Following Stars
Matthew 2:1-12; Isaiah 60:1-9
January 5, 2014
I want to spend a moment, this morning, rescuing the magi
from the disrepute they’ve lately fallen into in some quarters. You know the
joke that’s made the rounds for a few years now: if it had been three wise
women they would have asked directions and brought practical gifts.
Well, to begin with, the story doesn’t actually specify three wise men. That tradition likely
arose because the story names three gifts. The text, itself, is silent on the
numbers. As to the gifts: while they may appear to us strange and utterly
impractical, in fact, they would have been quite valuable. A family that was
going to be on the run and in exile could certainly use a bit of financial
support. Moreover, as in all of Matthew, the events of Jesus’ life regularly
refer back to Hebrew scriptures – in this case to the passage from Isaiah that
we just heard.
The great poem that closes Isaiah provides the plot for
Matthew’s narrative. Upon such reference, in fact, the whole of this story
rests. Oh, and it’s also in looking at that referential nature of the story
that I’ll defend the wise men on one last note: as the first verse of this
story tells us, the wise men did ask for directions.
“Wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is
the child who has been born king of the Jews?’”
They came asking directions. In fact, they went straight to
the top – to a gathering that included the king, the chief priests and the
scribes. Now, you might well say, “typical men, on a power trip,” and I won’t
argue that point. In fact, this story of the magi is filled with warnings about
the dangers of power and the structures that ensure that power remains in the
hands of the powerful.
Those warnings begin when the wise men travel to Jerusalem –
the capital city, and a city with a long and storied history of pretension to
power. We can hear all of this in the passage from Isaiah:
“Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the
brightness of your dawn.” This proclamation comes in Isaiah’s closing vision of
the new Jerusalem, and it would have come as comfort and affirmation to Herod –
“my city is going to rise up and become an important power in the world!”
But the priests Herod consults are wise enough, and honest
enough, to point Herod toward a different prophetic vision. They tell Herod
that he – and the wise men from the East – are consulting the wrong text when
it comes to this rising star. Instead of Isaiah, they suggest, you should be
reading Micah, who proclaims, “you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no
means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is
to shepherd my people Israel.”
As Walter Brueggemann puts it:
This is the voice of a peasant hope for the future,
a voice that is not impressed with high towers and great arenas, banks and
urban achievements. It anticipates a different future, as yet unaccomplished,
that will organize the peasant land in resistance to imperial threat. Micah
anticipates a leader who will bring well-being to his people, not by great
political ambition, but by attentiveness to the folks on the ground.
Herod tells the Eastern intellectuals the truth, and
the rest is history. They head for Bethlehem, a rural place, dusty, unnoticed
and unpretentious. It is, however, the proper milieu for the birth of the One
who will offer an alternative to the arrogant learning of intellectuals and the
arrogant power of urban rulers.[1]
Micah, moreover, speaks in a clear voice utterly lacking in
sentimentality.
It’s been said that sentimentality is among the greatest
enemies of the gospel. It’s easy to sentimentalize all of the stories we read
and repeat around Christmastide, and the story of the magi is no different. We
like to include dress-up kings in our pageants, and we must – as we did this
morning – include “We Three Kings” in the proceedings.
But this is no sentimental tale, and we should attend,
however difficult it is, to the horror imbedded in it. The story of the magi
ends when they avoid going back to Herod, and that avoidance foreshadows the
flight of Mary and Joseph from the terrors that Herod will inflict upon the
children of Israel.
If we confront the story honestly – and allow ourselves to
be confronted by it – then we must ask ourselves about slaughters of the
innocent here and now. How is it that in the richest country in the world,
almost 1-in-4 children live in poverty?[2]
How is it that the U.S. rate of child deaths by gunshot has increased by 60
percent over the past decade, even as overall murder rates have plummeted in
cities across the country?[3]
How is it that 16 million kids in America don’t get enough to eat?
Ol’ Herod had little on us when it comes to a slaughter of
the innocents. This is not a sentimental story. This is the story of the
beginning of a great turning – a turning that has been ongoing and that continues
and to which we are called to commit our hearts and minds and talents and
treasures, just like the magi who came following a star to offer homage to the
one whose birth heralds change.
We are called to follow that one to whom that star pointed –
just as faithful folk at Clarendon Presbyterian Church have for 90 years now.
We are called to follow the one to whom that star pointed to create a community
in our own time that bears witness to the God revealed through the life of that
child born in dusty Bethlehem. We are called here and now to follow; and in
following, to build a community centered around this table to which all are
welcome, at which sanctuary is offered to the innocents among us and to the
rest of us, at which all are fed.
The story doesn’t end there, because we don’t just sit
around this table telling old stories until we pass away into history. No. The
story doesn’t end here, because we are sent from this table into the world to
participate in God’s work in the world: the in-breaking of the Spirit; the
cosmos-shaking of Christ; and the history-making of Christ’s church. Let us
break bread together. Let us be the church of Jesus the Christ. Amen.
posted by David Ensign at
11:33 AM
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