Worship was canceled by 6 inches of snow on January 5th, 2013. So here is the sermon I would have preached!
Good morning friends!
It is good to gather in worship with
all of you! It has been a busy two weeks since I saw you last. I've
had a whirlwind trip with journeys to Kansas, Philadelphia, and
Colorado to see family and to perform Amy and Brendan's wedding. By
the way, Amy and Brendan send their greetings and gratitude for your
love and prayers. Thank you for allowing me to take time to be part
of those significant moments in people's lives-weddings are one of my
favorite pastoral tasks. I imagine you to come here after adventures
of your own- the Holiday season usually brings some of the most
intense experiences and emotions of the year. So take a deep breath,
and whatever you bring this morning, whether you're recovering from
the exhaustion of travel and being with family, coming down off of
the Christmas high, or are feeling refreshed and rejuvenated after a
nice holiday break, and are roused and ready to begin a new year, you
are welcome here.
In church this week, we are coming to
the end of our celebration of Christmas. I know most of secular
society ended the holiday on December 26th with the
national celebration of returning gifts that you didn't want very
much, but in the church Christmas does not end until tomorrow,
January 6th. That day marks Epiphany, the 12th
day of Christmas when we remember the visit of the Magi from the
East. So, I guess, if we're paying attention to the song, this is the
day for 11 pipers piping-which we don't have this morning.
Anyway, this Christmas, we have honored
“the Mystery of God's Dwelling”-we've been looking for the ways
that we experience God's presence in all aspects of our lives-in the
birth of Jesus and in our present day, in our transformation and in
our distress, in our relationships and when we are alone. This month
we have watched the dolls house fill with windows, dinning table, and
other signs of habitation, and seen the stable fill with animals
reflecting on the Christ child's approach.
It has been good to journey with you,
to reflect on where we see God, and where God is calling us to go.
Today, on our last Sunday of our journey we mark the end of the
season with communion, acknowledging the presence of God in the bread
and the cup, the holy mystery at the heart of our faith.
And as we celebrate the Magi, the wise
men who came from far away to pay homage to the Christ child, we
remember that God dwells not just in the familiar, in the
comfortable, in the expected surroundings of the home and the church
that we know, but that God dwells in the diversity of creation-that
God is present in all people, and in our very different
understandings of the world, and in our very different ways of being
human.
The Magi from the East are remarkable
characters-they are mentioned only in these few verses in Matthew,
but they have captured the imagination of Christians through the
centuries. Who are these mysterious strangers? What caught their
attention in the skies, and why did they think it necessary to pay
homage to this new king of the Jews? We've filled the void that is
their story with all sorts of content-giving them a number-3 and
names-Mechior, Balthazar, and Caspar, and a geographic
location-Europe, Africa, and Asia as well as camels and horses and
the title of kings. Unlike most unnamed and unknown characters in
the Bible-the women at the well, the Ethiopian Eunuch, the woman with
a flow of blood, we've spent countless gallons of ink exploring their
identity.
I suspect our fascination has a couple
of sources-first, it's Christmas, and the source material is scant
considering the amount of time and emotional energy we put into it.
That's how you get l1 children's books on Amazon about mice at the
manger.
More importantly, I think they
fascinate because they represent such an unexpected
juxtaposition-this vision of wealth, power, and influence, coming
from far away to a humble home, where the mystical astrologers,
keepers of secret and holy knowledge kneel down in the dust and pay
homage to the infant child of a penniless peasant girl. When Jesus
grew up, the kings of the world spit on him, beat him and had him
killed, but as an infant, there were some truly powerful people, who
could gain an audience with Herod and his advisers who knew who the
real king was, and were willing to offer their allegiance to the
throne of God.
But I am
always a little afraid that there is a
third reason-because rich exotic people always get more attention. It
is that very status and wealth that causes me a little discomfort
with the story of the Magi. While it's fun for me to imagine these
rich people kneeling in reverence, celebrating the birth of this very
non-traditional Messiah, I like Luke's vision of poor shepherds
better, because Jesus came to the poor, and for the poor, and he did
not need the affirmation of the rich and the powerful to justify his
ministry or his divinity. As the Psalm for today says, “Help
him to defend the poor, to
rescue the children of the needy, and
to crush their oppressors.”
Just because the world would find it more noteworthy for Bill Gates
or Michelle Obama or LeBron James to visit a poor child in north St.
Louis and celebrate their birth, that doesn't mean that they really
have more honor to offer a new baby than the child's neighbors.
But none of these are what I want to
focus on in this story this morning. Rather, I'd like to reflect on
the wise men as symbols of the Gentiles-of the nations of the world,
who are also invited to come in and experience the Christ Child, and
receive God's salvation. These mysterious strangers are a reminder
that people of every skin color and nationality and language are
equally capable of joining in God's plan, and are equally created in
the image of the divine.
The text this week from Psalms and from
Isaiah both make reference to the kings of the nations coming to pay
homage to the nation of Israel, and to her king the Messiah. Isaiah
and the Psalmist, I expect, were imagining their vision for the
future being fulfilled in triumph-when Israel was a victor in battle,
having conquered her enemies, having taken tribute from the
surrounding nations, so that they would come and sue for peace and
never trouble her borders again-a vision of triumph like the United
States marking our military victories every 4th of July.
Matthew envisioned these prophecies
being fulfilled in a much different way. The wise men from the East,
bringing Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, were not coming as client
kings to an Empire that worshiped YWHW. No, they came to a child,
doing him honor before he had done anything worthy of praise. And
throughout his ministry, unexpected people came to Jesus, and put
their faith in him-the Syrian woman who would not take no for an
answer, and the Centurion who had greater faith than any in Israel
and the Samaritan woman at the well, and then after Easter things
really took off-all the gentiles who were there at Pentecost and
heard the gospel preached in their own languages, and Peter and
Cornelius discovering that God shows no partiality, and all the
people that Paul converted in his missionary journeys. In all this,
we discover the message of the Gospel-that in breaking down barriers,
in eating with strangers, in striking out in new directions we find
the heart of God-that unexpectedly for all those who think they know
who God is, and what God looks like, and even where God lives, that
in fact the Mystery of God's dwelling can be found in diversity.
Now, Christmas is not a time when we
are primed to practice diversity. The holidays are usually a time for
tradition-for finding God in the memories of our childhood, feeling
the presence of Christmas in stockings, or the children lining up on
the stairs in age order, ready to parade into the living room for
presents, or Christmas carols we've sung hundreds of times, or
Handel's Messiah, or whatever the traditions are in your family. I
have noticed the discomfort in-laws or newly married couples have,
trying to negotiate their different traditions, figuring out how to
find comfort in someone else's rituals. Rachel and I are quite aware
that we're starting traditions right now that may end up
sticking-though we've probably got 2 years yet before we aren't
allowed to change anything for the rest of Jonah's childhood.
Christmas is not a time that we usually think about tearing down the
old broken habits to let in new light, to find space for strange
people from different cultures, languages, and classes, who may not
be able to fit in the structures that we have today.
But I wonder if we should be a little
more aware of the danger of consistency, that hobgoblin. Because
while there is nothing inherently bad about tradition, each culture,
each language, each family has their own traditions, and if we're not
ready to find something new and different worthy, then we probably
won't be able to welcome new people into our communities and our
church. It is an always delicate balance-that which brings comfort
and strength and support to us because it is familiar, and that which
is hospitable and welcoming and allows other people to come inside.
It's an important task-to notice where
my own comfort zone makes it hard for other people to get in. Jonah
got Dr. Seuss' book The Sneeches
this year, from his uncle Michael and Aunt Amy. If you don't know it,
it's a simple story. There are Sneeches, and some have stars on their
bellies, and some have none upon thars,
and the star-bellied Sneeches think they are better than their
starless cousins. But when Sylvester
McMonkey McBean
brings his star on and star off machines to town, the Sneeches
discover their diversity is a blessing, and not a curse. Actually,
you should probably read Dr. Seuss' version. But it's a good story,
and one that I think is true-that our differences are not a mark that
God is present with some and not with others.
I work with Mennonite Church USA's
Communities of Hope project, which is working to help our
denomination practice diversity well-to recognize not that
'everyone's the same underneath' but rather, that there are lots of
tremendously good ways of being human, and it is the task of each of
us in the church to work at changing ourselves and our structures to
give space to other ways of faithfully following God.
It's no easy thing-it makes everyone
uncomfortable, and pushes everyone's comfort zones, and I've already
made a number of mistakes trying to learn and grow myself.
But
the story of the Magi, the promise of the wise men, I think, is that
God is present when we open our hearts, and make things a little
difficult for ourselves, because we can find God in our human
diversity. I'm sure welcoming rich strangers from another culture
was no easy task for Mary and Joseph-they would have been at least as
uncomfortable as we would be hosting the Governor or a member of
congress.
But it is in those nudges, this very
discomfort there may be a signal that there is kingdom work to be
done, that God's spirit is moving on the face of the waters.
So as we begin a new year together,
lets think about the ways we may find God in the diversity around
us-in our different ways of talking, and thinking, and understanding
the world. And as we come to the table of the Lord, lets remember all
the different kinds of Christians who break bread together, and honor
God's call in their lives, and as we taste Christ's presence in our
midst, may we listen for the still small voice-the mystery of God's
dwelling in diversity.
Amen.
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