Second Sunday after Christmas
As you likely noticed from the hymns we are singing in church this morning, the decorations in the sanctuary and around the altar, or because you know the rhythms of the liturgical year – yes, it is still Christmas. While local stores put up their Valentine’s Day merchandise and put Christmas into the closeout section on December 26th, the Christmas season lasts a few more days in liturgical churches like St. Luke’s, concluding on the Feast of The Epiphany that happens on January 6th. Epiphany is the day we remember the wise men who traveled from the East in search of the new King who was born. A familiar part of our Christmas pageant, part of our nativity scenes, but, in the chronology of the gospel, not part of what we would call Christmas day. Epiphany is what comes after Christmas. It is our transition from an infant in a manger to revealing, disclosing, and opening our eyes to the reality of Emmanuel – God with us. In this season, we watch as the baby found in the manger at Christmas grows and takes on the mission and ministry of redeeming and restoring all creation. As the wise men join the cast during the Epiphany, we are reminded that the birth and life of Jesus has far reaching – universal and cosmic – significance. In the Epiphany, Jesus is revealed as king for all people, as the Messiah for more than just Jesus immediate community, as the one who will restore the whole of God’s creation into relationship with God. Our Gospel reading this morning is an in-between reading. It is both Christmas as it deals with Jesus’ birth, and Epiphany as it deals with the revealing of Jesus’ identity far and wide.
Although there is much that could be said about the meaning of the Feast of the Epiphany, much that could be said about these wise men who traveled from afar, much that could be said about their encounter with the child Jesus and his mother, or the gifts they brought, as I sat with our reading for this day, I kept coming back to the end…a small detail of the story that is easily overlooked, but the consequence of which is profound. After the whole journey, after their meeting with Herod, after their encounter with Jesus and Mary, they “left for their own country by another road.”
What would the Christian story be if they had not done so? We know from our gospel reading that Herod was terrified and threatened by word of a new king. His grasp on power was weakened by this news and the appearance of foreign men who had traveled from afar to pay their respects only heightened the threat to his reign. And if we were to read the rest of the second chapter of Matthew’s gospel, we would read the story of Herod’s attempt to get rid of this new king in what our liturgical calendar calls the Feast of Holy Innocents – the massacre of children around Jesus’ age in attempt to have him killed to remove the threat to Herod’s power. What would the story of our faith be if the wise men had gone back the way they came? We don’t know the answer to that question, nor will I spend time trying to surmise, but I will say seemingly small choices, decisions, and changes in direction can have enormous consequences.
The story of our faith, the story of our lives, and the story of our are oftentimes non-linear, winding journeys. From our present vantage point, it is easy to see the moments or decisions that set in motion or made possible all that followed. The pieces of the puzzle of life and faith fit in retrospect, but in the moment where decisions were made or directions set, the picture was a lot less clear. Life, all too often, feels like we’re stuck in Robert Frost’s poem where two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I couldn’t travel both and be one traveler long I stood. Sometimes those intersections are pivotal, major decisions that we feel the weight of in the moment. Sometimes, the significance can only be seen looking backwards.
I wonder what it is that motivates or guides our decisions, sets our direction. In this story of wise men traveling in search of the source of the star we have characters guided by two very different motivations. On the one hand, the wise men were guided by curiosity, an openness to the unknown, a belief that something or someone important is at the end of their journey. All they knew is that they were following a light, and they were compelled to find the one who was its source. They didn’t have all the answers, they didn’t fully know the significance, or who they would find…but they travelled anyway. On the other hand, we have Herod who, in his grasp at power and control, was terrified. Fear has a way of setting a dangerous course.
From our gospel reading, we don’t have details about the wise men’s response to Jesus. All we know is that they were overwhelmed with joy when they found the place where Jesus was and paid him homage when they met him. But I wonder if there was more that we’re not told. Because what I know of God is that encounters with Jesus are often transformative. The gospels are full of stories of people who encountered Jesus and were changed through that encounter. There are also stories of people who encountered Jesus and, whether because of fear or grasping at control, experienced no transformation. There seems to be a common theme in these stories: those that meet Jesus with curiosity, openness, and hope – even if they didn’t have all the answers – f were set on a new path that was life-giving. Those that met Jesus grasping for control and motivated by fear often went back to where they came from disappointed. And I wonder if that is true for us. Encounters with Jesus are transformative…if we let them be. As we wrap up our celebration of Christmas and make our way into the season of Epiphany, as Jesus is revealed as the Christ, Emmanuel, God with us who will redeem and restore us and all creation, we have the same choice as the wise men: walk the same, familiar path…or start going in a new direction.
Here is the main point of the sermon that was half-written before yesterday. What path are you on right now and what is it that is motivating the next steps? Whether you are at a major crossroads or what seems like an uneventful stretch, what is it that is guiding and motivating you? I wonder, if Jesus appeared and started walking beside you, how your journey might change through that encounter? Sometimes, there are no simple answers or any apparent decisions to make. But every step is a decision that determines the next. Sometimes, where we end up and who we end up being is simply the culmination of a thousand small steps. Sometimes, there are drastic changes of course. But of this we can be assured: an encounter with Jesus changes us and shapes all that follows… if we let it. That is a sermon worth preaching and perhaps one I’ll conclude another day.
But waking up yesterday morning to news of US military action in Venezuela made another point more pressing. It isn’t just us that sometimes needs a new direction…our whole world needs a new direction, a new story. Because the primary narrative in our culture, our social climate, the actions of the powers of our world, they come most often from places of fear and grasping at power and control. There are Herods aplenty in our world and we need a lot more wise men (and women).
It often leaves us feeling helpless to do anything, to affect any change, to play a part in writing that new story or leading the world down a different road. Yes, we can should pray. Yes, we can grieve the lack of peace and unity in our world. Yes, we can organize and strive for justice among all people. Yes, we can seek and serve Christ in all persons. But what we hope for our world, the story that God is writing of hope and wholeness, begins with us walking the path of the wise men in seeking God, begins with us walking the path that Jesus walked before us and walks with us again – the path of sacrificial love for our neighbors. Our call as those who follow Jesus is to live differently, to be shaped by our encounter with the embodiment of Love, and to be wholly dedicated to that so the world around us might see an alternative to the same, tired, tragic story. Because our world won’t encounter the baby in the manger like the shepherds or the child Jesus like the wise men…it will encounter us, the Body of Christ. And when it does, what will it find?
Moral theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, put it this way:
“The world needs the church, but not to help it run more smoothly or make it a better and safer place for Christians to live. Rather, the world needs the church because without the church the world does not know what it is nor who God is. The only way for the world to know that it is being redeemed is for the church to point to the Redeemer by being a redeemed people. The way for the world to know that it needs redeeming, that it is broken and fallen, is for the church to enable the world to strike hard against something that is an alternative to what the world offers.”
Herod is going to do what Herod does. The only path that we have a part in setting is our own and, in faith and by God’s good grace, we hopefully make a mark on the world around us when the power of Love takes hold.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know exactly what this looks like for us or what this means when a country has been bombed and it’s leader apprehended. I don’t know what it means when that leader was oppressive, violent, and accused of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court. Despite the numerous questionable pretexts for a military takeover of a foreign country, and a long history of US intervention in Latin America leading to enormously negative outcomes, is there something good about a dictator no longer being in power? What does love look like in this moment? I don’t know. What I do know is that the world is full of Herods and the story written by fear, domination, and grasping at power is old and tired.
Our world needs hope, it needs a new story, it needs a new path. That path has been walked by Jesus – the child in the manger who grew up to be a savior. The one who overthrew the powerful and the corrupt, not with force, but with sacrificial love, ensuring that we would never be apart from God despite the circumstances of the moment. The hope the world longs for has already come in Jesus, the new story is already being written. As much as we often feel helpless and powerless to change the world around us, that new story, the new path becoming well-trodden, starts with you and me and us taking one small step at a time. And here is the thing: we are not alone. Emmanuel – God is with us and with our world.
So take a step. When faced with a moment of decision, choose the path that looks like love rather than fear and power and control, even if you don’t know what it will accomplish. The same God who led the wise men with a star and directed them to a new road home is the same God who will lead us forward. Sometimes with a blazing light that makes the path clear. Sometimes with just enough light to take the next step. The star may be gone, but the light of the world is with us. May we have the courage and faith to follow.
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