The Church of the Ascension
January 6, 2008

In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  AMEN.

Recently while riding in a car with a friend who has a GPS, a Global Positioning System, I became intrigued with the gismo.  His is a portable device that is unbelievably smart.  In thirty languages (including options for American English and British English but no selection for Southern English), a pleasant sounding woman told us every turn to take on the way to our destination.   Headed only to Metuchen, New Jersey, we – mostly I - could not resist the temptation to hear the directions occasionally in Portuguese and Japanese and even Urdu, just amazing ; and then, of course, like kids who bore too easily, we began to fool her by making unauthorized turns, about which she – it truly was as though she were in the car with us – became more and more insistent!   “Reverse route; go back” in thirty terse languages can be very amusing for two middle aged priests, who need to get a life! 

Well, Fr. Malloy and I were not the Wise Men looking for Jesus.  We weren’t actually looking for Jesus at all, searching simply for Barbara Crafton in Metuchen; but as I contemplated what the Wise Men’s search was like, I couldn’t resist imagining the star, the bright wonderful star, as a forerunner to the GPS. 

I love the story of the Magi.  Though ninety-nine of a hundred people would answer if asked that there were three, each bearing one gift, we really don’t know how many there were or when they arrived.  There may have been a gaggle of them, and it may have taken them a long time to actually show up!  But the story is a wonderful one.  As a child, these showy men were my favorite characters.  Even then I was a bit suspicious of the bucolic shepherds, thinking them a bit dull; but the Wise Men were gloriously arrayed though wearied from an exotic trip from a far piece away.  Their gifts, sparkling and aromatic, not to mention valuable, reflect the best that the world had to offer to this little baby who was to be the Lord or Lords and King of Kings.  The story still resonates with us after years of scholarship as a compelling account of how immense the power of God is to attract the most unlikely characters.  I wouldn’t take anything for the story; and though our observance of it occurs at the end of a long and somewhat exhausting for many of us holiday season, the Feast of the Epiphany should never be missed.  In some ways it is the first evidence that this pastoral scene in what likely was a small cave in Palestine was a cosmic shift in the history of the world and in the ongoing story of God and God’s creation.  A star led the way – what a story!

It is with such yearning that I ponder that star.  I have spent most of life looking, hoping for the right path, seeking to find truth and meaning in my life and in the world around me.  Most of us have I think –though  most of us do not talk about the search as much as a theologian does.  The fact that our looking is so often in the wrong direction, looking for not only love but meaning in all the wrong places, does not alter the fact one iota that seeking is bred in our bones: we are seekers by nature.  I find it comforting that it seems to be an essential component of being a human being that we continue to seek.  Not surprisingly, when our seeking is so wrong directed, when we attempt to substitute the glitter for the substantial, when all that matters is the pursuit of money and what it offers, when our seeking becomes so tinged with cynicism that nothing seems really to count, then…our actions to ourselves, to one another, and to God become somehow less than human. 

So many things about these legendary Wise Men are worth emulating.  Though they were in some sense professional seekers, if you will, their desire to be honest about the need for something outside themselves is remarkable.  Having the access to gold, frankincense, and myrrh tells us a great deal about their status in life.  They were men of means.  I suppose they could have settled down with what they had inherited or accumulated, concluding that others – younger, more adventurous than they – could take this journey.  Somehow they realized that this was the trip of a lifetime and worth all the risk and effort involved.  Accumulations – as they must have had – sometimes dull us to the search.  Such resources did not stop the search for these men; rather they gave them the fuel to engage what may have appeared as foolish or quixotic to others.  Presumably they believed that dying on the trail to truth and light was preferable to living without it.  Hmm…it begs the question: What is worth dying for in our culture?

It also strikes me that these seekers did not have to see the whole picture before they were willing to set out on the journey.  In fact, there was immense ambient darkness.  A star – even a very bright star – is a long way away and gives only a certain amount and kind of light.  My guess is what they followed was more light a bright flash light than a spotlight that fully illuminated the way.  If we have to wait until light shines all around us, leaving not anything to the darkness, we may never go.  Sometimes faithful searching means that we stumble along in the dark, doing the best we can until the star if brighter.  We have all known – and perhaps have been – people who were so cautious about waiting for every “t” to be crossed and every “i” to be dotted that we never quite move out of our comfort zone – even if we know that the God for whom we search is actually to be found somewhere else.

A long time ago a wise friend told me that walking with my head down was unlikely to result in finding the way.  That seems pretty obvious, but there are a lot of ways not to look up!  Looking down limits our view; it often speaks of depression or cynicism, saying somehow that there is nothing good to see and that the best way to get through life is to hunker down without seeing much at all.  The space in our world, though far being conquered, is a lot smaller than it was at the time of the Wise Men; but these were men who were empowered, rather than diminished, by looking up into the great expanse of the universe.  It paid off: they saw the star that would lead them to Christ.  Looking up, looking into places we don’t know normally behold, looking way beyond our little world – these glances may hold the key for us as well. 

And, finally, the Wise Men were willing to punt at a moment’s notice.  Herod, not as clever as he thought which is often true of politicians, was a little too interested in their search.  They caught wind that he was up to no good; and they reconnoitered: they decided to go home a different way.  Sometimes when we are searching for truth, we have to be willing to take an alternative route.  Though all of us know this to be true, we do not always live as though we do; willingness to go way out of the way is sometimes the key to getting back home.  Sometimes we act as though there can only be one way – the way we first imagined – as the right way,  That can lead to disaster.  Had they not gone home a different way, who knows what might have happened?

The story of the Magi – a lovely piece of our tradition, an ancient, mythical story with questionable historical accuracy, good for pageants?  All of that – and some of the holiest lessons for living we have.

In the name of God:  AMEN.