(Republished, with permission, from my Epiphany column in Purpose magazine.)
It's easy to make a
monster of Herod. In fact, there are those who accuse Matthew of
character assassination. None of his contemporary historians mention
anything about the Slaughter of the Innocents.
Historians do tell us
that Herod was a highly effective politician. He was a builder of
cities, a striker of deals, a cutter of ribbons. He was, as we say, a
man who could get things done. If that meant switching sides in a
fight, so be it. If that meant beheading rivals, so be it. They do
not mention the killing of babies, but historians make it clear that
Herod was bloodily efficient in nipping takeovers "in the bud."
Sometimes I wonder if
all that has changed in politics since Herod is that we have managed
to add a few more degrees of separation between the halls of the
powerful and the howls of their victims. Or should I say, our
victims.
I learned a new word
this week: "tertiary economics." As distinct from primary
economics, where I grow a garden, or kill an animal, to put food on
my family's table. Or secondary, where I do so for your
family, or you for mine. This could be through an agreeable
relationship, or it could be through slavery. Either way, we know one
another, at least somewhat, and we can reflect on whether this
relationship is just.
But what happens when I
pay somebody to buy something from somebody else who shipped it in
from someplace else where some corporation (legally a person, but
morally and spiritually definitely not one) employed (real) persons
and used land to make whatever it is that I need way down the line?
This is tertiary economics. It is anonymous, it is prolific,
it is inescapable today. It makes "right relationship"
nearly impossible to think about, never mind live in.
Behind almost anything
I pick up off the shelf, there is a line of little Herods and big
Herods doing whatever they have to do to protect their part of the
supply chain, whether it's gasoline, or grapefruit, or guitar necks.
If innocents must suffer, so be it. They are just the eggs they have
to break to make my omelette.
Lord, I want to go home
by another way.
I quit my job and
started growing food for family and neighbours. It's a foolish little
renunciation, but I had to start somewhere.
