Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72; Matthew 2:1-12; Ephesians 3:1-12
Every year the story of the wise men comes to us at the tail-end of the Christmas holidays, a bit of oriental glamour cheering up the start of the new year. Unfortunately, if those of us of a suspicious disposition go back to the Gospel reading some of the glamour wears off, once we’ve established how much later tradition has decorated the story Matthew gives us. I feel like a spoilsport, standing up here and reminding you of the bad news: they weren’t kings but astrologers from a Babylonian religion; there weren’t necessarily three of them, though they brought three gifts; we don’t know exactly why they gave the baby Jesus those three rather impractical gifts; they weren’t riding camels – we get the camels as well as gold and frankincense from Isaiah’s prophecy in our first reading – and, in spite of a thousand Nativity plays, they didn’t even turn up in the same Gospel as the shepherds, let alone at the same time – or why would Herod order all children of 2 or less to be killed?
You may be wondering: well, what can we do with the story, then? There are two very different answers, depending on whether we’re reading the story personally or politically. And my guess is that in the congregation this morning we’ll have both sorts of people; you’d better listen on to see if I’m right, and if I am right, to decide in which camp you might find yourself at home.
The personal approach is well typified by many of our Epiphany hymns, from Brightest and Best – sorry you’re having it two weeks running, folks! – to Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness and even In the Bleak Midwinter. If we were those wise men, it reasons, we would bring treasures from our store. But we have no access to such treasures: thinking of those multitudes of camels bringing treasures to the king of kings, we are at a loss. So what is there that we all, no matter how rich or how poor, are able to offer to Jesus? Ourselves: though we may think of ourselves as ordinary people with little to offer, there is not one person present this morning but can bring truth, love, and prayer from the heart, to the baby in the manger, and have it received by Jesus as a more acceptable offering than any amount of coinage.
And this is quite true. If, in the dark month of January before the days seem any longer, you wonder what the point of your life is; if you’re fed up with washing up and clearing up after Christmas, assessing the damage to your finances and your waistline and making new year’s resolutions you feel unable to live up to, remember this: God loves us, and yearns for our love and attention in return. And in this new year I challenge you to put moments of time aside to be with God – through the silence of prayer or the joy of music, the beauty of nature or the energy of celebration – to test out the truth of what I say.
Yet as truth is part of our offering to God, I must add that there is another approach to the story which also contains truth: the political. For Epiphany is about power as well as about love: who has it, who is allowed to have it, and what the consequences of its use may be. And questions about power are always political questions. Herod’s reaction to the wise men’s apparently innocent question about Jesus’ location shows us that: a megalomaniac who has maintained limited power within the Roman Empire by killing everyone, even his favourite wife, who might threaten him, is not going to balk at ordering all male toddlers in the Bethlehem area to be put to the sword. It’s not pretty, but it’s Realpolitik, acceptable collateral damage to keep the peace. Is this something we recognise in ourselves, or our political leaders, and if so, what should our reaction be?
The wise men have another take on power. They are outsiders to Judaism, who might be ignored or attacked as beyond the boundaries of the true faith. Yet because these outsiders have something valuable to give to Jesus, they also have something valuable to give to us. They are the first Gentiles to recognise Jesus’ authority over the whole world, not just the Jewish part of it. They are our own spiritual ancestors. And when we are deciding who should be welcomed and who excluded in our church or our nation, we should remember two things about the wise men: that they, as outsiders with knowledge that is not our own, have valuable gifts to bring; and that as Paul reminds the Christians in Ephesus, we too, but for God’s grace in Jesus, would be outsiders to God’s love.
Where is Jesus’ own power? The answer is ambiguous, from the apparent vulnerability of both birth and death to the mysterious power of his heavenly kingdom. We are still trying to understand what power means for God with us. Yet in a more familiar vein, our psalm this morning shows God’s perfect king crushing the oppressor and defending the cause of the poor and needy. Here is a model of power being acknowledged and used for good.
And though it sometimes feels hard to believe, each of us has power, and with it responsibility. We choose where to shop for our food. We choose how to furnish our houses. We choose our government, local and national. We choose our friends and how we spend our leisure time. And these choices have consequences. So in this new year I challenge you to consider: Is our power used, like Herod’s, for our own survival or convenience? Or is our power used, like that of the wise men, to share and honour truth wherever we find it? And how much power do we allow God with us in the practical, as opposed to the spiritual, decisions of our life?
As I said at the beginning, there are two takes on the Epiphany story, the personal and the political. And each has a role to play. It would be easy to stick to the personal, to me-and-my-God or to a holy huddle of friends who enjoy doing church in the same way as I do. But the intrusion of Herod into the Epiphany story shows us that politics has a nasty way of getting into religion, and power when exercised in isolation from our faith can do some nasty things. It would also be easy to stick to the political, to get so worked up about the terrible things happening in the world that we never stop to take time with God. People who fall into that trap are in danger of burn-out and disillusionment on discovering that we can’t save the world on our own.
What God asks of us, however, is not either-or but both-and. Just as Jesus’ life and death and resurrection brought together Jews and Gentiles, it also brings together the personal and the political, as complementary expressions of love. And since none of us has that balance just right, it’s a good thing that Christmas isn’t over; our journey alongside God with us in 2008 is only just beginning.