The Slaughter of the Innocents

It's December 29. In the "Twelve Days of Christmas," it's the fifth day of the season, with "gold rings" given by true love in the song. This year the fifth day is also the First Sunday of Christmas, where the gospel reading this year, Lectionary Year A, is Matthew 2:13–23. This would be Joseph and Mary's flight to Egypt and Herod's orders to kill all the children under age two in Bethlehem, agitated as he was by the threat of a new king. The Slaughter of the Innocents.

The story seems out of sequence. We won't hear about the wise men following the star to Herod's court in Jerusalem and ultimately to the baby in Bethlehem until Epiphany on January 6. But at a distance, time folds back on itself. We hear in one story the echoes of others, from times before and after. And history has no shortage on stories of slaughter, of times of "wailing and loud lamentation" (v. 18).

Today, December 29, is also the 129th anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee. I learned this from a Facebook friend who posted this link, and I then read more at Wikipedia. In an attempt to disarm a band of Lakota Sioux, the U.S. 7th Cavalry ended up murdering at least 150 men, women and children -- perhaps as many as 300. One Lakota man could not be made to give up his gun -- he was deaf and did not understand what the soldiers were saying. The rifle went off, others fired, and the people were slaughtered. Women were shot down as they fled through the snow with infants wrapped in their shawls.

Gold plays a part in this story: the Black Hills of South Dakota had been Sioux land, protected by treaty with the U. S. government — until the Black Hills Gold Rush began in 1874. And gold was only a small part of what white settlers took from native people.

It would be nice, or convenient, or comforting, if we could say such things no longer happen. But that's not true. In many and various ways, innocent people are rendered powerless and suffer the loss of dignity, freedom, life.

When you read about Wounded Knee you learn about the Ghost Dance, a religious movement within the Lakota culture that foretold a time of peace. It would "reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits to fight on their behalf, make the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Native American peoples."

Familiar echoes?

Whites felt mystified and threatened by the Ghost Dance, like Herod felt threatened by the prophecies about a rival king. Power and privilege distort vision. God was made human not as a great king, but as a tiny baby, as an ordinary man, as one who suffered and died at the hands of power and privilege. A gift of true love.

This little babe

The second week of Advent. Up early, with silly songs from last night's Christmas concert rehearsal looping through my head.

It's my daughter's birthday today. We had the big party for her last weekend. (There is always a big party.) Today is a quieter day--a usual Wednesday, but with a little birthday shimmer and dinner at a restaurant when the day is done. The early-morning house, the rush of air from the furnace, quiet churn from the dishwasher running in the kitchen — I'm listening, waiting, with slow, morning mind.

Ghosts of days past, of birth days, birth stories, track the house, the dining room, the windows of the kitchen, the living room. My daughter's birth day included a diagnosis of Down syndrome when she was less than 12 hours old.

This little babe so few days old
Is come to rifle Satan's fold.
All hell doth at his presence quake
Though he himself for cold do shake.
For in this weak, unarméd guise
The gates of hell he will surprise. 

That's not the song from last night--it's another concert, also coming up, a text from Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols, and one that goes by  lickety-split. It takes typing to make me see the text. In performance, I'm conducting this, so I'm more focused on controlling the tempo than anything else.

With tears he fights and wins the field
His naked breast stands for a shield.
His battering shot are babyish cries.
His arrow looks of weeping eyes.
His marshall ensigns cold and need
And feeble flesh his warrior's steed.

Warfare, weapons, armies in the field  charging into battle — I should go look for 16th century engravings of these things. Lots of lines, confusion, violence — not my favorite imagery for a life of faith. But that crying, shivering babe at the lead? That seems — well, a lot like life. I've held naked, wet, puling babies in my tired arms, including one small whimpering daughter with Down syndrome 29 years ago today. And I've hugged, held, stroked adults weakened and disabled, confused by cancer, dementia, ALS.

We fight these things -- but even more, we live into them. Cold and need and feeble flesh are weaponized. The music grows ever more confusing, with one voice chasing the next in canons just a beat apart, until they come together to sound the alarm.

His camp is pitchéd in a stall.
His bulwark but a broken wall.
The crib his trench, haystalks his stakes,
Of shepherds he his muster makes.
And thus as sure his foe to wound
The angel trumps alarum sound. 

And then a big unison:

My soul with Christ join thou in fight
Stick to the tents that he hath pight.
Within his crib is surest ward
This little babe will be thy guard.

The big finish:

If thou will foil thy foes with joy
Then flit not from this heavenly boy.

Foiled with joy. The struggle, as they say, is real. But so is the joy.

Listen here. Watch the children's faces at the end: Joy!