Keeping Herod on His Toes

“And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.” Matthew 1:12

Funny how on just any old day you end up doing something that you’ve forgotten all the pleasure it has brought you in the past. Like listening to James Taylor’s sweet voice and thoughtful lyrics. The day was shaping up to be a 10. We had just spent a near-perfect afternoon at Bandelier National Monument, a day in the sunshine with temperatures peaking around 50, dry mountain air, cottonwoods bursting out in fall color. Well, it doesn’t get much better. As we drove back toward Santa Fe, the time was ripe for tunes. Old James just needed a listen, although I couldn’t have pulled his name out of the air if I had been asked to make a suggestion. He just happened to be one of the choices in one of the two CD holders I carry around in my truck.

It’s been a long, long time since I wondered what exactly did James Taylor have in mind when he penned “Home By Another Way?” On the surface it’s a tale about the wise men who took precious gifts to the Christ child. Ultimately, however, it is a story about making choices, about discernment, about honor and paying tribute and taking care of those we love, and yes, taking care of ourselves. We all have our Herod who would trip us up—pull the wool over our eyes under the guise of doing good and leave us the worse for having done what we thought was the right thing. “A king who would slaughter the innocents/Will not cut a deal for you…He’ll comb your camel’s fur/Until his boys announce they’ve found trace amounts/Of your frankincense, gold and myrrh.”

Doing the honorable thing doesn’t come easy, it seems. Whether it’s acknowledging the truth about ourselves, telling the truth about others, seeking to have and nurturing relationships that are not about control, and perhaps most importantly in a list that could go on, lifting others up rather than putting a foot on their neck, doing the right thing requires only the best we can give. And so it was for the Magi, come to honor the Messiah, whose birth had been foretold in scripture. A would-be crafty Herod, out to serve himself, fearful that someone, especially an infant destined for a greatness that comes only from God, might unseat him from his position of power, plots and manipulates to save his self-perceived importance. He didn’t get where he was by being the nice guy.

They tell me that life is a miracle
And I figured that they’re right
But Herod’s always out there
He’s got our cards on file
It’s a lead pipe cinch, if we give an inch
Old Herod likes to take a mile

As life would have it, no good deed goes unpunished. The efforts of the wise men to thwart Herod’s plan to destroy the Christ child led to the massacre of the innocents, as recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, where Herod had all young male children in the village of Bethlehem executed, allegedly to prevent the proclaimed King of the Jews from claiming Herod’s throne. Whether such an event actually occurred—those who write about such things generally conclude “no”—is unimportant. What matters is the measures to which human beings will go to preserve their power. What matters even more is the measures to which human beings will go to honor and to save one another. Medals are awarded to those serving in some official capacity. Others quietly carry out their heroics without history making note, without so much as an epitaph, without an Arlington as their final resting place.

“Home is where they want you now,” Taylor goes on to say, where “You can more or less assume that you’ll be welcome in the end”…”Safe home as they used to say/ Keep a weather eye to the chart on high/And go home another way.” So on a cold, sunny day in northern New Mexico, how nice it feels to be reminded of the choices we have, to take care of one another, sometimes bonded by blood and sometimes by friendship, and sometimes as lovers. Such gifts are indeed safe home.

Keeping Herod on His Toes—Santa Fe, New Mexico (October 24, 2008)
R. Harold Hollis