The following sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day is adapted from a sermon I delivered in 2011. It is posted at SustainablePreaching.org (January 5, 2020).
Sermon for the Second Sunday after
Christmas Day
Jeremiah 31:7-14
Psalm 84: 1-8
Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19
Matthew 2: 1-12
Journeying with the wise men
Happy are the people whose strength is in you! whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way. – Psalm 84:4
When I think of the three kings, what leaps first to mind are the crèches I unpack every year a couple of weeks before Christmas. On the piano in the living room I put the tall, earthenware figures of Mary, Joseph, and the baby, of the shepherds and sheep, and — yes — of the three kings and their camels. On the mantelpiece goes a miniature nativity set in which each teeny-tiny figure is made of clay, delicately painted, and no more than one inch high. On the coffee table I put the plastic figures and the cheap wooden stable that children can play with to their heart’s content without making their grandmother worry that something will break. No crèche is complete without its three kings, and when the Twelve Days of Christmas are over, back go the kings and camels into their boxes, where they spend the rest of the year stored in the basement.
Reflecting on today’s Gospel, I got to thinking: what would happen if the wise men walked out of those crèches and into our lives? What would happen if these figures — so easy to trivialize as nothing more than decorative props for a mid-winter festival that we pack away when the festival is done — what if the wise men actually came to life for us? What if their journey informed and deepened our own spiritual search, and propelled it forward? So I began to read the story for its spiritual significance, wondering if it might be read as a sacred, archetypal story about how we grow in intimacy with God.
Four parts of the story stand out to me.
First, of course, is the star, that
mysterious, shining presence that startles the wise men and launches their
search. Ancient tradition held that an unusual star could appear in the skies
to mark the birth of someone special, such as a king. That is how the wise men
interpret what they see: something out of the ordinary is taking place,
something truly significant is afoot, and out the door they go, leaving their
ordinary lives behind as they follow the light wherever it leads.
Let’s pause to note that even though every
painting, movie, and Christmas card that depicts the journey of the wise men
shows a dazzling star above their heads, we don’t actually know from the
biblical story whether anyone but the wise men can see that star. King Herod,
the chief priests and scribes don’t seem to know anything about the star until
the wise men arrive in Jerusalem and tell them about its rising. So the star
may be visible to the eye or it may be perceptible only to one’s inward sight;
it may be seen or it may be unseen. Either way, it signals the birth of
something new in the world. It heralds a presence and power just now being
born. The wise men are wise because they spot the star and set everything aside
to follow where it leads.
Maybe every spiritual journey begins with a star. At some point we get a sense — perhaps a very vague one — that there is something more to life than the ordinary round of tasks and responsibilities, something above, beyond, or maybe within material reality that can give a larger meaning and purpose to our days, something that is beautiful and shining and that lights up the world. So we set out on a quest to follow that star and to see where it leads. We may name the quest in different ways — maybe we call it a search for meaning or wholeness, a search for happiness or peace. Maybe we seek to know that we are loved, or to draw closer to the divine Source of love. Maybe, as some Greeks say to Philip in the Gospel of John, we express our desire in a simple, straightforward way: “We wish to see Jesus” (John 12:21). However we name that desire, deep down we want to know God. And so, like the wise men, we set out, and what beckons us forward is a star, a subtle, shining presence that keeps company with us, and that we follow as best we can.
For most of us, most of the time,
following the leadings of God is not like having a GPS in the car, delivering
clear-cut instructions: “Turn left in .2 miles; take the freeway; turn right in
4.3 miles.” Like it or not, the star of Bethlehem is more elusive than that, so
we have to develop a stance of careful listening and open inquiry, and a
practice of prayer that makes us more sensitive to the glimmers of the holy. It
takes practice to stay attentive to the star, for, as Boris Pasternak once
wrote, “When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no
louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it.”
The star is the first thing that catches
my attention in this story. The second
is Jerusalem. Where does the star lead the wise men? Straight to Jerusalem,
straight into the center of political and economic power, where King Herod the
Great, a client king appointed by Rome, rules with the same ferocity that
Stalin wielded over his own country in the 1930’s. We might wish that following
a spiritual path were only an individual and interior enterprise — that following
the star meant nothing more than developing a personal practice of prayer or
going away on periodic retreats. There are plenty of contemporary books and
speakers out there that define spirituality in a very individualistic way as
being mindful of your own mind and cultivating your own soul — and of course
that is definitely part of the journey. But right from the beginning, from the
very moment that Christ is born, it’s clear that following his star also means
coming to grips with the social and political realities of one’s time. Being
“spiritual,” for Christians, is not just an interior, individual project of
“saving your soul” — it also has a civic dimension, a political dimension, and
as the wise men faithfully follow the star, they are drawn straight into the
darkness and turmoil of the world, where systemic power can be used to dominate
and terrify. Without intending it or knowing it, the wise men even contribute
to Herod’s program of terror, for Herod takes the information that they give
him and uses it to order the slaughter of all the children under the age of two
who live in Bethlehem.
Following the star evidently means being
willing to become conscious of the darkness of the world, and even to perceive
how we ourselves are implicated in that darkness. The taxes I pay help
subsidize fossil fuels; the clothes I wear and the electronic devices I use may
have a vast but hidden social and environmental cost. If I drive a gas-powered car, with every turn
of the ignition key, I add to global warming. Until I recognize how I am caught
up in and contribute to the contradictions and injustices of our political and
economic system, I am not following the star and accompanying the wise men into
Jerusalem.
And let’s notice, too, that King Herod
trembles at news of the star — in fact, its rising frightens him. The powers
that be are terrified when God in Christ draws near, for God’s love is always a
threat to those powers; it opposes everything in us and around us that is
selfish, greedy, and motivated by the wish to dominate, control, and possess.
As I read it, the wise men needed to get to know those powers, both within
themselves and in the world around them, if they were going to find and follow
Christ.
So they entered Jerusalem and faced the darkness. Then, keeping their eyes on the star, they kept going, “until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy” (Matthew 2:9b-10).
This is the third part of the story: the
encounter with Christ. What a beautiful line that is — “when they saw that the
star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.” The long, long journey with
all its uncertainties and privations, its cold nights and its restless, ardent
searching, has reached its fulfillment. The star has stopped, and the wise men
can be at peace at last, they have arrived at last, they have found what they
were looking for, at last! They enter the house, they see Mary and the child,
and they fall to their knees in a gesture of deep reverence and humility.
Do we know what that’s like? Of course we
do. We glimpse such moments whenever time seems to stop, when, for instance,
our minds grow very quiet in prayer, we surrender our thoughts, and we seem to
be filling with light. Or maybe it happens when we gaze at something that
captures our complete attention — maybe a stretch of mountains or the sea, or
when we take a long, loving look into a child’s sleeping face, or when we are
completely absorbed in a piece of music. In moments like these, it can feel as
if we are gazing through the object on which we gaze, and seeing into the heart
of life itself. Love is pouring through us and into us, and all we can do is
throw up our hands, fall inwardly to our knees, and offer as a gift everything
that is in us, just as the wise men open their treasure chests and offer
everything that is in them. Worship is what happens when we come into the
presence of what is really real. When we come to the altar rail at the
Eucharist, whether we choose to stand or whether we kneel as the wise men did,
like them we stretch out our hands to offer everything that is in us, and like
them we receive — we take in — the living presence of Christ.
Finally, the fourth part of the story is its closing line: “… having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road” (Matthew 2:12). In other words, the wise men refused to cooperate with Herod. They deceived him. They resisted him. The wise men have been called the first conscientious objectors in the name of Christ. They are the first in a long line of witnesses to Christ who from generation to generation have carried out acts of non-violent civil disobedience in Jesus’ name. The journey of the wise men is our journey, too, for, as Gregory the Great reportedly remarked in a homily back in the 7th century: “Having come to know Jesus, we are forbidden to return by the way we came.”
So, as we set out together into a new
year, I hope that you will join me in keeping the wise men at our side, rather
than packing them away somewhere in a box.
Like them, we can attune ourselves to the
guiding of the star and renew our commitment to prayer and inward listening.
Like them, we can enter Jerusalem and all
the dark places of our world and soul, following where God leads, and trusting
that God’s light will shine in the darkness.
Like them, we can make our way to Christ,
and kneel in gratitude.
And like them, we, too, can rise to our feet with a new-fired passion to be agents of justice and healing, and a renewed desire to give ourselves to God, for “happy are the people whose strength is in [God, and] whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.”