The Gifts of the Magi

A Sermon preached by J. Stuart Taylor III

St. Mark's Presbyterian Church

Epiphany Sunday, Jan. 2, 2005

 This is Epiphany Sunday, the feast day when the church celebrates the coming of the wise men to offer their gifts to the Christ Child. Besides Christmas and Easter, no other feast day in the liturgical year has claimed such prominence in the church, as has Epiphany.  What is it about Matthew's story of the Magi that has so captured the imagination of the church in a way that the shepherds in Luke's Gospel have not? What is the point of this remarkable story of the coming of the wise men from the East?  For century upon century the preachers and teachers of the church have focused their attention on the gifts brought by the magi. Early interpreters suggested that the gold offered to Christ was symbolic of what one did in ancient times to offer tribute at the reign of a new King.  And frankincense, the aromatic incense used in sacred rituals was offered to the Christ child according to tradition as a token of his being the Son of God. And finally the Magi's offering of myrrh, often used to prepare a body for burial, was a foretelling of the destiny of the Christ child as the suffering servant who would be crucified and die.  Over time, the church began to reinterpret the gifts of the magi as symbolic of the acts of faith and devotion that could be offered by ordinary people in adoration of the Christ child. Gold came to symbolize the virtue of the faithful, frankincense became acts piety and prayer, and myrrh symbolized sacrifice. Let's accept this time honored approach and ask ourselves what are the gifts that we are prepared to bring to the Christ child on this Epiphany Sunday and in the new year ahead.

As the wise men brought gold to the Christ child, what virtue would we bring to honor the baby Jesus? If you were to do a moral inventory of your life, what virtue would you think would be most in need of development? Patience, courage, generosity… What might that be for you? If we were to think for a moment about our collective reality as a society, a culture: how would you answer that question. What virtue is our society most in need of? You could make a fair case for many but I think that in a time of so much conflict over land, and natural resources, so much fighting because of religious beliefs, racial hostility, class antagonisms, and political ideology that the virtue our world cries out for is non-violence. Rick Ufford Chase, founder of Borderlinks, an elder at Southside Pres. here in Tucson and the elected Moderator of the PCUSA, recently published a letter to the denomination. (Copies available in narthex) And the subject of his letter was a challenge to us to reclaim the radical non-violence that was practiced by Jesus of Nazareth. He asks us: “ What if the church stood against all forms of violence: the war in Iraq, the Israeli occupation, and the violence and tactics of asymmetric warfare, or what we call terrorism? Equating God with the cause of domination of one people over another is morally abhorrent, whether its we who do it in the name of the US or Osama bin Laden who does it in the name of Islam.”  Rick’s letter challenged me to begin thinking about the profound Gospel themes of non-violence and how the church has lost touch with its own deep tradition of non-violence. I would like to begin a conversation within St. Mark’s, starting with our adult education committee about how we could as a congregation create opportunities for conversation and study about non-violence. My hope for 2005 and the years ahead is that St. Mark’s as a congregation would begin to reclaim and practice more deeply Jesus’ way of nonviolence.   

As the wise men brought frankincense to the Christ child, what spiritual gift of prayer and devotion would we bring on this Epiphany and in the New Year?  I have somewhat ambivalent feelings about New Year resolutions. If you are like me you, New Year resolutions have often produced mixed results. But if there is in us a heartfelt desire to live more closely to God, to experience more deeply God's presence in our lives, then now is a good time to ask this question. In the year ahead how can we take more seriously our own inward spiritual development? If we would like the magi bring frankincense to the Christ child what spiritual gift can we bring? What spiritual discipline might enhance our relationship to God?  How might we bring into the light of God's presence some aspect of our personal life that is in need of renewal, healing or transformation? During Advent and Christmas we have explored the spiritual practice of welcoming the stranger. My prayer is that more and more of us will carry that practice into our daily lives in the year to come. The wise men themselves provide us a clue as to the ancient practice of pilgrimage in their following the star. Perhaps you are called to such a pilgrimage to a place faraway or close at hand that has sacred meaning for you. It seems to me that the purpose of any specific pilgrimage is to lead us to the deeper realization that your life journey itself as long as you live is a sacred pilgrimage. As Sue said to me the other day, we are given three essential questions to answer while we are on this earthly pilgrimage. Where have we come from? What are we to do now that we are here and how do we get home? If you have ever had the feeling that you are living your life like a pin ball bouncing back and forth between the events that happen to you, consider these words from none other than Gen. Omar Bradley: " We must set our course by the stars above and not by the light of each passing ship".  We begin to see the meandering journey of our lives as a spiritual pilgrimage, only when we set our sights like the wise men on the star in the east, the light that leads us to Christ.  I want to quote a poem that one of you sent me in a Christmas card that meant a great deal to me and I have since shared with several friends. " If, as with Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things, if we consider ourselves so important that we must fill every moment of our lives with action; when will we have the time to make the long, slow journey across the burning desert, as did the wise men? Or brood over the coming of the child, as did Mary? For each of us there is a desert to travel, a star to discover and a being within ourselves to bring to life." Author unknown.  What is the desert that you must travel? What is the star that you are called to follow? What is the being within us that must be brought to life? May we in the year ahead learn how to practice greater stillness and silence that wisdom might be born in us.

Do you recall those famous lines from TS Eliot's famous poem, " The Journey of the Magi": " All this was a long time ago. I remember and I would do it again but this set down. This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a birth certainly; we had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death but had thought they were different. This birth was hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these kingdoms but no longer at ease here in the old dispensation with an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death".  As the wise men brought the gift of myrrh to the Christ child who would one day grow up to be the Suffering Servant, what sacrifices would we bring to honor him? Sacrifice is not a very popular idea in today's culture which is defined so completely by the question of "what's in it for me?" But even for those of us who are trying to reject the selfish egotism of our culture, we struggle to comprehend how it is we can do one more thing.  Our private lives have enough challenges in them to keep us fully occupied. Just looking after our families can be a full time occupation. So what is it that we are called to when we are called to offer sacrifice to the Christ Child? What follows in Matthew’s Gospel immediately after the story of the wise men is the massacre of the innocents and the prophecy. "Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 'A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more'."  (Matthew 2:17-18) This week we hear the lamentations of millions of our brothers and sisters across this planet who have lost loved ones in the destructive catacyclsm that swept across s. Asia. In the aftermath of a massive earthquake that unleashed crushing tidal waves across S. Asia. Millions upon millions of human beings have been lost their families, their homes, and their workplaces. And the death toll continues to climb to above 120,000. 1,250,000 are homeless. 5,000,000 are without basic necessities. 14 billion in overall damages.  It is virtually impossible for a human being to take in the magnitude of such a catastrophe, to comprehend the level of suffering that our world has experienced in these last few days. This past week I went on the Internet to look at photos of the devastation. There were aerial photos of shoreline places where towns and villages used to be before the tsunami hit. Of grief stricken survivors sitting beside the bodies of loved ones. There were photos of mass burials and cremations going on as these nations struggle to prevent the outbreak of epidemic disease. And there were images of people from all over the world mobilizing for compassionate response. Of volunteers building coffins, or handing out clean water, food and blankets. A photo of Buddhist monks reaching out to offer care for victims, of medical workers arriving from all over the world.  What will be America’s response to this disaster? This is a moment that demands of the church and the American people a sacrificial offering. There was international criticism of the response of the US govt. of 15 million, which has now been upped to 350 million. This is still not enough.  But we have all seen how Americans can rise to the occasion with compassionate generosity.  I am hopeful that the generosity of the American people will lead our government to continue to increase its commitment to disaster relief and reconstruction. This morning we have an opportunity to make our contribution. Let us join the world and the global church in giving of ourselves to relieve the suffering of our brothers and sisters in S. Asia.  To live a sacrificial life or as St. Paul put it, to be a living sacrifice is to be willing to open our heart to the suffering of others and to suffer with them. The wise men offered the gift of myrrh to the Christ who would grow up to be the Suffering Servant whose compassionate heart embraced a broken and hurting world.  As Christians today we honor the Christ child by embracing a sacrificial way of life that is lived not just for ourselves but for others.

Long ago, Three wise ones brought gold, frankincense and myrrh to a Child born in a manger.   May their wisdom guide us as we bring our gifts of virtue and prayer and sacrifice to the Christ child born anew in our world, the Christ Child who is God with us.