Below, for your consideration and reflection, is the sermon from Bethel's January 9, 2005 Sunday Morning worship service.

---

It may seem a bit odd, here, more than two weeks after Christmas, to sing and read about these strange visitors who came from the East to Bethlehem. While our Christmas cards and pageants crowd shepherds, angels, baby Jesus, Joseph, Mary, animals, and the magi -- all onto one stage -- truth is, we know very little about when all these things came to pass, and they certainly didn’t happen all at the same time.. The early church recognized this reality, and so the church fixed the feast day of Epiphany on its calendar, January 6, the day to commemorate the visitation of these Gentiles who paid homage to “the one born king of the Jews,” set 12 days after the feast of the birth of Jesus. And so, the day of Epiphany was this past Thursday, in case you missed it.

It is the beloved story of the exotic, mysterious pilgrims who followed a star to Bethlehem or who navigated by some other astral phenomena like the trail left by a comet, with only a slight, but potentially catastrophic, detour through Jerusalem. Contrary to Garrison Keillor, these visitors were not Lutherans hailing from Lake Wobegone, Minnesota and they did not bear casseroles as gifts, but rather they came from ancient Persia, what we know now as modern day Iran.

Lest we forget, they were not Jews, not people of the book, which, of course, is really the whole point of the story, to illustrate that God, in the vulnerable form of a baby, has come to all the nations. They were aliens – outsiders – strangers to the covenant. They likely knew little about Israel, its history, beliefs, religious rituals. And yet, they were the first ones to bow and to see that Jesus was the Christ for the whole world, the first ones to worship him. And how surprising it is that Matthew, generally considered to be the most Jewish of all the four gospel writers, that it was Matthew alone who told the story of these non-Jewish visitors who followed a star, who came to Bethlehem bearing three gifts: gold, traditionally associated with royalty; incense, associated with divinity since incense was burned during religious ceremonies; and myrrh, associated with the passion of Jesus since myrrh was used to embalm corpses.

It is such a vivid story, that it continued to be developed by believers even after Mathew first told it. Tradition says there were three wise men, but Matthew doesn’t say that, only that there were three gifts offered to the baby Jesus. And where do we get the notion that they were kings? Matthew calls them “magi,” that is, magicians, or astrologer in another translation -- people who dealt in very strange magic potions, who used incantations to perform feats of magic, people who looked at the stars, trying to figure out the course of the world. But we are not told all of that about them, at least not by Matthew. What we are told is that these strangers from the East were on a journey, seeking something. I like to think of them as pilgrims, people on pilgrimage in search of something – or someone.

This story contains some of the classic elements of pilgrimage. Pilgrimage involves a journey, in this case a long one from Iran to Bethlehem, probably crossing hostile territory or desert vastness. According to the 6^th century Greek historian Herodutus, these magi were from a tribe within the Persian Empire renowned as soothsayers and astrologers. Like pilgrims through the ages, they were anxious to experience the source of sacred awe – to see holiness for themselves. They also wanted to pay reverence with their gifts. But unlike Christian pilgrimage as it later developed, these pilgrims came not to adore some bones or other holy land relics, but to worship the living God.

They may seem strange to us, but in a sense, we in our present age know them well. Many people today see faith as a process, as a looking, a searching, a seeking, an exploration. In fact, the idea of faith as a journey might, indeed, be the most popular metaphor for describing religious experience.

The Church historian Martin Marty once wrote a book entitled A Nation of Behavers, in which he argued that the American religious character has been defined not finally by arguments over doctrine or debates about right belief, but by attempts to regulate people’s morality or behavior. From temperance crusades and the persecution of polygamist Mormons in the 19^th century to the rise of the moral majority and religious crusades against abortion and homosexuality in our own day, making sure people behave themselves correctly has been an American religious obsession.

But I wonder if another appropriate title to sum up who we are might be A Nation of Seekers.

In his book, After Heaven: Spirituality in America since the 1950s, the Princeton University religious historian Robert Wuthnow says that we have transitioned from a spirituality based on images of dwelling, home, habitation, and family – the predominant way of thinking about faith in the 1950s -- to a new spirituality of seeking that requires negotiation among many different spiritual possibilities and the constant exploration of new spiritual vistas, an eclectic borrowing from other denominational or religious traditions, and the desire to replace the grand certainties of the universe with a pragmatic attitude that advises us to try whatever promises to work and proves to be useful (p.8).

It is increasingly popular, for instance, for churches to offer “seeker friendly services,” perhaps a service early on Sunday morning or Saturday evening, with old styles of music and singing and preaching and liturgy stripped away. It is intended as a service for those who may not have a church background, who might say, “I’m not religious, but I am a spiritual person,” people who reject religious institutions and many of the old trappings of church going, who seek some experience of the holy that is new, different, cutting edge.

I would expect that, in parts of the country, that these services draw lots of people, for this is an age of searching. In fact, in many quarters we have become suspicious of people who are sure of where they are, who are confident about their destination, confident about the old certainties. We are perhaps a little suspicious of those who say, “I have absolutely found what I am looking for,” but, on the other hand, we feel a bit more comfortable with those who can say, “I haven’t arrived yet; I am still searching.”

Today, of all days in the church, is a day for seekers and searchers, the day to commemorate these pilgrims who left their familiar homeland in search of the Messiah. The magi are the ones who, lacking a certainty about where the Messiah is to be born, even uncertain about who he really is, lacking the scriptures to guide them, nonetheless, search. Others may be content to stay home, going over the old slogans and formulae, keeping to well-worn paths, but the magi venture forth into the unknown.

When you look at our contemporary North American society, you see a world that looks secular, godless. Lots of people are in churches, but lots of people are not. Many people in our world try to travel through life without any reference whatsoever to God.

But, I think, underneath it all, everyone is searching for something. If they don’t call it God, maybe they call it mystery or spirituality or a connection with a higher being or the pursuit of a feeling of being in harmony with the universe, or a sense of getting in touch with the inner child of the spiritual self. Whatever “it” is, it can go by many different names.

Truth is, there are some here today who, like these magi, are not all that familiar with scripture. Let’s face it: scripture can be a strange world for the uninitiated. The language of doctrine in the creeds and attempts to explain religious phenomena rational terms is not your language. Maybe even the hymns and the prayers don’t do as much as you’d like to tap into that inner pilgrim in pursuit of a holy moment of ecstasy and awe. If so, if that is true, then the story of the magi is for you.

The baby Jesus and his family did not reject the gifts of the magi. This is good news to anyone who feels like an outsider or a pilgrim. The stars you have been following, by which you have made your way through the world, perhaps they are growing dim, and you are now looking for a more trustworthy guide. Maybe you will encounter God here, in scripture or in the Church, just as the magi encountered the divine in Bethlehem.

Matthew says that the magi “went home by another way,” another road. They disappear into history, but surely these seekers and searchers , who had finally found the baby Jesus, knew that the way back home could never be the same. Even if the angel hadn’t warned them in a dream, true pilgrims are always seeking that elusive destination by yet another way.

Perhaps the great American story of seeking and searching is the children’s story of a little girl and her three fantastic friends who travel in search of the great wizard. Dorothy, caught up in the vortex of a Kansas cyclone, is swept away into the enchanting Land of Oz, and only by going to the great Emerald City can she locate the wizard, the one who alone can show her the way home again. Or so she thinks. Along her journey, she is joined by the scarecrow, who wants a brain more than anything else; a Tin Woodman, who yearns for a heart; and a cowardly lion in search of courage. Along their journey to find the great wizard, these pilgrims encounter obstacles and dangers – some pretty hair-raising encounters, yet somehow they make it through.

Surprisingly, when it is physical danger, the cowardly lion rises up and leads the fight; whenever the obstacle is of a more cerebral nature, it is always the brainless scarecrow who figures out a way to circumvent the problem; and the Tin Man, journeying in search of a heart, is so moved by the plight of others that he receives an oil can to make sure that his tears do not rust him, for he thus has discovered in himself a heart of compassion.

The climax of the tale, upon reaching the Emerald City after a long journey down the yellow brick road, is when they make the shattering discovery that the great wizard is not great at all, not even a wizard, but a rather helpless old man with a bald head who says he can’t possibly grant the requests of these pilgrims who have come to his city.

But the gift he does give to them is to point out that each of them already has what they have traveled such a distance to find. Courage, brains, and a heart – it’s inside of them, if only they will look.

I think we all want what each of these fantastic creatures also wanted: we want to be full persons, to feel complete and completely human. The story seems to be saying that the path to wholeness is more about choosing to make the journey than it is about reaching a particular destination.

As for the little girl Dorothy, she already had all the parts to be a human being, and therefore didn’t have the same needs as her strange companions. But she was lost, and she needed somehow to find her way back home again. And home, once she returned, would never be the same. (from F. Beuchner’s The Magnificent Defeat, “Journey in Search of a Soul”).

So, too, home for the magi and for us is not the manger where the light is gentle and God is a child. Peace is there, the peace that passes all understanding, but the fullness of that peace is not ours for yet a little while. We also must depart into our own country again.

For outlandish creatures like us, on our way to find a heart, a brain, and courage, Bethlehem is not the end of our journey -- but only the beginning.

---