Secretly Called

Secretly Called Matthew 2:1-12

A question that every preacher asks nearly every week is this: What am I supposed to do with this scripture? Is there a truth to share? Can it be tied to what is going on in the church? Is it faithful to even try?

Today is the first Sunday of the year, which means we have newly elected leadership officially beginning their service as members of committees, boards, and task forces. Today is Commitment Sunday, piggy- backing on the concept of New Year’s resolutions, as well as the Methodist practice of Watch Services, when we renew our commitment and resolve to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Today is Epiphany Sunday, when we remember the visit of the wise men to see the Christ Child, and celebrate the Good News that God has come to be with us in Jesus.

What am I supposed to do with all this? What are all of us supposed to do with this? These are all good things. We need dedicated leaders. We need to affirm our commitment as disciples. We need to know that God has come in Jesus to be a redemptive revelation. So maybe we should deal with all three, and find a way to weave them together.

First, we need dedicated leaders. The issue is what kind of leaders we need. There are lots of leadership models, using lots of different names, organized in lots of different ways. All of these models have their strengths, and all of them have their weaknesses. And all of them, for good and ill, can be found being used in the church.

This is how I sort out the leadership models, with their pros and cons, based on what we can discern in our Christmas stories. All of these models can be found in leadership guides today, though by much more scientific or systematic names. All of them are lifted up in different corners of the church as the model for leaders to emulate.

King Herod, for example, is the poster child for the leadership model I call, “fear me, don’t ask questions.” Herod was king, and no one was to do anything other than his will. This model’s strength is its efficiency and its clear line of authority. Its shortcoming is that it requires unquestioning loyalty to a person or a vision, which may be so much less than God.

The wise men are the poster children for the leadership model I call, “enlighten us, don’t bind us.” The wise men went to great lengths to discover what they wanted to know, but then they were free to go their own way. This model’s strength is in sharing knowledge and then letting people do something with that knowledge on their own. Its shortcoming is that there can be little accountability to anything other than an individual’s own will.

The shepherds are the poster children for the leadership model I stole from Tex Sample, who called it “bless me, don’t boss me.” The shepherds knew they were blessed by the angel’s announcement and the gift of Jesus. They shared the blessing with others but then went back to their lives. The model’s strength lies in the unconditional sharing with others what they have experienced. Its shortcoming is that those sharing often limit their discipleship to this step. There is one more model we can discern from someone in the Christmas stories, but we will get to that in a moment. Instead, we will next look at the need to commit ourselves as disciples. And again, we will look at the characters in the Christmas story.

King Herod could be the poster child for commitment to himself. Herod was dedicated to his power, his prestige, his position. Everything he did, everything he said, everything he thought, was focused on himself. It consumed him, and affected all around him. And because of this, he was considered the most hated man of his time in that region. Josephus reported that when Herod was about to die, he had all the rabbis arrested, with the order that they be killed upon his death. He ordered this so that there would indeed be crying in the land when he died. The rabbis were spared when a quick-thinking servant declared that Herod had rescinded the order with his dying breath.

The wise men could be the poster children for commitment to the truth. In a world of instant gratification, we sometimes miss that it may have taken two years of traveling in order to get a few moments kneeling before Jesus. By most every standard of judging, that is an absurd amount of time and resources to invest in a search, when they were never sure of the actual destination or answer. It was an extravagant indulgence, which is why we usually think of them as kings, because only kings could afford two years away, gain access to a king, and then walk away after a short visit.

The shepherds could be the poster children for commitment to the moment. They got angels singing in the night. They got a midnight run to the stable. They got a first-hand visit with baby Jesus. They were amazed and in awe, and it was overwhelming. They were fully alive in the moment, and to the moment. That became their witness – what they saw, what they experienced, what they did. And then they went back to their sheep to wait for the next moment to come.

There is a factor in these models of commitment which can be a problem, but we only see it as a problem when we get to the third emphasis for today. This factor is something that I need to “out” as one that should not be used by anyone who claims to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It is the one factor, however, that is widespread in our world today.

Herod, in his commitment to himself, called the wise men to meet with him in secret. Granted, there are times when a meeting needs to be secret. Surprise birthday party planning, for example, can be secret – but only because what is planned must eventually be revealed.

But Herod did not intend to have this meeting revealed. This was a secretly called meeting for the purposes of finding a possible rival who would need to be killed, in keeping with Herod’s commitment to himself. Herod called the meeting, lying about his purpose, in an attempt to manipulate the wise men to do his will. And this illustrates the problem with nearly every leadership model.

Herod had not learned the truth of what Jesus would later preach. At Luke 8:17, Jesus said, “For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.” At Luke 12:3, Jesus said, “What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.”

Herod, like many others, thought he could get away with his evil plans if he was just secretive enough in his planning. Back room deals, money under the table, quid pro quo, influence peddling, telling lies and half-truths – often claimed as a necessary tactic when the ends justify the means, is condemned in the gospels. If this is the only lesson we get out of today’s reading – if this lesson could be applied to how business and politics are actually done in the country – we would be much closer to being the land of God’s blessings.

The model for Herod was “fear me, don’t ask any questions, because I am committed to myself.” The model for the wise men was “enlighten me, don’t bind me, because I am committed to the truth.” The model for the shepherds was “bless me, don’t boss me, because I am committed to the moment and the experience.”

The leadership model I didn’t share earlier is the model of Jesus. The commitment I didn’t share earlier is the commitment of Jesus. I call it “walk with me, love others, because God is committed to us all.” The motivation for the leadership is to help those who would be disciples to love God, and to love their neighbors. It is grounded in the love of God, and the will of God. It is a model that stresses that it takes holy means to get to the holy end prepared for us by Jesus Christ.

Jesus taught and lived this model. And that is the message of Epiphany. Epiphany is the season when we recall that it is in Jesus Christ that God has been manifested in a redemptive revelation. It is not through a generic kind of religious sensibility, or by a universal set of moral standards, that God has chosen to redeem us in our sin. Instead, we are saved by grace through faith, which is shaped and informed by the teachings, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Or, to say this as clearly as I can, we are saved because God loves us, and we live into our salvation when we love others as Christ has loved us.

Susanne Johnson, professor at Perkins School of Theology, has pointed out that the Church is not called into being to promote a general spiritual formation but for a Christian formation that recognizes our reliance upon the Holy Spirit as the gift promised by Jesus Christ. Our sermons, scripture readings, prayers, missions, and fellowship must all point to the incarnation and power of Jesus Christ. Our participation in that incarnation is as vessels of God’s grace, since “we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” (II Corinthians 4:7)

This is a model that, as John Wesley wrote near the end of his life, believes that even faith must be the handmaid of love. It is a model that believes the kingdom of God comes when we spend time with Jesus. It is a model that believes the kingdom of God comes to others when we love them as Christ loves us.

To be fair, this model has shortcomings when it is considered from the view point of the world – which is why those other models are so tempting for us even in the church. This model requires a commitment to seek humility before God, instead of greatness before the people of the world. It requires a commitment to vulnerability so that we can genuinely walk with others in love. It requires a commitment to the kingdom of God, instead of a commitment to a kingdom of “thing-dom” or a kingdom of personal power.

The leadership in this model is often not seen as efficient, as we seek the sheep who always seem to be wandering off. It is often not clear if it has found the right answer, as we are confronted with the challenges of living together. And it is often not all that exciting, as we are called to live faithfully between those moments of amazement and awe. But that is what Jesus did. He walked with us. He loved us. He taught us. He trusted us. He died for us. He was raised for us. And he comes to be with us, through the Holy Spirit, that we might do the same as his disciples.

So, yes, today is the start of our new leadership teams. And we will pray that they will model for us the leadership of Jesus. Today is Commitment Sunday, and we will pledge ourselves again to living as disciples, humbling ourselves, risking ourselves, so that we may love God and love our neighbors. And we will do this because God has come to be with us in Jesus Christ, a redemptive revelation of God’s love and grace.

This is something we can commit ourselves to do. But let me be clear, this is not a commitment to be taken lightly. In my resetting of John Wesley’s prayers, we ask God to restore the purity of the Church by defending it “from all the assaults of half-hearted commitment, half-truths, and half reverence.” We are called, in his Thursday evening prayer, to give ourselves entirely to God.

I wrote our next hymn based on that level of commitment. And after we sing it, we will share John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer as our affirmation of faith, which also asks us to be entirely committed to following Jesus. It is not enough to say the words and to sing the notes. Let us give ourselves to God!

Hymn “I Give Myself to You, O Lord”