Sermon, January 6, 2002
The Feast of the Epiphany, Year A
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Sermon, January 6, 2002
The Feast of the Epiphany, Year A
The Rev. Lowell E. Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, Arkansas
Gospel – Matthew 2:1-12 The Visit of the Wise Men
The child Jesus has been born in Bethlehem of Judea. Someone new and fragile is coming to life. A new energy. A new spirit. He will show us what divine love looks like in human life.
What is coming to life is someone who will love other people with so much attention and intensity that he will release a profound energy that heals and brings new life. For those of us who before have barely been able to put one foot in front of the other, this new energy will give them strength to walk boldly into the future. For those of us who have been foundering around in the dark, not knowing who they were or what they should be doing, this new energy will give them hope and vision, direction and purpose. For those of us who have lost so much that they feel loveless and unlovable, this new energy will give such acceptance and nurture, such unqualified loving care, that they will rise from their beds and embrace the wonder of the whole creation. The lame will walk, the blind will see, the dead will be raised.
Something new and fragile has been born. A new spirit. The spirit of divine love taking human form. This new spirit will break down walls that separate and injure us. The walls of "in" and "out"; us and them; blessed and cursed. Paul calls it a mystery, a mystery now revealed. The Gentiles are "in." You don’t have to be a Jew to be okay with God. Jew and Gentile – everybody – shares in the loving graciousness of God. Can you feel how amazing this must have been to Paul and other zealous Jews? The walls are down. Everybody is in; everybody is God’s and everybody is in God. No one is outside the circle of grace, even those we thought of before as non-believers.
And within the life of that society, and every culture, the new spirit that is coming into life will be working to break down other walls that separate. This new energy will leap over the cultural wall between male and female, liberating women from a demeaning patriarchy. This new energy will break down the distinctions between clean and unclean, righteous and sinner; bringing acceptance and forgiveness, grace and peace to those who have failed or been labeled "failure."
There is a new life coming into being from the hearth of Mary and Joseph. And this fragile life emerging from the manger is also living within you. The same energy that is in Jesus is in all of us, in every human being that has ever lived. Within you is a divine spirit, an intelligent energy, that is trying to come to full being. It is that movement within you that wants to give you such love that you can walk boldly into the future with hope and vision, direction and purpose embracing the wonder of the whole creation. It is that healing spirit within you that draws you toward a new way of being, without walls and barriers. It is that inner voice inviting you to freedom. Freedom to respond with willing and attentive love to each moment of life. That energy is in you. That spirit is in you.
But there is a struggle involved in bringing this new life to full strength. And the struggle to bring to maturity this new way of being is symbolized in this wonderful story Matthew gives us today, the story of the visit of the wise men from the East.
We see Mary the mother, nurturing this fragile life into being. The maternal instinct which lies within each of us that gently feeds and cares for our loving nature. She is a person of obedience, or maybe a better word for our day, a person of willingness. She is open and willing to value and love this new spirit of being. Let the Mary within you, your discipline of willingness, cradle and nurture the divine spirit that wants to grow within you.
We see Joseph the father, protecting and guiding this fragile life into being. He is a person of intuition and action. Able to access the divine wisdom of his inner self, he listens to the messages of his dreams, he looks at the dangers of the landscape, and he leads his family to safety and protection. Let the Joseph within you, your powerful, intuitive wisdom and your courageous willingness to act, protect and stimulate the divine spirit that wants to grow within you.
We see Herod the king, the drive to power, control and prestige. We all have a Herod within us – that cold intellect that feels threatened by anything or anyone that might compromise our power and control, our honor and pride. It is the voice of Herod that believes this is a dangerous and threatening world, where even a child might steal our throne. Armed and defensive, he looks to secure his place through his own might and cunning. His energy is fear. And he will kill the divine spark within. You know Herod. He is your pride and your fear, your excessive need for power and control. Do not listen to him. Resist him.
We see the wise men from the East, the spirit of exploration and pilgrimage, the warm intellect that is open to new wisdom. They look toward nature for their truth. And like so many others who have observed creation with awe, their study takes them in a natural path toward the divine. These ancient scientists move slowly with intellectual deliberation toward the place of epiphany. Their only danger is that they can be used, manipulated by the colder intellect motivated by power and pride. It was a dangerous exchange of pleasantries in Jerusalem, and one that proved deadly to many innocents. In weeks to come, Herod will kill all of the first born sons in his search for this new child of life. Scientific knowledge in the hands of the wrathful always brings tragedy. But the wise men do come. They follow their star, and like all truth humbly followed, it leads them to the perfect truth of the divine. The wise men arrive.
But it is interesting whom we don’t see in Matthew’s tableau in Bethlehem. The shepherds are off stage, they’ve already come and gone. Simple, responsive, they don’t need a lot of study or reasoning to find the child. With bounding joy they rushed instantly to the source of their hope. They seem to have an instinct for the divine. They are like those whom William James called "the once born." Untroubled by doubts and ponderous theologies, they simply know the divine present.
It is not so easy for the rest of us. Those of us burdened with thoughts and theories. There is a prayer written by Evelyn Waugh in his novel Helena, about the mother of the emperor Constantine. Helena prays for her great son, and she asks these wise men to be her intercessors. "You are my special patrons," she prays to the wise men, "and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have had a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who through politeness make themselves partners in guilt, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents... For His sake who did not reject your curious gifts, pray always for the learned, the oblique, the delicate. Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom."
There is a simple epiphany within you and around you. The spirit of God enfleshed yearns to come to full life in you, that energy of love, acceptance, healing and grace. Nurture that life like Mary; guard it like Joseph. You may run to it with boundless joy like the shepherds or you may journey to it with careful search like the wise men. But know this, the child within is your true self, your true life longing to mature. Offer to God your gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh – your talents and actions, your worship and devotion, your repentance and your death. There is plenty of room at the manger. And you, like the shepherds and the wise men, can also be overwhelmed with joy.