Follow the Leader: Matthew 2:1-12
Epiphany Sunday
1 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)
In the 1994
film “Forrest Gump,” there’s a montage of Forrest after the death of his mother
deciding to simply start running. He
crisscrosses the United States for three years, during which people start
following him. “Here’s a guy that’s got
his act together,” says the first young man who joins him. “Here’s somebody who’s got it all figured out. Here’s somebody who has the answer! I’d follow you anywhere, Mr. Gump.”[1]
When Gump decides he’s had enough, he
turns to the crowd following him. “Quiet,
he’s gonna say something,” says a man to the silent group. “I’m pretty tired,” says Gump. “I think I’ll go home now.”
“Now what are we supposed to do?”
calls one man after him.[2]
I must have
rewritten this sermon three or four times because each time I got a third of
the way in and would go back to read through the text, I would see something
new. This is the wonder of having what
we think of as a “living word,” of course; the Bible is always fresh in new
translations and in our own changing selves that can see new pieces that didn’t
catch our eyes before.
It is also infuriating as a writer
with a deadline.
For instance, it is fascinating to me
that Matthew’s telling of the appearance has the wise men as what tipped off
Herod in the first place about Jesus’ birth; it was after they came
asking that Herod convened his scholars to figure out what the wise men were
talking about. The wise men were the
ones who did the searching in Bethlehem; they were the ones who watched the
star—not easy, I can tell you as someone with an amateur astronomer father, as you
have to be very sure of where the thing is from night to night so that you
don’t lose the needle in the haystack—and they were the ones who sat with Mary
and the child Jesus. They were the ones
who brought things, and then they were the ones who heeded a dream—a dream that
happens offscreen with a source who isn’t named—and went home by another road.
But one of the
things that has survived in some form through each draft of this sermon is how
important the aspect of following is.
The wise ones not only watched the star but followed it; not only read
the texts, but followed them; not only asked Herod about this king, but
followed the directions to Bethlehem. They
trusted that the One guiding the star and the texts and even the dream was
leading them somewhere it was important to go.
This past week
was the official end of the Christmas season via the feast day of Epiphany,
called Theophany in the Eastern Orthodox churches. You can take down your Christmas trees
officially, and you can put your wise men in the creche. (If they were already there, I won’t tell.) In observing this holy day, we celebrate not
just that the kings are traditionally in fabulous attire that livens up the
scene but that these people chose to follow—a star, a nameless voice in a
dream, the predictions of an infant king—instead of leading, a choice made all
the more powerful against the figure of Herod doing the exact opposite.
Herod, a big
fish in a relatively little pond, is one thing, but the wise men? These were VIPs. Rev. Niveen Sarras writes, “The term Magi is
a plural form of magoi in [the] Greek language, which means
Zoroastrian priests...They were well known for telling fortunes and preparing
daily horoscopes. They were scholars of their day and enjoyed access to the
Persian emperor.” Not only were they
important people, they were also outsiders.
“It was important for Matthew to show that the Magi went to Bethlehem[,]
not Rome[,] to look for the King of the Jews, the Messiah. Matthew’s audience
understood the Persians to be a long-standing religious and political ally
against Rome.”[3]
And not only all
that, but Professor Stephanie Buckhanon Crowder writes that, “[I]t is doubtful
only men were in this group. Caravans from Persia often included women
practitioners of [Zoroastrianism] as well.”[4]
Foreigners! Powerful foreigners! Possibly female powerful foreigners!
It’s no wonder
Herod was frightened. The entire
paradigm of his leadership was under threat if there was someone that powerful under
his very nose, someone drawing revered scholars all the way from Persia. Such an important occurrence would have been
a good moment for Herod to reevaluate who he was following, and why, and
whether these Eastern seekers showing up on his doorstep were onto something
about the ruler who was going to shepherd the people of Israel. But Herod did not want to follow. He wanted to lead—except he wasn’t going
anywhere. He wanted the power, the
title, the trappings, not the burden of plotting a destination and caring for
the people following after him.
Anyone who has
ever been in a class group project knows that someone has to lead, and knows
also that leadership—good leadership, at least—isn’t as easy as it looks. The guy yelling after Gump, “Now what are we
supposed to do?” had not realized that Gump wasn’t actually leading them
anywhere; he had never intended to do so.
They had decided to follow for whatever reason but had not gotten any
promises to lead from Forrest himself. Part
of following—good following—is choosing to follow someone who is deliberately,
mindfully, honorably leading.
Wealthy Zoroastrians
from the East followed a star, and Herod followed his own selfishness, and only
one side of this story gets to see Jesus the Christ Who says, “Follow Me.”
Not in this
tale, of course; Jesus, as an infant, isn’t doing much talking. But the Gospels are littered with the
invitation; follow Me, adult Jesus says to fishermen along the bank who will
become prophets and preachers; follow Me, He says to women whose names we will
remember thousands of years later; follow Me, He says to tax collectors and
hungry crowds and orphans and outcasts.
Follow Me, He
says to us.
“Where is the
child born king?” ask the Easterners of Herod, seeking someone worth following
halfway across the world to celebrate because they know the world is different,
now, than it was before this child was alive. And in Herod’s research we are told what the
difference is—this king is a shepherd of the people of Israel. Peter Woods writes, “Shepherding implies
compassion, care and a courageous life-sacrificing quality that few powerful
people would understand or want to practice…Herod, power player and man of
maneuvering, could not begin to think of his leadership in those terms, and
even though his scripture scholars may have pointed out that this was the
scriptural paradigm, Herod knew that this was not how he came to power, and
this was certainly not how he was going to stay in power.”[5] Herod had no interest in being the kind of leader
God wanted for God’s people. Unsurprising;
it’s harder to get ahead when you have to care about the people in your way.
“Now what are we supposed to do?” As the year unfolds again, we’ll get to the
tales of parables, betrayals, crucifixions, resurrections, and the very first
murmurings of a thing called the Church asking, “Now what are we supposed to
do?” For right now, we stand in a tiny
town called Bethlehem with a caravan of people who were outsiders in every
sense but knew what they wanted to follow and where they wanted to end up. We stand on the edge of a dream that says a
worldly king’s words are treacherous and his path unsafe and should not be followed. We stand next to an infant Who will
become—Who already is—shepherd, king, teacher, sacrifice, redeemer, leader.
We also stand, today, by the table of
the sacrament of communion. It’s a
thousands-year-old ritual so ingrained for some that new words are jarring; so
new to others that there’s no amount of instruction that will make it seem more
familiar. This, too, is an invitation to
follow: do this in remembrance of Me, in
pursuit of Me, in the catching of Me and the beginning of following a path of
service and justice and the absolutely beautiful frustration of never quite
attaining either.
Now what are we supposed to do? Whom do you follow, and why? Are you clinging to the power you hold
because it’s safe and refusing new paths lest they harm? Are you going through rituals and patterns
because the steps are so familiar you don’t need to look at them anymore?
Are you willing to leave home and
family to chase a star across half the world because Someone is leading you to
something like joy?
Following takes all sorts of shapes,
and I don’t know all the ways you are being asked to follow in your life—or to
lead. I do know that some of those who
are asking are doing so from positions of fear and manipulation; I know that
the God Who asks us to follow does so from a position of love not just of who
you are right now, standing in the tiny town of Bethlehem or at the edge of an
uncertain dream, but love of who you are constantly becoming. I know that the invitation to follow, from
the mouth of the God Who made you as a beautiful creation, will have every
shadow of night and every silver brilliance of starlight. If the Leader born to the awed receipt of
wise ones’ gifts calls you to follow, will you go?
It may not be as good cardio as running
across the country for three years, but I guarantee it won’t be boring.
May we have the patience to track the
guiding stars we are given, the trust to turn to a different way home, and the courage
to follow the One Who leads. Amen.
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