Star Search

This sermon was preached on January 6, 2008 at Northminster Presbyterian Church in Portland, Oregon. The gospel reading was Matthew 2: 1-12 . As a preacher's note: I did take a "shortcut" as I wrote this sermon, borrowing several paragraphs from my sermon for Dec. 30 (preached at a different church). I again used the image of "traveling" from Sue Monk Kidd's novel The Mermaid Chair--changing the emphasis and focus to fit in with the Epiphany theme.


How far would you go to follow a star?

A colleague of mine here in Portland who works as a bereavement counselor travels thousands of miles each year following her favorite star—musician Bruce Springsteen and his E Street Band. “I’m taking an extra day off this weekend,” she’ll tell the folks in her office, “So I can go see Bruce in Minneapolis”—or Atlanta, or Buffalo. No, she doesn’t know him personally—she just loves his music and follows him and his band around the country, when she can, to be refreshed, renewed, and energized—to save her sanity in the difficult and emotional profession she works in every day--and, I think, she follows Bruce just for the fun of being on the journey and seeing him play in different places.

Today’s gospel passage from Matthew is about following a star—but a different kind of star than Bruce Springsteen. Our gospel today is about what we would call The Christmas Star—the Star in the East—the Star of Bethlehem—the astronomical phenomenon that, according to Matthew, blazed out on the night of Jesus’ birth and showed forth to the world that something amazing was going on in Bethlehem.

Our passage for today opens after Jesus’ birth, with wise men, Magi from the east, travelling to Judea. The wise men--astrologers, philosophers, scientists, kings—opinions on exactly who they were varies--are following a star. They are searching for the One they believe has been born under the star, whom they call “king of the Jews.” Their search brings them through Jerusalem, where they encounter the fearful and desperate ruler Herod, and it culminates in finding the Christ child, worshipping Him, and returning to their homeland forever changed.

Early Christians reading and hearing this story from Matthew’s gospel would have received two important messages. First, they would have recognized from Matthew’s quoting of Hebrew Scripture—“ from you, Bethlehem, shall come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel”— Matthew’s firm belief that Jesus, the baby of Bethlehem, is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Savior long awaited by the Jewish people.

But early Christians would also have seen in this passage a second message—that the salvation Jesus offers is not just for the Jews, but for a much wider audience—as they heard Matthew describe these star-searching visitors who are obviously pagans, non-Jews, foreigners, wise men from the East, bowing down to worship the baby Jesus as Lord.

Matthew proves to those early Christians, and to us, that Jesus is the promised Messiah—and he also shows us that Jesus’ message, and his kingship, and his offered salvation are for all people--no matter who they are or where they come from--who seek to know and honor him.

So how far did the wise men go to follow their star? Most scholars who have studied this topic seem to think that the Magi most likely started out in Persia—modern-day Iran—which would put their journey to Bethlehem at between 1000 and 1200 miles.

Such a distance wasn’t crossed in a day, or even the “12 days of Christmas” we allow between Christmas and Epiphany. The wise men’s journey might have taken any time between three and twelve months—traveling, of course, by camel. And their journey no doubt included more than just the time of travel--there were probably many weeks of preparation. All in all, the Magi could scarcely have reached Jerusalem till a year—or perhaps quite a bit longer--had elapsed from the time of the star’s initial rising.

So how far would you go to follow a star? Would you go as far as Minneapolis, or Atlanta, or Buffalo? Would you go for 12 days, or for 12 months, or for 12 hundred miles? Would you go to the ends of the earth, or the end of your life? Do you need to?

In yesterday’s paper, advice columnist Ask Amy printed a letter from a woman who called herself “Confused After 25 Years.” This woman said,

“Dear Amy,
When I first got married all I wanted out of life was love and a little security. Now it’s 25 years later and I’m finding myself wanting more. I want to travel the world, move to a large city and make a lot of money doing what I love. I don’t want to have to be home by 5:30 to make dinner for my spouse. I have big goals and ambitions, while my spouse loves staying home every night and is looking forward to retiring and staying in our small town. I love my spouse but I feel my life is being stifled if I stay where I am.”


Now that letter is pretty vague on the details—but the pain and yearning that are going on in this woman’s heart and soul are pretty clear. She’s got a vision and she wants to follow it—she’s desperate to get moving, to start her journey to somewhere else, pretty much anywhere else—and yet--it seems to me that what this woman who calls herself “confused” is yearning for is more than skyscrapers and frequent-flyer miles.

What I hear in that letter is a woman whose life as she is living it no longer has meaning for her—that she’s desperate to find that meaning again, and that she’s willing to leave her home, her husband, and everything familiar--to set out on an uncertain journey—in order to find not the life she seeks, but the MEANING that she seeks.

It’s a yearning that we can all relate to. We all want to have that sense that our life is meaningful, that what we do is important, that we have a place in history and the universe, that we are known and loved and valued.

What kind of star would you follow in your journey for meaning?

And what would you expect to find once you reached your destination?

Today’s gospel reading makes it clear that the wise men, like “Confused” and like us, were more than star-followers. They were star-searchers—or maybe star-seekers—but what they were seeking was more than an astronomical anomaly.

Matthew tells us that the wise men were overwhelmed with joy -–the Greek literally says “and they rejoiced with a joy, a great one, indeed an exceedingly great one"; he tells us that these pagan foreigners knelt down and paid homage to the infant Jesus; that they opened lavish gifts that they poured out at his feet.

Clearly the wise men were doing more than trying to solve an problem or answer a question of science. They were more than curiosity-seekers or rubber-neckers or paparazzi or groupies.

Their hearts were involved, and their souls; they were sincerely looking for the truth; they were genuinely seeking for a divine one—The Divine One—the Light of the world, revealed by a rising star. Like us, the wise men were seeking meaning—they were seeking God and his certain presence in their world—and they found that meaning, and God’s presence, in Jesus Christ, the Holy Child of Bethlehem.

The lesson of today’s gospel passage is not about following a star, any star. The lesson of today’s gospel passage is not about leaving home, or ambition, or skyscrapers, or frequent flyer miles. The lesson of today’s gospel passage is not about how long we travel or how far we go.

The lesson of today’s gospel passage is that our best and most exciting destination; our truest source of meaning and purpose; our searched-for star and our eternal home—all of these are found in the person and the presence of Jesus Christ, Savior, Light of the World; and that our greatest inspiration, our greatest commission, and our greatest fulfillment are only truly found when we kneel before the Son of God, and worship him, and pour out our treasures, and our burdens, at his feet.

How far would you go to follow a star? How far would you go to find the meaning, and purpose, and joy that will transform your life ? How far must you go to find Jesus? Maybe a long way. And then again, maybe not far at all.

I want to leave you with an image that came to my mind as I was reading this passage from Matthew in preparation for today’s sermon.

Lately, because my office has moved over to Mall 205, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the car—maybe too much time! So in an effort to feel like I’m doing more than driving, I’ve been listening to audiobooks on CD during my commute to the office and back.

One of my recent audiobooks was The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd, a wonderful book set on an island in South Carolina, full of the images and atmosphere of that region. One of the characters is an African-American woman, an expert on the island’s culture and traditions, who says during a tour of the island:

“There’s an old Gullah practice. . . Before our people can become church members, they go to a sacred place in the woods three times a day for a week and meditate on the state of their souls. We call it ‘traveling,’ because we’re traveling inside.”

Traveling.

For those of you who don’t know anything about Gullah, it’s a unique African-American culture found on the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia, where descendants of slaves from different tribes and countries in West Africa still speak a Creole language—called “Gullah”—that mixes English with African dialects, and their Christianity blends with spiritual traditions from Africa.

I find it evocative and powerful to think about the Gullah people—people who were slaves, isolated on islands, unable to really go anywhere—maybe you could describe them as people in exile—naming their time of spiritual discernment, their spiritual quest, ‘Traveling.’

So maybe that’s how we should think of our star search, our yearning for meaning, our journey to Christ--a time for “traveling inside.”

We may not be able to leave behind our ordinary lives and look for Jesus in Minneapolis, or Buffalo, or Atlanta; those 5:30 dinners with family may keep us from skyscrapers and frequent flyer miles and glamorous careers. We may not be able to go 12 hundred miles, or 12 months, or even 12 days.

But the good news of the Gospel—the good news of salvation we celebrate and share at this communion table and at our kitchen tables—is that we need not go far in our star-search-- to know the King the wise men sought and found. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Savior and Lord, is here already, among us, within us.

No matter who we are, no matter where we are, no matter what we have done, we can always find Jesus by “travelin inside”—and we can always find meaning, know salvation, and experience true joy by opening our hearts, and acknowledging him Lord--laying our gifts, and our burdens, at his feet.

Amen.