A Tyrant's Lair

A sermon preached by Revd Ray Anglesea at St Andrew's Dawson Street, Crook and at Trinity Methodist Church, Spennymoor, Sunday 8th January 2012


Accordingly to church historians the pro-Roman King, Herod the Great, was a nasty piece of work. King of a small Jewish state he was by all accounts an insecure tyrant; he employed mercenaries and secret police to enforce order; a madman he trusted no one, not even his wives (of which he had ten) or his many sons – he executed one spouse and three of his boys because he feared they were plotting against him. Encouraged by his Roman masters, Herod believed in singling out individuals for public execution as well as the mass slaughter of opponents; any threat of an uprising was put down with brutal and bloody ferocity, so much so that his excessive brutality was condemned by the rabbinical court of judges, the Sanhedrin. Herod's paranoia about keeping power and his ruthless suppression of dissent earned him a well deserved place alongside the great dictators of history. Not a name you would find in the Jerusalem New Year’s Honours List. But like Herod the world is not immune or unaffected by political tyrants.

The death of Kim Jon II of North Korea last month, self-styled superior and dearest leader, great man who descended from heaven, saviour, Highest Incarnation of the Revolutionary Comrades, Great Defender, Guiding Star of the 21st Century, just a few of his many titles, ended a dismal year for the world’s tyrants and dictators. His 17 years of grotesque tyrannical misrule ensured him the top place in most rankings of the word’s autocratic despots. Combining absolute rule Kin Jon II achieved even greater catastrophe for North Koreans than suppression and mass starvation; he has left a population of some 24 million people physically stunted owing to malnutrition, and emotionally and intellectually impoverished. Close behind came another tyrant and oppressor, Gaddafi of Libya, who was ousted in August and killed in October. Murbarak of Egypt was ousted in February after 30 years in power and is on trial with his son, Gamal. In January last year Tunisia’s President ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after a mere 24 years of plundering and repression. Syria’s revolution is expected to topple President Assad in the next 12 months ending four decades of tyranny since 1971. It is estimated that three dozen dictatorial regimes still ensure that nearly two billion people around the world are denied their basic human rights. While Putin, the prime minister in Moscow has yet to earn the title of dictator the phrase Russian democracy is in danger of becoming an oxymoron as he prepares to return to the presidency next year.

And just when Herod the Great felt his great building projects were under control, the temple in Jerusalem, his military fortifications at Herodias and the construction of the port at Caesarea Maritima news arrives of the coming of a rival king who heralds a different kind of political reality. Wise men with ostentatious and extravagant gifts led by a star come to his lavish fortress palace at Herodium, they are Gentile astrologists/astronomers from outside the Jewish tradition, clever, devious, complicated, nervous learned men, they are late arrivals at the scene. They do not bring this year’s apple merchandise, iPad 2, iphone 4S, iPad touch, but gold frankincense and myrrh. These wise ones come with their scientific enquiry and enquiring minds and announce to Herod that a new King is to be born; telling Herod about the Christ child they provoke the massacre of the children in Bethlehem.

What Matthew is at pains to tell us is in the opening chapters of his gospel is a story not written to satisfy astronomical curiosity or a kind of cosy picture-book story we have created for ourselves; what he is telling us is political dynamite. Jesus, Matthew is saying is the true King of the Jews. Herod is the false one, a usurper, an impostor. Matthew introduces us to something which Matthew wants us to be clear about from the start. If Jesus is in some sense King of the Jews that doesn’t mean that his rule is limited to the Jewish people. At the heart of many prophecies about the coming king, the Messiah, there were predictions that his rule would bring God’s justice and peace to the whole world.

But what is it about the resourceful and clever wise men with their supposed wisdom, that they arrive at the wrong door and in so doing create confusion and mayhem, havoc and destruction – the slaughter of the innocents. It’s as if the wise, the devious, the resourceful, the political strategists can’t help making the most immense mistakes of all. Here we are with our modern 21st century minds and with our technology, knowing more and more, yet stepping deeper and deeper into military, economic and political tragedy. Communications are more effective than ever in human history, analysis of national international situations become ever more subtle; intelligence and surveillance provides theoretical perspectives on human behaviour, individual and collective. And still the innocence are killed, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Egypt, Libya, Congo.

And yet – here is the miracle – Christ is born in a country occupied by a tyrant and a ruthless confused dictator, born in a humble feeding trough in some Jewish backwater of a village. And here is another miracle - the three wise men with their massive foolishness and thoughtlessness are welcomed at the manger door. They are not turned away. Here amongst the tyrannies of the world’s wise men, wise people are to be found, they do not turn away. They are, as Matthew tells us, part of God’s justice and peace plan for the world. In the suffering and political struggles, peaceful demonstrations one day and violent suppression the next, and the massacres that we see daily on our screens, there we find wise people who in their struggles against tyrannies search for the truth, for liberation and freedom; in Lybia, in Syria, America and London where our times are not quiet times of contentment and shared prosperity; there is a deep sense that something has gone tragically wrong as we ponder with the Occupy London protests the gross inequality and injustice throughout our world.

Last month two modern leaders died: Vaclav Havel, former president of the Czech republic and Kim Jong II, the leader of North Korea. Kim Jong ruled by fear, suppressed freedom, murdered dissidents and encouraged a cult of personality. Vaclav Havel on the other hand inspired his contemporaries to fight against totalitarian rule, against tyrants and though he too faced a seemingly impregnable enemy, soviet communism, he knew that freedom is not won by numbers but by courage, physical, intellectual and ultimately spiritual. He once said: “As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.” In other words we have to live for something greater than ourselves if we are to win the freedom to be ourselves. Havel called his most famous essay “The Power of the Powerless,”......... freedom can defeat ruthless power. It needs a few dedicated people with the inextinguishable courage to light a candle of hope in other people’s lives and together we can change the world.

And it was Mohamed Bouazizi, the humble Tunisian fruit seller whose fight for justice created history and was named the 2011 Times Person of the Year. His courage inspired the oppressed masses of the Arab world the right to determine their own destiny. His self lit

oppressed masses of the Arab world the right to determine their own destiny. His self lit candle of hope, his own body, burning himself to death, triggered an Arab uprising. 2011 turned out to be a year of a million heroes of Arab men and women who took to the streets demanding their liberty, dignity, economic opportunity and the right to choose their own lives. Thousands paid for their temerity with their lives, but with enormous courage these nameless and faceless heroes have toppled some of the world’s dictators and autocrats, the Herod’s of the world. Does the nature of Bouzazi’s immolation remind you of another martyr?

As the wise men discovered on their long journey, coming to the Christ child isn’t always simple. I guess we might share the same experience. For some people, faith is difficult, hard, often God is remote, God appears on mute, most of the time we live in dry deserts, we run out of spiritual fuel. Many would admit they no longer have a vivid experience of God. What was bright and shiny is now tarnished and dull. What gave life and purpose has been reduced to disappointment and play acting. Christian people later in life quietly confide that they have lost the fire of their faith, and even sophisticated believers can lose their balance when faced with serious ill health. People journey late and arrive by roundabout routes to the stable door, with complex histories, sin and muddle, false expectations and perceptions and wrong starts. It’s no good saying to them, “You must become simple and wholehearted,” as this could be done just by wishing. The real question is “Can you take all your complicated history with you on your journey to the manger? Can you stop hanging on to the complex and the devious for their own sake, as a theatre for your own skills and recognise where the map of heavens points.

In a world in turmoil, the economic forecast for the New Year looks bleak, uncertain and frightening; particularly here in the North East which is probably back in recession where an embittering growing class of have-nots is beginning to emerge. Just look around the many private and public housing estates in Crook and Willington where there is now severe unemployment. One of my dreams this year is to set a soup kitchen here in church. On my daily walk to the cathedral I pass men sleeping rough in cold wet shop door fronts, graduates with 1st class honours degrees prepare sandwiches and serve at tables at my son’s cafe because there are no jobs for them, qualified planning students are returning to planning school because there has been no planning jobs advertised in the North East for the last two years; I too know the trauma and anger of being made redundant from a profession I loved. Journeying for me for such people as I have mentioned may be a tedious, dreary, dull and difficult journey to the truth. But on the way we must not deny the tangle and the talents, the varied web of what has made us, what has happened to us and who we are. Every step is part of the journey, even the false starts which move us on towards the truth. But we come as we are; room is made for us, healing is promised, even usefulness given to us if we are ready to make an offering of what W H Auden called “our crooked heart.”

In the straw of the stable, the humble and the complicated are able to kneel together, he is there in naked spirituality for the sophisticated and the troubled, those who had long and journeys, cold comings, to the stable. Let none think they are too tangled, too late and messy to be welcomed. Space has been made in this world for the Christ child, who comes amongst us in the real world of tyrants and dictators, politics and struggle, for God to make himself at home and to welcome all of us and use whatever we bring to him.


Ray Anglesea is a self supporting minister working in St Andrew’s Dawson Street LEP, Crook and in the wider West Durham Methodist Circuit