Epiphany Sunday Is. 60:1-6 Ps.72 Eph.3:1-12 Matt.2:1-12 A sermon given by Pastor Elaine Hewes Redeemer Lutheran Church Jan.

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1 Epiphany Sunday Is. 60:1-6 Ps.72 Eph.3:1-12 Matt.2:1-12 A sermon given by Pastor Elaine Hewes Redeemer Lutheran Church Jan.10, 2016 Some of you may be wondering why we are still singing Christmas carols this morning; still using the St. James Christmas Mass for our liturgy; still focused on the story of Jesus birth in the manger; still marveling at the light of the star that led the wise men to their epiphany in the presence of the Christ child Given that we are more than two weeks past Christmas; given that all of us have put our crèche sets and our Christmas decorations and holiday CD s away; given that the stores have replaced Christmas candy and cards with Valentines chocolates and greetings, well you may wonder why we are focusing our attention on Matthew s telling of the Christmas story this morning, especially when (according to the lectionary), we are supposed to be celebrating the baptism of our Lord in the River Jordan at the hands of John the Baptist and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Some of you may have sneaking suspicions about why we have chosen to focus ourselves on Matthew s Magi and their epiphany this morning Like maybe you wonder if the preacher wouldn t much rather preach on this text than on the much less sparkly story of Jesus baptism Or maybe you suspect that the pastors and director of music aren t quite ready to stop singing Christmas carols (so short is the season in which we are allowed to do so)

2 Or maybe if you are aware of the Feast days prescribed by Christian tradition, you may know that just this past Wednesday, on January 6 th, the Feast of the Epiphany was celebrated in many Christian congregations around the world, and with it the revelation that came to the Wise men as they followed the light of the star to the light of Christ meaning our Epiphany celebration this morning is only stretching the Christmas season a little bit Any of these guesses having some merit perhaps. But in truth, we chose to focus ourselves on the texts and hymns appointed for the Feast of the Epiphany, because the question of what we see when we recognize what the magi actually saw in the light of the Christ child is the question the very question that burns most fiercely at the heart of our faith story and our relationship to it The question of what the wise men actually saw not really ever being so clear to me as it was toward the end of Bible study this past Wednesday morning, as sixteen of us, engrossed in the question of what the magi actually saw, suddenly saw something of what they saw something illusive and brilliant and fiery and bright, and almost impossible to put into words But which I, in gratitude for my fellow wise men and women in Bible study, went home and tried to put on paper That effort taking the form a three-stanza sonnet, which goes like this Who knows why the Wise Men first thought to go, Or what impulse or thirst first stirred their hearts? Perhaps it was the worst of times below, With heav n and earth removed and far apart.

3 Perhaps there was no music anymore, No one at dawn to hear the sparrow sing, No working hinge to open any door, No love or tenderness in anything. Perhaps it came upon a midnight clear When those wise ones three, searching star-lit skies Stretched themselves well beyond all sense or fear To see what could be seen without the eyes, And saw there a star of brightest burning Born from a love of deepest yearning. And perhaps in the mystery of that light (more sensed than seen; a leaning into sound) Those wise men cast all caution to the night, Loosing all they knew so they might be found. Hearts exposed, across vast expansive sands, Following a star that seemed more dream than real They went as foreigners into a land Wondering what strange sight might be revealed. And found there more than heart could e re conceive; Not just a child born in humble frame, But an opening, focused to receive

4 The light of love unto the point of flame; The very flesh and blood of heaven riven For ev ry heart, the grace of God a given. A given; a given is what was seen, A gift not only giv n by God s good grace As if dispensed by allotted means To those who stand in some receptive place, But a given as in the air we breathe; As in the waters fish do splash and swim Not dependent on something called believe, Nor tied to bound ries set by creed or skin. But a given; love let loose, wildly free Like all the light from sun we cannot see Until received, conceived, and ere to be Made real by flesh, particularly Music then that comes to sound, an op n door, Those wise men thought closed for ever more This is what they saw when heav n that night was riv n, Love, let loose in that Holy child, For all the world, a given.

5 Not just given, as if dispensed by some allotted means to those who stand in some receptive place, but a given, as in the air we breathe, as in the waters fish do swim love let loose in that Holy Child not dependent on something called believe, nor tied to boundaries set by creed or skin This is what we saw at the end of Bible study last Wednesday when we saw what the Wise Men saw Those Wise Men from the East foreigners Gentiles outside the perimeters of God s gracious reach according to Jewish tradition and law This is what we saw when we saw what the the Wise Men saw in the light of the Christ child. God s universal love, a given not dependent upon something called believe nor tied to boundaries set by creed or skin God s universal love, a given even for them. Their epiphany granting me an Epiphany as well a moment when all of a sudden I realized something I hadn t quite realized in the same way ever before suddenly seeing the air around us in the back of the fellowship hall filled with love, with grace, as if we could just breathe it in, move through it, absorb it that love everywhere, anywhere, waiting to be taken in and made visible, just as ten million rays of sun, when caught in the frame of a convex glass will focus to a point so rich in light it turns to flame, just as it did in a most particular, unexpected, prodigal, scandalous, fleshy, incarnate, beautiful way in the person of Jesus It was an Epiphany for me in light of the Epiphany Matthew s Wise Men experienced in Matthew s telling of the Christmas story an epiphany being, as defined by theologian H. Richard Niebuhr a

6 moment when an important truth suddenly becomes clear and we can reinterpret our past and rethink our way forward in light of it. The funny thing is, I should have seen it last Sunday when the Redeemer children went on an Epiphany treasure hunt with the Wise Men, following clues and the light of a star through the church building, starting outside the back door to show that the Wise Men were outsiders when it came to matters of faith, ethnicity and creed Outsiders who, after following many clues through many rooms in the church (along with us), found their destination right in the narthex, where the Baby Jesus lay in his manger directly below our Ashley Bryan stained glass window, and along with the Baby Jesus, these words So fin ly the Wise Man arrived at the stable Where after the journey they fin ly were able To see the sweet Jesus asleep in the straw And in the glow of his light saw what they saw, That this baby is born in the pow r of love s caring Wherever there s kindness and welcome and sharing. So we too can be signs of his Bethlehem birth When er we embody his love on this earth. This is where Christmas comes to abide In places where hearts and doors open wide, And love for the other stretches the place To include ev ryone in the space of God s grace.

7 And that s what the Wise Men who d come ever so far Saw when they followed the light of the star. Not unlike the Wise Men then, what we saw in the light of the Christ child at the end of our Epiphany treasure hunt last Sunday morning was the beautiful reach of God s universal love as depicted in the Ashely Bryan window that love as a given, extended across the length of a table around which people of every size and shape and age and color gather to share a meal not dependent upon something called believe nor tied to boundaries set by creed or skin A most astounding and beautiful thing to behold, if like the Wise Men you come to the manger never before having imagined yourself included in the reach of God s grace; never before having known yourself held and surrounded in a love as close as the air we breathe never having known that love as a given But maybe not so astoundingly beautiful if like me, you take a close look at the window Ashley Bryan designed for us; a window we asked him to design around the theme the welcome table; a window that I for one thought would be a rather familiar depiction of the last supper, with Jesus in the middle and an assortment of different but recognizable people on either side of him never imagining that we would get a Welcome Table window at which no one looks the least bit familiar, including the person in the middle (where Jesus is supposed to be ) who looks more like a girl than a guy Not to mention, as I acknowledged on the day we dedicated the window, the guy who looks like Confucius with his Fu-man-chu moustache to the right of the person sitting where Jesus is supposed to be, reminding me of my sister s old boyfriend Ted, for whom I had little

8 regard due to the way he brought his fly-fishing technique of catch and release to his relationship with my sister Releasing her with some regularity until the day last year when he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, finding himself then resting in my sister s love until the day he died Sometimes I think I will never forgive Ashely Bryan for including Ted in his depiction of the Welcome Table. Ted s presence requiring me to wrestle with the true meaning of what the Wise Men saw about the givenness of God s love in the light of the Christ child, and reminding me of a quote I read once that goes like this, You shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. But first it will make you miserable. First it will make you miserable if you want to imagine the givenness of God s love restricted in any way It will make you miserable if you want to keep intact the old perimeters, the entrenched boundaries, by which love is allotted and measured according to any one group s definition of its reach It will make you miserable if you don t want to consider the wildly free love of God a given for someone like the likes of Ted No wonder then, when T.S. Eliot wrote his poem about the magi, imagining their journey to the manger from the perspective of one of the Wise Men as remembered years later, he wrote, 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

9 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 god. I should be glad of another death. Sorry to quote T.S. Eliot. Whoever understands what he is trying to say anyway? And yet his poem written from the perspective of one of the magi challenges us with the truth that makes us miserable before it makes us free This truth the truth about a love that is a universal given without restrictions or conditions of any kind like the ten million rays of sun which surround us like the air we breathe a love whose birth in the Christ Child particularly puts to death our old dispensations, making us ill at ease with the limitations by which the world tries so desperately to align itself and all of us along with it A love that always seeks a way to focus itself to a point so rich in light it turns to flame so rich in light it turns to tables extended, and closed hearts rended, and brokenness mended, and old ways ended, and Herod offended, and death upended in the very every moment in which we find ourselves birthing us into new creations and opening a door we thought closed forevermore The very love into which we are born in our baptisms as, by the power of the Holy Spirit the old dispensations are sent floating

10 downstream, put to death so to speak, and freeing us there-by to see the Teds in our lives through different eyes Freeing us to wonder and think and imagine, both as individuals and as communities of faith, of how we might bear witness to this love that is a given The love in which we live and move and have our being, just as fish in water How we, in the way of Jesus, might take that love we cannot see into ourselves and make it visible in word and in deed Just as my sister Elly did after Ted s death last May, as she gave to me (despite my lack of appreciation for Ted during his life) as she gave to me (after her undying tender care of him over many months until his last breath) as she gave to me Ted s most treasured book about the beauty of fly-fishing hoping perhaps that through it I might see Ted through different eyes, making visible there-by all the love I could not see (Who would have guessed that the immensity of God s love could be made visible through a book about the beauty of fly-fishing treasured by a scruffy guy who himself had a lot to learn about love?... Was I led all that way for birth or death? I had seen birth and death, but thought they were different.) This is what we see the Wise Men saw at their Epiphany a love that is a given, surrounding us like the air we breathe, like all the rays of light we cannot see a love that yearns and burns to make itself known, taking on flesh in the oddest and strangest of ways like in a baby born to two people of no count in the little town of Bethlehem on the margins of the powerful Roman Empire An incarnation of love of the most scandalous kind, bearing that love to places no self-respecting god would ever go So we would know there is no place where that love cannot go, and there be received, taken in, made incarnate and visible in things

11 like bread and wine and word and books about fly-fishing and quilts and prayer shawls and casseroles and cool compresses on feverish foreheads and Sunday Sunnies lunches and Shelter Shiners suppers and letters to the editor and elected officials in which we express our deep sorrow over language and policies disparaging Muslims and refugees All of these and ten thousand more being little epiphanies, little manifestations of God s expansive realm, God s universal love let loose in the world, made visible, particular, incarnate, real, here, now which is the only kind of love that really matters the kind of love we come to see and know in the person of Jesus the kind of love we come to see and know in the bread broken and the wine poured out the kind of love we come to see and know here + in the fathomless depths and unboundaried reach of God s love on the cross the kind of the kind of love that yearns to focus itself in us to a point so rich in light it turns to flame So that in our living and our doing and our being, others might see what the Wise Men saw when heav n that night was riven love let loose in that Holy Child, for all the world a given.

Christ appearing himself to the Gentiles. Now, what are Gentiles? We hear that word at

Christ appearing himself to the Gentiles. Now, what are Gentiles? We hear that word at 1 Sermon Epiphany of our Lord 2016 Wednesday, January 6, 2016 Pastor James Preus Trinity Lutheran Church Matthew 2:1-12 Light Revealed to the Gentiles Happy Epiphany! Epiphany means Appearing. On Epiphany