The ancient story of 3 Magi, Astrologers, follow a huge star and find a baby who is named Jesus, or Emmanuel, God-with-us. All through the Hebrew Scripture, we see God revealing justice, compassion, mercy and judgment against oppressors. God’s desire is for humanity to be made whole, again. The ultimate act, born a human baby, blows all our categories of understanding. Jesus Christ moved into the neighborhood and has never left. Through the Holy Spirit, we live constantly in the presence of God. This is revelation!!!
Sermon: January 5, 2020
Maybe We Forget. Epiphany, 2020 Eph. 3.1-12; MATT. 2.1-12
Rev. Tiare L. Mathison, Soul-Tender & Pastor
Maybe we forget... We were once outsiders, without Christ, aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope, without God in the world. This is what Gentile means. Maybe we forget, we follow stars or little gods; we cower before the mighty lifted up and exalted as empires vie for power; we pursue petty things in competition with our neighbors. We center our lives on the puny rather than the majestic. Maybe we forget the good news of the gospel of Matthew. in chapter 1 of his gospel, is the genealogy, which just by saying the word your eyes glaze over. OT lists only contain men's names right? Yet this list says something else, something really important for us. There are 4 women named as great-great-greatgrandmothers of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ. Tamar, Ruth, Rahab and Bathesheba, whom Matthew modestly calls 'the wife of Uriah'. Each irregular in their own way. Tamar had to play the harlot to trick her father-in-law, Judah, into keeping his promises in Genesis 38. Rahab is a prostitute who assists the spies of Israel in Joshua 2. Ruth is Moabite, a foreigner, and a descendent of the incestuous Lot, who says the immortal words, “Where you go, I will go, where you lie, I will lie. Your people will be my people, your God, my God”. She speaks these words to her widowed mother-in-law, she too, a widow. Batheseba, well, we all know what her crime is--too pretty for words, David couldn't help himself. They are irregular but more importantly they are NOT Israelites, they are Gentiles. Maybe we forget. Genealogies are normally constructed to show the 'purity' of the line, no Gentile contamination here. But Matthew says, 'oh wait a minute. There is a deeper theological truth. There is something about God I want you to know. He is not a nationalist or a racist or a sexist." Even more important these 4 women are morally questionable. It is a perfect example of the gospel Matthew is going to preach over and over again, throughout the season of Epiphany, the next 8 weeks, until Ash Wednesday. God can and does overcome sin--Jesus arrives to save sinners..how does He get here? he comes through sinners. God has been in the mercy business for an awfully long time, including all of the OT, long before Christmas. Yes there is judgment, absolutely, but there is mercy too. Such mercy... Now in chapter 2, Matthew does it to us again. He takes us on a journey via Magi, again Gentiles, "despised heathens" one commentator says. Not only Gentiles but astrologers to boot. Ancient world views imagined the earth as the center of the planets with a magnetic connection to the god of each planet, who controls peoples lives, thus acts of sacrifice, even human, to assuage the god’s fire. Astronomy looks at the laws of the stars; astrology looks at the message in them. Acceptable, even honored in Greek & Roman culture, the magi are viewed with contempt by Israel. "They get their wisdom by looking at the creatures, in this case the stars, rather than the Creator. Their so-called wisdom is anathema, we have been rescued from all that. God would never invite astrologers to Jesus' birthday party. I mean really!" Israel is shaped & formed by God's word which in Ezek 21:21 says, "For the king of Babylon stands...at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the teraphim, he looks at the liver" a sarcastic description mocking a king. Matthew says, 'mmmmmm. Well that is true but...' The faithful Magi pay attention to the natural revelation of God. Let me say that again. The star rises at Jesus' birth. But the stars are not the savior. The Magi follow the star. They meet with Herod and the senior pastors & Bible teachers of the day in Jerusalem, as Dale Bruner, retired prof from Whitworth, says. They continue their journey 2 hours south, about 7 miles, to Bethlehem and there the star hovers over the savior. When they see the Christ they pay homage. They bow down. They fall to their knees and prostrate themselves on the ground. They have seen The Lord! They worship Him!!! This is Emmanuel--the with-us God, born in the flesh-- could be called 'Emmanuel-Adam' fully human/fully divine. The Magi act out one of the responses to divine revelation. Last week, with the slaughter of the Innocents, we saw Herod’s response, another kind of reaction. Absolute rejection. When there is rejection of glory, humanity gets hurt. We see this to this day. Then The Magi share their resources. Their existential reality has been changed from deeply bad, a good definition of sin, to wonderfully made in the image of God, essentially good. This is bit of a bird walk. This is the tension of existential/essential, Christians live with. We claim we are made in the image of God, a good thing. We see it most clearly in a newborn baby. But we bear the mark of original sin in our existence, a bad thing, just ask any parent. Innocent babies still have to be taught right from wrong. The saving light of Christ takes the existentially bad and begins the long, hard life-time task of drawing it into the essentially good. So in Romans, Paul writes, “salvation is nearer than when we first believed.” The Magi go home another way, on a brand new journey of life. They no longer need the star, they found the Savior. Maybe we forget... One thing to note, Dale Bruner states: quote, “...its always been a little embarrassing to theology that God’s initial means of revelation to the magicians was their idol- the stars. Yet we have to look closer: God takes the unusual both in history - the four Gentile women - and nature - the star - and uses them for His Glory.” Unquote. As our Book of Order says, “God’s Word preached rightly and the sacraments administered with understanding, there the light of Jesus Christ shines.” So tell me, Where would we hang the star today? Maybe we forget Epiphany - the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. “But now, in Christ, you who were once far off, have been brought near, by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace.” The dividing walls of hostilities were torn asunder as the curtain in the Holy of Holies was rent forever when Jesus died. Amidst systems of domination that pit groups of people against one another, we are called to perceive the mystery of Christ revealed! You who were far off have been brought near. You are now an enrolled member of the tribe of Glory! Your essential goodness is established as a bearer of the image of God. Your existential goodness is rooted in Christ’s resurrection. And no one can take it away. Maybe we forget. The Magi take another way home, one of Matthew the preacher’s favorite off-set words. He uses it like repentance, ‘turn around and go the other way’. It’s a radical new scaffolding of life. Not isolated to the metaphysical, encounters with the living Light of Christ remake every aspect of our lives. Existentially to be more generous, more filled with grace, less judgment, more forgiveness. To get in the ring and fight for the least and the lowly and the alien and the stranger and the unwanted and the neglected. To be wounded on behalf of others. Maybe we can remember... Amen