Old
Testament: Isaiah 49:1-7
New Testament: Matthew 2:1-12
New Testament: Matthew 2:1-12
God is always showing up for us in unlikely places.
Some stories in the Bible are just plain weird. We
have tales in which snakes and donkeys talk, fish swallow people whole, flaming
chariots come down from the sky, blind people receive sight, and the dead come
back to life. Perhaps a churchier term would be to say that these accounts are
“mysterious,” but I think “weird” pretty much fits the bill.
In the stories I just mentioned, the weirdness is
obvious to us, even reading the stories thousands of years after they’d been
written. Perhaps the story from our gospel text this morning doesn’t strike you
as too terribly weird. Unless you’re famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson,
you might not pick up on the fact that stars don’t move in the sky the way the
story portrays it happening. Other than that, there’s not too much that stands
out to us as odd. But for Matthew’s audience, this story would’ve been very
weird.
Magi, from the East, following a star.
Let’s think about that star for a moment. Astrology
was seen as a science at the time, and the Bible tended to frown upon it. The
primary reason for this is that the Jewish faith calls us to look to God for guidance and direction in our
lives, and astrology – the idea that the stars direct our fates – makes it easy
for us to forget that the Lord is in control. It’s just a step away from
idolatry and, as such, several passages in the Old Testament warn against it.
Usually, when stars are mentioned in the Bible, they
are noted to be a reflection of God’s awe-inspiring creative power. They are
not often seen as being linked to a specific revelation (or “epiphany,” in
Greek).
To any faithful Jew looking up into the sky in the
first year or so after Jesus’ birth, this new star would’ve perhaps been
interesting, but it would not have been a message. This means that God took the
time to put a star in the sky that would’ve been utterly meaningless to the
“chosen people” – with the sole intention of signaling the Magi.
These “wise men” saw that star and discerned that
there was a message in it for them. Perhaps you noticed in our reading today
that the Bible doesn’t specify how many of them there were. The traditions of
the Western Church indicate that there were three, based on the three gifts
they bring to Jesus, while the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates as many as
twelve! These particular Magi seem to specialize in astrology and may actually have
been priests of the Zoroastrian religion, which pays close attention to the
stars.[1]
What’s strange about this story – at least, one of the things that would’ve
sounded strange to Matthew’s first readers – is that, as you read the Gospel,
these men – who are not Jewish – are
the first to recognize Jesus as “the King of the Jews,” “the Messiah,” and “the
promised ruler of Israel.”[2]
Making things even stranger, while the Magi meet Jesus with overwhelming joy
and bow down to pay him homage, there is no strong indication that they decided
to convert to Judaism. They go back to their own country and are never heard
from again. And the star is gone. Its light is inside them, now.
“So,” writes Craig Satterlee, “these Wise Ones from
the East [practiced the science of astrology] and [the religion of
Zoroastrianism], and God used their faith and knowledge to bring them to the
Christ. More ironic, God used scientists who practiced other religions to [alert]
King Herod and the chief priests and scribes of the people [of] the news that
their Messiah had been born.”
It seems that God will stop at nothing to reach out to
people. And not just the “chosen” people, not just the ones who look and think
and act like you and me, but outsiders, strangers, even those who believe differently
than we do. God can be found in the most unlikely places – like the feed trough
of a stable, or a small one-stoplight town like Bethlehem, or in the faith of a
person who practices a different religion.
In 2002, the Presbyterian Church USA released a
document called “Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.” It sought to address a growing
question among those in our denomination – and a question that I’ve heard a few
times during new member classes here: is faith in Jesus Christ the only way of
salvation? The answer – at least, the one our denomination came up with – is,
as you may have guessed, not a simple “yes” or “no.”
“No one is saved by virtue of inherent goodness or
admirable living, for [Ephesians tells us] ‘by grace you have been saved
through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God’
(Ephesians 2:8). No one is saved apart from God’s gracious redemption in Jesus
Christ. Yet we do not presume to limit the sovereign freedom of [the God described
in 1 Timothy], ‘our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the
knowledge of the truth’ (1 Timothy 2:4). Thus, we neither restrict the grace of
God to those who profess explicit faith in Christ, nor assume that all people
are saved regardless of faith. Grace, love, and communion belong to God, and
are not ours to determine.”[3]
In other words, it is not our job to decide who God
can and cannot welcome into the community of faith. While we see Jesus as the
ultimate revelation (or epiphany) of God’s love for us, the Lord is powerful
enough to call people to faith by any means possible. By means of a star,
perhaps.
The Magi have a message for us: perhaps learning about
other faiths can illuminate or enhance our understanding of God.
I experienced
this when studying world religions in college. I remember, in particular,
learning about the Buddhist concept of a “bodhisattva” – a person who has
achieved the goal of Buddhism: complete enlightenment – and who could choose to
leave behind this world of suffering and pain in favor of entrance to Nirvana.
Instead, the bodhisattva chooses, selflessly, to stay in this world and help
others on their path to enlightenment. This concept didn’t cause me to convert
to Buddhism, but it did add richness and depth to my understanding of Jesus,
who selflessly chooses to take on suffering on our behalf. It also brought me
to a deeper understanding of my calling to selflessly serve others, working to
bring light out of darkness.
God is always showing up for us in unlikely places.
One of the books we’ve been given for Norah is called
“God Gave Us Christmas,” and it’s a pretty heavy-handed and overly-sweet story
about a polar bear mama teaching her cub about the true meaning of Christmas:
Jesus. It’s an okay story, but there’s one moment that stands out as especially
meaningful. Mama Bear and her cub are trudging through snowy Alaska, seeing
things like the Northern Lights and learning that God is “more powerful than
any king on earth.”
On the way home, Mama Bear stops by a tiny flower,
peeking up from the hard, frozen ground. “Oh, you’re too early, little flower,”
she says.
“Little Cub,” she continues, “Jesus is like this
flower – God in our world. Living where you wouldn’t expect. Surprising us!
Christmas is a lot about surprises.”[4]
Our faith is a lot about surprises. The surprise that
God doesn’t wait for us to be perfect before breaking into our lives. The
surprise that, in the face of everything we’ve done and everything we’ve failed
to do, we are loved. The surprise that, despite all evidence to the contrary,
there is light in this world.
Maybe that’s the weirdest, most mysterious claim the
Bible makes – the one we affirmed Thursday night as Annie and Rachael lit the
Christ candle – that “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has
never overcome it.” After all, in the past year, we have come face to face with
tragedy – personally and on the national or even global level.
We have been
touched by cancer and addiction, loneliness and despair; we have experienced a
political process that preys on fear and mistrust; we have seen the rise of
ISIS and Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab and other chaotic terrorist movements around
the globe; we have been confronted with sudden, unexpected, inexplicable death.
There are times when it feels like a lot of darkness.
The HBO series “True Detective” concluded its first
season with a conversation about darkness and light. The two main characters,
Rust and Marty, find themselves standing outside a hospital, looking up at the
night sky.
“I tell you, Marty,” Rust says, “I look up at that sky
and I can only think of one story. The oldest.”
“What’s that?” Marty asks.
“Light verses dark.”
Marty looks up at the blackness, punctuated by tiny
dots of starlight. “It appears to me,” he says, “that the dark has a lot more
territory.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that,” Rust replies. “But
you’re looking at it wrong.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, once there was only dark. You ask me, the
light’s winning.”[5]
What about you? Where do you see God’s light?
Is it in the story that came out of Kenya this week,
in which a group of Muslims shielded their Christian neighbors from an attack
by Al-Shabaab militants?
Is it in the news earlier this month that climate
talks in Paris yielded the beginning of an agreement – between 195 countries –
to make substantial efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and global warming.
Maybe it’s closer to home: looking into your children
or grandchildren’s eyes; the phone call that came at just the right moment; the
lyrics of a song that popped on the radio; the words of a novel that spoke to
your heart; the friend who showed up when you needed her most.
God is always showing up for us in unlikely places.
I don’t know what your star is – what brought you here
today. Was it hope or habit? The desire to reconnect with something larger? The
urge to share your joy with people you love? The need to share your pain with
this community? The thirst for justice or the hunger for spiritual food? The
longing for a word from the Lord?
Whatever led you here, I thank you for the gifts you
have brought: your voice, your body, your perspective, your presence – all of which make our worship
richer and deeper. I pray that you have felt the relentless love of God, which
follows you wherever you go. I pray that you have been a witness to the light
that never goes out.
And I pray that you, like the Magi, will depart from this
place changed – with the light inside you, so it can shine for others.
Amen.
Preached December 27, 2015 by Rev. Joshua T. Andrzejewski
[2]
Paul J. Achtemeier, Feasting on the Word:
Year C, Vol. 1. Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. (217)
[3]
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Hope in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Office of Theology and Worship, 2002. (11-12) https://www.pcusa.org/site_media/media/uploads/theologyandworship/pdfs/hopeinthelord.pdf
[4]
Lisa Tawn Bergren, God Gave Us Christmas.
Waterbook Press, 2006.
[5]
Adapted from True Detective, Season
1, episode 8: “Form and Void,” written by Nic Pizzolatto. See: www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/09/true_detective_on_hbo_rust_s_final_speech_about_how_the_light_s_winning.html
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