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Epiphany, 01/06/2012
Sermon on Matthew 2:1-12, by David Zersen
CHRISTMAS REVERSALS
Today is the twelfth day of Christmas. Although somewhere after Halloween the business world tried to get us thinking about Christmas in the hope that it would make cash registers ring encouragingly, I don't think that the business world is any closer to understanding the meaning of Christmas than it was before Halloween. More importantly, have we after months of Jingle Bells and holly sprigs and decorated homes and shared gifts come closer to understanding its meaning? Epiphany is our last opportunity to get it all straight before we enter a whole new season of emphases and reflections. Sometimes the meaning is right around the corner waiting for us, or hidden behind insights we were led to believe were the real thing-but weren't at all.
One night in our home in the week before December 25, our four grandchildren, ages four through 6, were using some old clothes to act out stories at the forefront of their imaginations. A four-year-old grandson announced that he was the king and kings were in charge of everything in the palace. A cousin, who was the same age, announced that she was the king, and she would be the real one in charge. Hoping to ward off another world war, I suggested that perhaps she could be the queen and could share power with the king. The very wise six-year-old cousin said, "The king is the strongest, but the queen is really in charge anyway." When her father later heard about this reversal, he said, "She must be paying attention in our house. That's the way it usually is."
Such reversals are at the heart of personal, spousal, family, and world conflicts. One individual or group thinks he should be in charge, only to discover that when the war is over or the vote is taken, somebody else is calling the shots. Now that we are at the end of the Christmas season, it's worth asking whether what we thought was all important or the driving value was, in fact, what it claimed to be. The elements in our Old and New Testament texts for today tell us that this is not a new concern.
Bringing them in vs. sending them out
The Old Testament text in Isaiah reminds us how Israel generally viewed God's glory. With few exceptions (the message in Jonah might be one), the nations of the world were to come to Jerusalem to discover the glory of the Lord. Darkness may cover the world (sing it with me from Handel: "thick darkness the peoples"), but nations will come to your light. The wealth of the seas will come and the riches of nations; herds of camels will bring gold and incense. While that may sound very much like a line from "We Three Kings from Orient are," that's only of course because Matthew played on the strings of this text.
In reality, Isaiah, along with other prophets, is sounding the call to celebrate what God will do among his people. Although the politics of the Middle East had long ago taken the sons and daughters of Israel into exile, a new era will see them return (v. 4b) and the insights from foreign cultures will enrich the capital city. In a self-centered way, the returning exiles imagined their country being the beating-heart of the Middle Eastern world. If one would take a modern concept like spiritual outreach and place it back in the Old Testament, we would see that evangelism consisted of waiting for the world to come to God's holy mountain and there find justice, glory and peace. It was somewhat of a physical in-bringing which involved the glory of the temple, the strength of kings and their armies and a notion of justice that could only be understood from the perspective of God's people.
Some of this theology has informed our own American notion of righteousness and justice. From the Puritan vision of America being the biblical "city set on a hill" to the national hymn in which we celebrate the America where "God shed his grace on thee," we have come to acknowledge something which current politicians call American "exceptionalism." It is the view that God bestowed a special measure of goodness and grace on this country. To the degree that other countries imitate our views of justice, free market economy and freedom, they too can participate in this exceptionalism.
The Christmas story and the Gospels in general, however, provide a reversal to such a self-righteous notion. The glory of the Lord is not to be understood in exclusivist terms. It is not a glory just for Jews on their holy mount or just for Americans in their land from sea to shining sea. It is a universal message without reference to race, nationality, or sex. It is a message, as Matthew puts it later at the end of his Gospel, to be brought to all nations, who will come to be baptized in the name of the God (Father, Son and Spirit) who is everywhere.
There are places in our world today that like to celebrate the role they have played in helping to realize the meaning of Matthew's mission proclamation to all the wise men of this world. Halle and Neuendettelsau in Germany, Fuller Seminary and Moody Bible Institute in the U.S. as well as Antioch and Lisbon, ports of the sea, down through the centuries, sent missionaries out into all the world. Sometimes these mission societies have established museums to call attention to the fine work that the societies accomplished in "going" to seek the lost. However, that too can be not only a backward look, but also a focus on seeking glory in one's own setting.
Today's Gospel lesson should help us claim the reversal that Matthew intended. The glory of the Lord is not to be found in calling people to us so much as in sending people out to share the good news that God's love in Christ opens new doors in every land and clime. Where children sing Christmas songs in Chinese and Zulu, where nativity figures show the racial types of Tanzania and Peru, where new hope and forgiveness shape new lives lived under socialism or monarchies-there a universal spiritual movement is arriving that will embrace people and continue forever beyond them until all the world knows one humanity in Christ.
Political rule vs. eternal kingship
There is another reversal that takes place in the story which also has practical application in our world today. Even kings who are not periodically elected have fear that their position might be removed, be it as a result of a revolution or a coup. Herod's throne was capable of being overthrown by Roman replacement or by Jewish insurrection. In addition, Herod was somewhat paranoid, adding to the instability of his rule. When the plot to learn about the new king born in Bethlehem as reported by the Magi was discovered, Herod determined to use political pressure in the form or extermination of young children. Such plots are common in history. Think of Pharaoh and his desire to kill the male children (Exodus 1) or the current Chinese approach to aborting female newborns and preventing second births. Both were/are determined approaches to control a perceived danger in society.
Had all gone as Herod intended in the Matthean story, the Magi might have returned to tell Herod that all was well and that the pretender to the throne was dead. I have a joy-filled etching of the Magi sleeping on their return journey and an angel hovering over them. One of the Magi is winking at us! I love this picture. As Robert Burn's told us, the best laid plans of men often go wrong. Or "Man proposes, God disposes." The Herods of this world come and go. But the eternal King of Kings shall reign forever.
Such reversals are common in literature and there's a very famous one which is a part of the legends of Epiphany. I like to tell this story to visitors from other countries who I take on tour of the Texas State capitol in Austin. Across from the Capitol is the land grant building where Henry Van Dyke used to work. His job was boring, filing the paperwork for the land grants issued in Texas. He filled the time by writing some of his short stories. One of the more famous ones tells how an impoverished couple found Christmas gifts for one another. Knowing his wife love her long hair, the husband sold his gold watch to buy his wife a set of combs. Knowing how her husband loved his gold watch, the wife cut and sold her hair to have a watch fob braided for him. On Christmas, they gave gifts which seemed to have no meaning. But they, related O'Henry, were the real Wise men! It is a powerful tale of Epiphany reversals which is waiting to have its meaning discovered in our own lives.
There are Scrooges and anti-Christmas politicians and secularists who oppose everything from nativity scenes and religious songs in public schools to the use of a phrase like "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." And there are Christians-in-name-only who have reached this twelfth Day of Christmas without having pondered once the full and true meaning of the season. Let it be our joy, however, to know this day/evening that Christ was born for us-and for all. Let it be our joy to sing with the wise and the foolish that a life of love and forgiveness always triumphs over mean-spirited control-freaks. And let it be our joy to sing, throughout the coming year, with a wink in our eye, "As with gladness men of old did the guiding star behold... so, most gracious Lord, may we, evermore be led to thee."