We in Christian-majority countries are whelmed this time of year in the Nativity. That is, the legend of Christ's birth, with attendant prophetic prognostics. Public emphasis is on the divinity of a baby conceived without sin – functionally, without sex. I could rant about that a bit, but right now another detail preoccupies me.
Namely, why wasn't Mother Mary killed?
Because that's what should have happened. As bluenoses still petulantly carp, past generations, in their presumed moral superiority, hated nothing so much as unkosher sex. And young Mary – about 15 at the time – had only just married the much older Joseph when she came up heavy.
We know from elsewhere in the Gospels that termination of the marriage contract was the least of potential results. Others included execution by having small rocks hurled at you until you died.
By decent good-standing members of the Church, of course.
Under duly-enacted law of a theocratic state.
In short, this act of "restitution" wasn't simply tolerated, it was ordained. In fact, holy.
But that's not what happened, and the solution to this mystery is found in the Shadow Gospel. Turns out, Joseph was a Jew.
Not a proclaimed Jew.
Not a Biblical Jew.
An actual Jew.
(Frankly, now I think of it, it's a wonder they didn't kill him as well.)
Says Matthew:
…Joseph [Mary's] husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.
It goes by fast; did you catch it? Joseph wasn't religious. He was righteous. And in this case, that meant turning his back on human authority and putting moralism – and indeed, the law – aside. Rather than stalking back to his new wife's hometown and thrusting Mary back into the arms of her parents with loud and public remonstrations, destroying her life and theirs – again, his legal and ethical duty – Joseph decides to protect her from the legal and the ethical.
Exactly what Joseph's long game was is a bit hazy, but at this point God dispatches an HR guy to handle the predicament:
But while [Joseph] thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.
Again, Scripture is vague on exactly how God and his Angels prevented the rest of the Hebrew nation from killing them both, but since childhood, the Nativity paradox has fascinated me: it's facilitated by a deliberate rejection of received morality. As my Christian education grew broader, so did my grasp of the import of Joseph's decision, and the risk he incurred.
So this Christmas – a time of opening hearts and auditing egos – I suggest we every one, Christian and less so, meditate on the koan of dogma and Dharma.
Because I suspect it's essential to the difference between what we are and what we're not.
(Photo of Joseph and Mary in private conference courtesy of Tomas Castelazo and Wikimedia Commons.)
We live in apocalyptic times. We're not the first; there have been many other apocalyptic moments in human history (the armistice decades of the World War, the run-up to the American Civil War, the Revolutionary period in France, probably a hundred more), but none of those were as apocalyptic as these, because those dysfunctions were purely behavioural. Today we're floundering in that same full-spectrum meltdown of morality and reason, at the precise moment we're also contending with the literal full-spectrum meltdown of our habitat. AKA, the thing we must have to live, without which we will die.
All of us.
I've commented before on a Zenner's responsibility in such times.
It's crucial to understand that the Stupidity Pandemic isn't just "their" problem. Our side – however we each define it – is just as fully implicated in the impending doom. I'm particularly discouraged by the social justice movement, one I've adhered to all my life, but which has recently collapsed into the same lynch-mob gutter as its presumed enemies. All the symptoms Bonhoeffer catalogued – inability to overcome conviction with logic, meeting substantive challenge with violence, thinking in slogans and catchphrases, reacting to vocabulary rather than statements or actions, and, I would add, simple crass bigotry shopped as virtue – are fully in evidence.
It's become impossible to advocate against racism or sexism anymore. Not truly. If you try, you'll first be smeared by your right wing opponents as a leftist lunatic, given the frankly crazy rhetoric of the most vocal elements of your side. Then, if you're old, white, and/or male, you'll be attacked by your theoretical allies for speaking at all.
And as Bonhoeffer pointed out, this weaponised hypocrisy can't be overcome with reason. Debate is worthless, to say nothing of common cause. The mob wants blood, any blood, and its formula for determining whose is forfeit is racist and sexist. (Note that ostensibly approved race or gender won't shield you, either. Anybody's killable. The Reivers just find another alibi on their infinite list – wealth, prominence, profession, perceived privilege, regional origin, academic record, alleged or immaterial past conduct, and on and on.)
I'm at a loss to understand how these bad-actors can possibly confront the Right with a straight face, now that they've joyfully incarnated all the very worst of it. The karma debt such behaviour incurs defies imagination.
As for me, I'm not going to shut up about it.
In this environment, if Zen is worth a damn, it's to keep us clear and independent of the generalised depravity. Let us all endeavour to look deeply, hold ourselves to a demanding standard of non-hypocrisy, and act in measure of acquired insight.
Because if our practice can't get us that, it can't get us anything.
