Epiphany

The Wise Men are here. They may even be sitting next to you.

We know about the Wise Men from the Gospel of Matthew which we have just heard. In Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus, we don’t hear about shepherds or animals; we hear about wise men from the East. ‘Wise Men’ is one translation of the word in Greek that you might have heard: Magi.

The Magi serve an important purpose in the story of the Gospel according to Matthew. Their arrival lines up with certain parts of the Hebrew scriptures. The Magi fulfill prophecy — in other words, they pass a kind of test for letting God’s people know that God is, indeed, up to something.

But isn’t it interesting that in order to fulfill the prophecy…in order to satisfy all that is good, and right, and proper… in order to sign off on this occasion with his own signature, the God of Israel uses these Magi characters… who are outsiders. They’re from another country; they are not Jewish. They themselves are not experts on the laws & prophets of Israel, and yet: they fulfill them.

Now, one of the traditional interpretations of this visit & worship from the Magi is to show that Jesus is for all peoples. Especially when the tradition identified the Magi as Kings — even tho the Gospel doesn’t actually call them kings, and doesn’t technically say whether there were exactly three of them — but the Three Kings tradition suggests that leaders from all nations, not just the Hebrews, are to worship Jesus as Messiah.

Which is true. If you think about it, the Gospel of Matthew begins with the Magi, Gentiles, coming to Jesus and the Gospel ends with the disciples of Jesus being sent out to the Gentiles, to all nations.

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” (Matthew 28.19 NRSV)

But I think the Magi are more than just representatives, or stand-ins, for the nations of the world. I think the Magi show us into the very heart of the Gospel. The Magi lead us to Jesus, remind us to worship Jesus, and show us that some of the first folks to recognize Jesus were not religious experts nor religious authorities, but outsiders and newcomers.

The Magi — the wise people that find themselves bowing at the feet of Jesus — are newcomers.

I like that word, newcomer. It’s the best word I’ve found to describe the people that we encounter in church who are… new. I think it’s a little better than visitor, or guest, and a lot better than unchurched, or unsaved, or ‘the lost,’ which is what some Christian communities call people who aren’t part of their church.

The word ‘newcomer,’ on the other hand, doesn’t make any judgment about people — it doesn’t assume that they are inferior, or confused, or in need. It simply labels people by saying they haven’t been here for very long. It leaves open the possibility that, like the Magi, sometimes the people we could call ‘lost’ are the same ones who show us to Jesus.

The problem is that newcomers can make us feel anxious. They certainly made Herod feel anxious.

When the Magi arrive, they ask about a child born King of the Jews which makes Herod (appointed King of the Jews) frightened. These newcomers in Jerusalem have made Herod anxious.

And not just Herod, Matthew says all of Jerusalem was frightened with Herod. Newcomers bring anxiety to the whole system. You see any religious community…any church…any congregation — actually, any group of people at all — naturally wants to find a kind of equilibrium. Churches are made of people, and the people eventually find a way to balance each other out in the system. It happened in the world of Jesus, and it happens in our world.

And then newcomers show up, and it puts the system temporarily out of balance. We thought we knew who we were, but now there are new people here and we have to figure out what that means, and we have to resolve this imbalance.

When the Magi newcomers showed up in Jerusalem and started asking deep and important questions about the Messiah, it threw the religious system out of balance. In particular, it threw Herod out of balance. Remember that the Magi showed up asking about the child born King of the Jews while Herod went around calling himself King of the Jews. Herod wasn’t so much interested in what God was up to, he was interested in preserving this system that kept him at the top. And all the people in this religious system were anxious too: whether or not they particularly liked Herod, they knew that these Magi were questioning the balance of the whole system. And all of us get anxious about change. I know I do.

So what do we do with the anxiety that newcomers bring?

Well, we know what King Herod did.

Posed with the threat of losing his power, he suddenly took a great interest in the scriptures, and consulted his experts to find out just where a Messiah might come from. And when he found out Bethlehem was a good bet, he sent the Magi there to do a little reconnaissance work for him. When they failed to report back on which child might be the Messiah, Herod has all of Bethlehem’s children killed — except for Jesus, of course, whose family had escaped by then to Egypt.

Herod tried to take advantage of these newcomers by turning them into unwitting spies so that he could identify the threat to his power and eliminate it. His anxiety was so strong that he would stop at nothing, not even murder, to keep things the way they were.

Now, just to alleviate the fear that any newcomers here today might have — I don’t believe that any of the membership here at Good Shepherd is feeling especially murderous.

But, when anxiety works its way through any system, including our congregation, we also can make bad decisions. We also can miss what God is doing right in front of us.

It is no accident that throughout our churches, and in our homes, our manger scenes almost always include these strange men, newcomers, kneeling around the baby Jesus. Throughout his entire life, death, and resurrection, newcomers are at the heart of what Jesus is up to.

Jesus constantly finds himself outside the typical religious comfort zone, meeting and eating with people who, for a wide variety of reasons, are not part of the religious tradition, but people who still long to encounter Jesus, in the flesh. People who often recognize Jesus long before the religious insiders (as in, established church members) ever do.

If anything, the Magi remind us to pay attention when newcomers step into our church, or come into our lives. But I think it’s more than that…

In many churches the anxiety caused by newcomers leads the established membership to mostly ignore newcomers and the tension that they bring and eventually they go away. But more often, that anxiety is resolved by quickly and decisively putting newcomers thru a membership class and trying to make them just like us. But we miss out on something when we do that. We miss out on the gifts that newcomers bring, and the vital questions that they ask. Maybe God is trying to send us Magi…

When the Magi found the house where the holy family was staying, they immediately recognized Jesus. They were filled with joy. The Magi may not have shared much in common with Jesus: they didn’t know his family, they probably were unfamiliar with his religious traditions, but they were able to worship him. And they brought gifts to share.

When newcomers come into our congregational life, our goal is not necessarily to make them more like us…who knows, they may already be wise men and women like the Magi were wise. Our goal is to recognize and worship God with them. We can be open to the possibility that newcomers help us recognize what God is doing in new ways.

And ultimately, the heart of the Gospel is that God makes every one of us a newcomer. God forgives us and makes us new each and every day. God calls every one of us to be new: to grow in faith and, yes, wisdom. God loves us with grace so radical, that it makes us all newcomers.