HEROD THEN AND NOW

In just a few days we will slam into the high gear of the presidential primaries and all of the information and misinformation and disinformation that goes with them. And we will discover once again that we can say “separation of church and state” three times and wave a magic wand, but all the talk of religion and politics doesn’t seem to disappear.

In Biblical times prophets anointed kings, who persecuted prophets. Herods spoke nice religious words and then left no child behind. In these times churches have learned for the most part not to endorse candidates or parties, but reporters manage to crank out word after word on what candidates believe. And we listen, because we know intuitively that religion and politics are linked. We’re concerned with how they are linked and how they ought not to be linked, and who should get to say so.

Do you believe that religion and politics are totally separate? Then listen to this:

The King James Bible was published 1611 and remains the greatest monument to the beauty of God’s word in the English language. The verses from Exodus we heard read today are the reason it was written.

King James had been brought up in Scotland, a child monarch under the tutelage of the strict Scotch Presbyterians. He resented the presumption that a ruler should be accountable to the church, feeling that the divine right of kings placed him above question. But he received intensive Biblical education and was keen to debate religion with ministers.

When he arrived in London, the realm was all buzzing with the question: what branch of the Christian faith would the king support. Well, it wouldn’t be the Presbyterians. Nor would it be the Roman Catholics, with their Popes and bishops meddling in things. He invited a convention of divines from the Church of England and the Puritans to present their desires. They knelt on the cold hard stone floor for four hours as they did so.

James gave lip service to a few of their requests, but paid particular attention to the request for a new English translation of scripture to be authorized. James sharply disliked the Geneva translation that the Puritans used, because it had a marginal notation that the midwives in Egypt were to be commended for their courage in disobeying the king! We can’t have the Bible (even in the margins) taking sides against the ruler! So the committee was formed, and the rest is history. Politics and the mixture of church and state gave us the KJV. Look on the title page and you will find: “Authorized version.”

Moving from Exodus to Matthew, people have long remarked abut the similarities between the birth of Moses and the birth of Jesus: humble parents, evil ruler, a time of hiding, ultimate victory. Also similar is Sophocles’ story of King Oedipus.

Today we are focusing on Herod. Rare is the ruler who won’t bend any law of humanity or God in order to maintain control. Herod was by birth Idumean, from a little region just southeast of Judah. When he convinced the Romans to let him govern Judea, he converted to Judaism so as to defuse the resentment that Jews were being governed by a gentile.

Herod kept kosher but had one of his own sons killed because he became convinced that the son was plotting an overthrow. The saying at the time was that it was safer to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son!

The story of Herod from our reading today is a chilling reminder of the distance between truth and public relations of the rulers of the world. The Herod who said publicly to the Wise Men: “Go to Bethlehem then bring me word that I may worship the Christ” is the same who sent soldiers to slaughter all the children in the area when he didn’t get his way. If he would kill his own son, why not everybody else’s?

Which leads us to fortify ourselves for the upcoming political season by reminding ourselves that political leaders can have wonderful creeds, but sometimes derive from them twisted values. One of our most hawkish presidents was Quaker in background.

So it doesn’t matter if Huckabee had a cross or a bookshelf behind him in his Christmas ad. It doesn’t matter whether or not Giuliani is in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church or not. It doesn’t matter if Romney is a Mormon, or whether he believes that Mormonism is a branch of the universal church while we might not. It doesn’t matter if Obama is UCC or Clinton and Edwards are UMC. It doesn’t matter because look what happened while Herod was a Jew in good standing.

What matters are the values and principles they derive (or believe they derive) from their faith or non-faith. Do we believe they will be true to what they say? What evidence of that do we see from their public life so far? And do they have values and principles that we affirm.

What are some of those? Particularly in this season we think of the homeless (Mary and Joseph and Jesus in a stable). We think of the working poor (the shepherds). We think of the immigrants (the wise men). Are the people we hear asking for votes going to treat the homeless and the poor and the immigrants the way our values affirm?

Jesus was born in Bethlehem because Caesar Augustus was taking a census of the empire (no doubt so that he could know if he was taxing people to the limit of their means). In his adult life Jesus moved among the poorest of the poor, but also ate with the tax collectors who kept them poor. Taxation was a big issue for the early church. What sort of taxation do we believe is consistent with our values?

At his birth Jesus was hailed as the Prince of Peace. If a candidate claims to be a follower of Jesus, how ready is she or he to use war or the threat of war as an instrument of foreign policy?

These are the issues with which people of faith need to be grappling, not what creed a candidate believes.

The wise men were wise, not just by how they got to Bethlehem but by how the left. The Gospel tells us that, rather than being a tool of Herod, they left by “another way.” That other way is what we are seeking. We want to find the king of kings, the one to whom everybody and every government and every constitution and every congressional bill and every local ordinance is accountable.

And we don’t want someone from the presidential podium to give us religious assurances. We want him or her to give us justice. Justice for the poor and the sick. Justice for those robbed of their pensions and left on the side of the road to die. Justice for the soldier home from war. Justice for the minimum wage earner with two jobs.

If we get to justice, we can figure out the rest. We can figure out the compassion and the bridge building in communities and the safety in schools and the respect for diversity. We can figure out how to fix Social Security and track predators and find appropriate levels of environmental regulation. If we can get to the sense that whoever leads us is just.

The wise men were wise enough not to let Herod the political ruler dictate their journey. Isn’t that the ultimate separation of church and state?