Cartoons today are pretty sophisticated, with multiple plot lines going at once, and with a lot of world-building. I grew up with simpler cartoons:
Tom and Jerry
Sylvester and Tweety
Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner
Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny
One of the unwritten rules was that the less-powerful character always had to win.
When I took improv classes, we talked about status: punching up was okay; punching down was bad. That meant that it was okay for an employee character to win and a boss to lose, or a prisoner to win and a jailer to lose, but it was not okay to have a king oppress his subjects.
Punching down is bullying.
Let’s go to God in prayer.
God of wisdom, may the words that I speak, and the ways they are received by each of our hearts and minds, to help us to continue to grow into the people, and the church, that you have dreamed us to be.
Amen.
Today is the second Sunday after Christmas.
If you remember the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” those days come after Christmas in the days between Christmas and Epiphany.
The longer “Christmas Season” that begins the day after Thanksgiving and ends Christmas Eve was originally called “the Christmas shopping season.” With stores trying to lure people in to buy Christmas gifts, Christmas decorations were everywhere.
Black Friday sales would start earlier and earlier on the Friday after Thanksgiving, then beginning on Thanksgiving, and now even before Thanksgiving.
By the time we get to December 25th, we have Christmas fatigue and don’t want another twelve days of Christmas.
Because the twelve days of Christmas are almost, but not quite, two weeks, we always get one Sunday after Christmas and often get two, like we do this year.
Epiphany, the day Jesus is manifested to the gentiles – the Magi – is January 6: Tuesday this year. So today we’re celebrating the second Sunday in Christmas and we’re celebrating Epiphany.
The Gospel reading for Epiphany is Matthew 2:1-12
Christ revealed to the nations
1In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, 2asking,
“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east, and have come to pay him homage.”
3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
5They told him,
“In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet: 6‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”
7Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared.
8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”
9When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was.
10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.
11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Matthew 2:1-12, NRSVue
Based on etymology, Magi probably means Zoroastrians from Persia, which is now Iran.
The Bible doesn’t tell us how many Magi there were. There are at least two, because they are referred to as plural – more than one.
Traditionally there are three, based on the gifts:
- gold, representing kingship,
- frankincense, representing divinity
- myrrh, representing mortality
Those gifts imply Jesus as a king who is both god and human.
But our Epiphany reading notes that
3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born.
Matthew 2:3-4, NRSVue
Herod is an adult king. He’s afraid of a child.
Later in this scripture, he order all children under the age of 2 to be killed, but the holy family has been warned by an angel and has fled to Egypt.
So we have two kinds of adults in this story:
The ones who come from afar no kneel and bear gifts to a child.
The one who is already there and is so afraid that he has multiple children killed.
The second one is a bully.
In August 5 2023 NPR Scott Detrow interviewed Russell Moore, editor of Christianity Today and formerly one of the top officials of the Southern Baptist Convention. Moore wrote a book called Losing Our Religion: An Altar Call For Evangelical America. Here’s why Moore said he wrote it:
Well, it was the result of having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching – turn the other cheek – to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points?
And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I’m literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.
And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we’re in a crisis.
We are living in a time when it has become not only acceptable, but even commendable, to punch down on the poor, on ethnic and sexual and gender minorities, on smaller countries.
People who call themselves Christians feel like they finally have the power to put others in their places.
If we look at the life and teachings of Jesus, we don’t see someone coming with weapons and force. We see someone who subverts the power structure.
As followers of Jesus, we see him as the living, breathing representation of God’s Word: the Word became flesh.
Jesus spent a lot of time with those who were considered sinners or unclean. He didn’t punch down. He didn’t bully.
Because punching down isn’t strength. Bullying is not power. It can feel like power, but it is not.
Power is standing up for what’s right, speaking truth to power.
It’s David against Goliath.
It’s Jerry against Tom.
Tweety against Sylvester
Roadrunner against Wile E. Coyote
Bugs Bunny against Elmer Fudd
Jesus against Rome
My challenge to each of us this week is twofold:
First, be aware of when we are tempted to overwhelm someone with less power, and to resist that temptation.
Second, to speak truth to power: calling out unjust treatment of the less powerful.
The teachings and example of Mary’s child are not weak.
Let’s follow them.
Amen.
Let’s sing NCH 152 Born in the Night, Mary’s Child
* Scripture quotations marked NRSVue are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. https://www.friendshippress.org/pages/about-the-nrsvue
* Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the King James version of the Bible.
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