The Return of Superstition and Paganism
Epiphany : 6 January 2013 : Matthew 2: 1-12
Father Hugh Bowron, 2013Throughout suburban malls in New Zealand a new kind of retail outlet has emerged. These are the New Age shops, supplying Aquarian gear and knick-knacks of all descriptions, together with the opportunity to have your fortune told and your personal future mapped out by an expert soothsayer. We might be inclined to dismiss them as a bit of harmless fun, of a piece with personal horoscopes in the paper, but I shall be arguing later that there is more to them than that. Amidst all the foolishness, woolly thinking and desire to make a quick buck, there is something else at work here, an attempt to manipulate reality in ways that were all too familiar to the human race before Christianity came along.
Christmas pageants calls them Kings, but Scripture scholars tell us that those exotic visitors to the cradle were more likely to have been expert advisors at the courts of Kingdoms that were across the Roman frontier. These noble scholarly technocrats would have had a variety of ancient world intellectual resources to hand, including very probably astronomy and astrology, hence the motif of following a star to find an astonishing new hope for the world. Rulers in the ancient world thought it only prudent to consult the stars before risking any major course of action, which is why they made sure that they had the best readers of the zodiac to hand to advise them as required.
The children of Israel were unusual in being forbidden to engage in any kind of divination, soothsaying or fortune telling by strict command of their religion. Partly this was of a piece with shunning idolatry, but there was something else on Yahweh’s mind in prohibiting what the surrounding nations and cultures thought of as a normal and prudential way of taking out an insurance policy on the future. I will be coming back to this later.
Of course Jews were often tempted to do what others did, particularly under duress. Remember King Saul staring defeat in the face on Mount Gilboa, and persuading the witch of Endor to raise the prophet Samuel from the dead for some ghostly counsel and comfort. He was so desperate that he was breaking his own rules to do so. In one of the most dramatic scenes in the Old Testament Saul is reduced to terrified paralysis by the telling off he receives from Samuel, who is furious at being dragged out of his sleep in Sheol. Those who want to know what the future holds for them might like to hold this scary story in the back of their minds.
Although our culture and our society is trying to distance itself from its Christian inheritance it is finding it hard to do so on a number of fundamental points. We still think that the human story is going somewhere, that there is point and purpose to human existence. We have a linear attitude to time, that you can map it out as a narrative with a beginning, middle, and an end. And this notion of progress means that we assume that people can do things to make things better. This belief in progress and improvement received a big boost of course from the scientific revolution, and the rise of all sorts of helpful technologies.
Other cultures and societies that have been formed by other religious worldviews, particularly the great Eastern religions, view time as something that goes on circles and cycles. What has been will happen again in a never-ending repetition. Things don’t fundamentally change, and human beings must accept their fate, if they are to be at peace with the way things are. Resignation not revolution is the appropriate way to cope with time and history.
This came home to me when a young St Peters, Willis St parishioner went with a New Zealand Christian team to help rebuild a coastal village in Sri Lankha after the great Tsunami. When the project was completed they then took part in a mission to tea plantation workers in another part of the island. The people they were witnessing to were very poor by our standards, but there was a difference in their way of life caused by their pattern of religious belief.
Christian households, families and villages sent their children to whatever education was available; they mended their children’s clothes, swept the dirt floors of their houses, and tried to maintain personal hygiene. These were people who believed in a future for themselves that was worth working for.
The households, families and villages where the Eastern religions held sway tended not to make an effort on any these fronts. They and their children looked dirty, bedraggled and down trodden, and of course they were denied the vistas of a wider world that education can open up for people. These were people who fatalistically accepted the hand that life had dealt them.
When we consult with palm readers, mediums, horoscope casters and all the other kinds of divination experts we are buying in to that world of fatalism that falsely believes that our personal destiny is inexorably fixed. In the search for answers about health, wealth, love and family we are accepting a very narrow view of the future that is boxed in by the assumption that it cant be changed by our efforts or by God’s intervention.
And knowing the future in this kind of a way isn’t helpful. If King Saul was up against the odds before the battle of Mt Gilboa, he was finished after his terrifying consultation with the apparition of Samuel. Whatever tactical resilience, morale raising inspiration of his troops, or berserker courage in combat was possible originally, all of that evaporated after he was told that he was doomed. Think of the leap of faith that is required before we accept a marriage partner, say yes to a job, or move to a new location. Often these bold initiatives bring testing troubles in their wake before they bring their fulfilment, or they are the road to failure and disappointment that God nevertheless extracts treasure from. We would lose the boldness to act and the courage to be if we were given these discouraging snippets of an imminent future that lack the fuller picture of a world of Divine possibilities.
There is only one fact about the future that we need to know - will we or will we not be drawn into transforming and intimate union with the Triune God, and the answer to that question is largely in our hands. Christianity has a paradoxical attitude to the future. It assures us that God will have the last word in history, that his purposes will ultimately prevail. But it tells us that we must live with the ambiguities and uncertainties that accompany the journey to God’s new world in a spirit of faith, hope and trust.
I have entitled this sermon the return of superstition and paganism. There has always been plenty of superstition around, even within Christianity. One of the drivers of the Reformation was a desire to eliminate magical thinking from the churchgoers of Europe by lots of sound biblical teaching. But today we are seeing it expanding amongst the secularised population of western societies, who apparently can use marvels of modern technology in tandem with bizarre practices and beliefs about how to manipulate supernatural forces to their own selfish advantage.
As for paganism - it starts with jokes - lapel badges at Christmas time that say, "Pagans for the solstice" - then it develops into groups of so called white witches who claim to practise magic without evil intentions or side effects - and next comes the mass gatherings that are now routine on certain key dates at Stonehenge. Slowly but surely pagan belief and practitioners are emerging out into the open again, since it now seems both safe and yet daring to do so. But Christianity says what it and Jewish religion has always maintained - the worship of false Gods leads to calamity and confounding for those who follow in those paths. Christians should have no truck with any of this nonsense, should make no compromises with it, and should oppose it whenever they can.
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