For their Own Country: Matthew 2:1-12
First Sunday after Epiphany
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in
Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, 2 asking,
“Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his
star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” 3 When
King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; 4 and
calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired
of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They
told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ‘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.’”
7 Then Herod secretly
called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star
had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem,
saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him,
bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9 When
they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star
that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where
the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had
stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On
entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt
down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him
gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12 And
having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own
country by another road. (NRSV)
There was a
church when I was in middle school that did a Christmas walk-through; you
started in one part of the church building at an opening tableau where a guide
would tell you about the story you were about to witness. Following the guide, this haphazard group of
strangers walked through a visual representation of the birth narrative in
different rooms around the building, each new scene a short drama of congregation
members acting out part of the tale. At
the end you, with Mary and Joseph, left for Egypt—or, in our case, for the
parking lot.
I have only a
handful of memories of the walk-through, including wondering why Mary looked
different in every room and whether God was okay with the fact that sometimes
the baby representing Him in the last few scenes was neither silent nor
holy. What I do remember, quite
strongly, was the scene with Herod.
“Where is the
child who has been born king of the Jews?”
Smart though the magi may have been, they clearly didn’t understand politics
if they went to Herod, king of Judea, and asked about a child born king of the
Jews. It doesn’t usually go well to speak
to a sitting ruler about his replacement—and indeed, Herod’s reaction was not
welcoming. His mood, here translated as “frightened,”
is from tarasso, to agitate, trouble, or make restless. He was concerned—rightly so, since he was
fairly sure he was king of the Jews.
In the scene
in that church, our group shuffled in our too-warm winter coats into the
conference room, foldable tables stacked in the shadows, where a throne and
several attendants waited us with the traveling magi. The man playing Herod simpered about his
desire to know of this child so that he, too, could pay homage, and the men
playing the magi nodded in wisdom—yes, of course Herod would also want this,
how good and right. I was young enough
then to want to pull on the overly-colorful robes of the magi and tell them it
was a trick because I, for once, had paid attention in Sunday school and I knew
that Herod was lying; I knew he was disturbed by the news. Fortunately, in one of the classrooms down
the hall, a different set of magi dressed in flashy robes would wake from a
dream telling them to go to their own country by a different road. (I imagine it was through the entrance by the
flagpoles.) They had outmaneuvered Herod’s
anxious jealousy and Jesus, the baby, lived to go to Egypt.
We take today
to observe Epiphany, which actually fell on Thursday and marks the end of the
season of Christmas and the transition into this time of Jesus’ adult ministry. Epiphanytide, as it’s known to some, lasts
from now until Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. So if we’re now focusing on Jesus’ adult
ministry, why does it matter that we have this text of gift-giving and
king-dodging, when Jesus is still such an infant that He has no part in it at
all?
The story of
the magi is one of the many instances for us as people of faith needing to
recognize that we can never read the Bible without the layers of translation
and history and folk knowledge that come from two thousand years of other
people experiencing this text. The magi
themselves—from the Greek magoi,[1] meaning a dream
interpreter, or even enchanter—have been called kings, wise men (as here in the
NRSV translation), travelers, and priests.
Dr. Amy Lindeman Allen writes that, “What we can know is that they came
from affluence (based on their gifts) and that they knew how to track a star.
It is worth noting, however, that the Bible neither names their gender nor
states how many magi there were. The tradition that there were three magi comes
largely from Matthew’s enumeration of three gifts.”[2]
What we can
know is that they followed the star—the star that pulled them onward to find a
child worthy of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
What we can know is that they were not from nearby; these were
outsiders, people who did not know Herod and his schemes. What we can know is that they were told to go
back to their own country by a different way—and they did.
Far more
impressive than the somewhat gaudy costumes on the congregation members
reenacting this story in a church conference room so many years ago is this
simple fact: the magi went home by a
different road. We begin, in this season
of Epiphany, a series on the different roads God asks us to take in the life of
faith, the small choices that have big impacts.
It is an incredible statement of trust to listen to a dream that makes
so seemingly minor a shift in one’s plans—a statement of trust that changes a
narrative, the course of history.
What is not in
today’s text is Herod’s reaction: he
realizes that the magi are not coming back, will not tell him of the child he has
no plans to worship, so he orders every male child two and under dead. It matters less whether this decree
historically happened and more that the magi’s seemingly simple obedience in such
a small matter as finding a different way home thwarted Herod’s plans to kill
Jesus—Jesus, Who survived His childhood and went on to change the world in very
big ways indeed. And who knows what
stories came of the magi’s return, what tales they told to the ones back home of
the child they found under the star, of the rightness of giving kingly gifts to
a peasant family.
It is rare
that we in our lives of faith are asked to do very big things. I have not heard many of you speak of being
asked to part seas or raise the dead, though certainly there have been some
moments that have felt that intense.
Rather, we are often nudged by the Spirit into something smaller, some
route change that makes all the difference in the much larger tapestry of God’s
work in the world, and it is our choice whether or not to heed the dream, to
hear the change, to go back to our own country by a different road.
This season of Epiphany, we of St.
Luke’s are beginning a partnership with the Bay Area Women’s Shelter, a place
of safe haven, advocacy, and education around domestic violence and sexual
assault here in Bay City.[3] We as a church will be discussing the ways we
can come alongside those who are seeking another road to their own country and
how we are part of the network of safety for those with dangerous foes like
Herod in their lives. We will gather
donations of pillows and pillowcases to give at the end of this season,
providing comfort for those dreaming of a guiding voice warning them to find
another path. Keep an eye out for more details
in our weekly email, our weekly phone call, and in the Sunday morning announcements.
It is,
perhaps, a small thing, but God so often works in small things. In this story, the magi are not told to go
back and fix Herod’s fear of the newborn Messiah—a title, it is important to
note, that Herod himself gives to Jesus before anyone else. The magi are not told to lead a revolution
against the corrupt power structure that will go on to order death for children
and force Jesus and His parents to flee to Egypt. The magi are not even told to stay and help
Jesus set up His ministry or raise Him or merely be extra worshippers. Their part in the tale ends with them going
home. They are changed, irrevocably, and
now they return to change their hometowns for they are needed there. Other stories will come to Herod, and
Bethlehem, and Israel, and Rome.
It is not less
faithful or less important to return to one’s own country after such an
adventure if that is where the Spirit calls you. The men who played the magi in that long-ago church
conference room—and even the man who played the frightening Herod, loud in his
anger after he discovered the magi had slipped out the flagpole entrance—were
not doing anything huge or important with their scrap-fabric robes and their
stilted line delivery. I do not even
remember their names a quarter century later.
But they chose to give of their time to a telling of an important story before
they went home to return to work and their families. They went by a different road, a road that
included being part of this story, and here in a pulpit in a different state
and a different millennium a pastor remembers the gift of that. When they piled into their cars in the
parking lot to return to their houses at the end of the night, did they know
that they had planted such seeds, had given gold, and frankincense, and myrrh?
Do you know
the ripple effects of your gifts and decisions, sibling? Do you know how even the small thing of a
different route changes the course of the world?
There is an
infinite number of ways to head home by a different road, home to the Kingdom
where all are made whole and joy flows like a river through the grace of
love. What is this life but heading home
by a thousand thousand different roads?
What is this faith but listening for the voice that calls us to thwart
the powerful and stand with the powerless, to bring gifts of respect to our
fellow humans, to be overwhelmed with joy when we find that the star has led us
to God incarnate, king of kings, human and divine? How are you being asked to go to your own
country by a different road?
On this Sunday
after Epiphany, we come together as the far-flung body of Christ in all the
imaginative connection of technology and humanity to celebrate the sacrament of
communion. In this act of gathering at a
table to remember Christ’s promise of forgiveness and place, we choose a
different road. We reject the idea that
this faith is ours to hold away from anyone who earnestly seeks God; we refuse
to sacrifice Jesus to the ones who would try to rule over Him with their own
power and greed. At this table, all are
equals. At this table, all are
welcome. At this table, all are invited
to this love, steadfast and unshakable, in which God calls to us to restoration
and life abundant.
Let us, then,
eat together, and go home by this different road. Amen.
[1]
Μάγοι; An
Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon, eds. Liddell & Scott, Oxford University
Press, 483.
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