The Gift of the Magi

Epiphany might be over, and with it Christmas, but I am still captivated by the Magi, by these mythic travelers who noticed a celestial event and followed it across deserts and rivers to the place where its light shone down. We tend to think of the coming of the Magi as a wondrous occurrence, and indeed it was. They heralded the birth of Jesus, the king to come, the messiah and savior of the world. They brought him gifts and worshiped him with immense joy.

Yet as I think about their arrival more I wonder if the common narrative of the Magi is flawed. Yes, they brought precious gifts. Yes, they announced the birth of light into a darkened world. But they also triggered a horrific series of events. Immediately following their departure “by another road” Herod slaughtered all of the newborn children in Bethlehem in a fit of rage over not having found Jesus. (Matthew 2:16-18)

Question: What if the most significant gift of the Magi was not the symbolic trinkets that every Sunday School age child can name - gold, frankincense, and myrrh? What if the truest and most valuable gift of the Magi was kicking off the disruption of an unjust and unsustainable order?

Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the forces that trigger large scale change in his book The Tipping Point. Among other insights he notes that small changes can have out-sized effects when the circumstances are right. Rather than being triggered by big catastrophes as we might expect, systems most often “tip” or undergo revolution in response to seemingly insignificant events. Think about the British Tea Act which helped to trigger the American Revolution. More recently, the global financial crisis of 2008 was triggered by a relative handful of Americans defaulting on their ballooning mortgages. These are simplified explanations of very complex events, but the basic premise holds. Seemingly minor events can trigger massive disruption and systemic change.

Convergence: The arrival of the Magi was a minor event. They showed up on Herod’s steps and made an inquiry about the birth of a child. But this minor event triggered a series of disruptions and transformations of the contemporary order that resulted, ultimately, in the birth of Christianity and the spread of that faith around the world. The ultimate gift of the Magi was the tipping of a system of empire and religious culture that was made vulnerable by the excesses and fears of the ruling elite.     

Tipping points, unfortunately, cannot be readily predicted. (Perhaps this is fortunate for there are many who would use such knowledge for evil purposes.) No one can know when an economy, a political system, or a culture will suddenly flip. The task for people of faith then, is to remain present, to ask difficult and probing questions of the culture, and to be prepared when a simple action begets out-sized consequences. Any of us is capable of producing a tipping point, of giving the gift of the Magi if we faithfully engage in loving ways. Who knows how our love might tip our neighborhoods, our nation, or even our world.