After talking to the LCG and receiving feedback from Linda, I've decided to keep up with the Blog (though probably with some less frequent and shorter posts). I hope you continue to check in once in a while.
Here is my sermon for this week-what is your favorite story of the three wise men?
Good morning, and happy New Year! It is good to be back in Saint Louis. Rachel and I had a wonderful trip around the Midwest, and we find ourselves back here refreshed and ready to begin a new year.
This Wednesday, the 6th is the holiday of Epiphany, one of the first holidays in the Christian calendar, and the traditional date for the visitation of the wise men to the baby Jesus. The Bible says only a small amount about these characters-they come from the East, they saw the star, they bring Gold Frankincense, and Myrrh. Magi were probably court officials in Persia, who in Matthew’s Roman context would have been visitors from outside the Roman imperium, thus both exotic and untainted by the powers that be, while still providing some Gentile credit for a largely Jewish Messiah. They may have even dabbled in the interpretation of dreams, and are the source of our modern word Magic.
But there has been a host of other stories about these fascinating characters. Western Church tradition tells us that there are three wise men, named Caspar, Balthazar, and Melchior, who are not just wise, but also kings (this tradition dates back to at least the 6th century). We have been told they come from Babylon, or India, or Ethiopia, or even China.
These men have captured our attention, they have been a key part of the story of Christmas from the very beginning.
But the natural fascination with exotic strangers is not the only reason that these wise men show up in the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew, like all writers has key themes and ideas that are important to him, and he included stories about Jesus that he knew that reinforced those lessons. It was very important to Matthew in particular, much more so than for Mark, Luke, and John, to convince his audience that Jesus was indeed the Jewish Messiah, a royal king sent by God to lead the people of Israel. This is why most scholars agree that Matthew was writing to a particularly Jewish audience.
Matthew wanted to make it clear that Jesus was the real Messiah, in fulfillment of prophecy, and he wanted to make it clear that as the Messiah, he was a direct challenge to the political order-he was royalty. Both of these emphases served as an attempt to persuade those who might be skeptical about Jesus divine nature, based on his humble life and humiliating death.
In order to do this, Matthew included all the stories he could find that might provide evidence that Jesus was a fulfillment of prophecy. 14 times he writes, “this was in order to fulfill what had been spoken” by prophets in the past. That Isaiah claimed that people would come from the far reaches of the world, bearing God and Myrrh provides another reference for Jesus’ Messianic resume.
On the royalty front, the long list of Jesus’ genealogy, which begins Matthew’s gospel establishes Jesus as firmly within the line of the kings of Israel.
That Herod, the king, might perceive Jesus as such a threat as to insist that all children under the age of two be executed in the city of Bethlehem reinforces his royal credibility. That leaders from the East would come and worship him enhances his status, and sets him up as a separate power center in Israel, declared “King of the Jews” by an outside force, rather than by the dominating Roman Empire, which had bestowed the title “King of the Jews” on King Herod some 30 years before.
Presuming this is why Matthew decides to tell this story, rather than some others about Jesus, in the same way that Luke tells about the shepherds and the angels as part of his insistence that socially marginalized positions are the heart of the gospel, what can we learn about Jesus?
Matthew is an interesting gospel because one of his main concerns (prophecy) is usually secondary for us as modern day Christians-the Old Testament stories more often than not are presumed to be read best from the perspective of the New Testament, rather than the other way around. But stories like this one about the Magi remain useful, because they still demonstrate how God engages the world, and how we can engage the world in return.
Think about how these Magi behave, since they are clearly people Matthew feels are worth emulating. They pay attention, watching for the signs of the times. When they see something that seems important, they leap into action, willing to travel great distances to offer worship to the son of God. They ask for directions, and take advice from all sources. They bring gifts to God, offering physical signs of submission and commitment, not just paying lip service to their commitment to the new king.
These are lessons we can all take to heart. But what I was most struck with in the story of the Magi this morning is how their willingness to look beyond the social conventions to see God doing something new. These Magi do the natural, politically correct thing first of all. They go to King Herod, to see if he has a new child, a new heir who might deserve honor. But when Herod naturally responds with concern that there is a new King that he knows nothing about, the Magi take it in stride that God is doing something new, they are willing to break outside of the conventional social structures, and worship a child in Bethlehem, humble in estate.
This is something that we are often faced with in our lives. There is so often a distance between our vision for the good life, our expectations for our workplaces, our families, our world, and the reality in which we live. The beginning of a new Year is often a time to reflect on ourselves-to look inside our lives at our behavior and discern what is going well, and where we might make improvements. As we do this introspective work, I hope that we reflect on the differences between our goals and our reality, to reach out for transformation. But I also hope that we remember the lesson of the Magi. They serve to remind us, and all readers of the biblical story that things are not always what they seem. The story of a tiny baby, born to poor parents, who grew up to gather a band of ragtag followers, and was killed by the institutions of violence incorporated and blessed by the machinery of the state does not cry out to be read as a story of triumph, as a story of a king, as a story of momentous historical importance. In order to read the story as we do, we have to look beyond the values and understandings of society, look past the power of money, the importance of prestige, the ubiquity of violence, and come, with those wandering stargazers to testify to a different set of lenses to look at the world-
To say that this child was the Christ child, a king.
To say that people around us who do not fit the mold of our celebrity culture remain valiant and valued members of God’s kingdom.
To acknowledge that we as individuals fall short of our own best hopes, that we fail to be the love we profess, fall into temptation, procrastinate, frustrate those around us, make missteps and mistakes, but that even in the most earthly and earthy of our failings, we are fully deserving of blessing, of love, of the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh that marked the promise of a new king, long foretold and offering blessing.
This is the promise of Christmas, the promise of Christ, and my hope for you in the new year.
Amen.
checking to see if this works!
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