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Jan 6, 2008
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Sermon: Epiphany Sunday
Community Church of Wilmette
January 6, 2008
Get Lost
Journey.
Pilgrimage.
Quest.
Odyssey.
This is the archetypical language of human myth.
The quest for the Holy Grail…or the sorcerer’s stone or the Golden Fleece…or following a star.
On Epiphany we once again encounter this truth within our own tradition. If there is nothing else you take from today’s service please understand that our faith is about the journey to Christ. Like the Magi from long ago, we are all following a star to a manger where we encounter God enshrouded in humanity and humanity enshrouded in God.
That’s all.
And this is the central truth to all Christian discipleship:
It is by its very nature a journey.
The journey to Christ encompasses the entirety of our existence. It involves all who we are. It is mysictal. It is practical. It is political. This is what the journey story of the three Magi teaches us.
Three men have embarked on a quest. They are following a Star. They are unsure exactly what the Star may be leading them to, but they are men who make a habit of listening to dreams, and even paying attention to strange astrological events in the night sky (Have you read your horoscope today?). They pack up their things and search out where this strange star has settled.
They meet with Herod and ask him what he knows about what has been happening in his own skies. I am always taken aback when I read this story that Herod is oblivious until the wise men point out what is happening in his own land. He is surprised! How is that even possible? But then, maybe this is Herod’s own spiritual blindness at work. We really don’t know. All we can do is speculate.
So, Herod goes to his own advisors. And they confirm what the men from the East have said. He learns what he can from the Magi and sends them off to find out what they can…and then they are to return to him and tell him everything.
Herod’s predicament is tenuous at best. Strangers are telling him that his political power may have come to an end. His own advisors are telling him that the Strangers are right. Can you imagine what kind of day Herod is having? The very stars are aligned against him. Everyone agrees. He is frightened and all of Jerusalem with him.
And this is when things get interesting. The Magi actually find what they have come looking for. They find a child. They offer gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. They came prepared with kingly gifts. And in finding the Christ Child, their quest ends. Or has it?
How many times has any one of us embarked on a journey with what we believe to be a clear goal, a clear end, only to find that what we thought was the ending was really just the beginning? It’s almost cliché. We reach our goal only to discover that it is the first of what will likely be many, many steps in a much longer journey. This is what happens to the Magi.
They encounter the Child promised in prophesy.
But they are warned in a dream of Herod’s treachery.
They return home by another way. The very nature of their journey has changed.
In her book, The Celtic Way of Prayer, Esther de Waal offers her own meditations on the nature of the Christian spiritual journey. Within the Celtic tradition, she says, is a unique understanding of the nature of the spiritual pilgrimage. The spiritual quest is more than marching out to reach a destination, the performance of some great superhuman feat, or even naming a simple goal to achieve. The whole understanding of Christian journey is much more freeform than that. It is like being set adrift on the sea. The word used to name those who journey is “peregrinatio.” Peregrinatio means “Pilgrims on a journey for the Love of God.”
The entire impulse of the Christian spiritual quest is Love, the love of God in Christ, the love of oneself, and the love of our neighbors.
The quest is the desire of God, the encounter with God, and the transformation that is our response. This is the defining quality of the Magi’s journey. This is what makes their journey such an excellent example for us to try to understand and even emulate. The Magi set out to follow a star…an absurd thing to do by most standards. The Magi encounter Love en-fleshed. They encounter Christ and their lives are irrevocably changed. They are compelled to return home by another road. The way they arrived is now closed to them. The former route, the former way of life, has become dangerous, spiritually and physically dangerous. The entire landscape is now changed.
This is the wisdom available to us in this story. The spiritual journey is not some isolated pastime in the life of the believer. The quest for God has real consequences. It engages our lives on every level. We ignore this truth at our own peril. And the story we have been given this morning is only the tip of the beginning.
The rest of the story goes something like this:
Joseph is told in a dream to take his family into Egypt to protect them from Herod. Since the Magi do not return to Herod to report on what they find, Herod is enraged. His political standing is threatened and he plays his own hand. Hs only recourse, it seems, is violence. When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men,* he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men.* Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’ Once again prophesy and violence intersect. Once again, a political leader is unable to see the shifting landscape and admit to the truth: The God of Love is real and is present in the world. Any other power, in the end, is false and unfounded. Why is it that the response of the powerful to the presence of God so often is violent? Is their fear that great?
True power, so the Magi would have us know, lies in the journey, lies in a manger, sits in the lap of his mother, and is innocent and free. Leaders like Herod know this. Deep down inside they know this. This is why they fear. They can sense their end. They can sense the fruitlessness of their own endeavors. This is why their actions are so desperate. What does a man in command of armies have to fear from small children? And yet Herod fears. All Jerusalem fears, in fact. They know, as do all tyrants and those who are subject to them, that the encounter with God changes everything. And in their fear they won’t even begin the journey.
Such things as tyranny, violence, rage, poverty and oppression must come to an end when we encounter God. How we live and interact with the world must change. Even in his desperation, Herod seems to know this. But Herod is unwilling to be changed. He is unwilling to give up his place of power and allow God to rule, to allow God to set the terms, and for Love to take it’s rightful place in the world. He will not even begin the journey to find the star. He sends the Magi in his place. And when they do not return to him, when they do not return and express their loyalty to him, he lashes out.
In the dreams recorded in Matthew’s gospel, Joseph is told to wait until Herod has died to return to Israel. All that is left for Herod is violence and death. That is his power. That is all he will ever have. In the end, Love will overcome such power.
The ancients knew this truth. They wrote about it and handed it down to us in the prophetic words of Isaiah and Jeremiah. They proclaimed it in the Gospel story found in Matthew. They wanted us to know this truth. Love overcomes Death and violence. This is the truth of our journey.
We are called on a journey. Many in the world will count it as foolishness. Those who speak from violence and rage are on a different journey. They will think we are lost, adrift at sea. As it should be.
God bless those lost in the Love of God.
Amen.
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