Sermon Title: "Missing the Messiah By Nine Miles"
Date: January 3, 2010
Minister: Rev. Charles Ensley

Lesson:  Matthew 2:1-12

Last year on this Epiphany Sunday, the Meditative Moment in the worship bulletin was a poem by B. Y. Williams which began:  “Who are the Wise Men now, when all is told?…”

I guess the questions on many peoples’ minds after singing We Three Kings of Orient Are, and hearing today’s lesson—no matter how many times you’ve heard it and taken it for granted—are:  who were the wise men then?  How do we interpret them?  What was their mission?  What do they accomplish in the birth narrative of Jesus?

Today’s New Revised Standard Version calls them wise men.  In looking over the term in eight different versions of the Bible in common use over the last half century, four use wise men, three use astrologers, and one uses Magi.  Not a one calls them kings, and they were probably not.  They were likely astrologers from the Far East, who studied the stars and followed this one particularly brilliant nova to where it stopped.  They might have dabbled in the magical arts; hence, the term magi.  One reason we commonly call these men wise men is that so many, many people who thought they were wise, completely missed the birth of the baby Jesus.  But these wise men got it.  They were wise enough to follow a star and find their way to the child and his parents and worshipped Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah.

Walter Brueggemann, the great Old Testament scholar and, incidentally, ordained in the United Church of Christ, says the notion that when the Messiah was born, his birth would be such a grand event, and not just for Israel but for the whole world, was not original with Matthew.  The notion that there would be some rich people, journeying all the way to little Israel from the East, coming to Jerusalem, is a story that Matthew borrowed from Isaiah 60, portions of which comprised our call to worship today.

Isaiah 60 is a very old prophecy, going all the way back to 580 BC.  Six hundred years before the birth of Jesus, the Jews had been sent away to present-day Iraq into exile.  They had languished in exile, a captive, enslaved people, reduced to running errands for the Iraqis, and they had been there for more than a couple of generations.  At last they were made free and they made their weary way back to their city of Jerusalem.  But when they got there, their hearts sank.  Jerusalem, that once golden city, now lay in ruins.  They had remembered their home through rose-colored glasses, when Jerusalem was really some place to live.  But now, says Brueggemann, Jerusalem was a disappointing ruin.

And when Matthew wrote that “wise men from the East came to Jerusalem asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born King of the Jews?’” (Mt 2:2), he must have thought of Isaiah 60—because Isaiah had told those disheartened Jews so long ago, your city will be rebuilt, kings will come to you, kings from the East, bearing all sorts of tribute, because once again you will be a great nation.  All the other nations will look to you in fear and wonder.  Israel is once again going to become a great international power and all these once powerful nations from the East will be knocking at your door, seeking your favor.

So now we understand why “when King Herod [the present King of Jerusalem] heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him.” (2:3)  Herod was frightened because he was king and he certainly didn’t take to the idea of a bunch of visiting dignitaries from the East coming to pay homage to some new king.  So Herod summons his royal scholars to ask them what they know about the birth of some other king in his royal fiefdom.

And his scholars, no doubt the very best from the most noted school of religion in all of Jerusalem, told him, ‘King Herod, the answer to your questions is in the Old Testament, but it is not in Isaiah 60.  It’s from the prophet Micah, who wrote:’

“But you, Oh Bethlehem…,

who are one of the little clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel,

whose origin is from of old, from ancient days . . .

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,

in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God,

and they shall live secure, for now he shall be great,

to the ends of the earth;

and he shall be the one of peace.” (Micah 5:2, 4, 5)

So Herod called back into his chambers those rich visitors from the East with their gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and ever-so-slyly told them, “Why don’t you go over to Bethlehem—that dirty little no place of a town—and see if you can find this new king so that I can worship him.”  Of course, Herod didn’t want to worship this newborn king.  He wanted to kill him.  And the rest is history.

Walter Brueggemann noted that Bethlehem is about nine miles south of Jerusalem.  Or, Micah would probably have us say that Jerusalem happened to be about nine miles north of Bethlehem.  The wise men were so very wise, so accomplished in their astrological calculations, but they nearly missed the birth of the Christ by nine miles!  Herod thought he sat on his throne at the very center of the Empire, the center of the universe.  But he miscalculated as well, by about nine miles.  Nine miles is not all that far –unless you are walking it, or bouncing on the back of a camel—or trying to find God.  And then, those nine miles from Bethlehem to Jerusalem are a very long way.

The wise men headed down to the little town of Bethlehem, home of King David, the little town that the prophet Micah had said would one day have an importance far beyond its size.  And after they had laid their gifts before the manger, they were warned by an angel not to go back to Jerusalem and King Herod.  They had the good sense to go home another way, and were never heard from again, except every Christmas Eve and Epiphany Sunday up to this day.

But why does Matthew—and Matthew alone—tell us this story?  That “why” is just as important as why the wise men set out on their journey.  Matthew wants his audience to hear about the Good News of God’s universal and all-encompassing grace, even if they’re offended or even appalled that such “objectionable outsiders” are included in the story of Jesus’ ministry that will follow—people like Samaritan adulterers, immoral prostitutes, greasy tax collectors on the take, despised Roman soldiers, and ostracized lepers.

So, what do we hear in this story on the first Sunday of 2010?  We hear that God has sent a gentle shepherd who will nevertheless upset the powers-that-have-been.  We hear that the smallest things, like a newborn baby, can terrify the arrogant, and bring them down in the end.  We learn that God’s reach of grace goes far beyond every obstacle within or without, and pushes us beyond them, too.  We learn that a great light has dawned, a light that draws all people and calls us to live our lives illuminated by its truth.  That’s what the Epiphany season is about.  W.H. Auden, in his poem, “For the Time Being” writes:  “To discover how to be human now / is the reason we follow this star.”

When have you felt that you were missing the Messiah by nine miles?  Was it only at times of need or suffering, or was it an intellectual search, or did it come from a deep, personal hunger for meaning?  How faithful were you, and diligent, in the search?  How do you think people seek God today?  How might the star in the Matthew reading represent nature as it “points” to God?  The wise men find the star alone insufficient as a guide, and they innocently turn to one king (a lesser, and evil one) for guidance to the real King.  Fear is the response, not just from the powerful, threatened king, but from the religious establishment and from “all Jerusalem.”  Think of the times that fear dictated your first response to something new, even to something promising.  What did you, and those around you, fear?

The opposite of fear, of disappointment, of being left out or let down, is joy.  And there is a moment of joy for those wise men of old before they presented their wondrous and valuable gifts.  “When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.”  (Matthew 2:10)

In this year’s celebrations of Christmas and the season of Epiphany, a time of the manifestation of God’s glory in a little child, have you been “overwhelmed with joy” at any time?  Can we observe these seasons every year, year after year, and still find that place within us that is capable of being overwhelmed by joy?  How is God still speaking to us, year after year, in every season, calling us to this joy, this remembering, this new vision?

After all, it isn’t really nine miles away!