If that isn t enough, some scholars, including Martin Luther, believed that since the

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1 George A. Mason Epiphany Sunday Wilshire Baptist Church 6 January 2019 Dallas, Texas The Gifts We Give Matthew 2:1-12 Happy New Year, church. Six days into the new year, we can still say that. We re done with Merry Christmas. Yesterday was the twelfth day of Christmas and I m sure your true love gave to each of you 12 drummers drumming. By the way, what do you do with 12 drummers drumming? Just wondering. Today is the start of a new season in the church year called Epiphany. We don t have an official greeting adjective for it like Happy or Merry, so I ll just wish you a Blessed Epiphany Blessed being the safe spiritual fallback greeting for most Christian occasions. Today is also known as Three Kings Day, because of the wise men from the East who followed the star to pay homage to the newborn king of the Jews. They probably weren t kings, but tradition added that because of the expensive gifts they brought and because Epiphany is when we celebrate people from all the earth coming to Christ as the fulfillment of Israel s mission of bringing light to the nations. The kings represent the rulers of the Gentile world. The story of the magi is always alluring. And, oh, that s another name for the wise men magi. Confusing isn t it? Magi is the word Matthew actually uses in his Greek text, although the word itself is Persian. Again, confusing, like so much about this story. (Don t even get me started on the traveling Star.) Magi suggests an ancient group of learned men who practiced astrology and were advisors to kings. Magi show up in the book of Daniel, when Israel was in captivity in Babylon. So, throughout Christian history, scholars thought they were probably from Persia, which is modern-day Iran. And that caused a whole set of other problems, because it would have taken them a long time after the birth of Jesus to get to the manger in Bethlehem, especially after a stopover in Jerusalem to see King Herod first. Which is also why we probably separated Christmas and Epiphany by these twelve extra days. Whew. If that isn t enough, some scholars, including Martin Luther, believed that since the

2 gifts they brought were associated more with Arabia, they were actually Arabs, not Persians. Which leads to recent speculation that they were from a kingdom not far to the East at all the Nabatean Kingdom, centered at Petra in Jordan which would have allowed them to get to Baby Jesus quicker. The Nabateans were caravan traders of, wait for it frankincense and myrrh. What I want to focus on today, though, is the significance of the gifts they bring to Jesus, and how they can challenge us to follow them in the gifts we bring to Jesus. There are three gifts I want to mention; and by three, I don t mean gold, frankincense and myrrh. We ll consider those together as one gift. The first gift the wise men give, and you can give, too, is this: Make yourself part of the story of God. Look, when the gospel writers picked up their stylus and started scratching out the ways they would tell the story of God s salvation of the world through Jesus Christ, only Matthew and Luke paid much attention to the birth narrative of Jesus. In Luke, we get angels and shepherds and animals who all become part of the story. Matthew alone adds these characters from the East, whoever they are. Whether they were Persians or Arabs, kings or astrologers, camel caravan traders or court emissaries, what we do know is they are not Jews and not locals. They were outsiders making their way into the story. Matthew wants us to see that God s story is not a tribal tale. It s not about one local religion over another; it s a story about the whole world, and everybody is included in it. I know we talk about EveryBody a lot around here, and I won t apologize for the redundancy. We have too many people these days trying to define Christianity and the church too narrowly. They will almost never say it, but you can pick up all the codes that indicate that the Christ they believe in looks mostly like whatever they look like and whatever their life experiences are. But right at the start, Matthew s Gospel says no, this is not going to be just another chapter in religion of people like us. This is the great breakthrough of Jewish history that invites and includes all the world to be part of the story of Israel s God. We all always have been, but we haven t all always 2

3 known it. So, here s what I want to say to many of you today: stop excluding yourself; you are included. And when I say you, I mean all of you. In the last two or three years we have said it over and over that if you are from these parts or from other parts; white or black or brown; married, never married or formerly married, young, old or middle age; conservative, liberal or centrist; gay, straight or bisexual; cisgender or transgender; or someone who doesn t feel that you fit neatly into any category, still, here s the good news: you are part of God s story, too. I know some of you have been hurt by churches before and may find all this hard to believe. This church is trying to live into our repentance for that on behalf of all churches. But for your part, I want to say that believing always comes with risk, and risk doesn t just have a downside. The upside of coming as you are to Christ and his body, the church, just the way the undefined wise men from the East did, is that you find yourself fully and finally at home with God and God s people. Give yourself as a gift to God by giving yourself to God s people. Don t linger or lurk. Come on in, the water s fine. This includes also of you who are like me and used to feel like you were the definition of church normal and now feel a little offbalance with the sense that normal may not be what you once thought. Well, you are still included in the EveryBody. Nobody kicked you out by letting others in. Don t exclude yourself from God s story. The first gift all of you can give to God, then, is to accept your acceptance in a bold and public way. This is a witness to the saving and unifying power of God in a world bent on dividing people from each other. The biblical word save means to be made whole, to heal, to come together completely. And it s not just personal; it s about the community and all creation. This may be the most powerful, yet subtle, point Matthew is making by including the magi. Let s keep making it. Second gift: Worship Jesus as the one and only King of kings and Lord of lords. When the wise men stop off at Herod s palace to inquire about 3

4 the one born to be the next King of the Jews, they are making a political statement about him that we need to pay attention to. For all sorts of reasons, we have spiritualized Jesus kingship, as if he can only be captain of souls on a journey to heaven with no claim on the rulers of the earth. We can therefore support whatever kind of political leaders and public policies we wish, because that s not Jesus concern. Nonsense. Our worship of Jesus is only like a gift of the magi when we worship him as Lord of all. When the angel warned them of lying Herod s malicious intent to exploit them, and they then returned to their home country by a different way, they were making a faithful political decision not to be used by an earthly ruler. True worship of Jesus as Savior of the whole world is a political act of resistance to every false messiah. I also need to remind you that the magi paid the price to go worship Jesus in person. A longer camel journey than our usual car ride to church on Sunday, don t you know?! They might have stayed home and just tuned into the Star Broadcast Network and worshipped on their own terms. They didn t. They made the trip. They knelt and worshipped him. Something we can do too, every Sunday, here. Just saying. We need to worship Jesus together so that we are reminded that we worship no other gods before God. Finally, bring your gifts to give as part of your act of worship. The wise men didn t come emptyhanded. They brought material gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. We did well again this year overall as a church in giving to God as an act of worship. We more than met our agreed obligations. But really, do we have to always wait until the last minute? Nonetheless, gratitude is my main emotion about all of that with you this morning. Many more people stepped up to do their part this year, no matter how big or small the amount. It all adds up when we re all all-in. Yet, I have to say as we begin this new year together, we can do better in honoring the gifts of the magi by giving from what we have and by giving intentionally. Most of us think about tithing as 4

5 giving 10% of what we are earning back to God. And that s good. If we all did that around here every year, our giving would be probably five times what it currently is. But just as the magi opened up their treasure chests to give, so we need to learn to give out of our wealth as well as income. For instance, some of you are retired and aren t earning what you once did, but you have accumulated wealth by prudent saving and investing over the years. The idea is that you will not be a burden on your children or your neighbors. Good for you. Now, how will you show the same kind of faith that God will take care of you that you showed when you were earning an income by working? And for others of you who have been financially successful enough that you have put away significant resources and yet you are still working, imagine what putting those resources to work for God now would mean as an act of worship. The wise men clearly planned ahead in their giving. They didn t wait to get to Bethlehem and then find an ATM to give after they saw the needs of Mary and Joseph. They were thoughtful and deliberate in bringing what they did. And we can be too. One way to do that is by planned giving all through the year giving consistently and regularly. Other ways include including the church in your will, assigning the church as a beneficiary in a life insurance policy, creating a gift annuity or charitable trust. Kim and I have decided that since we have been tithing all our married life, and since we have loved and been loved by this congregation in ways we can never repay, we will tithe our estate to the church as well. Others of you have planned to do that or more. Everyone should have a will, and everyone should consider a planned gift in it. January is a good time to think about that, and you ll shortly hear more about it. An African-American woman was talking about her childhood memories of Christmas. Her parents allowed all the presents under the tree to be opened. But the children could only pick one to keep. They then had to give to the others to those needier than they, and they had to give them personally. It wasn t as if they themselves weren t needy. But 5

6 every Christmas they were reminded that they were here not just to provide for themselves, but to care for those around them who were needier than they. 1 The gifts we give all year long and all our life long reflect the gifts of the magi when they are given in love for those whom Jesus loves. Let s keep giving that way, Wilshire. And when we do, somewhere a star will be shining, and somewhere wise men will be smiling. Amen. 1 Len Sweet, 6