January 6, 2008
Epiphany, Matthew 2:1-12
Today is the Feast of Epiphany, which is a big celebration day for the Church. The problem is that it also spells the end of the Christmas season – yesterday was the twelfth of the 12 days of Christmas. And so, at least in our house, it means we’re taking down the Christmas decorations, hauling the dry fir tree to the end of the driveway, and getting ready to go back to work, and back to school. In other words, getting back to normal. The delicious decadence of Christmas vacation – with its candles and carols and cookies and presents and relaxing time with family – is at an end. So instead of feeling celebratory, it’s easy to just feel tired. For me, it took an inquisitive 8 year old to help me get into the spirit of Epiphany.
A few days after Christmas, Holden and I took the kids to Texas to visit my sister’s family. My sister Emily has two girls. Anna is 8 and Ellen is 6, and they are full of energy and interesting questions. Their family is Orthodox Christian – my brother-in-law is from Georgia, one of the break-off republics from the Soviet Union – and I think the girls aren’t quite sure what to make of me. There are no women priests in the Orthodox Church and they’ve seen that I can’t take communion in their church and that their mother won’t receive it in mine. Emily had just been back here for my ordination and my nieces were really interested in that. Pretty soon after we arrived in Texas, Anna asked, “Auntie Liz, what religion are you?” I answered, “Christian.” “But are you Orthodox?” she asked. “No,” I said. “I’m not part of the Orthodox Church. My denomination is Episcopalian, but I’m part of the Christian Church just like you.” I think she had her doubts about that, but she let it go.
The next night, when I was getting Sophie ready for bed, my nieces came in and wanted to read stories with us. After reading “Fox in Socks”, I started reading from a little international children’s Bible they had, full of great illustrations by kids around the world. Since it was just after Christmas, I picked some of the Christmas stories to read. The lovely and familiar stories about the star, the shepherds, baby Jesus, and the magi. And then Anna piped up, “Everyone always likes those stories the best, but I think they’re boring.” So I gave her the little bible to pick out some stories for us to read next. She proceeded to pick the story about God sending plagues upon the Egyptians. And then the story of Joshua fighting in Jericho. And then the story of Esther saving the Jewish people. Then Anna’s questions started again. “Auntie Liz, since you’re a priest now, can I ask you a question?” “Sure,” I said, “I’ll try to answer if I can.” Then she asked me one of the questions that you can’t help but struggle with if you open up the Old Testament. “Why are there so many stories of God choosing certain people to protect and talk to and win wars while He lets the other people die?”
It turned out that my sister had told Anna to save all her hard questions about God and the Bible to ask me. (One of the dangers of this job, I suspect.) And Anna’s observation was great – there are countless stories, especially in the Old Testament, of God being for particular people and against others. And there doesn’t always seem to be all that much merit to the folks that are helped, or badness in the people that are destroyed. I felt a big pressure to answer Anna well, since to her I represent all those questionable non-Orthodox Christians out there. So I did my best.
I talked about how even though the Bible is made up of tons of smaller stories, sometimes it’s really important for us to look at the whole thing together. Often the individual stories show God working with a certain small group of people against other groups. But the whole thing taken together shows God expanding God’s relationship with humankind – using that small group of chosen people to be a light to the nations so that everyone will know and be in relationship with God. We see that most clearly when Jesus comes and the circle opens up completely.
And even though I’d just read it to the girls, at the time it didn’t hit me that one of the best examples of that circle breaking open was right there in the midst of those familiar Christmas Bible stories. In the Gospel story we read this morning from Matthew about the wise magi who journey to find Jesus.
We don’t know much about these “wise men from the east.” At Christmas, we sing “We three kings of Orient are,” but we don’t know how many there were or where they were from, and it’s unlikely they were kings. Commentators guess they were astrologers, and maybe religious leaders, from Persia. Whoever they were, they spent a lot of time and effort finding Jesus, traveling probably hundreds of miles over difficult terrain for many weeks based on nothing but a star in the sky. Since the bright star signified to them the presence of a great ruler, they went first to Jerusalem, the capital city, assuming that of course any new king would be found there. There they ran into King Herod, who was frightened by their news of the birth of the King of the Jews. And they learned from the chief priests and scribes that this King, the Messiah, was prophesyed to be born in Bethlehem, so they followed the star another 6 miles to get there.
But in Bethlehem, instead of finding the earthly king they expected, the star led them to an obscure peasant family in a most modest dwelling. You’d expect them to be disappointed, or at the very least confused. But instead they were “overwhelmed with joy.” Or, to translate the Greek more literally, they “rejoiced exceedingly with a great joy.” Our reading says that “they knelt down and paid him homage,” but again a more literal translation has them throwing themselves down to worship Jesus. Yahweh was not their God, the idea of a Messiah was completely outside their religious tradition. And yet these magi understood what others could not. The presence of the baby who was God-with-us, Emmanuel, filled them with incredible joy and inspired them to worship. And then they opened their treasure chests and bestowed their riches upon him.
The magi are just a blip in the scriptures. They appear suddenly and disappear 12 lines later and we never hear from them again. But they serve an important role in the Christmas story. As the first Gentiles to worship Jesus as the Messiah, they represent all of us non-Jews who follow after them. Their existence in Matthew’s story shows that God’s plan includes more than just the small group that God seemed to have been choosing and protecting throughout the Old Testament. The ones that my niece Anna was wondering about. The magi are our promise that God’s plan includes us too.
In a way, the magi’s story is our story. Which leads me to wonder whether we are searching for God with even a fraction of the diligence that the magi were. Are we, like the magi, able to leave behind our preconceptions and our comfort zones to find Jesus in unexpected places? And when we find him what do we do? Do we open ourselves up to that kind of overwhelming joy that the magi experienced? Or do we, like my 8 year old niece, find the stories quaint and familiar – boring even – and miss the incredible mystery and invitation they offer us? Do we join the magi in bringing our gifts – our selves – as we encounter Christ alive and present in the world?
Because that is exactly what we celebrate today on this Feast of Epiphany – God made man, alive and present in the world. God’s revelation to humankind in the person of Jesus. The incarnation as God’s great gift to all of humanity.
Which brings me right back to my niece’s hard question and my answer about God working through a few people to reach out to all people. And t oday’s readings make me feel confident about using the word “all.” Not just Matthew’s story of the magi but our other readings too. Isaiah prophesys that all the nations shall come to the light of God. And Paul talks in his letter to the Ephesians about how God’s plan includes the Gentiles as sharers in the Gospel. As Paul puts it, in Christ we humans have “access to God.” And that is an epiphany worth celebrating.
Amen.
ER