Your Faith Journey - Finding God Through Words, Song and Praise

This is a special musical performance by the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan of Holy Spirit, Flame and Fire.

On this Sunday, we get to experience something that seldom seems to happen on a Sunday.  We get to experience the Feast Day of Epiphany.  You see, the day of Epiphany is one of those fixed days in the church calendar which usually seems to fall on a week day and not so much on a Sunday.  Therefore, we rarely get this gospel reading in the Sunday lectionary.  But this year, the day of Epiphany is actually today, so we get this marvelous reading from Matthew’s gospel. 

The word “Epiphany” refers to something “made manifest” or “revealed.” When you come up with a brilliant idea, you might say that you’ve had an “epiphany moment.”  Today, the word “Epiphany” communicates to us the “showing forth” or “the revelation” of Christ in the world.  Epiphany takes its themes from the journey of a group of pagan magi who left familiar territory to find the Christ child and explore this child’s authenticity for themselves.  And, as Barbara Brown Taylor says “today’s [reading] from Matthew offers a rare opportunity to rescue the magi from their fixed places in the annual Christmas pageant and restore them to their biblical roles as key witnesses to both the threat and promise of the Christ child”: the threat and the promise that comes with God entering into the world, the threat and the promise that comes with the light of Christ being revealed to the world. (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, p. 213). 

To further emphasize the importance of the needed “rescue” of this story, I would like for you to think about the opening hymn we first sang and what has probably always been your understanding of today’s reading.  Now, let’s take a realistic look at Matthew’s account.  The story of these wise men is only found in the gospel of Matthew.  And, Matthew does not say that there are three wise men, nor does he call them kings.  Lutheran pastor, Nadia Bolz-Weber, writes, “We Three Kings of Orient Are…Not in the Bible!” She says, “Three kings from the Orient bringing gifts to Jesus in a manger is a charming story, but it’s not actually the one we find in the Bible. A closer reading of Matthew shows that we have no idea how many people were there, and we don’t know how far east they came from. Was it the Orient? Was it New Jersey?... And most importantly, they were definitely not kings…..They were Magi, as in magicians, and not the cute kind you hire for your kid’s birthday party. Yet history made them out to be kings, maybe because the reality that they were magicians is too distasteful, since no one really wants the weird fortune-teller lady from the circus with her scarves and crystal balls to be the first to discover the birth of our Lord. So, the story has been nicened up into an idealized picture of multicultural diplomacy. But the Epiphany story of Herod and his infanticide reveals a God who has entered our world as it actually exists, and not as the world we often wish it would be.” 

In Matthew, the emphasis is on the universality of Jesus’ mission, entering into the deep brokenness of this world. Among Matthew’s Jewish community, they were finding it difficult to accept that God came for all, and not just a few. They were clinging to the idea that if you want to follow Jesus, to be one of his disciples, you had to first be a Jew.  And if you were male, then you had to be circumcised; then if you were to become Christian, you had to continue to fulfill all the rules of the law.  So, Matthew, right at the onset, includes this unusual story.   And, this is the mystery – that God, this infant King, is now revealed to all nations, and God has come to transform all of human history, all peoples of all times. 

The wise men represented in today’s gospel reading, who came to seek the baby, were the epitome of Gentile idolatry and religious hocus-pocus. They were not models of religious piety. They were magicians, astronomers, star-gazers, pseudo-scientists, fortune-tellers, horoscope fanatics; but Matthew makes them the heroes in his first story following the Savior's birth. The wise men should not be there. They are heretics. They don't worship the right God. They are the wrong race, the wrong denomination, the wrong religion. They don't know how to worship correctly.  Certainly, they give the child gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but those are elements used in their magic. They would have been much better models of unbelief and false trust than models of faith, trust and worship.  But, Matthew wants to make it very clear that Jesus came for all people in this very broken world and that is why these wise men are found in this gospel. That should give us pause as we continue to share God’s inclusive love with all others and practice hospitality and welcome.

In her book Accidental Saints – Finding God in All the Wrong People, Nadia Bolz-Weber tells of this remarkable experience she faced on the Sunday after Christmas in 2012.  Christmas that year was not an ordinary Christmas.  It was the year that Adam Lanza decided to get up and kill his mother, then go to Sandy Hook Elementary School and kill 26 students and teachers, then commit suicide.  And, on the Sunday after Christmas, a Sunday many clergy take off as I did last week, Nadia knew it was a Sunday when she really had to preach and proclaim the Good News of the living Word.  She had to preach to give people hope and light in the midst of their hopelessness and darkness.

On that Sunday, even though it was not yet Epiphany, Nadia chose today’s gospel reading for her sermon.  As she began to prepare, she knew she wanted to talk about the unexpected gift of Jesus Christ, who God sends into the world for people just like the wise men, for people just like you and me. She also wanted to make it clear that the violence and evil spirit of King Herod is just like what we have in our world today. But it is this world that God chose for God’s fragile child Son to live in. God takes the risk for God’s Son to become flesh and blood and dwell in this kind of world.

As she planned with her staff for worship, she decided during the prayers of the people that she would read the names of Adam’s victims and their ages. And after each reading, there would be a bell that rang out, much like we do on All Saint’s Sunday. The staff all agreed that would be a great idea.  But, it was her intern who spoke up saying, “Shouldn’t Adam’s name be added to the list?” She said, “Oh NO!” There was no way she was going to include him. This young intern continued to press her on this.  She knew he was right, but she couldn’t make herself go there.  Yet, she kept hearing him ask, “Nadia, wouldn’t God want this?” She finally gave-in shouting, “Fine!  But, I want it to be known that I am in opposition to God’s grace!”  His response was, “I am sure God is hurt!” (Accidental Saints – Finding God in All the Wrong People; by Nadia Bolz-Weber; Convergent Books; 2015)  And, there it was! She had almost forgotten the most important part of the message. God not only sent his Son into the violent and faithless world to live in it but also to save it! God comes into the world and shines a brilliant star for all people…the wise men and the ordinary people like you and me. But here is the extremely hard part, God also comes into the world for the Herods, the Adam Lanzas, the terrorists, even for our enemies!  For every single one of us, God comes to shine a light that no darkness will overcome. It is how we accept and share that light that matters. And as Christians (dog gone it!), we have to share and reflect that light.

          So, on that Sunday, Nadia read the names. As she came to the last one, she reached down into the very core of her being and with all her strength said, “And in obedience to God’s command to love the enemy and pray for those who persecute us” and then she uttered “Adam Lanza.” The final bell rang. (Accidental Saints – Finding God in All the Wrong People; by Nadia Bolz-Weber; Convergent Books; 2015; p. 74)

          God enters a world that is deeply broken and definitely not filled with peace but enters a world that is deeply loved by God, a world that God finds worthy of saving, and the love of Christ is revealed.  The wise men who journeyed to Bethlehem exposed God’s intention and desire to welcome all into the joy of God’s presence.  May we continue to be transformed and reflect the light of such inclusive love.

On this Sunday, we get to experience something that seldom seems to happen on a Sunday.  We get to experience the Feast Day of Epiphany.  You see, the day of Epiphany is one of those fixed days in the church calendar which usually seems to fall on a week day and not so much on a Sunday.  Therefore, we rarely get this gospel reading in the Sunday lectionary.  But this year, the day of Epiphany is actually today, so we get this marvelous reading from Matthew’s gospel. 

The word “Epiphany” refers to something “made manifest” or “revealed.” When you come up with a brilliant idea, you might say that you’ve had an “epiphany moment.”  Today, the word “Epiphany” communicates to us the “showing forth” or “the revelation” of Christ in the world.  Epiphany takes its themes from the journey of a group of pagan magi who left familiar territory to find the Christ child and explore this child’s authenticity for themselves.  And, as Barbara Brown Taylor says “today’s [reading] from Matthew offers a rare opportunity to rescue the magi from their fixed places in the annual Christmas pageant and restore them to their biblical roles as key witnesses to both the threat and promise of the Christ child”: the threat and the promise that comes with God entering into the world, the threat and the promise that comes with the light of Christ being revealed to the world. (Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, p. 213). 

To further emphasize the importance of the needed “rescue” of this story, I would like for you to think about the opening hymn we first sang and what has probably always been your understanding of today’s reading.  Now, let’s take a realistic look at Matthew’s account.  The story of these wise men is only found in the gospel of Matthew.  And, Matthew does not say that there are three wise men, nor does he call them kings.  Lutheran pastor, Nadia Bolz-Weber, writes, “We Three Kings of Orient Are…Not in the Bible!” She says, “Three kings from the Orient bringing gifts to Jesus in a manger is a charming story, but it’s not actually the one we find in the Bible. A closer reading of Matthew shows that we have no idea how many people were there, and we don’t know how far east they came from. Was it the Orient? Was it New Jersey?... And most importantly, they were definitely not kings…..They were Magi, as in magicians, and not the cute kind you hire for your kid’s birthday party. Yet history made them out to be kings, maybe because the reality that they were magicians is too distasteful, since no one really wants the weird fortune-teller lady from the circus with her scarves and crystal balls to be the first to discover the birth of our Lord. So, the story has been nicened up into an idealized picture of multicultural diplomacy. But the Epiphany story of Herod and his infanticide reveals a God who has entered our world as it actually exists, and not as the world we often wish it would be.” 

In Matthew, the emphasis is on the universality of Jesus’ mission, entering into the deep brokenness of this world. Among Matthew’s Jewish community, they were finding it difficult to accept that God came for all, and not just a few. They were clinging to the idea that if you want to follow Jesus, to be one of his disciples, you had to first be a Jew.  And if you were male, then you had to be circumcised; then if you were to become Christian, you had to continue to fulfill all the rules of the law.  So, Matthew, right at the onset, includes this unusual story.   And, this is the mystery – that God, this infant King, is now revealed to all nations, and God has come to transform all of human history, all peoples of all times. 

The wise men represented in today’s gospel reading, who came to seek the baby, were the epitome of Gentile idolatry and religious hocus-pocus. They were not models of religious piety. They were magicians, astronomers, star-gazers, pseudo-scientists, fortune-tellers, horoscope fanatics; but Matthew makes them the heroes in his first story following the Savior's birth. The wise men should not be there. They are heretics. They don't worship the right God. They are the wrong race, the wrong denomination, the wrong religion. They don't know how to worship correctly.  Certainly, they give the child gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, but those are elements used in their magic. They would have been much better models of unbelief and false trust than models of faith, trust and worship.  But, Matthew wants to make it very clear that Jesus came for all people in this very broken world and that is why these wise men are found in this gospel. That should give us pause as we continue to share God’s inclusive love with all others and practice hospitality and welcome.

In her book Accidental Saints – Finding God in All the Wrong People, Nadia Bolz-Weber tells of this remarkable experience she faced on the Sunday after Christmas in 2012.  Christmas that year was not an ordinary Christmas.  It was the year that Adam Lanza decided to get up and kill his mother, then go to Sandy Hook Elementary School and kill 26 students and teachers, then commit suicide.  And, on the Sunday after Christmas, a Sunday many clergy take off as I did last week, Nadia knew it was a Sunday when she really had to preach and proclaim the Good News of the living Word.  She had to preach to give people hope and light in the midst of their hopelessness and darkness.

On that Sunday, even though it was not yet Epiphany, Nadia chose today’s gospel reading for her sermon.  As she began to prepare, she knew she wanted to talk about the unexpected gift of Jesus Christ, who God sends into the world for people just like the wise men, for people just like you and me. She also wanted to make it clear that the violence and evil spirit of King Herod is just like what we have in our world today. But it is this world that God chose for God’s fragile child Son to live in. God takes the risk for God’s Son to become flesh and blood and dwell in this kind of world.

As she planned with her staff for worship, she decided during the prayers of the people that she would read the names of Adam’s victims and their ages. And after each reading, there would be a bell that rang out, much like we do on All Saint’s Sunday. The staff all agreed that would be a great idea.  But, it was her intern who spoke up saying, “Shouldn’t Adam’s name be added to the list?” She said, “Oh NO!” There was no way she was going to include him. This young intern continued to press her on this.  She knew he was right, but she couldn’t make herself go there.  Yet, she kept hearing him ask, “Nadia, wouldn’t God want this?” She finally gave-in shouting, “Fine!  But, I want it to be known that I am in opposition to God’s grace!”  His response was, “I am sure God is hurt!” (Accidental Saints – Finding God in All the Wrong People; by Nadia Bolz-Weber; Convergent Books; 2015)  And, there it was! She had almost forgotten the most important part of the message. God not only sent his Son into the violent and faithless world to live in it but also to save it! God comes into the world and shines a brilliant star for all people…the wise men and the ordinary people like you and me. But here is the extremely hard part, God also comes into the world for the Herods, the Adam Lanzas, the terrorists, even for our enemies!  For every single one of us, God comes to shine a light that no darkness will overcome. It is how we accept and share that light that matters. And as Christians (dog gone it!), we have to share and reflect that light.

          So, on that Sunday, Nadia read the names. As she came to the last one, she reached down into the very core of her being and with all her strength said, “And in obedience to God’s command to love the enemy and pray for those who persecute us” and then she uttered “Adam Lanza.” The final bell rang. (Accidental Saints – Finding God in All the Wrong People; by Nadia Bolz-Weber; Convergent Books; 2015; p. 74)

          God enters a world that is deeply broken and definitely not filled with peace but enters a world that is deeply loved by God, a world that God finds worthy of saving, and the love of Christ is revealed.  The wise men who journeyed to Bethlehem exposed God’s intention and desire to welcome all into the joy of God’s presence.  May we continue to be transformed and reflect the light of such inclusive love.

This is a special musical performance of The Magi Who to Bethlehem Did Go from the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan with a solo by Tammy Heilman.

This is a special musical performance of The Magi Who to Bethlehem Did Go from the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan with a solo by Tammy Heilman.

This is a special musical performance of Gesu Bambino, a Trombone Solo by Drew Kipela performed at the 10pm Christmas Eve service at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of Gesu Bambino, a Trombone Solo by Drew Kipela performed at the 10pm Christmas Eve service at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of He Shall Be Called performed by the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan during the 10pm Christmas Eve service at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of He Shall Be Called performed by the Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan during the 10pm Christmas Eve service at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical performance of Joy of All The Earth by the Chancel Choir at  Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan with a solo by Ryan Thompson at the 10pm Christmas Eve service.