Sermon 1/3/16
Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany
On
Christmas Eve, as we were talking about this deep longing for home that most
all of us understand, I shared with you how this “journey home” was a trope
that we see played out in some of our favorite movies. For example, I mentioned
the classic The Wizard of Oz, and how
Dorothy, nearly as soon as she leaves Kansas and ends up in Oz, is already
trying to get back home. But of course there is another trope, another part of
this story, and many of the same movies, that is also at play here, and that’s
the quest to find this certain thing, this item, this person that is going to
be the solution to the problem. In Dorothy’s case, she is, of course, off to
see the Wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz. Her desire is to go home, but she’s
been told that the Wizard of Oz is the solution – he will tell her what she
must do to get back to Kansas.
And of
course, as is the case in many of these movies, when Dorothy finally arrives to
meet the Wizard, it isn’t at all what she expected. The Wizard turns out to be
a sham. At first, Dorothy is terribly disappointed. But, the Wizard does help the Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow
realize their dreams – realize they have the courage, the heart, and the brains
they’ve so desired. He tries to help Dorothy too, and when his plans fail, it
turns out Dorothy already has the means to get home, clicking together her ruby
slippers. Her adventure has not been at all what she expected. The Wizard
wasn’t what she expected. She didn’t expect to meet these three who became dear
friends along the way, and didn’t anticipate that she had the ability to defeat
the Wicked Witch and find her way home. But despite her journey bringing her
nothing she expected at the start, Dorothy leaves for Kansas ready to go home
having loved and learned from her strange experiences in Oz.
I’ve
been thinking about journeys like Dorothy’s – journeys where we set out with a
clear aim, or goal, or purpose in mind, only to find when we reach our
destination that what is waiting for us is not at all what we expected. Have
you ever had a journey like that? Our scripture text for today is about a
journey like this. Today is Epiphany Sunday. It’s also just the 10th
day of Christmas. As I mentioned last week, the season of Christmas in the
church calendar lasts 12 days, starting on December 25th, when
Christmas begins, and ending on January 5th, the
day before Epiphany. Epiphany day is January 6th, but
when Epiphany is not on a Sunday, we
celebrate Epiphany on the closest Sunday before
the 6th. The word Epiphany is from a Greek word that means
literally “coming to light,” or “shining forth.” Epiphany is the day when we
celebrate the Magi, Wisemen from the East, coming to see Jesus and bringing him
gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. This is significant because it represents
that Jesus is light to the whole world, celebrated even by these foreign
strangers, not just the people of Israel, not just a chosen few. Jesus is the
light of and for the whole world.
We
really know very little about these wise men. They appear only in this passage
from Matthew. Matthew describes them as men from the East, which maybe may have meant they were
astrologers from Persia, interpreters of stars and dreams. The idea that they
were kings comes from a verse of a Psalm that talks about kings bringing gifts
to the Messiah – a loose connection at best. The number three was just layered
onto tradition over time, perhaps because three gifts are named, along with
traditional names for each of three wise men. But again, these ideas are not
mentioned in the Bible. What we do know from the Bible is that these wise men
came to the palace of King Herod looking for a newborn king, since they had
seen a star that was significant to them.
We don’t
even know why the Magi would be
interested in seeing a new king of the Jewish people, since they themselves
were not Jewish. But what we do know is this: when they were looking for this
new king, they expected to find him at the palace. That’s right where they went
– straight to the palace, to have an audience with Herod. They expected,
perhaps, that Herod had a new child who would eventually become king, or some
other similar chain of events. Instead, they find a baffled and frightened
Herod, who has no idea what they are talking about. They’re sent to find this
new king by Herod, guided by additional details about the child’s likely place
of birth, and eventually, finally, they find Jesus with his mother Mary. They
have brought gifts for the child that would have been appropriate at the
palace: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Costly gifts. And so they offer these gifts to this child, Jesus,
who they find not in a palace, but in a normal home, in a small town, the child
of a carpenter and his wife, totally normal by every visible clue.
The Magi
could have decided they had gotten it all wrong and taken their gifts and gone
back home, disappointed that they had come so far only to find that the Wizard
of Oz was just a man behind a curtain. But Matthew says they were “overwhelmed
with joy.” I love that phrase. Nothing went as planned, but they simply changed
their course as a new plan was laid out for them. They went where they were
led. And they were thrilled with
where they were led. They didn’t judge Mary and Joseph and Jesus by their outer
wrappings. They recognized the Holy in the child they saw. The Epiphany is the
coming-to-light, the shining-forth of Jesus as light of the world. And it
wasn’t what the Wisemen set out to see. But what was revealed to them by the
light was nonetheless exactly what
they were seeking, overwhelming them with joy.
I’m
wondering what we are expecting, as we journey with God. As we begin a new
year, what destinations do we have in mind? I’m wondering about what solution
to our problems, what fix for our troubles, what cures for what ails us we are
expecting to find at the end of the yellow brick road. And I’m wondering, then,
what we do when, inevitably, what we find in Oz, or underneath the Star of
Bethlehem, is not what we were expecting. What will the light of Epiphany
reveal to us?
I’ve
been reading the book Why Not Me? by
Mindy Kaling. She’s the writer and star of the TV show The Mindy Project. Or you might know her as a writer and actress on
The Office – she played Kelly Kapoor.
She’s a very funny writer, and she spends one chapter of her book divulging,
with great wit and sarcasm, all of her beauty secrets. One of them? Stay in the
shadows! We look best, she insists, under the forgiving lighting of shadows,
out of the light, tucked away into a corner a little bit, without the harsh
brightness revealing every detail of ourselves that we’d rather keep hidden. I
think about this fact sometimes with my camera on my smart phone. On most smart
phones, if you use it to take a “selfie,” the camera automatically switches to
a setting called “beauty face.” It gives your skin a nice uniform glow, and
erases any imperfections and subtracts about 5-10 years of wrinkles and lines
from your skin. Selfies, after all, are pretty close-up pictures – and do we
really want to see everything about ourselves that the camera might reveal?
Most of
us know what the word Epiphany itself means in everyday usage. Epiphany means a
sudden realization of the truth about something. It's the lightbulb moment, the
"A-Ha" moment when the pieces fall into place and comprehension
succeeds. It's the moment of recognition. Today we celebrate that the light of
the world is shining. But more than just acknowledging the light of Christ, our
task is to look closely at just what the light of Christ is revealing in us.
Our task is to let that light shine into our lives and bring all of the dark places
out of the shadows. What would it mean if the light of Christ focused on your
life and made visible everything that has been hidden and unseen? What
unexpected things might we see, discover, when the Star of Bethlehem shines on
us?
I’ve
been thinking about this in two ways: First, I think letting in the light of
Christ would make us deal with aspects of ourselves and our behaviors that we
try to hide in the shadows, or cover up with “beauty face” mode. Do you
struggle with envy or coveting what others have? Are you facing an addiction
that you can’t control? Are you holding on to resentments or conflicts with
others that you have been unwilling to resolve? God at work in us reveals all
those things – uncovers them, not so that we can be judged and condemned, but
so that we can be healed and redeemed and move forward. This is a time when so
many of us are making New Year’s Resolutions, and I think that the reason that
so many of us fail in our efforts is because we don’t really examine what’s
behind our feelings – why aren’t we happy with what we have, always longing for
what others have, for example? And we never ask for support – we start out to
change our lives on our own, without the grounding, the source of our being. It
is Christ who is the light, and we can’t shine without that source, God,
empowering us.
What
would it mean if the light of Christ focused on your life and made visible
everything that has been hidden and unseen? Here’s the second way: We don’t see
ourselves very clearly. One of my favorite verses of scripture is from 1
Corinthians 13. Not the beginning part, love is patient, love is kind, although
that’s very lovely. No, my favorite part is near the end of the chapter, when
Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to
face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been
fully known.” I think that may be our hearts’ desire – to be known fully,
completely – and also our deepest fear – that someone will see us – flaws and imperfections
and things we’d rather keep in the shadows. So often, we look at ourselves and
see our failures, our faults, our flaws. We gloss right over the gifts we have,
the way that God has created us, the strength we have, the ways that we have
been uniquely formed and blessed and placed in this world so that we can serve
and give and bless others. We just don’t see in ourselves all that God sees in
us. And so we let ourselves off easy, because we’re convinced that we can’t do
what God knows we can do and do well. When the light of Christ brings everything in us into view, when we let
that light shine in all the overshadowed places, then we start to see ourselves
as we really are, as God created us, and as God is calling us to be. God sees
us, all that the light of Christ reveals in us, and is overwhelmed with joy in us.
That’s
the journey of Epiphany. We find at the end of the long road we travel not some
magic solution. Instead, we find the light of Christ, light of the world,
shining back at us, dispelling the shadows, revealing who we really are. God
isn’t disappointed in what’s revealed in us. God is full of hope at all that
yet might be in us. May we, like the Wisemen, lay our very best gifts as an
offering of thanksgiving at the feet of Christ, overwhelmed with joy. For we
find there perhaps not at all what we expected, but instead, shining in the
light, we discover exactly what we’ve
needed. Amen.
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