I don t know about you, but there is always something just a little bit disconcerting about this day, the

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1 Epiphany Sunday January 3, 2016 Isaiah 60:1-6/ Matthew 2:1-12 A Divine Convergence Joy Douglas Strome Prayer for Illumination: Star of wonder, star of night, star with royal beauty bright, westward leading still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light. Amen. Where the Map Begins, by Jan Richardson (Circle of Grace, p. 65) This is not any map you know. Forget longitude. Forget latitude. Do not think of distances or of plotting the most direct route. Astrolabe, sextant, compass: these will not help you here. This is the map that begins with a star. This is the chart that starts with fire, with blazing, with an ancient light that has outlasted generations, empires, cultures, wars. Look starward once, then look away. Close your eyes and see how the map begins to blossom behind your lids, how it constellates, its lines stretching out from where you stand. You cannot see it all, cannot divine the way it will turn and spiral, cannot perceive how the road you walk will lead you finally inside, through the labyrinth of your own heart and belly and lungs. But step out and you will know what the wise who traveled this path before you knew: the treasure in this map is buried not at journey s end but at its beginning I don t know about you, but there is always something just a little bit disconcerting about this day, the three kings day, Epiphany, the first Sunday in the New Year. A lot of expectation and angst and sometimes a bit of fall de rah goes into the making of Advent and Christmas. It can get over the top. It can be too busy. There can be one too many parties. You can feel fatigued by the rush and the push and traveling in snowy, treacherous weather. You can convince yourself that you will be glad to be back in a routine since breaking routine brings with it stress as well as rest. But I think everyone has to admit that on this Sunday, with the normal work week about to get started tomorrow, there s something that just feels missing right now. Like maybe we didn t get as much insight as we d hoped for, or maybe we wished the starlight hadn t been quite so obscured by all the cloudy days, or maybe we didn t get to hear the music we like the best, or maybe, just maybe, we never really heard the

2 baby s low cry..and we worry that we are going to have to wait another whole year before we get another shot at the story, before we get to ponder with shepherds and kings and teenage mothers the full mystery of this God we call our own and who claims us as well. I think this is why the king s story might be the hardest of them all to dip into. We get that they are rich. We can t really relate, but we get it. We get that they are noble.they go home by another way to save the child. We get that they are gutsy.they followed a star, risked their reputations, left home, and something happened to them. But they go home. We never hear from them again. What was their take away? What is ours? It s too open ended.right when we are wishing for some closure. Let s close the door on this Christmas deal.that s what we want, but the story wants to open it right back up again. Jan Richardson s poem challenges the very place where I m struggling. I want this to be the end, to put a cap on it, end this chapter, but Epiphany wants it to be just the beginning. It is a lot of pressure. 3 days into Happy New Year! We might as well see what the scripture says.. Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn. Few prophets are as poetic as Isaiah. Speaking to the returned exiles, he has a vision for a restored Jerusalem so glorious, so bright, so star-studded, that the whole world is going to come calling, going to be drawn to the light and goodness that will emanate from its walls. Lift up your eyes and look around, he instructs. Look out there and see what s possible, not what is. Just returned, the temple still in a heap from the destruction in year s past, the people can t be expected to see something literally. Instead, he wants them to lift up their eyes and see all the people flocking to Yahweh.sons from far away, daughters, even, will be brought to this new era of God s activity. Young, old, powerful, the sea itself, a multitude of camels and yes, even the rich and powerful will come bearing gifts of gold and frankincense, our prophetic link to the major text for Epiphany, Matthew 2:-12 Isaiah envisions a light so bright that people will be able to see it for miles, no, even countries away. Arise, shine for your light is come. We can picture a light that bright, but it usually has an alien on the other end of it, not a baby. But if we think about what Isaiah was dreaming of, and we think about the light that brought shepherds and kings to an obscure location in a backwater town where young parents were

3 holding court in a stable, all of a sudden the pieces start to fall into place. This was no car lot, with a search light trying to lure people in for the deal of the day. This was no beacon, warning people away from a rocky coastline. This was no runway light, guiding a jetliner to a safe landing. It was a star, that drew people to it, and fulfilled years of longing for God s presence to be palpably felt again..so strong that peace and prosperity would follow. Arise, shine for your light is come. I think we get the Your light is come part. It s the Arise, Shine phrase that might have us choking. I want to see the baby. But do I want to shine? Not so sure about that. Sounds way more extraordinary than the average person like me could pull off. We had a baby born this week ourselves. If you hadn t heard yet, Adelaide Lynn Smith, 8lbs, 9oz, born December 30 to Kristin and Chris Smith, sister to Charlie and Henry.Ordinary? To us here at Lake View who have babies in abundance, maybe? But not to Charlie and Henry this week, This little girl is about to rock their world. And she will in her own way, rock our world here at Lake View too. Perhaps here s the epiphany message.it s all a matter of perspective, or even sentence structure. What if the line had been.your light has come, Arise Shine! As if shining is the actual by-product of experiencing God s presence. Like the kings. They came to an ordinary stable, took one look, and it was all over. What seemed ordinary to the inn keeper, who put a laboring mother out in a cattle stall, was in the kings eyes something extraordinary, something that would change their course, change their way home, change their lives, forever. This is where the challenge lies, of course. Call it shining, call it change, call it extraordinary----but there s no doubt about it. You don t leave the stable the same. T.S.Eliot s famous poem Journey of the Magi wrestles with this same good news/well, maybe not so good news/ conundrum. Because I want to get you ready for thinking about poetry on Tuesday night with me, I ll read a bit of his poem, yes, I know, the second in this sermon, and that s if you don t count Isaiah, which of course I do.but here goes, the second half of Eliot s poem

4 Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley, Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation; With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness, And three trees on the low sky, And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow. Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel, Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver, And feet kicking the empty wine-skins. But there was no information, and so we continued And arriving at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you might say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down 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. Oh T.S., you don t want to shine either, do you? Or be changed. Or have to think about what might be required of one who has been in the presence of the holy child. Death would be welcome before that. No longer at ease in the old dispensation, with an alien people clutching their gods, I should be glad of another death. What an awesome line of angst. No longer at ease here. In the soft hush of Christmas Eve when the faces on every child are expectant, and the candle light makes every complexion look young and soft, and the music tames the beastly, impatient parts of us, we don t have to think about the proximity of birth and death where Jesus entry into the world is concerned. No longer at ease with what this means for us, we should be glad of another death too. Because packaged with this newborn is the message of the Magnificat. Folded into the mystery of that silent night is a call to action. Hearing angel voices isn t like listening to the radio, all passive, ready to tune out or off whenever we want.if you hear angel voices, the response is obvious..shine. Not like an angelic child in the Christmas program, but like a beacon that will show others the way to the miracle. Not me? I didn t sign up for this. I just want to be ordinary. I m not really extraordinary material. Yeah, tell that to Mary. That s what she thought. An ancient light is burning here, and we are foolish if we think we are going to get out of here, get out of the season, without actually having to face the fire, or face the music, or face the baby king. Back to Jan Richardson who wrote that one of the most powerful themes in Advent and Christmas come when we see in the stories that the boundaries of heaven and earth are not as fixed as we think.ordinary people open themselves to the purposes of God, becoming the means by which God works on earth..(advent Door, janrichardson.com) Ordinary, schmordinary, hmmm.

5 Could that be what we need to break through this muddle? No fixed boundaries between heaven and earth? Is that a liberating or terrifying thought? Or is it just the way through? If we return to our Advent theme, incarnation, we have to know that this is where we were headed all along. God coming into the world in human form, God, working through ordinary people to change things, God as close as our breathe, as close as Adelaide Lynn, as close as Tom Gyori, as close as the holiest, most sacred thing we can name. There is mystery in the silent night, the pause that Christmas Eve offers us, there is a kind of beauty that inspires us, that fills us, that finds us in our most hardened up, critical, deadened places, and chips away at our ordinary to get our extraordinary light going again. One of the most beautiful carols ever that has been left out of the last two of our Presbyterian hymnals is this one: There s a song in the air! There s a star in the sky! There s a mother s deep prayer, and a baby s low cry! And the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing, For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King! The star rains its fire while the beautiful sing. The melody belies the message. The melody is a lullaby, sung to a sleeping infant, in hushed tones so as not to awaken. And yet, the words talk about fire and a King and the good news that will not be contained, but will burst forth into even the darkest, longest night and it will be not the end of the story, but the beginning. So, saddle up, my friends. There has been a divine convergence in Bethlehem and we are witness to it. Our ending is actually a beginning, a beginning that will have us charging up our batteries so we don t let the light flicker, one that will have us eating our Wheaties well bread and juice actually, so that we can take on the role of Shiner, one that will have us singing lullabies that pack a punch, and saying prayers of thanksgiving for this One who meets us, yesterday, today and in all our tomorrows. The space between heaven and earth isn t as fixed as we thought..and that is good news. What extraordinary thing is about to happen because we have opened ourselves to the purposes of God? Watch out. Arise, Shine. Christ is born. Alleluia, Amen.

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