Sermons

Feast of the Epiphany
Sunday 3 January 2010

David Paton-Williams

Readings: Isaiah 60 v1-6; Matthew 2 v1-12

Every few years the press run a story about some church leader who comments on how much of the popular story of the wise men was history or legend.

Of course it is easy to point out that they were wise men and not the kings of popular imagination and that we don't know how many of them there were
- the tradition of them being three is a guess from the three gifts
- we certainly don't know their names.

And many pages of text have been written on the interesting question of just which astronomical event was "the star" - was it a supernova, or a conjunction of three planets, and so on?

But beyond this, some want to debate whether the whole story actually happened.

The trouble with so many sterile debates about whether stories "really happened" or not is that so often they miss the point - because in the heat of the debate we can forget what the story is trying to telling us.

And the great thing about stories is that we can get inside them with our imaginations and find connections between the stories and our own lives.

If we get inside the story of the magi we can imagine them packing up their camels, saying goodbye to their families, and setting off.
But why?

So what if a new star suggested that a great king had been born far away? It didn't mean that you had to set off to find him.

Like so many other people who set off on a journey, something in them made them go. - some need that all their knowledge and wealth and status couldn't fulfil - a sense of needing something more.

So they set off on a journey that we can imagine would have been long and challenging,
- through rough, barren lands,
- scorching days and freezing nights,
- perhaps short of water, with food supplies running low
- the risk of attack from bandits.

And we can imagine the journey changing them as they left behind their old ways. They were no longer important people in their own societies, they were just travellers, searchers, human beings, open to whatever may come.

And what came would have been the silent beauty of the desert the joys and hardships of the road, the growing friendships as they shared together on the way.

Perhaps there were times when they stopped at an oasis, and were so charmed by the beauty and comfort that they were tempted to stay put rather than to press on.

Perhaps travelling through the empty desert they recognised their own emptiness their own inner wilderness. And perhaps in the long silent hours they began to hear as till small voice whispering within them.

Perhaps they began to discover God in a new way far away from their own tribal gods, a God of the universe, a God of all people,
a God who travelled with them,

So that when they eventually knelt before the child in that house in Bethlehem they were able to sense the presence of God in him
in this most unlikely of places because they had already begun to sense his presence in themselves, in the most unlikely of people.

If the journey had been quick and easy - like modern travel, if there hadn't been time for listening and learning on the way then maybe the child at Bethlehem wouldn't have meant very much to them when they found him.

But as it was their meeting with Jesus changed them.

They were different people now, and so as Matthew says - they went back "by another way". Perhaps Matthew means that they kept on going in their search for the God who had met with them in the desert and in the child of Bethlehem.

Their old certainties, their old way of life, the things they used to find their sense of well-being in
- this wasn't the way now
- now they followed a different way
- not just to get home
- but through their lives from now on.

So this is a story about faith journeys.

Maybe it reminds us of those people, like the wise men, who come from different faith backgrounds who believe that on that journey they have encountered the God of the universe, the God of all people, those who may have a great respect for Jesus but who are following "another way".

Over the next few weeks some of us are going to be meeting with people of other faiths and reflecting on our encounter with them -
what wisdom do they have? what gifts do they offer us? and what is our response as walk in the way of Christ?

Or maybe the story reminds us of those who are searching for in something in our day, searching to discover themselves
to find a meaning and purpose in their lives
to find an authentic spirituality for themselves
searching to find whether God is a living and loving reality.
Yet in their search many of them may not have thought about looking for answers in the church community - in this most unlikely of places, among this unlikely bunch of people!

As we head into this new year, one of the things that the PCC will be thinking about will be what are the needs within our community, of whatever kind, but including the spiritual needs and what is our response as a church, and as churches together, going to be to those needs.

Or maybe the story reminds us of our own journey of faith; where would we fit into the story?

Perhaps, like the wise men - we sense that something is missing in our lives, that the old ways, the old certainties no longer satisfy - and we feel the need to set off on a journey - not matter how old we may be - a journey to discover the reality of God in a new way, or even for the first time.

Perhaps we feel that we are just setting off on that journey that faith is a relatively new thing for us and we are still wondering what the future is going to hold.

Perhaps our journey has already been a long one - we are mindful of the joys, and the friendships along the way - but are also aware of the demands this journey is making on us, the hardship we may be having to endure.

Maybe we are even wondering whether it is worth it.

If so then maybe we can remember the magi who ultimately found that what they had been through, in the end prepared them to discover God in a new way. In fact - if they listened carefully they could even hear the still small voice with them when they seemed all alone in the desert - perhaps even there they found God too.

Or maybe we feel that, in reality, we have been lingering by an oasis and that it is time to move on. Maybe we are living off the reality of what our faith used to mean to us, or an experience of God in the past, and maybe we recognise that now we need to move in our journey, to find "another way", and to begin searching once again for the God who always has more to teach us.

Maybe we feel that we are there at Bethlehem that Christ is very real to us and we want to find ways to offer ourselves and our gifts to him, just in this communion we will come to the rail and offer him ourselves again as we bow before him, and receive his gift of himself once again.

So the wise men real?

Yes - look around you - the wise men and wise women are still on that journey today. And as you respond to God's call to join him on the way - you are one of them as well!

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay