Year B
 Isaiah 60:1-6
 Psalm 72:1-7,10-14
 Ephesians 3:1-12
 Matthew 2:1-12

May the words of my mouth O God…  speak your truth…

There were lots of comings and goings this past Thanksgiving weekend…  on Sunday November 27…  the TSA broke its record for the highest number passengers in one day…  when 2,907,378 people were screened at U.S. airports…  ]  in mid-December… the American Automobile Association projected that 115,200,000 travelers would head fifty miles or more from home over the ten-day year-end holiday period…  that’s the second highest year-end travel forecast since 2000…  when AAA began tracking holiday travel…

It may be in response to the travel bans and restrictions we endured during the recent pandemic…  but whatever the reasons…  there’s a lot of comings and goings these days…  and travel not only offers us face-to-face relationship and interaction…  but brings us into contact with regional geography and weather and foods and idioms and so on…  and these things broaden our horizons and experiences and assumptions about others…  and sometimes about ourselves…  in fact…  Mark Twain said that…  travel is fatal to prejudice…  bigotry…  and narrow-mindedness…  and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts…  because broad…  wholesome…  and charitable views of [ women ] and men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime…  ] that may be a bit less true now than it was then…  because when Twain said this there was no internet…  no way to see high resolution and three dimensional images of things like the Eiffel Tower…  and the Great Pyramids and Sphinx…  of the Great Wall of China…  and the Taj Mahal…  and of having a video call with someone across the country or around the world… but just seeing these architectural wonders…  even in person…  does not foster our relationships with those who live in these places…  does not enhance our empathy and compassion for the challenges those who live there face…  and seeing the majesty of these structures doesn’t help us bridge the gap between their humanity and ours… it is…  as Twain implies…  that the gap is bridged when real contact is made…  and when we no longer think in terms of us being better and them being worse…  but all of us just being different…

But King Herod held onto his superiority with both hands… imagine the expression on his face…  when his staff informed him that wealthy and learned philosophers were entering the city…  ] at first…  he must have believed these prestigious individuals came to pay homage to him…  that one who was great in his own mind…  Herod  himself…  was to be honored…  after all…  from Herod’s perspective…  he was the most important person in Jerusalem…  and in anticipating this meeting…  Herod’s ego might have been about to burst…  he might have believed he had “arrived” in some greater way…  but sadly…  he learned… the magi weren’t asking about how to meet with him…  but were asking the local folk…  Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?…  and when Heard heard of this…  his puffed up head must have sprung a leak…  as his rage and humiliation increased…  and we can also imagine his fear…  and the fear of others around him…  as they all discovered that there was now another King with whom he’d have to contend…  discovered that there was one born who was so significant…  that a star was placed in the heavens to announce his arrival…

Epiphany introduces us to ideas of the exotic…  a kind of magic…  a kind of wildness which can not be tamed…  there are legends within legends about who the Wise Men were…  their names have become known…  most commonly…  as Balthasar…  Melchior…  and Gaspar…  and according to tradition…  Balthasar is often represented as a King of Arabia…  or sometimes Ethiopia…  Gaspar as a King of India…  and Melchior as a King of Persia…  though these locations were added to the traditions later on too…  else where and how did they meet up…  and there are questions about what they rode…  Balthasar is said to have ridden a camel…  Melchior a horse…  and Gaspar an elephant…  and there are questions about how great a distance they traveled…  it’s likely that they traveled almost 1,000 miles to meet Jesus…  and we can easily imagine that for them…  at that time…  and under those conditions…  it was most likely an arduous trek…  but enough time had passed…  that by the time they got to Jerusalem…  they were looking for a child and not for a newborn…

And the wisdom of the magi…  is that they studied…  they knew their own history…  they had searched their own past and their own sacred texts…  but neither did they keep their noses in books all the time…  they were keen observers of the world around them…  local and national…  cultural and familial…  earthly and heavenly…  and the result of their study was a readiness…  a willingness…  to recognize the gift of this sign as soon as it appeared…

The Gospels are like a gift which we may use only briefly at first…  but later on…  use almost every day…  somewhat like getting a bicycle at Christmas…  that is…  when we get it…  there may be several inches of snow on the ground…  so all we’re able to do is ride it once or twice…  up and down the driveway…  and then put it away until spring…  but then we get it out and ride it every day…  or the Gospels may be said to be like a musical instrument…  whose intrinsic treasure remains hidden…  until we learn how to play it…

But there is a certain kind of darkness these days…  it may come from a collective hubris…  or arrogance…  believing we already know all we need to know…  it may come from too many seeking out the Herods of this world and worshiping them… instead of devoting ourselves to a deeper understanding of our spiritual roots…  which help prepare us for epiphanies…  things like studying scripture…  of course…  but also reading commentaries and devotional materials…  listening to podcasts…  participating in study groups…  prayer groups…  worship…  and contemplative practices…  no one of us…  not even any small group of us…  can know it all…  there are others who are seeking…  and there are others who have a stake in what we progressive Christians are seeking…

In our second Advent book study this past fall…  we read these words from Stephanie Spellers…  in her book The Church Cracked Open…  she wrote…  God is breaking open this church and pouring us out…  pouring out privilege…  pouring out empire…  pouring out racism and human arrogance…  in order to remake us…  and use us…  to serve God’s dream for the whole world…  we are the broken jar…  it hurts…  and it stinks…  and I think it’s a gift…

And in her five-line poem called The Uses of Sorrow…  Mary Oliver writes…  (In my sleep I dreamed this poem)…  Someone I loved once gave me…  a box full of darkness…  It took me years to understand…  that this, too, was a gift…

And poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen framed it this way…  in the refrain from his song Anthem… Ring the bells that still can ring…  Forget your perfect offering…  There is a crack…  a crack in everything…  That’s how the light gets in… 

There’s a lot of comings and goings these days…  and more than anything… . the Wise Men show that Jesus has come for all people…  and for all nations…  and Matthew offers a tantalizing hint about life for those of us who have met Christ…  nothing is ever the same…  the light comes in to dispel the darkness…  and like the Wise Men… we may not take the same road home anymore…  we may come to find Jesus’ light in different ways…  by unfolding new maps…  and discovering alternate paths…  but like the Wise Men…  we all get to follow the same star…  and so we may ask…  what gifts will we bring…  will we bring ourselves…