Three Wise Men by Rev Stuart Simpson

“Three Wise Men” by Rev Stuart Simpson

Sermon 6th Jan 2013

Isaiah 60:1-9 Matthew 2:1-12

It’s funny that we find ourselves going back in the Christmas story today, even though Christmas has been over for a couple of weeks Last Sunday we heard about Jesus being found in the temple

Today we hear about the visit of wise men from the East

However, chronologically, the visit of the men should have been before the temple story

This is the joy of working with the lectionary

It is also, I believe, opportunity to delve deeper into an important part of the Christmas story that we would otherwise miss

Three kings of Orient are

We’ve sung the hymn

We know the story

So what else is there? What else can we learn? What can God possibly teach us today?

It seems very apt that on Christmas day the wise men didn’t turn up to join the nativity scene 2

Because in actual fact they weren’t there at Jesus’ birth, like the shepherds

Significant time has passed between Jesus’ birth and the magi’s visit

The shepherds are back to work

Mary and Joseph are in “a house.”

Herod’s paranoia will soon lead him to exterminate all Bethlehem children aged two and under – a bit of an overreaction if Jesus is still a newborn babe in arms

Under the children’s story of the three wise men

There is so much to discover

Such as who were the wise men and why do we often think there were only three (The Eastern Church has twelve)

Why did they travel so far and why was Herod so anxious along with all of Jerusalem?

There is no way we can cover all of these

So instead we are going to explore two things

First how God reaches to all people

And second how, if we allow God in, our lives will be disrupted and our direction may change 3

So first God reaches to all people

God is so determined to proclaim the “good news of great joy for all the people

That God reaches beyond fields in the region around Bethlehem to “the East” (some scholars say Persia or Arabia, which fits with the reading in Isaiah 60 where it mentions Sheba).

God reaches beyond shepherds at the bottom of the barrel to Wise Ones at the top

God reaches beyond people scared witless by God’s glory to those who observe the glorious star at its rising

And methodically, persistently and sincerely follow it to a king

All along the way, God directs them

First by a star, then via a verse from Micah and finally in their dreams

While Christian tradition holds that the Magi were kings a more precise description might be that the Magi belonged to the priestly caste of Zoroastrianism, which paid particular attention to the stars

This priestly caste gained an international reputation for astrology, which was at that time highly regarded as a science

So these Wise ones from the East were scientists and practiced other religions and God used their faith and knowledge to bring them to the Christ 4

More ironic, God used scientists who practiced other religions to let King Herod and the chief priests and scribes of the people in on the news that their Messiah had been born

God seems to do whatever it takes to reach out to and embrace all people

God announces the birth of the Messiah to shepherds through Angels at Christmas

To Magi via a star on Epiphany (Which is today twelve days after Christmas day)

And to the political and religious authorities of God’s own people in and through visitors from the East

From and manger, where a child is wrapped in bands of cloth,

God’s reach,

God’s embrace in Christ Jesus

Get’s bigger and bigger and bigger

Jesus eats with outcasts and sinners

Jesus touches people who are sick and people who live with disabilities

Jesus even calls the dead back to life

Ultimately, Jesus draws all people to himself as he is lifted up on the cross 5

In Christ Jesus, no one is beyond God’s embrace

This is pretty awesome

God’s radical grace is wondrously frightening

‘What does it mean, what are the implications of portraying the Magi as scientist who practiced another religion?’

Maybe it means that both the ways God reaches out to people to announce good news in and through Christ

And what it means for individuals to have faith and for gatherings of the faithful to be Church

Needs to be expanded

The Magi did not come looking for the Christ through preaching, liturgy, sacrament, a welcoming congregation nor a vital social ministry, things I hold dear.

They came seeking the Christ after studying the night skies

I wonder if we often limit God when we think that knowing Christ is all about following a set formula?

And instead there are times when we need to let go of our favourite cherished ways and recognise that God works to proclaim the gospel and bring people to faith in often mysterious ways 6

Maybe we just don’t like the mystery because we don’t know what is going on

If that is the case then we probably need to focus on the point that God will do all that God can to reach all people for all people to know his grace in Jesus Christ often that will look mysterious to us but let’s not be like Herod or the Priests and miss what is going on because is not the usual way of doing things

Just as a side note, I would like to think that once the Magi found Jesus, their lives were changed

They went off to learn more about the Christ child not simply fall back into their worship of other gods

This leads me to my second point

If we allow God in, our lives will be disrupted and our direction may change

Matthew is not the first one to imagine three rich wise guys from the East coming to Jerusalem

His story line and plot come from Isaiah 60, a poem recited to Jews in Jerusalem about 580 B.C.E 7

These Jews had been in exile in Iraq for a couple of generations and had come back to the bombed-out city of Jerusalem

Walter Brueggemann, the Old Testament Scholar, goes on to say

They were in despair. Who wants to live in a city where the towers are torn down and the economy has failed, and nobody knows what to do about it?

In the middle of the mess, an amazing poet invites his depressed, discouraged contemporaries to look up, to hope and to expect everything to change.

“Rise, shine, for your light has come.”

The poet anticipates that Jerusalem will become a beehive of productivity and prosperity, a new centre of international trade.

“Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn...”

Caravans loaded with trade goods will come from Asia and bring prosperity

This is cause for celebration!!

God has promised to make the city work effectively in peace, and a promise from God is very sure.

The wise men know all about this poem

About what is said in Isaiah 60 8

They know they are to go to Jerusalem and to take rare spices, gold and frankincense and myrrh

Most important they know that they will find the new king of all peace and prosperity

But when Herod hears of these plans, he is frightened.

A new king is a threat to the old king and the old order.

Then a strange thing happens

In his panic, Herod, arranges a consultation with the leading OT scholars and says to them

“Tell me about Isaiah 60. What is this business about camels and gold and frankincense and myrrh?

The scholars tell him: “You’ve got the wrong text

Isaiah will mislead you because it suggests that Jerusalem will prosper and have great urban wealth and be restored as the centre of the global economy

In that scenario, the urban elites can recover their former power and prestige and nothing will really change.”

Herod does not like that verdict and asks, defiantly, “well what reading would you suggest?”

The scholars, I suggest would have been afraid of the angry king, but they tell him, with much anxiety, that the right text is Micah 5:2-4: 9

And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.

This is the prophecy for those with little or no power

A hope for the future, a voice that is not impressed with high towers and great arenas

Micah anticipates a leader who will bring well-being to his people, not by great political ambition, but by attentiveness to those who live the grind of daily life on the ground

Bruggeman says something about this

“Herod tells the Eastern intellectuals the truth, and the rest is history.

They head for Bethlehem, a rural place, dusty, unnoticed and unpretentious

It is, however, the proper milieu for the birth of the One who will offer an alternative to the arrogant leaning of intellectuals and the arrogant power of urban rulers.”

The story that we have heard today is the story of contrast

Two human communities

Jerusalem, with its power and self-importance

And Bethlehem, with its modest promise 10

And two Old Testament contrast: Isaiah 60 and its self congratulation and Micah 2 and vulnerability

These contrast I suggest are leading us to a choice to make we are given a chose to choose a life of self importance and self sufficiency

Or we can choose an alternative that comes in the innocence and a hope that confounds our usual pretensions

We can receive life given in vulnerability

We can choose to allow God to change our direction even if we think we have is all sorted out

Did you know that Bethlehem is 14.5 km south of Jerusalem?

The wise men had a long intellectual history of scholarship and a long term practice of mastery but they missed their goal by 14.5 km

And yet it is amazing that the wise men do not resist the alternative to travel another 14.5 km to go onto the village

Rather than hesitate or resist, they reorganise their wealth and learning, and reorient themselves and their lives around a baby with no credentials

Are we willing to do the same?

Are we willing to be reoriented this year in 2013, even when we think we might have it all planned out? 11

I would like to suggest that the way beyond is not about security and prosperity but about vulnerability, neighbourliness, and generosity

As you leave today go knowing that God’s love and grace reached all people

And that God seeks to disrupt our lives in ways that are often surprising but ultimately a blessing to us, our families, our neighbours and the world.