The Epiphany of our Lord: January 6, 2008.

Isaiah 60:1-6

Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

First Reading--Revealing accessibility Isaiah 60 instructs hearers to lift up your eyes and look around. As humans, we often close our eyes, not seeing what is around us. But Isaiah invites us to open our eyes and notice that things are changing. There is reason to hope. Out of exile, sons are coming home from far away, daughters come with assistance. Why are the daughters carried? Is it because in this situation of oppression, like so many others, the women are especially targeted? Are they wounded more deeply? Is there less shame for women in leaning on the arm of another?

Another line that especially stands out in this passage from Isaiah is "precious is their blood." A pastor in Milwaukee tells the story of witnessing a mother on her hands and knees, with a bucket of water and scrub brush, scrubbing the blood of her murdered son off the sidewalk. We grow calloused to the preciousness of blood as we see more war, bloodshed, and violence, both real and film-made. But Isaiah says that to God each person's blood is precious. Like Abel's blood cried out from the ground to God, the blood of martyrs calls out from the ground today. God notices and deeply values the gift of human life.

Then Isaiah creates a picture of the abundance that God's people will enjoy in contrast to the scarcity they have been enduring. They can rise up because light, glory, wealth, and the "abundance of the sea" are all being brought to them. We in the "first world," whose food travels an average of 1,500 miles to our tables, (26) have perhaps lost the awe that many people in our world and many people of Isaiah's day would have experienced at having the abundance of the sea brought to us for us to eat. But we can imagine what a joyful feast this would evoke.

This is just one example of the theme of access that begins in this reading and winds through each reading for this day. Although God's people have been exiles, they now will have access to the abundance, community, and connection they have lacked.

As we sing Psalm 72 as Christians, we cannot help but make the connection to Jesus in the list of attributes of the good king who delivers the needy when they call, the poor and those without another helper--a king who saves lives, crushes the oppressor, redeems life; who sees their blood as precious. The psalmist seems to be calling for God to fill the king with these kinds of values. When we apply it to Jesus in our day, this isn't simply a "spiritualized" theology. It isn't only that Jesus died for our sins long, long ago so that, after being crushed, people can find solace in heaven. In a world that values human life less than the economy, this is a gritty and down-to-earth kind of theology that says God's type of leadership is about a reordering of values in this life. This is a psalm that calls to mind the Lord's Prayer, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes that he is "a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles." Paul's purpose and calling is to let the outsiders know, until they believe it themselves, that they are part of the body, fellow heirs, and sharers in the promise of God. It's still a mystery how we are all one, but the welcome of God to Gentiles is evidence to Paul of "the wisdom of God in its rich variety." This passage, too, is about access. We have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Matthew's story of the magi's visit, first to Herod and then to Jesus, is also a story of access. Their way to Jesus is difficult and fraught with danger and deception. However, they find the child and his mother Mary. They kneel and give honor; they give gifts. By their long journey and their emotional response at its completion--being overwhelmed with joy--they reveal even to us who Jesus is. This encounter with the child, and with the living God who has been speaking to Joseph in dreams and now speaks to them through a star, changes the way home.

Pastoral Reflection

Last week we already heard the end of the story, so we know that when King Herod is frightened, it's a bad sign. When a leader has absolute power, and fear is added to the equation, it means danger for everyone. So it is not surprising that the storyteller says Herod was frightened "and all Jerusalem with him."

The magi, by alerting the king to the presence of his possible overthrow, purposefully or inadvertently, cause a chain reaction. The king is so upset that he consults with the Judean religious leaders and scholars. Then he brings in the magi secretly, gets information from them, and tells them an outright lie.

While at the Lutheran Center in Mexico, we heard the story of a U.S.-born pastor who raised his children to question what they saw on television. Even when powerful world leaders spoke, they were trained to think critically. How? Each night as they watched the evening news, they were allowed to throw a foam brick at the TV anytime someone told a lie. Of course, they loved throwing the foam bricks, so they would listen really carefully to try to determine any untruths. "Was that a lie, Daddy? Was it? Was it?"

That's the kind of ear we can bring as we overhear the conversation of Herod and the magi. We know, because we know the whole story, that Herod is up to no good. King Herod says to the magi, "Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage." This is the point at which, if this were a play, a chorus of children would shout out "No! Don't tell him!" If we start sympathizing with Herod, we're missing the whole dramatic point of the story and perhaps revealing our stance as incredibly privileged, powerful, and fearful people.

That could be a way to preach this text, as "Herods" of our own day or as those empowered by the Spirit to discern the lies that come at us from within and without. What lines are we fed as people of faith in the U.S.A. that we ought to reveal as the powerful and fear-filled lies that they are?

Another approach is to preach is from "below." Though it is significant to Matthew that important international visitors recognized, honored, and gifted the Christ child, we do not need a certain wealth or status to do the same. The gifts the magi bring are gifts recognizing the end of the story--spices that would be used at the tomb--but even Jesus' death is not the end. An encounter with the living God changes the way home.

In the last year of using the Lutheran Book of Worship, I encountered for the first time a Christmas hymn that I had never sung in worship before. It is the last one in the section, perhaps because it takes us from Christmas into all the rest of life. In "A Stable Lamp is Lighted" (#74), we move from the stable to Passion Sunday and Holy Week. The words by Richard Wilbur are powerful, especially in the fourth stanza:

But now as at the ending,
The low is lifted high;
The stars shall bend their voices,
And every stone shall cry.
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
by whose descent among us
the worlds are reconciled.

What worlds need to be reconciled today? Many. This could also be a way to preach this text: how Jesus has power to reconcile murderers and those whose blood cries out from the ground, how Jesus has power to put in right relationship the rich and those who have no helper, how Jesus has power to reconcile God and humanity. In our worship, we sing this reality into being. JLMC 

26. Cat Lazaroff, "Food Travels Far to Reach Your Table," www.organicconsumers.org/corp/foodtravel112202.cfm.