Epiphany 2004

*Preached at Grace North Church January 4, 2004 by John R. Mabry*

As many of you know, I was not in church last Sunday because I was in Alaska visiting my parents for the holidays. I am happy to report that everyone got along better than usual this year, and it was a most pleasant visit indeed. One of the more dubious delights that comes with a visit to my parents, however, is the obligation to attend Sunday School and church with them.

Now, to be fair, my dad did suggest that I could use his car if I wanted to attend the Episcopal church instead, but the last time I tried that my mother threw a temper tantrum, so in the interests of peace and tranquility in the home, I grit my teeth and went to the Baptist church where my parents are members.

Now, Baptist Sunday school classes are unlike ours in that they focus entirely on canonical scripture, but are very like our own in that the conversations elicited by the texts can range pretty far and wide.

We were studying the prologue to St. John's gospel when one person in the class asked, "Are there any other religions that believe in an incarnation?"

The teacher, a seminary professor, quite kindly said, "Well, since John here has a PhD in this subject, I'm going to pass that question to him."

Taken aback, because I have always found it the best policy to keep my mouth shut in situations like this, I found my voice and piped up. "Actually, there is only one-Hinduism. Vishnu says, 'Whenever great evil arises on the earth, I take myself a body and put things to right.' Hindus believe there have been numerous incarnations of Vishnu, including such famous figures as Rama and Krishna."

The woman sitting across from me had perfect hair, and had a husband in tow that was the best-groomed straight man I believe I have ever met. But in that moment I thought her perfect hair was going to curl every which way from the steam that was issuing from her ears. "Oh, and what, he just comes back again and again?"

It was clear she was very agitated, but like an idiot I took the bait. "Well, no, Vishnu doesn't incarnate perpetually. He takes a body whenever great evil threatens to upset the order of things."

"There's always EVIL." The woman spat at me.

"Um, look, I'm not sure why this is so upsetting to you. I was only answering a question. It's mythology, nobody's asking you to believe it." Her eyes narrowed and she gave me a look that had, "Watch it, buster" written all over it.

We dropped the Hindu talk and after a couple of minutes the same woman who had asked about incarnations asked what was the state religion of Russia. "Russian Orthodoxy" the teacher and I answered simultaneously. At that the woman with perfect hair said, "But they have Christian churches there now, don't they?"

I opened my mouth to point out that the Russian Orthodox Church WAS a Christian church, but I bit my tongue and held my peace, and fought the urge to slug something. After so many years in this church, it sometimes is quite a culture shock to go to another, where people who do not believe exactly as the majority do are held with such palpable scorn and derision. It was unsettling, and I found myself fuming through the rest of the class and the worship service.

There is, in the Christian tradition, a profound distrust of other religions, even of Judaism, from whose ideological womb our own faith has issued forth. But when we consider our Gospel reading for the day, we see no such lack of generosity of spirit. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Unfortunately, this story is too familiar to us-we know it too well, so well, we cannot even see it properly. So what I would like to do is to try to take a step back and put it in its context so that perhaps we can see it with new eyes. This story is not just a quaint myth about Christmas; it is a radical challenge to xenophobia, fundamentalism, and dualism.

Unlike evangelical Christians, who are hell-bent on converting every living soul to their own peculiar theology, the Jews historically have not been concerned with converting anyone to anything. The Torah was given by Moses to the Jews, and the Jews have not been terribly keen on sharing this inheritance. Oh, sure, Jonah was sent to preach to the Ninevites, but this kind of missionary work never really caught on. As far as most Jews have been concerned, Judaism is for the Jews, and the gentiles can just go to hell for all they care-or more accurately, to Sheol, though that doesn't quite pack the same punch.

Jesus did very little to change this in his lifetime. He was very clear that he had come to preach to Israel and was not at all concerned with the gentiles or even the Jews' close cousins, the Samaritans. Early Jewish Christians felt the same, and it wasn't until Paul began preaching to gentiles that things started changing.

For one thing, the Pauline Christians produced this story of the three Wise Men. These guys are not kings, they are in fact Zoroastrian priests from Persia. They read in the stars that a new king was born in Judea, and traveled a great distance to pay him homage.

This is an amazing story because it suggests that this Jewish messiah has salvific import for the gentiles as well. He comes not only as a prophet to the house of Israel, but as a light to enlighten the world. For the fledgling gentile Christian church this story has great meaning: Jesus has not just come to save the Jews, but he has come to save us as well. While the Jewish community has always been inward-directed and insular in their religion, the Pauline Christian church tries to shatter that insularity with this story and offers Jesus to the world. The wall of xenophobia which surrounded the Jewish community is challenged in this story, which insists that there are not only no outsiders within Judaism as the prostitutes and tax collectors can attest, but that there are no longer any outsiders beyond Judaism, either. The wise men come to Jesus because he has come for them, too. Because there was something there for THEM. Not simply a curiosity, or a meteorological anamoly to investigate, but an opportunity to worship, to encounter the divine.

This story is radical because it challenges the xenophobia which says God is for US but not for THEM. There is no us and them in this story. Jew and gentile alike are drawn to the Christ-child, both honor him and all are changed by the encounter.

Another shocking element in this story is the way the wise men are called. For most of the history of Christianity, we have been sold on a quasi-Gnostic dualism which honors the spiritual at the expense of the physical. Nature does not speak to us of God but is a ferocious enemy which must be beat back lest it consume us. Our dualisms extend beyond matter vs. spirit to civilization vs. the wilderness, and civilized peoples vs. the savages who live closer to the earth than we do. We have demonized nature to the extent that it has been emptied of transcendent meaning, just as we have so demonized our bodies that our own prayers assert that "there is no health in us." We have set ourselves up as aliens on our own planet, estranged from the land and even our own bodies.

There is something terribly wrong, here. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that God has given us two sources of revelation: the book of scripture and the book of nature. Unfortunately we have tended to elevate the one and denegrate the other, but this story challenges such a dualistic theology. The wise men come to Jesus because nature itself speaks of his birth, and nature is a reliable witness in this story. This is a radical story for Christians because it reveals to us the lie of dualism, and affirms that both "heaven and nature sing" of God's salvation.

Finally, this story amazes us because, unlike the woman with perfect hair who was horrified that any religion but her own might deign to have an incarnation myth, it asserts that the wise men had a valid religion of their own. As in most ancient faiths, including Judaism and Christianity, reading the signs in the heavens was a revered and widely practiced art. Zoroastrinism was no different. It was by the rules of Zoroastrian astrology that they divined the meaning of this new star. These wise men went to the Christ-child not as Jewish converts, or more rediculously, proto-Christian converts, but as Zoroastrians. Their own religion revealed to them the meaning and location of this messiah, and it was as Zoroastrians that they decided to travel. It was as Zoroastrians that they came upon the Christ-child, and it was as Zoroastrians that they honored him. It was as Zoroastrians that they gave him gifts, and it was as Zoroastrians that they traveled home by another way. There is no evidence that they ever converted to anything; instead we have every reason to believe that they died Zoroastrians as well. This story affirms the validity of their faith, and does not suggest that there was any reason for them to convert to any other.

And it should come as no surprise to us that Zoroastrians should honor Christ; many religions do so. Muslims affirm that he was born of a virgin, that he was a great prophet sent to the house of Israel, and that he will return at the end of time to judge the nations. Hindus believe that Jesus is another incarnation of Vishnu, much like Krishna or Rama, and consider Christians to be good Hindus after a fashion. What generosity of spirit! More recently, Buddhist writers have begun a dialog between Jesus and Buddha, and finding much wisdom in the encounter. Even Jewish theologians are reevaluating their relationship to Jesus, and are finding in him a reformer who was also a faithful son of Israel, a rabbi of profound wisdom and insight.

It's an all-too familiar story, and yet, its implications are shocking and profound. It shatters the xenophobia of the Jewish culture of its time, asserting the radical notion that Jesus comes not just to Israel, but to the world. It belies the dualism of the Western tradition by daring to assert that the wisdom of God may be found in nature, in the mud and the stars, and not only in the hyper-spiritualized life of the mind. And finally it exposes the spiritual arrogance of the fundamentalists who say, "Only we have the truth and everyone else is wrong." Instead, in this story God speaks his wisdom to people of every faith tradition-including the occult, since many consider astrology to be an occult science. There is no room in this story for those who say "God speaks only to us." For it teaches us that God has not abandoned any peoples at any time, but with patience and love speaks the tender words of salvation in whatever language and cultural symbols are available.

For language and myths change through the ages, religious images are arbitrary symbol sets that fall in and out of favor; but the divine is a constant and loving presence that is ever wedded to the earth, who favors no people over another, who does not eschew matter nor abhors the virgin's womb, and who speaks wisdom in the liturgies and mythologies of every faith tradition. This story challenges us to forsake our xenophobia, our denigration of the flesh, and our spiritual arrogance. It is a far more radical story than we have perhaps every given it credit for.

As the bell rang and the little Alaskan Sunday school class gathered up our Bibles and coats and prepared to move to the sanctuary, the woman with perfect hair was horrified to discover that I was Russ and Karen's son. After all, they are such good Christians! "Are you staying long?" She asked.

"No, I'm going home tonight," I told her.

This news seemed to please her. "It would certainly beINTERESTINGto have you as a regular in our class." Billy Graham has a better chance of becoming Pope than I do becoming a regular in their class, but I didn't say that. I also decided not to tell her about our own Sunday School class' study of the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary, or heaven forbid, next year's History of Satan class. After all, if even her own accepted scriptures could not inspire generosity, there is no need to go any farther afield. Let us pray

God of every people, of the earth as well as of heaven, whose wisdom is found in every scripture, move our hearts to the same generosity of spirit that moved you to give us the gift of this tiny baby. For in him we see our own potential, our own holiness, our own divinity, and our own eternal life. Help us to speak this good news to everyone who needs to hear that they are loved, that God has not abandoned them, and that this earth is a gift and a blessing. Help us to be a light unto the nations, as we seek to be ambassadors and sacraments of your presence to our community. For we ask this in the name of the light of the world, even Jesus Christ. Amen.