Epiphanies from those we least expect

Epiphany 1

Year C

Today we are reading in the Gospel of Matthew about the wise men or as they are sometimes called, the three kings or the magi—what is their story, their identity, their culture, their connection to the newborn king?

I can tell you they are not insiders; they are not people who have followed the laws and teachings of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  They have most likely not been circumcised; they may not follow or even know about the Ten Commandments; they don’t worship in the synagogue, and they probably don’t follow any purity rituals.  No, they are outsiders, foreigners, people not only of a different denomination, but also of a different faith.  They are priests yes, but priests of a different religion that of Zorastarianism.  And what is Zoroastrianism?

At one time Zoroastrianism was one of the world’s largest religions.  Their priests practiced star gazing and astrology.  They were known as visionaries and some believed they had secret lores--magic.  And yet these outsiders, these foreigners, these men not of the chosen people, these “others” were among the first to recognize and acknowledge Jesus as God’s anointed King, as God the Son in the flesh.  These men received an epiphany—a revelation—they experienced and they responded—they sought out the truth.  They were spiritual seekers, but they were seekers in a different way—their methods, their practices were different than those around them at the time.  They were not waiting on the Messiah as foretold in the Hebrew Scriptures.  But they experienced God; they received, they embraced, and they responded to truth.

I think we have a great deal to learn from today’s Gospel.  More to learn than one Sunday, one sermon, one reading can bring.  But today is a start.  We are living today in a world of many cultures and faiths, within our own faith there are many denominations.  Within our own denomination there is a broad spectrum of practice and belief—high church, Low Church; conservative, liberal; traditionalist, emergent.  In our own congregation we have differences, vast differences—theological, ideological, political differences, and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the differences in spiritual practices and worship preferences. 

I think today’s Gospel speaks to all of these differences, and it forces us to acknowledge and grapple with the idea that revelation has come through those and by those one would least suspect.  And it begs the question, do epiphanies still occur?  Do we still see manifestations of the Divine?  I believe we do; I believe it is through others that we experience the love of and the presence of God. So the real question for me and perhaps for you then becomes, if the first epiphany, the first recognition of the manifestation of God the Son in the human form of the baby Jesus came from and through those on the outside, those foreigners, those others, could it be that the light of Christ may still be seen in those we least expect?  Must the experience of the Divine come just from those who experience it in the same way we do?  Must it be that those who are seekers of the truth, seekers of the love of God must seek in the same way we do?  And I further wonder, if we are only open to those who think like we do, who practice faith like we do, who name God the way we do, might we be closing ourselves off from experiencing epiphanies in our own lives?  Might we miss out on experiencing the love of God through those we have cast aside?

Let’s return to the Gospel—the wise men, the magi, find the Christ child, they pay him homage, and they depart.  It does not say they converted to the religion of the day; it does not say they gave up their own spiritual practices, it simply says that they believed.  They believed and I would suspect were transformed; they had to be.  I believe that today’s Gospel stresses and highlights an extremely important truth and that is the universality of Christ’s saving mission.  It stresses that God didn’t send his Son for just the chosen few of which we often pompously, arrogantly, and sometimes humbly as well consider ourselves.  No God sent his son for the whole world, for those who think like us, for those who don’t, for those who seek in the same way we do, and for those who use different methods, different languages, different practices.  And I believe that when we mandate how people must experience God, we are in effect trying to place limits on God.  Let me be clear, it is not that we shouldn’t offer our own experiences, share our own experiences and even offer to others methods and practices that we use, but I believe that we should also respect and be open to the other—to the others thoughts, experiences and practices. 

I invite you to join me this year on a journey of discovery and rediscovery.  Try something new, talk to someone new, explore new ways to connect and see the manifestation of God in the world.  Open your hearts and minds and eyes to the world and perhaps just perhaps this time next year we can truly say we are one step closer to more fully experiencing and living into the inclusive Kingdom of God.