Openness to Those Wise for the Light of Christ

2 Christmas C January 2, 2022

Jeremiah 31:7-14 Ps

Eph. 1:3-6,15-19a Matthew 2:1-12

Lectionary Link

The use of language is for communication purposes. So, events of communication have purposes. Like this sermon today. Besides being in my contract as a requirement of my employment and justifying my large salary, the purpose of this language event for me would include the attempt to provide some insights on the appointed readings from the Bible, but to try to finish with a charge about what it means for you and me to live the Gospel after we leave the liturgy. In this sermon a language event, I am trying to persuade you about certain values, but not just blindly; I am also trying to show corresponding persuasive techniques with what the Gospel writer and preacher was trying to do.  For a language event to be effective, a speaker needs to understand the audience and what might be relevant to their cultural symbols.  An audience might include people with diverse backgrounds and so the speaker may have to make multiple appeals.

 

Today, we've read the story of the Magi as it was presented in the Gospel of Matthew.  What was the Matthew preacher trying to do with this parable of the magi?  The preacher was appealing to an audience.  From the rest of the Gospel of Matthew, we know that the audience included many Jews who had come to follow Jesus as the fulfillment of the prophetic expectations presented in the Hebrew Scriptures.   Matthew, the preacher made an effort to present the life of Jesus in direct parallel to the events in the life of Moses, and show how Jesus surpasses Moses in being the new direction that God is leading people in.

 

And even though there is a dominant Jewish readership for Matthew, the writer of Matthew also knew that the message of Jesus Christ had come to significant success among the Gentiles.  How does one present the mission to the Gentiles as being crucial from the beginning of the life of Jesus?

 

For this we have the parable of the magi.  They are wisemen and foreigners.  What is the writer of Matthew presenting?  Matthew is showing that the Gospel of Jesus was meant to fulfill the universal appeal of the God of the Jews to entire world.  The Jews had been so oppressed by Gentile overlords for so many years, it was hard to think that the message about the love of God was for the Gentile too.

 

Just like St. Paul tried to show how the message of God was for the Gentiles, the Gospel of Matthew was showing how a Christ-centered Judaism was meant for the entire world, even for the diverse peoples of the Roman empire.

 

What did a foreign person need to find the significance of Jesus in a presentation of God?  Any foreigner, any Gentile, needs wisdom, needed to be wise to follow the natural signs of nature, the guiding stars to come to see the significance of Jesus to the world.

 

The magi parable highlights that natural wisdom can lead anyone, including a foreigner to the significance of Jesus Christ.  The way in which the magi morphed into kings, is because of the impressive gifts, and because of Hebrew Scriptures where it is written that kings would come to an event of light.  In Isaiah 60, it is written, "Nations will come to your light, kings will come to the brightness of your dawn."  Who did Matthew believe to be the light?  Jesus Christ.

 

Can we appreciate how the writer of Matthew writing four decades after Jesus, believed that a Christ-centered Judaism was how Judaism can become a universal religion appealing to the entire world and fulfill the universal intent of God, whose Temple according to the prophet, was to be a house of prayer for all people.

 

Matthew was trying to show how God's house, God’s realm,  belonged to everyone, including foreigners, who were prefigured in the story of the magi.

 

So, what does this mean for us today, for Episcopalians, who may be often God's frozen chosen?  Matthew was writing for Jews but telling them through the story of the magi that Jesus Christ was relevant to the Gentiles who through wisdom could come to know him.

 

Even though we are Episcopalian, we should not be only Episcopalians in the largesse of our open hearts to how God makes a loving appeal to many, many people in our world.

 

While we might appreciate our liturgy and pieties of our particular tradition, let us be open to the appeals of a loving God to all people.  People who practice love and justice have the correct wisdom and we can affirm this kind of wisdom wherever we find it.

 

We are asking for God's blessing on our La Misa in English this year as a way for us to see the universal appeal of the love of Christ beyond our normal practice of liturgy.

 

Let us be willing for the magi beyond our own preferences to arrive at Christ as the light of the world who shows us the way to the love and justice of God.  Amen.