Sermon: A Multitude of Camels

January 5, 2014 ~ A Multitude of Camels from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.

A  sermon preached at John Knox Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on January 5, 2014.

Matthew 2:1-12
and Isaiah 60:1-6

The night skies have always fascinated me.

While I no longer can tell you which constellation is which

or what planet is what,

I enjoy staring up into the night sky while driving

out someplace away from the light pollution of the city

or just looking at all the stars on a clear night from my backyard.

When I was younger, maybe around 11 or so,

Haley’s Comet made its once-every-75-year pilgrimage to earth

and I remember trying to find some dark place in Atlantic, Iowa

to peer up at it using binoculars.

And then there was the summer I worked

at Ghost Ranch Conference Center in Abiquiu, New Mexico

about as remote from civilization as you can get, really

and I would volunteer to take 20 rowdy-but-lovely

4^th through 6^th graders on a campout

just to watch the meteor showers bedazzle the night sky.

 Laying there, after the kids calmed down and went to sleep, of course,

I remember the wonderment I felt

as I pondered how God created the millions and zillions

of stars, suns, moons, planets, that

hang in the heavens above us.

I wonder if you have been enthralled this way by the night sky.

SO MANY Little specks of light, in a field of vast darkness….

* * *

Arise! Shine! For your Light has Come!

         And the Glory of the LORD has risen upon you.

So starts our reading from the Prophet Isaiah this morning.

There is an old Chinese proverb that goes;

Better To Light a Candle, than to Curse the Darkness.

I used to dream, as a small child,

that those stars were really candles

filling up a sky that needed …. SOMETHING

to make it breathtaking, beautiful.

During this darkest time of the year,

I often feel like this is a time of SEARCHING for light

LIGHT in those around us,

LIGHT in the heavens above us,

and perhaps even LIGHT within ourselves,

and Epiphany is a good time to pause

and think about that search, that QUEST.

And, at Epiphany, it all starts out with a star.

* * *

Earlier this week, my parents took my daughters and me out to dinner

and as we were leaving one of my girls

immediately pointed up to the sky and said:

There! IS that the first star?

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight;

I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight…

What is it about stars that set us to dreaming so?

A child gazes up at the night sky,

and makes a wish for a new bicycle or doll or video game.

A teenager looks up

and wishes for that boyfriend or girlfriend or just good friend to come along.

A grown-up is drawn to the vista of the evening sky,

stars all a-twinkling,

and the urge to make a wish still stirs within us.

It’s in our genes, I suppose, to be moved when we see the stars.

In our genes, if our genes do carry a sense of history,

because our ancestors in the ancient world were moved by stars.

They believed that the stars played a part in announcing

the birth or death of a great and powerful leader.

Maybe that was their way of explaining the phenomena of comets

and supernovas and shooting stars.

Or maybe, indeed, the heavens are telling the Glory of God.

According to Matthew, some wise people

– astrologers maybe, rulers maybe, Zoroastrian priests maybe  –

they looked up into the sky and saw to their west a brilliant star

one they had never seen before.

To them,

something significant had happened in the world of power and might.

Someone important had been born.

And they had no choice but to FOLLOW that star.

This story of the journey of the magi is a classic QUEST story, in a way:

a sign is given,

a journey made

the destination reached.

The sojourners respond to what they find,

and they return home after their quest, their lives changed.

* * *

And Quests are BIG BUSINESS, it would seem.

Look at the recent success of the Hobbit,

and its predecessor film trilogy the Lord of the Rings,

                  or the wildly successful Harry Potter stories.

with the books they are based on flying off the shelves,

all clues that quests are certainly ‘in’ these days.

And that’s not a bad thing at all.

Its not a bad thing that children and grown-ups alike are once again

drawn to these kinds of stories,

being involved in some unknown journey

that will be for the benefit of not simply a few,

but for all who fight on the side of the right, the good.

Almost invariably, here’s how they tend to go:

A seemingly ordinary person – Someone like you or me –

is entrusted with an expedition of some kind,

and on the way to fulfilling that destiny, she meets companions

who must be judged as trustworthy or malicious.

HELP comes from unexpected places, as does DANGER.

And as formulaic though these quest stories may be,

they can teach wise lessons.

We learn that life is not always fair.

Sometimes the innocent suffer and the guilty go unpunished.

Sometimes the good characters suffer

BECAUSE of their goodness and bravery and truthfulness.

Sometimes what one finds when reaching the destination

was NOT what was expected.

And we learn that those who have made the journey return home

with their world and their lives changed FOREVER.

* * *

As a child, I loved these kinds of stories, and in some way

I longed to find a real-life quest to undertake,

in which my own bravery and loyalty and goodness

could be lived out,

but for all my striving,

I never did receive a magic-ring to destroy

nor did I find an exiled monarch to return to the throne

nor was I commissioned to find a holy grail.

Such are the travails of an imaginative childhood.

The magi of Matthew’s story, though,

were fortunate enough to find a quest,

an IMPUSE to follow a star.

So they journeyed from Persia to Jerusalem

and on the way encountered King Herod.

They had to judge if he was good or bad, friend or foe.

He appeared so learned, so encouraging, so interested.

But, in truth, his heart was full of malice.

The magi left the glitter of Herod’s court,

and journeyed on a few miles to Bethlehem,

and reached their destination, their place under the star.

They found not a palace befitting newborn royalty,

but the humble stable,

the temporary home of Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus.

They saw no royal court paying homage to the newborn king,

but simple, rough shepherds kneeling before him.

But the magi were wise enough to know

that however rustic the surroundings,

the king had been found.

And they responded in the only fitting way: by presenting their gifts,

Gold and Frankincense and Myrrh.

paying honor before this child who would be our Loving Lord.

Matthew clearly is inspired by our Isaiah reading,

where God’s LIGHT, when found,

inspires such JOY and such celebration

that the response is overflowing:

gifts of gold and frankincense

and a multitude of CAMELS even

the gift to make all gifts PALE in comparison

for this nomadic culture

these gifts: signs of rejoicing and commitment and hope.

After all of…THIS

the Magi returned home, DIFFERENT than they had been before.

As Gentiles who had seen the promised King of Israel, they were SHAKEN.

They were now part of a DIFFERENT story—witness to the newborn King.

They could no longer trust in the power of Herod

and the powers-that-be.

And they returned home wondering

if all that they had thought about their world was true!

* * *

This year, as we celebrate the start of 2014 and look back over 2013,

the story of the magi leads us to consider:

What quest has been set before you and me?

And how might that journey challenge us, change us?

Whether you are here this morning,

having been made a part of this story of our faith

because of circumstance of birth

or conviction of belief

or some experience of the divine

in the midst of this community

it is safe to say that we are all of us a seeking people.

Why else would you have braved this miserable cold and snow this morning?

We’re all looking for something true and lasting and beautiful.

Something brilliant to behold and guide us,

Something magnificent to believe in.

Something wonderful to share.

It isn’t too much to suggest, I hope,

that the life of faith we are all about here is a sort of journey,

a kind of quest

where we are seeking out a star

to experience and to share with another

where we, like the magi long ago,

seek out Jesus Christ among us.

Jesus: our star to follow, the sign of our quest.

It might not be a physical journey like those Magi,

but ours will be a real journey nonetheless,

made through prayer and worship and study and service.

And in our own lives,

along the way we will meet strangers, and will need to determine

if they are friend or foe, if they will hinder or help the cause of God

—the cause of love and peace and justice and reconciliation

—wherever we are.

On our adventure we will encounter hardship, yes,

and unexpected blessings too.

The good news is that God has given each one of us talents and abilities

that we will need on our journey of faith.

God sends us companions along the way,

teachers and family and friends, to challenge us and to support us.

And in Jesus Christ, we believe that we have a beacon

by which God leads the way

through uncertain times.

Rev. Elizabeth Merrill once wrote about

what it means to try to be faithful in today’s world:

We may undertake only one spiritual quest in our lifetime,

and we might not reach the destination before we die.

We may undertake several such quests,

each leading us to new and deeper understandings

of God’s nature,

of God’s purpose,

of our response to God.

It is an awesome adventure,

 to follow in the ways of Jesus Christ.

There is no higher calling than to be a Christian,

if we take that calling very seriously.

Our quest is to choose right over wrong,

to follow God even when that appears to be the more difficult way,

to love even when that seems

the most ridiculous response in the world.

We too have a star to follow, and his name is Jesus Christ.[i]

Friends, exactly what Journey

God has for you this New Year I do not know.

I don’t even know what God has in store for me.

Or for us as the body of Christ in this place..

But I do know that like the Magi, having seen a glimpse of the star

We are drawn to follow in that light

Searching, like the Magi

for the joyous, marvelous irruption of Love

in our lives and in our world,

and when we encounter it,

we can expect to be changed forever.

* * *

Let me suggest, these first few days of 2014,

that we keep our eyes on this star,

this wonderful star of God,

revealing the wonderful Gift of God-Among-Us

to a tired, hurting, weary world.

This life of faith, this journey or quest to be in communion with God

to experience, deeply, truly, what life is really all about,

is finding light in the darkness,

food for the hungry soul.

friendship for the lonely.

What better metaphor could there be than a shining star,

a bright candle in the night sky

guiding us home.

In a meditation about Christmas giving

and a lifetime of journey towards a Star, Ann Weems,

the Presbyterian Poet, wrote these words:

What I’d really like to give you for Christmas is a star!

         Brilliance in a package,

                  Something you could keep in the pocket of your jeans

                           or in the pocket of your being.

                  Something to take out in times of darkness,

                  Something that would never snuff out or tarnish,

                  Something you could hold in your hand,

                  Something for wonderment

                  Something for pondering,

                  Something that would remind you of

                           what Christmas has always meant:

                           God’s Advent Light into the Darkness of this World.

         But Stars are only God’s for giving,

                  and I must be content to give you words and wishes

and packages without stars

         But I can wish you life

                  as radiant as the Star

                           that announced the Christ Child’s coming,

                  and as filled with awe as the shepherds

who stood beneath its light.

         And I can pass on to you the love

                  that has been given to me,

                           ignited countless times by others

                           who have knelt in Bethlehem’s light.

         Perhaps, if you ask, God will give you a star.[ii]

* * *

Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight;

I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight…

On this day of Epiphany, on this first Sunday of the new year,

where we look back upon the year past

and look forward to the coming year,

my wish, my prayer,

is that God will give you a star. Brilliance in a Package.

God made Flesh.

A Star Indeed.  Amen.