Beat it Satan!

Bulletin: Feb. 10

Scripture:

Deuteronomy 6:10-19

Psalm 32

Matthew 4:1-11

“Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” This is such a succinct and suitable description of our fears, isn’t it? Dear God, save us from evil – of the kind that possessed a man to take a gun into the Kirkwood City Council and shoot five people, or the kind that possessed the man who broke into my friend, Nancy Miller’s house and killed her.

Deliver us from evil. But even before we say that we say, Lead us not into temptation. Because we can’t be sure that we wouldn’t be the agents of evil ourselves if we were tempted strongly enough. It’s a pretty big fear – that we would be no match for evil temptation on our own.

When Jesus gave us that prayer, he knew how hard it is to withstand temptation. So he suggested we ask God to lead us away from it.

Matthew’s description of the temptation of Jesus personifies evil and temptation as Satan. I used to think of the devil as a scapegoat for the evils of humankind. You know those people who say, “The devil made me do it.” And somehow that excuses them from taking responsibility for their actions.

But by personifying evil in the character of Satan or the devil, we also acknowledge that temptation to behave that way is not just our own imperfection. It is an outside force that God can help us overcome.

Matthew gives us a good blueprint for resisting temptation, for saying, “beat it, Satan,” as Jesus is quoted saying in our passage today.

Jesus went into the desert, so there would be no distractions for his test. He didn’t eat or drink anything, so he would be weak and vulnerable and light-headed. And he was alone – except for the presence and strength of God.

The first temptation has been described as the desire to “have.” We Americans are quite familiar with the desire for immediate gratification. You want it, you got it. We’re not content with the marvelous Internet, now dial-up is too slow – we want speedy broadband. We’re not content to save our money to buy big-ticket items. We charge them right away. You want it? You got it.

You’re hungry? Turn those stones into bread, Satan says. It’s easy. No work involved. No waiting until you get back to town to share bread with other people. Just turn the stones to bread and eat your fill.

Well why not? Didn’t God send manna down from heaven for the Israelites with Moses? What would be wrong with turning stones to bread? Wouldn’t God want the best for his only begotten son?

Nope, Jesus says. This suggestion didn’t come from God. It came from the tempter. Jesus doesn’t focus on things, on physical needs alone. He says It takes more than bread to stay alive. It takes a steady stream of words from God’s mouth.”

I think that’s why so many people today find so little meaning in the things that we buy, why we eat so much but don’t feel satisfied. We’re looking for meaning in the wrong places. We can’t get fulfillment from a new TV, no matter how clear the picture or fascinating the programs. No matter how delectable the cheese cake or perfectly grilled steak, as soon as we swallow, we’re longing for something else.

To stay alive – really alive – we need more. We need a steady stream from God’s mouth. That’s really good advice Matthew is giving us. Alcoholics Anonymous and the other 12-step programs to fight addiction are based on that idea. They call God your higher power. Giving your addiction over to your higher power is the absolute basic step to overcoming temptation. If we listen to a steady stream of words from God’s mouth, then we can say, Beat it, Satan!

It’s also a reminder that our efforts to share with others should not stop with the basics of food or other physical needs. Not that Americans are really all that generous. But when we give our cast-off clothing or write a few checks at Christmas, we’re not doing nearly enough. You here at Berea are opening a soup kitchen. That’s a good thing. But first, you opened your worship service. And when the people come to the soup kitchen, you’ll offer them prayer as well as soup.

To be alive, we need more than bread. Settling for mere things is a temptation we all need to resist. If we’re paying attention to the word of God, we may have the strength to say, “Beat it Satan!”

If the first temptation was the desire to have, the second temptation is the desire to do. The desire to perform miracles – publicly of course.

One African theologian I read in seminary called this temptation the appeal to magic.

I think Americans, too, long for miracles and magic. We’d like someone to wave a magic wand and make the economy better, give us all jobs. When a loved one has cancer, we’d like a magic cure. We have a tendency to treat the sacraments as some magical rites. Get that baby baptized and then he’ll be OK, protected from harm by God’s angels.

Well, Jesus did perform miracles, didn’t he? He healed the sick, he fed the multitudes. What’s different about Satan’s suggestion that he jump down and let the angels save him?

For one thing, in the miracles in scripture, Jesus was the instrument of rescue and healing, not the recipient.

“Don’t test God,” Jesus says. He rebukes Satan not only for suggesting that Jesus call on angels, he also rebukes the tempter for misusing scripture. It’s not a competition to see who can call down angels and who can’t. God doesn’t work that way.

My mother lives in Florida, south of Tampa. A couple years ago, her town, Venice, was in the path of 2 or 3 hurricanes in a row. I called her after a near miss, one that looked like it was bearing straight down on Venice, but swerved at the last minute and hit somewhere else, causing great devastation.

“God turned that hurricane away,” my mother said. “It was divine intervention that saved us.”

“But Mama,” I said. “How do you think the people in Clearwater feel about that? Do you think God flattened their houses and destroyed their school just to save you?”

It’s not that simple. Jesus knew he was going to have to suffer. No angels were going to rescue him. In fact, God’s agents are nearly always people, not angels. If we’re waiting for miracles from angels, we’re misunderstanding the way God works.

The real miracle that saved my mother when a hurricane did hit Venice was the way the neighbors on her street helped each other, boarding up windows before the winds hit and sharing electricity and cooked food after the power was knocked out to part of the block. This was an everyday miracle of sharing – not a supernatural visit from angels, but people caring for each other.

When we’re tempted to wait for angel rescue instead of helping each other, we hear Jesus’s voice: “Beat it, Satan!”

And the third temptation has been described as the desire to Be. To be powerful or perhaps to be admired. All we have to do is devote our lives to Satan’s plan.

On the face of it, this seems an easy thing to resist. I’d hazard a guess that there’s not a single devil worshipper here tonight. None of us have been visited in the dark of night by Satan offering us power, glory, fame, riches if we’ll just bend a knee Satan’s way.

Or have we? This temptation is insidious. It’s the most outlandish on the face of it – who, besides Caesar himself ever would have the opportunity to rule even one nation, much less the world?

But that’s just the extreme, isn’t it? Who among us hasn’t wanted some control or power or admiration that we thought we might be able to get if we just devoted our lives to it. But if we are driven by anything other than the desire to do God’s will, we are worshiping a false god.

We worship false gods all the time. There’s a controversy sweeping American churches right now, including the Presbyterian church and the United Church of Christ. Factions are fighting over property, over control of who gets to be ordained, over whose interpretation of scripture is “right.” In the Catholic church the Archbishop is trying to rule on who can take communion and who cannot.

As if we could apportion God’s love among us. As if it’s up to us to decide who has God’s favor and who does not.

These are not archaic temptations limited to bible times. We give in to these temptations all the time: On the one hand, we call on God to solve our own personal problems that we ought to solve ourselves, and on the other we try to usurp God’s power over others.

Jesus told us to love our neighbors, not seek power over them. He told us to love God, not the Satan of our desires.

And he showed us how to withstand temptation:
Listen for a steady stream of God’s word, in scripture, prayer and discussion with others.
Don’t look for miracles from angels, but be ready to be God’s agent in the daily miracles of loving your neighbor.
And worship and obey only God.
As for Satan? C’mon, say it with me.
Beat it, Satan!

Change your life

Bulletin: Jan. 27

Scripture: Matthew 4:12-23

Change your life. That’s how the Message translation puts it. In the New International Version this passage says Jesus preached “Repent, the kingdom of God is near.” The Hebrew word for repentance is Teshuva, which means a turning. As in turn around your life.
Turn away from evil, some scripture says.
Turn toward the good, other passages say.
The Greek word for repent, metanoia, means change. Remember from last week, John the baptist had attracted a lot of followers who were looking for change.
This week, our scripture begins with John’s arrest. The authorities who arrested John figured that was the end of the movement. His followers would just fade back into their dreary lives.

But Jesus picked up the theme.
Change your life, Jesus said. The crowds came back and Jesus preached to them. Imagine how dangerous that was. The last man who did that was arrested. What’s more Jesus is talking about a new kingdom, the kingdom of God is near. Wait til Herod hears about that.

So did Jesus start raising an army to form his new kingdom? Well, no.
Jesus walked down to the beach in Gallilee and saw a pair of brothers.
They were fishing. This was no recreational fishing. They were not just spending a lazy afternoon enjoying the beach and by the way, drop a net in the water and see what we get. They were catching fish. It’s what they did for a living.

Jesus says to the first pair, follow me and I will have you catching people. Not exactly the talk of someone seeking to raise an army and create a kingdom.

Last week, we read the gospel of John’s account of how Andrew and Simon, called Peter, met Jesus. You could weave the accounts of these two gospels together and say that Andrew and Simon already knew Jesus – Andrew having spent most of a day with him and then introducing him to Simon, as we read in John last week. But if you take each gospel on its own, Matthew’s first reference to Andrew and Simon called Peter is this passage, where Jesus calls them on the beach.

The Message version says bluntly that the brothers “didn’t ask questions, but simply dropped their nets and followed.”

Later in the story, the writer of Matthew tells us about would-be disciples who ask more questions, including some that don’t like Jesus’s answers and turn away. And Jesus tells the crowds that gather around him that following him will not be easy.

But to these four men, Jesus simply says “Come.” And they do.

What was their motivation?
Were they not catching very much anyway and looking for a change? Did Simon hate the smell and taste of fish and was just itching for some other way to make a living?
Were the sons of Zebedee chafing under an overbearing father and just as eager as Simon and Andrew to go do something else?

They must have seen something in Jesus, something they were longing for. The gospel writer keeps building the suspense, telling us a little about Jesus about the effect he had on people, but it’s not anything that would cause a skeptic to drop to his or her knees and say, “Now I understand.” That’s what Paul meant in his letter to the Corinthians (I Corinthians 1:10-18) about fancy words. It’s not words that caused the disciples to follow Jesus. It’s something else.

Do you think they knew what they were getting into?

Change your life. This is scary stuff. What are we supposed to change? That’s the heart of the question. If your life sucks and you’ve been looking for a way to make it better, you might see Jesus as a healer, a redeemer saving you from bondage. If you’re sitting in darkness, and Jesus brings the light, hallelujah! He’s changed your life. Nothing wrong with that.

But there are bound to be some things you don’t want to change, or are afraid to change. Jesus isn’t really asking you if you want change. He’s saying follow me, the kingdom is near. You can go along or not, but the kingdom is near, regardless.

John the baptist was telling people to repent, change your life, but he didn’t say what for. Jesus tells the crowds and his close followers that God’s kingdom is near. I used to wonder, when I was a young teenager, what happened to that kingdom? Where is it now? There’s plenty of suffering and evil in this world, why wasn’t it all swept away when Jesus was resurrected?

I’ve come to understand that the kingdom of God, sometimes called the kingdom of heaven, is both here and now and yet to come. The bible – Old and New Testament – is full of the promise of the coming kingdom.

But Jesus told his followers that the kingdom was here and now, as well as coming soon. If you are alert for it, you can get glimpses of the kingdom. We’ve been doing that here tonight, sharing our concerns, praying for each other, passing the peace, hearing and discussing scripture. We’re part of the kingdom and we’re part of its coming.

The people sitting on the hillsides listening to Jesus, the disciples on the beach who dropped their nets and went to catch people, these folks saw a glimpse of the kingdom of God. And when they did, their lives were changed. Did they repent so Jesus would accept them into the kingdom?
No, — let me repeat that – Did they repent so Jesus would accept them into the kingdom? No. That’s backwards. They caught a glimpse of the kingdom and they dropped their nets and they followed. Jesus came walking on the beach, looking for Simon and Andrew and James and John. He said come and they did and it changed their lives.

I’m reminded of a Bob Dylan song, “Never Gonna Be the Same Again.”
Dylan wrote it as a love song, but if you replace “baby” with “Jesus,” it says something profound about how people experience Jesus.

Take for instance the last verse,

You taught me how to love, Jesus,
You taught me oh so well,
Now, I can’t go back to what was, Jesus,
I can’t unring the bell.
You took my reality
And cast it to the wind
And I ain’t never gonna be the same again.

Jesus had that effect on people’s lives. They met him, they saw him in action, they heard his words, and they knew they would never be the same again.
He had that effect on history, too. Herod, Pontius Pilate, the temple priests, the Roman authorities – all those folks trying to hold onto their power. They were never the same after Jesus.
And down through history, continuing today, Jesus touches people’s lives. He does so through people like Paul, people like Martin Luther and Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa and Pastor Gibson, and Sister Serenia, and Brother Gerald, and you, Wilson, and you, Julie, you, Ben …

The thing is, when you take this business seriously of following Jesus, of being a disciple, you don’t know where it’s going to lead. You just know, you’re going to change your life.
Take it from someone who gave up the dream of being a preacher when she was 14, only to take it up again in her 50s. You never know where Jesus will lead you. You can only count on one thing: You ain’t never gonna be the same again.

Come and see

Bulletin: Jan. 20

Scripture: John 1:29-42

Have any of you seen the Monty Python movie, “Life of Brian”?
It’s a satire, a complicated and funny commentary on Christianity. The main character, Brian, is born at the same time as Jesus, and their paths cross many times over their lives.
There are several scenes in the movie where people try to find meaning in Brian’s life and try to follow him. He keeps telling them he’s not anyone special, but they are so desperate for a leader to help them rebel against the Romans that they read meaning into everything he does. At one point, he loses a sandal trying to run away from these would-be followers and they pick up the shoe and treat it as a holy relic.
The writers of that movie really captured the spirit of the times of Jesus. There were false prophets and false messiahs and desperate people eagerly following this person and that, all over the place. They had the sense that something big was going to happen – maybe a leader would rise up to save them from Roman tyranny, maybe the world as they knew it was coming to an end! An electric sense of anticipation was in the air.
The movie raises the same point that the gospel of John raises in our scripture today. How do you tell the real thing from the fake or the mistaken?
This story begins with John the baptist, who is a different John from the gospel writer. At the time, John the baptist was more well known than Jesus. In fact, Jesus may have been a disciple of John at first. All four gospels begin the account of Jesus’s ministry by first writing about John the baptist.

Some of the people who wanted to upset the empire and take back their country, and their lives and especially their religion, some of those people moved to the desert and lived like hermits. John was one of the more famous of those desert hermits. He came from the tradition of very unkinglike leaders. He was a man of God, a prophet.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that John lived in the wilderness, that he wore animal skins and ate locusts and honey – that is, whatever he could find out there in the desert. And people flocked out to see him and hear him and be baptised by him.
He told them to repent and ask forgiveness of their sins. He told them he was the “voice crying in the wilderness” that the prophet Isaiah wrote about. Like Brian in the movie, John told his followers he was not the one they were looking for. He said he was preparing the way for someone greater than him, someone whose sandal he would not be worthy to untie.

Last week, we read the scripture from Matthew telling about how John baptised Jesus. And the heavens opened up and a dove descended and some heard God say about Jesus, “this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”

The gospel account we’re reading today elaborates on John’s reaction to Jesus. “He is the lamb of God,” John tells his followers. In essence, he says “this is the guy I’ve been telling you about.” This is the one I’ve been preparing for.”

How does he know? John saw evidence of the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus. So John the baptist tells two of his disciples that Jesus is the one he’s been preparing them for. Jesus walks by and John says it again, “there he is, there’s the lamb of god.”

None of the gospels give a clear account of what John the baptist said about Jesus other than this. A dove come down, the holy spirit is on him. He’s the lamb of god. He’s the son of god.

But what did that mean?

Andrew and the other disciple, who isn’t named in this gospel, have already been searching for something – a leader, the messiah, someone to deliver their people from bondage. We know this because Andrew and his companion are disciples of John the baptist. They’ve been listening to him, probably have repented and been baptised by him. They’ve heard him say there’s another one coming and he’s even greater than John. That’s a pretty good recommendation, because John really captured people’s attention. So if John says Jesus is the one he’s been talking about, that’s good enough for Andrew and his friend.

So they take off after Jesus, just start walking behind him, maybe trying to catch up. And Jesus turns around and asks them, “what are you looking for?”

Notice he doesn’t say, “what do you want?” He says, “what are you looking for?” Now, is that because he knows what they want? Or because he is less interested in what they want, he wants to know if they’re searching, if they’re open minded, rather than thinking they already know who he is and what they want from him.

Knowing what we know – that the two disciples of John are responding to John’s description of Jesus as the lamb of god – wouldn’t you think they’d answer with some explanation, like, “well John says you’re the one he’s been talking about.” Some kind of question, “are you who John says you are?” or maybe, “what does it mean that you’re the lamb of god?”

But no, They ask, “where are you staying?” The word in the original was the same as the ones in English translated as stay or remain, and in this passage the word is used five times. Stay, stay, stay, remain, remain. They’re not asking where he is spending the night. They are asking something deeper. Where’s your center? Where’s the foundation of your life?
They call him rabbi, teacher, which is a sort of an indirect way of saying, can we follow you?

“Come and see,” Jesus says.

They do. They go and see. They not only see where Jesus is living, they see his resting place, the center of his being. They stay with Jesus all day. The gospel doesn’t tell us what Jesus said or did to inspire people to call him the messiah, the son of god, the lamb of god.

We don’t know what Andrew and his fellow disciple said or heard. We don’t know what they did. We only know the result. After spending the better part of a day with Jesus, Andrew goes and finds his brother, Simon, and tells him, “we have found the messiah.”

He brought Simon to Jesus, who seems to know all about him already. Jesus calls Simon “Cephas” or “Peter,” both names mean “Rock.” We who know the rest of the story know that Simon, called Peter, will become a follower solid as a rock, sometimes thick as a rock, on whom Jesus will build the church. So Andrew asked Jesus, what is your foundation, what is your rock, and Jesus said to Peter, I’m calling you rock.

But notice that it is Andrew who tells Peter, the rock, about Jesus. Andrew who was following John and seeking the messiah, the anointed one of God. Andrew who asked Jesus, “where are you staying?” can we come too?

It took Andrew less than a day one-on-one with Jesus to decide that John was right. This is the guy.

Think back in your own life to a time when you understood Jesus to be the anointed one, the son of God, however you would say it. A time, maybe you were a child, maybe you were grown and beginning to examine what you believed. Maybe it came on you unexpectedly during a time of crisis. Maybe it dawned on you gradually. Maybe it was something someone said. However it came to you, You KNEW that Jesus was special. One of a kind. The son of God, God incarnate. That Jesus was the guy.

Whether it was sudden or gradual, at some point, you probably wanted to share this knowledge. You wanted to tell someone close to you that Jesus is the guy. He’s the one we’ve been longing for and expecting. We’ve found the messiah.

How would you explain that to someone else?

John talked about a dove. Andrew simply told his brother, “We’ve found the messiah.” The gospel writer doesn’t tell us the rest of the conversation, but I’ll bet Andrew said something like, “come and see.”

And so Simon Peter did come and see.

This is an interesting take on how the disciples “found” Jesus. John told Andrew, who went to Jesus, and Jesus told him, come and see. So Andrew did. Then he told Peter, who also went to see Jesus for himself.

Jesus didn’t hand out fliers. He didn’t go on Oprah. He didn’t ask John to get his followers together so Jesus could make a speech to them. No, Jesus just walked by and let those who saw the Spirit in him tell others. John expressed it one way. Andrew expressed it another.

And when people asked Jesus what it was all about, he said, “come and see.”

So if you haven’t had that moment when you understood on a gut level that Jesus is the guy. Or if that moment seems long ago and you need a refresher, I’ll say to you, “come and see.” Spend some time with Jesus – in prayer, in scripture, in the company of other followers – and see for yourself.

And if you have spent that afternoon sitting at the master’s feet, who have you told, “we’ve found the messiah!” And who will you tell today and tomorrow, “Come and see.”

Praise God, amen.

A dream, a witness, a baptism

Bulletin: Jan. 13

Scripture: Acts 10

So we have two people here. Cornelius, an officer in the Italian Guard of the Roman Army. He’s what the Jews at the time called a God-fearer. He lived his life believing in the one true God of the Hebrew Bible. But he wasn’t a Jew. He wasn’t born of a Jewish family. He didn’t undergo the ritual of circumcision. He didn’t “convert.” He just followed the commandments and the spirit of the commandments to love God and love neighbor. He prayed, he gave to the poor.

And then there’s Peter. This is Peter after the resurrection and after Pentecost. You may recall, during Pentecost Peter and the other disciples who had seen the resurrected Jesus were gathered in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit descended on them – the descriptions talked about tongues of fire and a great whooshing wind, and they were inspired to speak about Jesus. Everyone who had gathered in Jerusalem during this time of festival heard the disciples speak in their own language.
This experience of the Holy Spirit was still relatively fresh in Peter’s mind as he stands up on the roof – well, this translation says balcony – waiting for lunch.

Both men saw angels, and each angel seems to know about the other man’s angel. They’re a sort of wireless communication. God never has been confined by space and time. These days we just sort of accept some kinds of wireless communication and are suspicious of others, like angels. But in those days, Cornelius and Peter would have been more astounded by e-mail than they were angels. Angels were surprising enough.

Each man trusted the messenger and followed. They were accustomed to praying to God. When God wanted to get in touch with them, they had their cell phones turned on. They were receptive, and they didn’t argue. Cornelius didn’t say, “Wait a minute. You want me to send to Joppa? What do I want to do with one of those crazy Galileans? They hear voices. They say they’ve seen the Son of God.”
Well, Peter did resist his vision at first. “Oh no, lord, I’ve never even tasted food that wasn’t kosher.” That is, Peter considered himself a good Jew who wouldn’t eat what the commandments in the Old Testament said was unclean or not kosher.
Now, Peter was with Jesus during his ministry, so Peter saw Jesus eat with tax collectors and prostitutes and other low-lifes. But even in the gospels, I don’t think you’ll find a story where Jesus intentionally ate with gentiles. Jesus spoke to gentiles. He healed gentiles. He fed the multitudes, even on the gentile side of the Sea of Galillee. But did he ever go to a gentile’s house and eat? I don’t think we have a record of that.

Eating together was a form of social interaction that many people in the Roman empire didn’t do with people who weren’t like them. They might have servants who were a different race or religion. But they would never sit down and eat together as equals with anyone other than people like themselves.

Jews were even more careful about what they ate and with whom, because ever since their exile into Babylon, they hadn’t had a nation to call their own. They were spread out all over the Mediterranean world. One way they kept their religion and culture intact was to keep to themselves.

So when Cornelius and Peter were told by their separate messengers to get together, it wasn’t a simple thing.

Cornelius called his neighbors and relatives together to meet Peter. And he says to Peter, we’re all here in God’s presence, ready to listen to whatever the Master put in your heart to tell us.”

What trust Cornelius had in God. He believed that angel. He sent his most trusted employees to find Peter. He didn’t keep it to himself either. He called his friends and neighbors and relatives. And he says only, We’re ready to listen to whatever the master put in your heart to tell us.

And notice the effect on Peter. He exploded with the good news of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection.
Peter realizes the meaning of the visions he saw. “Nothing could be plainer,” he says. “God plays no favorites! It makes no difference who you are or where you’re from—if you want God and are ready to do as he says, the door is open. The Message he sent to the children of Israel—that through Jesus Christ everything is being put together again—well, he’s doing it everywhere, among everyone.

Among everyone. Among Jerusalem Jews, among Jesus’s closest disciples, and also among a Roman centurion, an officer in the Roman army. And his friends and relatives and neighbors.

Can’t you just see God smiling? “Yes, Peter. You got it.” Peter and Cornelius and all the people listening. They understood. How do we know?
Because the Holy Spirit descended on these gentiles, these friends of a Roman army officer. The Spirit descends right before the eyes of the Jewish Christians who came with Peter. And they’re convinced too.

It’s true. It’s for everyone.

So what did Peter do? What was his first reaction when he realized that God sent the Holy Spirit to these outsiders? He turns to the folks he brought and asks, “why don’t we baptise them?”

Notice, the Holy Spirit came first. Then Peter followed with a suggestion of water.
Baptism by water isn’t some magical ceremony that works apart from our will or God’s will. It is a manifestation of what has occurred through the Holy Spirit.

Whether you were baptised as a baby, or as an adult, or maybe you haven’t yet had water applied to your head and body with the words, Father, Son, Holy Spirit – God has sent you here tonight to hear about the Holy Spirit.

So let me reread these words that Peter said once more:
He commissioned us to announce this in public, to bear solemn witness that Jesus is in fact the One whom God destined as Judge of the living and dead. But we’re not alone in this. Our witness that he is the means to forgiveness of sins is backed up by the witness of all the prophets.” Praise God! Praise God! Amen.

A king for poor jerks and outsiders

Bulletin: Jan. 6

Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12

Isaiah 60: 1-6

Ephesians 3:1-12

I love the Christmas story of our nativity scene. The shepherds and angels and the wise men and all the animals grouped around the manger where the baby Jesus lies, combining the stories told in Matthew and Luke into one familiar seamless story. But if that’s the only story we tell, we miss the separate points that the writers of Matthew and Luke were trying to make.
So lets take this story in Matthew by itself. You’ve heard them called the three kings,
The magi
The wise men.
The Message translation of the Bible that we’re reading from, started in the 1990s and finished in this millennium, this translation calls them scholars.

Lets expand the story a little with what we know about the politics and religion and knowledge of the times. The time when Jesus was born.

Imagine yourself a resident of Jerusalem. You’re a poor jerk, just trying to get by, trying to avoid the Roman soldiers in the streets and the high priests in the temple – because the religious authorities and King Herod himself – were put in power by the Romans. Their idea of running your country is to keep everything for themselves and allow you to make just enough to feed yourself a day at a time. Anyone who makes trouble – gets thrown in jail. And if you challenge people powerful enough, they kill you.

So you’re minding your own business, trying to get by and these important guys come into Jerusalem “from the east.” Well, you may be poor, but you know your history and your politics. Every time Jerusalem has been attacked, the armies and powers have come from the east. Even though Rome is to the west, the Romans just took over from other oppressors who conquered your little country, Judea, from the East.

So big important guys coming in from the East, not a good thing.

What’s more, they’re talking about seeing signs predicting a new king. Your first thought, hey, we’ve got a king and he’s nothing to rejoice about.
Turn overs in who sits on the throne usually involve armies, and armies mean we little guys get the worst of it. Lord protect me from new kings, you think to yourself.

But there’s more. Not only did these important guys from the east say that they saw signs in the stars predicting a new king, they saw something in those stars that makes them think this king is worth coming to see and kneeling down to. They want to pledge their obedience and give this baby gifts.

Whoa. Those must some important signs they saw in the stars. This king sounds different. They’re not saying he has an army behind him, like Herod. No, he has “the stars,” and strangers from more powerful countries in the east making a big deal.

But the funny thing is, they were guided all this way by these stars. But when they get to Jerusalem, they start asking where this new king is. Why could they get this close and then not know?

It’s like, the stars, nature, astrology, whatever you call it, could only take them so far. Like the Google map was accurate for the county, but it gets fuzzy when you get into neighborhoods.

They are asking everybody. So naturally Herod finds out. He has spies everywhere. What were they thinking? You in Jerusalem during the reign of Herod, you would never call these guys scholars, or wise men. At least they weren’t so well-versed in politics.

What do you think Herod is going to do about a baby born to succeed him? He’s already got plenty of sons, and he killed one of them just for thinking about succeeding him. This is bad news for that baby. And it’s bad news for Jerusalem.

You want to tell these wise guys that they’re just going to cause trouble. But, of course, you can hear all this gossip, but you’re not in any position to tell anyone anything. So you’re afraid – along with all of Jerusalem.

Wait, there’s more. This news is too good and juicy – if terrifying – to just ignore. So you hang around the temple and you get the goods on the next part of the story. Herod asks the chief priests and the religious scholars in the temple – they’re on his payroll, after all – he asks them about what the prophets say about a messiah. A messiah is literally an anointed one, which could be a king or could be a redeemer, that is, someone who saves you from being sold into slavery.

So these religious scholars look at the scriptures – which for us is the Old Testament or what is today more often called the Hebrew Bible – and they find that prophets in the last few hundred years who have been talking about big changes – apocalyptic changes, on the order of the Left Behind series – big changes in the political world of Israel and Judea,or maybe the whole known world, at least one of these prophets said that the longed-for messiah would come from Bethlehem, birthplace of Israel’s greatest king, David, of Goliath-killing fame.

For you, poor jerk just getting by in Jerusalem, that’s the end of the story. If you ever see this Messiah in person, it won’t be until he comes to Jerusalem at the end of his life. But if someone asked you during this excitement with the wise guys from the east, if you thought this new baby king would live to sit on the throne occupied by Herod, you probably wouldn’t have given the kid 100 to 1 odds. Nah, if there is such a person, he’d never live long enough to challenge Herod’s power.

But there’s more. The rest of the gospel story is pretty short. They find where the baby is living. Notice he and his family are in a house. The stable and manger are part of Luke’s story. Anyway, they get all excited and happy and they give the baby gold and frankincense and myrrh. Oh joy. Now put yourself in Mary’s shoes. Gold, yeah, that’ll come in handy, especially when they have to flee for their lives to Egypt to escape Herod, thank-you-very-much for alerting him.

But Frankincense? Wouldn’t a more practical gift be a nice layette, or a car seat for the donkey, perhaps. Some diapers, gift card at the local supermarket?

Matthew wrote this account with all kinds of scripture references, and mentioning gold and frankincense is another one. This comes from the first scripture passage we read, from Isaiah 60, which talks about “a rich harvest of exiles gathered in from the nations!” “streams of camel caravans as far as the eye can see,”
loaded with gold and frankincense, preaching the praises of God.

I have to tell you, I don’t know where the myrrh came from. I challenge you folks with Internet access to look it up on google or wickipedia and tell us all next week.

But back to Matthew. Why does he tell us this particular story about Jesus?
What’s his point of talking about stars and astrologer wise guys from the east and powerful, evil Herod shaking in his boots and gold and frankincense?

It’s about outsiders. The passage in Isaiah that refers to the nations is talking about people from countries other than Israel or Judea. The scholars from the east are strangers who don’t know the local ways.

Jesus, Matthew is saying, is a messiah – an anointed one, a savior and master worthy of kneeling down to and giving gifts to – for everyone, not just the people of Judea or Israel. Not just challenging the power of Herod, not just challenging the power of the Roman empire. But challenging the whole notion of who is powerful and why.

These strangers from the east could get only so far with just the stars, the evidence of the physical world, to guide them. When they got close, they had to ask. And even though they asked what we might think is the wrong person – Herod – they got their answer from the right source – scripture. And they got further clarification and guidance from dreams – what we might call today the Holy Spirit.

Decades after Jesus’s birth, life, death and resurrection, when the writer of Ephesians tells his readers that he has come to bring the good news of Jesus to outsiders, he’s talking about non-Jews, gentiles, like the wise guys from the east.
Let me read from that passage again:
The mystery is that people who have never heard of God and those who have heard of him all their lives (what I’ve been calling outsiders and insiders) stand on the same ground before God. They get the same offer, same help, same promises in Christ Jesus. The Message is accessible and welcoming to everyone, across the board.
That’s what the letter to Ephesians said.

Isaiah said “a rich harvest of exiles from the nations” – that is foreigners – would stream into Jerusalem preaching the praises of God and bringing gifts of gold.

Matthew tells us that the power of Jesus’s message drew scholars on a long journey from the east, to Jerusalem, a place they’d never been, to learn from scripture they’d never read before.

The writer of the letter to Ephesians tells us that it’s part of God’s plan: Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!

And it’s for everyone. Wise guy scholars, and Roman soldiers, and the likes of Herod himself, if he would ever bring himself to kneel down to a higher power. But most of all, God’s plan through Jesus is for poor jerks from Jerusalem or South Grand, or U City.

In this first story of Jesus, we meet a baby who appears to be no match for the Herods of the world.

Ah, but he is.

You’re not sure about that? Come back next week. There’s more.