OUR ROAD TRIP

Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12]

Of all the characters in the Christmas story, aside from the Holy Family itself, I am most of all drawn to the Magi.  I love the Magi!  I love their story.  Their legend and its details speak to me in terms of living one’s life with integrity, courage, and with guiding faith.

Additionally, in my heart I have a soft spot for those guys partly due to the fact that in the staging of most of our manger scenes, the “Three Wise Men” stand outside the immediate bounds -- a bit off-stage -- from the stable’s nativity focus.  According to Matthew’s gospel, the Magi do not show up to join the Holy Family until the last of Christmas.  In fact, in Matthew’s rendition of the Christmas story, the appearance of the “Wise Men” at the manger and their return home conclude the birthing narrative and begin the refugee phase of Jesus’ young life.

So it is that the Christian tradition concerning the birth of Christ entails twelve days, bounded by the arrival of the Magi at the manger on January 6^th.   It is referred to as “the Day of the Epiphany”, but subtitled as: “The Manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ to the Gentiles” -- that is, the manifestation of God’s Saving Good News to the non-Jews, which is all the rest of the world – and overwhelmingly folks like us!

In our case at St. Philip’s, week after week, as the children build the creche for us and as we finally hit the seasonal crescendo of Jesus’ birth, the Christ-child figure is placed in the manger; and all the other figures take their places around the babe – all except the “Three Kings”.  They have to wait – but where?

The truth is that our staging area doesn’t provide a good space for the Magi to wait so that they don’t appear neglected.  So, what do we do?  We unintentionally put them off in the proverbial corner like misbehaving schoolboys.  While I confess that this situation bothers me, in my heart I know that the feelings of the Wisemen are not hurt because these “Three” intrepid Ones are clearly made of sterner stuff than hurt feelings.  For in order simply to be in Bethlehem, they have endured more demanding experiences than not being seen at center-stage!  And it is at this point that the Magi are poised to be models of faithfulness for us in our lives.

Of course, my disease over where the “Wisemen” are in the Christmas scene – and by extension where they are in our lives of faith -- is assuaged somewhat by the soberingly humorous meme that presumes to explain the neglect of these “Three Wisemen”.  The meme proports the following:

You know what would have happened if there had been three wise WOMEN instead of three wise MEN, don’t you?  The three wise WOMEN would have asked for directions, arrived on time, helped deliver that Baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole, and would have given practical gifts.

Whether it is WiseMEN or WiseWOMEN, the part of the Magi’s story that leaps out at me – and the part that I believe leaps out at all of us - comes in the last line of the Epiphany gospel.  At the conclusion of this day’s gospel, Matthew rather cooly reports that the Magi, having been warned in a dream of Herod’s true and violent intentions – the Magi made their “goodbyes” to the Holy Family and then “left for their country by another road.”[1]

It is at this precise point, I believe, that the Magi’s story overlaps with my story and with your story to describe the reality of a crucial “Road Trip” that stands before us both.

In May of 2024 – just twenty months ago, the members of St. Philip’s participated in a survey that was designed to identify who we are and what makes us tick as a church and as a community.  The tool we used is called the “Congregational Assessment Tool” – the CAT; and while we haven’t spoken much about the CAT in the last year.  So, in light of the gospel and the example of the Magi, returning to this reference strikes me as “meet and right so to do” today.  I say this because the summary assessment of all our specific responses to the survey identified St. Philip’s as a “Magi” church.

What I wish to do in this sermon is to identify a three of the qualities of a “Magi” church and to see ourselves in the situation of those searchers, as we dare to move into our lives “by another road”.

Specifically, both you and I are facing the prospect of leaving what we have known in terms of living our lives together.  For my part, I will be leaving active ministry and leaving you.  For your part, you will need to figure out what is next not only in terms of your search for a new priest but also what shape and form this church and community will take on “another road”.

For both of us, that road will demand our most courageous – and dare I say fearless – efforts because neither of us can go back by the way we got here.  Shared events and relationships have irrevocably changed us.  Having been together and having given ourselves to one another, we are not the same as we once were.  “Another road is, therefore, required of us both in order to move forward.

So, what does it mean to be referred to as a “Magi” church?  What is there in the “Three Wisemen’s” story that can provide each of us in our respective situations with guidance and hope for this “road trip” that is before us both?

As I say, I will offer a three, brief responses to these questions.

The first and most obvious element to the Magi story and experience is the following of the star.  Biblically, the “Magi” were viewed as Gentile (that is, non-Hebrew) astrologers and religious leaders from Persia.  Their life’s focus was on seeing and perceiving the workings of what we now call the universe.  It can be accurately said that in a world in which the interconnection between people was severely limited by time and space.  For instance, Jesus never went more than sixty miles from where he was born.  My point is that with the limitations of geography and travel, the workings of the transcendent skies, its seasons and its configurations were the Magi’s focus and theater of operations for their curiosity and their sense of adventure.

What it means to be a “Magi” church is by nature and orientation to be curious.

In particular, they searched the skies and paid attention to that which clearly was vastly larger than their own, limited local experience.  Put in the biblical context, these seekers, these celestial scholars were not Hebrews.  They were Gentiles.  They were not privy to the tradition of the Law of Moses or to the heritage of the prophets.  They were ethnically and religiously from outside the realm of Judea and the context and experience of the Covenant.  So it was that the Magi’s arrival at the manger that was a demonstration of what these searchers found: namely, the true authority of Israel’s God.  Consequently, they bowed down and made offerings of honor and thanksgiving.  From sources beyond the Israelite perspective, the Magi confirmed that the infant Jesus has significance well-beyond the local.[2]  A point that we need always to remember and employ.

And for us, what does this mean in terms of being a “Magi” church—or for that matter, “Magi” people?  Be curious and keep our eyes on the “sky” and not on our toes.  Or as we so regularly sing in the Eucharist’s Sursum corda, “Lift up your hearts.  We lift them to the Lord.”[3]

I believe to be a “Magi” church and “Magi” people is to be curious – curious about God and God’s life in our midst.  A “magi” church also keeps its focus on the prize, and the prize is Jesus, God’s shining star.

I don’t know if it was Walt Whitman or Ted Lasso who said it, but the phrase is worthy to be remembered and lived: “Be curious, not judgmental”.  A “Magi” orientation requires the courage and the commitment to ask questions, to wonder, to explore, and most of all to be open to living more deeply what our curiosity reveals.

In this regard, here is something I wish for St. Philip’s.  If, somehow, I were granted one wish for the people I serve as priest, I think it would be for the gift of curiosity, the openness to wonderment.  We all need curiosity in order to move beyond settling for survival.  The wondering about what God awaits to provide for is the way to new life, the way we can learn to thrive.

Those churches and people who have a “Magi” orientation are curious.  Be curious to discover what we need and what God gives.  And keep all eyes on the prize.

A concluding quality of a “Magi” church and “Magi” people is that there was more than one “Wisemen”.  This is to say being a “Magi” church and “Magi” people is not a matter of a “do-it-yourself” project.  This challenge of finding God’s Christ and encountering the new life Jesus brings requires help.  It requires companionship.  It requires partners.  It requires community.

In Matthew’s account of the Magi, how many “Wisemen” are there?  Trick question: He mentions no number of eastern sages, just that they brought three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  (I’m curious: Why these gifts?)  In any event, in the telling of the Epiphany story, three gifts evolved into three “Magi” – a trinity of wisemen honoring the Christ child.

The point is that the “Magi” had one another for company because following the Star demands reinforcement, physically, emotionally, and certainly spiritually to keep the main thing the main thing.  For example, when my faith wanes and I want to quit, I need you – my comrades of the Way -- to pick me up and to share your faith until mine comes back!  Companionship.  Accompaniment.  Pilgrim partners.

Curiosity.  Keeping our eyes on the Prize.  Doing the following and the searching, not alone, but together: These ae qualities of “magi” churches and people.  There are more, and as we go home by another road, I’m sure we’ll discover others.

Right now, as I look to where the “Star” is leading me and when I think about this parish and its people (whom I love) discerning the leading “Star”, the demand of it all rests in its uncharted nature.  I don’t know where I am going.  Neither do you know where you are going.

The temptation, then, is to hunker down and stay put – just survive, let someone else do the work.  In this fearful reality, the prayer of Thomas Merton comes to mind.  Merton, a Roman Catholic monk who tragically died in 1968, wrote this prayer for what I am assuming was the “Magi” in himself and for all the other faithful “Star” gazers.  I close with this prayer in hopes that it will be our common prayer, the one we help each other to trust and to live.

My Lord God,

I have no idea where I am going.

I do not see the road ahead of me.

I cannot know for certain where it will end.

Nor do I really know myself,

and the fact that I think I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you

does in fact please you.

And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.

I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.

And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,

though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore will I trust you always though

I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. 

I will not fear, for you are ever with me,

and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.[4]

And  so, we begin to go from our own country by another road.  Don’t quit! Amen.

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[1] Matthew 2:12.

[2] Andrew McGowan. The Seers and the Star. Second Sunday after Christmas.

[3] Book of Common Prayer. e.g., p. 367.

[4] “The Merton Prayer” from Thoughts in Solitude by Thomas Merton. Copyright © 1956, 1958 by The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.