfillment in the figure of Jesus. Treating the story in this way justifies the colonization of the East by the West. According to this view, we need not feel uncomfortable with such colonialism, since at the very beginning of Jesus’ life, the Kings of those regions bowed before him and recognized his right to rule. When we de-colonize this story by removing this unfortunate (non-biblical) layer of tradition, we can begin to redress some of the wrongs done during the colonial era.
Nor are they “Wise Men”. True, the Greek word “magoi” is in the masculine plural, but this does not preclude the inclusion of women among their number, nor in fact that the group may have been entirely made up of women. A post-modern reading encourages us to let go of an anxious attachment to phony historicity and allow the power of the narrative to convey us to meaning. How does the story impact us if we imagine a group of women? Or a mix of men and women? A rigid conviction that they must have been men reflects a patriarchal cultural paradigm.
Finally, you may be interested to note that they do not follow the star from the East to the West. They see the star in the eastern sky, and it prompts them on a westward journey. It is only after they have encountered Herod, and begin to backtrack toward Bethlehem (which lies to the east of Jerusalem) that the star beckons them on. However, it supports western ethnocentrism to believe that God sends the eastern peoples on divine pilgrimages to pay tribute to western religion. It is a jarring experience for many people who believe they are familiar with this story, to imagine the magi travelling all the way to Judea with the star of their divinations not in front of them, but at their backs. Matthew’s intent in telling the story this way becomes clear, when the magi realize (and we with them) that the placement of the star is meant to help them find their way NOT from the “orient” to the west, but from Jerusalem, the seat of power and greed, to the little town of Bethlehem.
In Chapter 1 of her book “Seeing The Lord: Resurrection and Early Christian Practices”, Marianne Sawicki defines the church as those people who are able to identify the risen lord as being Jesus of Nazareth, and how to acknowledge the spirit of Jesus as a tangible agency in their midst. They “know” these abilities in part cerebrally and in part somatically. Theology therefore becomes a matter of mind-body exploration, of which propositional argument is only a small part (others including poetic discourse, liturgical drama, and social activity). Over the ages, the church has done its best to “see” the Lord in the light of its historical context and to treat the stories of the tradition with gentle hands (Sawicki uses the image of the “Pieta” - Jesus falling from the cross into the arms of Mother Mary - as a symbol for how he also fell into the arms of “Mother Church”).
So, if we are to shed the superstructure of medieval and modernist Christianity in order to construct a theology that is somatically, psychologically, and cerebrally meaningful and powerful in the context of post-modernity, what will we need to do?
Once again, we can turn to the magi of Matthew 2 for guidance. The magi, in their wisdom-love (as distinct from Herod’s power-ambition), discern an omen of good news. All that they know is that it is a birth, and the nation in which it took place. They have no other guidance of their own - not even the star that gave them the news will show them the way. So they must feel their way forward, trusting that good things lie in store. Theirs is a journey of personal transformation, as they encounter Herod and the infant Christ - encounters which will mark them forever.
Can there be a Christianity (or a Christology) independent of Christian supersessionism, ethnocentrism, and essentialism? I believe I have provided an example of what this post-Christendom Christianity can look like, in my analysis of Matthew 2:1-12. When liberated from Christendom, the story continues to have spiritual power - and this power is relevant and meaningful in post-modernity. When focus is shifted off of the baby Jesus and the cosmic meaning of his birth, we are able to see ourselves in roles other than passive observers who give rational assent to doctrine. We become somatic participants in the drama of the gospel, journeying with the magi, encountering Herod, seeing the Lord, and returning by another path. And this, the epiphany traditions assure us, is the rhythm of “doing” Christology.
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