Samuel T. Lloyd, III - "Who Were These Magi?" (January 6, 2002)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | The Epiphany gospel is from Matthew's second chapter, | 0:07 |
the story of the visit of the Magi. | 0:11 | |
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born | 0:17 | |
in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men came from the east, | 0:20 | |
to Jerusalem, asking, "Where is the child, | 0:25 | |
"who's been born king of the Jews? | 0:29 | |
"For, we observed his star, in its rising, | 0:32 | |
"and we have come to pay him homage." | 0:35 | |
When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, | 0:39 | |
and all Jerusalem, with him, | 0:42 | |
and calling together all the chief priests and scribes | 0:44 | |
of the people, Herod inquired of them | 0:48 | |
where the Messiah was to be born. | 0:50 | |
They told him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, | 0:53 | |
"for so it has been written by the prophet, | 0:57 | |
"and you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, | 1:00 | |
"are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, | 1:03 | |
"for from you shall come a ruler, | 1:07 | |
"who will shepherd my people Israel." | 1:09 | |
Then, Herod secretly called for the wise men, | 1:13 | |
and learned from them the exact time | 1:17 | |
when the star had appeared, | 1:18 | |
and then he sent to Bethlehem, saying, | 1:21 | |
"Go, and search diligently for the child, | 1:24 | |
"and when you have found him, bring him, | 1:28 | |
"bring me word, so that I might go and pay my homage". | 1:31 | |
And when they'd heard the king, they set out, | 1:37 | |
and there, ahead of them, went the star | 1:40 | |
that they had seen at its rising, | 1:42 | |
until it stopped over the place where the child was. | 1:44 | |
When they saw that the star had stopped, | 1:49 | |
they were overwhelmed with joy. | 1:53 | |
On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, | 1:55 | |
his mother, and they knelt down, | 1:59 | |
and they paid him homage, and then opening | 2:02 | |
their treasure chest, they offered him gifts of gold, | 2:05 | |
frankincense, and myrrh, | 2:09 | |
and having been warned in a dream not to return | 2:12 | |
to Herod, they left for their own country, by another road. | 2:16 | |
This is the word of the Lord. | 2:22 | |
Let us pray. | 2:35 | |
Come, holy spirit, and kindle in us the fire of your love. | 2:39 | |
Take our minds and think through them, | 2:45 | |
take our lips and speak through them, | 2:48 | |
take our souls and set them on fire, amen. | 2:50 | |
I'm not leaving, I'm just adjusting | 3:03 | |
the stool, down there. | 3:05 | |
I'd like to, first of all, join your dean | 3:08 | |
in congratulating all of you for being here, | 3:11 | |
on this horrendous day. | 3:13 | |
You're obviously already among the sanctified, | 3:15 | |
and so you don't need a sermon from me, | 3:20 | |
but don't get your hopes up. | 3:23 | |
You're the kind, I'm sure, who like long, elegant, | 3:26 | |
thoughtful sermons, so, settle in. | 3:30 | |
I also have to say, I feel a little | 3:35 | |
betrayed here, this morning. | 3:37 | |
I've been so looking forward to coming down from Boston | 3:40 | |
to North Carolina in January. | 3:43 | |
Boston, you know, gets pretty chilly and snowy, | 3:46 | |
and miserable this time of the year. | 3:49 | |
I thought, "Balmy Durham." | 3:51 | |
January sounded just right, | 3:54 | |
but I found myself, yesterday, | 3:58 | |
packing my snow boots that are still put away | 3:59 | |
from last winter so that I could come down here, | 4:01 | |
and be with you all. | 4:04 | |
I don't like the deal very much. | 4:06 | |
And I have to say before I begin, | 4:12 | |
how much I have enjoyed knowing | 4:13 | |
and admiring Dean Willman through the years. | 4:16 | |
I've been using his insights shamelessly, | 4:20 | |
the insights that have come from his thirty books, | 4:24 | |
or is it forty? | 4:27 | |
Or is it fifty, by now? | 4:29 | |
It's a real joy to be in this chapel, | 4:33 | |
and to be with Dean Willman. | 4:35 | |
I wonder what brought you here on a day like this. | 4:39 | |
If some of you are students, you're back awfully early, | 4:44 | |
but I'm aware that if you are here today, | 4:49 | |
the exams are over, and the papers are in. | 4:51 | |
So, you may not be feeling the need | 4:56 | |
for prayer quite yet, again. | 4:58 | |
I remember some years, calling a parishioner | 5:02 | |
in the hospital, on the phone, | 5:04 | |
and offering to come by for a visit, | 5:06 | |
and the parishioner responded, | 5:07 | |
"No thank you, Rector, it's not time for prayer yet". | 5:10 | |
Well, presumably, it's not time for prayer yet, | 5:15 | |
but I see at least a few faces of students here. | 5:18 | |
My guess is that some of you come here | 5:24 | |
because you're seekers, you're here because you sense | 5:26 | |
that there is something deeper going on in your life | 5:31 | |
than can be accounted for by reading the newspaper, | 5:34 | |
or going to class, or simply going about | 5:37 | |
your daily routines. | 5:40 | |
You may be facing a big decision, | 5:43 | |
or going through a tough patch, | 5:46 | |
or you're just wondering if Christian faith really | 5:48 | |
can be credible these days. | 5:50 | |
My own church in Boston would be pretty empty | 5:54 | |
if on one Sunday, all the seekers decided to stay away. | 5:58 | |
They tend to hang around the back of the church. | 6:03 | |
Of course, so do Episcopalians, | 6:07 | |
so it gets pretty tight in the back | 6:10 | |
of the church, most Sundays. | 6:12 | |
They seem to like to hide behind the pillars | 6:14 | |
or up in the balconies. | 6:17 | |
Or maybe you're here just because that's what you do. | 6:20 | |
You're hopeful, expectant that yet again, this Sunday, | 6:24 | |
you'll find some glimpse of the mystery of life, | 6:29 | |
that even the New York Times can't provide, | 6:33 | |
that you'll find strength and encouragement | 6:36 | |
for living another week. | 6:39 | |
Well, if you came here, seeking something, | 6:43 | |
even if you have a hard time saying | 6:47 | |
what it is that you're seeking, | 6:49 | |
this is your day. | 6:51 | |
This is the feast of the Epiphany | 6:54 | |
that lasted the twelve days of Christmas, | 6:56 | |
the day when the wise men from the east | 6:59 | |
finally arrived at the manger. | 7:02 | |
Of course, most people have thrown away | 7:06 | |
their Christmas trees by now. | 7:07 | |
They've exchanged the ties and scarves they didn't want. | 7:10 | |
Our culture's moved on from Christmas, | 7:13 | |
but the Church says "hold on, | 7:17 | |
"wait a little, take a look at these wise men from the east, | 7:20 | |
"because they can help you to live | 7:26 | |
"the mystery of Christmas all year long". | 7:29 | |
So, who were these wise men anyway? | 7:34 | |
Well, like so much of the Christmas story, | 7:39 | |
we listen to it not for history, but for truth. | 7:41 | |
Not to parse the details of Jesus's beginnings, | 7:46 | |
but to understand more of who he was, | 7:49 | |
and, in fact, this story of the Magi continued | 7:53 | |
to expand and grow as a story long after | 7:55 | |
Matthew was finished with it. | 7:58 | |
Where did we get the notion for example | 8:01 | |
that there were three wise men? | 8:03 | |
There's no mention of three in the text | 8:06 | |
Dean Willman read, at all. | 8:08 | |
It seems to come from the fact that there were | 8:11 | |
those three gifts gold, frankincense, and myrrh, | 8:12 | |
and nothing says they were kings, | 8:16 | |
no matter how many times we sing, | 8:19 | |
"We Three Kings of Orient Are", | 8:21 | |
that seems to come from the Psalm appointed for today, | 8:24 | |
and from the book of Isaiah, | 8:27 | |
reading, we heard about kings bringing gifts. | 8:28 | |
And you know those names for the kings, | 8:32 | |
Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, | 8:34 | |
well, that doesn't turn up 'til the 6th century, | 8:37 | |
and these travelers weren't even necessarily wise. | 8:40 | |
Magi is the Greek word for magic. | 8:45 | |
Our best guess is that the Magi were Persian Astrologers, | 8:49 | |
Wizards, Spiritual Technicians, we could call them. | 8:54 | |
Their role was to help people in getting a grip | 8:59 | |
on the powers pressing in on them in their lives, | 9:03 | |
through horoscopes and divinizing, | 9:06 | |
and oracles, and wizardry. | 9:08 | |
So much of human religion, after all, | 9:11 | |
seems to function as an attempt to control | 9:14 | |
the powers pressing in on us from outside. | 9:17 | |
It was the job of the Magi to use their bag of tricks, | 9:21 | |
to help people manage what was happening. | 9:25 | |
Well, if the wise men weren't necessarily wise, | 9:29 | |
and they weren't kings, and there weren't necessarily three, | 9:33 | |
then who were they? | 9:38 | |
Well, for one thing, | 9:40 | |
they were foreigners, outsiders, Gentiles. | 9:42 | |
Matthew put at the center of the story of Christ's birth, | 9:47 | |
this tale of travelers from Persia, | 9:51 | |
which would be known today as Iran. | 9:55 | |
The Magi, we might say, were Iranians, or maybe Iraqis, | 9:59 | |
or maybe the people of Afghanistan. | 10:05 | |
It's a sobering thought that among the first | 10:09 | |
who worshiped Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, | 10:11 | |
were the ancestors of those who we in the United States, | 10:16 | |
so often seen now as our enemies. | 10:20 | |
It's pretty striking isn't it, that Matthew, | 10:25 | |
the most Jewish of the gospel writers, | 10:27 | |
has these outsiders, these undocumented aliens, | 10:29 | |
we might call them, being among the first | 10:33 | |
to come and gather and see God incarnate? | 10:36 | |
Matthew wants us to see this baby, | 10:40 | |
this Messiah, is for the whole world. | 10:43 | |
Turn the story just a little, though, | 10:49 | |
and we can see Matthew saying something else. | 10:52 | |
He seemed to see the Magi as representatives | 10:56 | |
of the very best of the Pagan world. | 11:00 | |
These travelers from their tome and tradition | 11:04 | |
have no scripture, no salvation history, | 11:07 | |
no covenant, no special revelation, | 11:09 | |
but they've undertaken quite a journey | 11:12 | |
to find God, and find what life's all about, | 11:15 | |
and so theirs is also, in many ways, | 11:20 | |
the story of so many of us. | 11:23 | |
Savvy, secular, sophisticated, urban, | 11:26 | |
university types, trying our different philosophies | 11:31 | |
and ideologies, reading our novels, hoping science | 11:35 | |
can prolong our life a little bit more, | 11:38 | |
somewhere in that, we hope we can find what it's all about. | 11:40 | |
Evelyn Waugh wrote an historical novel about | 11:46 | |
Helena, the mother of Constantine, | 11:50 | |
in which she speaks to the wise men, and says this, | 11:54 | |
"You are my special patrons, and patrons of all | 12:00 | |
"late-comers to Christ, | 12:04 | |
"of all who have had a tedious | 12:07 | |
"journey to make it to the truth, | 12:09 | |
"of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, | 12:12 | |
"of all who, through politeness, | 12:17 | |
"make themselves partners in guilt, | 12:19 | |
"of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents, | 12:22 | |
"for his sake who did not reject your gifts, | 12:27 | |
"pray always for the learned, the oblique, the delicate, | 12:31 | |
"let them not be quite forgotten at the throne of God | 12:37 | |
"when the simple come into their kingdom". | 12:41 | |
In other words, these wise men are our companions, | 12:46 | |
our next door neighbors, | 12:52 | |
us, in this savvy, postmodern, secular world, | 12:55 | |
living somewhere between Christian faith, | 13:00 | |
and the culture that engulfs us. | 13:02 | |
All the worldly wisdom of postmodern theory, | 13:05 | |
all the pile of New Yorker magazines, | 13:08 | |
all the latest gadgets, churned out | 13:11 | |
to keep the economy rolling. | 13:13 | |
All that doesn't finally tell us anything | 13:15 | |
about why we're here, | 13:19 | |
alive, walking the earth, | 13:22 | |
for a handful of years. | 13:26 | |
And so, they go to Bethlehem, | 13:31 | |
and they kneel, | 13:36 | |
and pay homage to a child in a manger. | 13:38 | |
They bring out the gifts they've brought. | 13:43 | |
Remnants, one scholar has suggested, | 13:46 | |
of their old sorcerer's tricks, the gold, | 13:48 | |
and frankincense, and myrrh, | 13:50 | |
and then, the story falls strangely silent. | 13:53 | |
We don't know exactly what happened. | 14:00 | |
All that the seekers saw was an infant | 14:06 | |
being held by a mother. | 14:10 | |
What kind of truth was this? | 14:13 | |
A human child, in whom, somehow, | 14:15 | |
God was coming to be present. | 14:19 | |
Here's where the romanticism of Christmas misses the point. | 14:21 | |
You may remember the Christmas carol, | 14:25 | |
the cattle are lulling, the baby awakes, | 14:28 | |
but little Lord Jesus, no crying, he makes? | 14:31 | |
Well, any parent who's ever sung that | 14:35 | |
must be overcome with envy. | 14:38 | |
Here we have a baby in a cold stable, | 14:40 | |
who doesn't cry when surrounded by a herd of hungry cows? | 14:43 | |
Babies may be vulnerable and dependent, | 14:48 | |
but they aren't silent. | 14:52 | |
They change the lives of those | 14:54 | |
into whose lives they come. | 14:56 | |
They ruin their parents' sleeping patterns, | 14:59 | |
they demand to be cared for and nurtured, | 15:01 | |
they require constant attention, they need to be loved, | 15:04 | |
and taught, and entertained. | 15:06 | |
Somebody's gotta change the diapers, | 15:08 | |
and so we meet the love behind the universe in this: | 15:11 | |
a child who is fragile and vulnerable, | 15:16 | |
but also demanding and calling out the best in us, | 15:20 | |
and is clearly not in our power to control. | 15:24 | |
There's a haunting poem by William Butler Yeats | 15:28 | |
where he describes the Christ child as | 15:31 | |
"The uncontrollable mystery | 15:33 | |
"on the bestial floor". | 15:37 | |
God's coming into our world, into our lives, | 15:40 | |
can't be managed, the way the Magi | 15:43 | |
wanted to manage things for their people, | 15:45 | |
can't be shaped, or made into what we want. | 15:48 | |
Saint Ignatius of Antioch, 30 years after Matthew wrote, | 15:52 | |
said that the Magi's star was the sign | 15:56 | |
that the coming of Christ had ended all magic, | 15:59 | |
all efforts to control God, to have God perform | 16:04 | |
on our terms, to endorse our lives, our way of life. | 16:08 | |
A new kind of love that threatens our life patterns | 16:14 | |
had come into the world. | 16:19 | |
What the Magi confronted in the stable was an invitation | 16:22 | |
to let go of the careful ways of managing God, and life, | 16:27 | |
and wisdom, and to let this new birth of a God of love | 16:31 | |
lead them to new places. | 16:38 | |
The Magi saw the creator of the universe, | 16:43 | |
now sunk to a manger, and of course before the life | 16:46 | |
of that child was finished, | 16:50 | |
it would be sunk again to a cross, | 16:52 | |
bearing the suffering of all the world's victims. | 16:56 | |
There, in the manger, | 17:02 | |
the Magi saw in front of them | 17:04 | |
incarnate love. | 17:08 | |
The end of their searching. | 17:11 | |
A God who would hold them, and love them, and go with them, | 17:14 | |
but would not be controlled by them, | 17:17 | |
and would live their lives with them, | 17:21 | |
from that point on. | 17:25 | |
Well, for the Magi, and for us, of course, | 17:29 | |
this birth was not an end, but a beginning. | 17:34 | |
It was a sign that God is alive in the world, | 17:39 | |
and continues to work. | 17:42 | |
The Christ child I saw that night in Bethlehem | 17:44 | |
is born again, and again, as you and I live | 17:47 | |
Christlike lives, of compassion, | 17:52 | |
and generosity, and forgiveness. | 17:54 | |
The last report we hear of the Magi from Matthew | 17:57 | |
is that having been warned to avoid Herod, | 18:01 | |
they go home by another way. | 18:05 | |
Their life has taken a different route. | 18:10 | |
It's no longer the way they had expected. | 18:13 | |
Home by another way. | 18:18 | |
What would that mean for you? | 18:23 | |
What would a New Year's Resolution? | 18:27 | |
Here we are at the top of the year. | 18:29 | |
What would it look like, one that had a touch | 18:31 | |
of the Christ child about it? | 18:34 | |
A new start on a prayer life? | 18:38 | |
A new beginning, studying scripture? | 18:40 | |
A commitment to put at least some piece | 18:43 | |
of our lives, our time, and resources | 18:46 | |
in the service of Christ's own? | 18:50 | |
The hungry, or the desperate. | 18:52 | |
It might be a decision to go back to work | 18:56 | |
on some tough things happening at home, | 18:58 | |
or among our friends and family. | 19:01 | |
You see, Christ will continue to be born in us, | 19:06 | |
when hungry people are fed, when naked people are clothed, | 19:12 | |
and homeless people are sheltered. | 19:16 | |
Christ will be born in this coming year, | 19:18 | |
as we channel the energy from last fall's terrorist attacks | 19:22 | |
into building a stronger international community, | 19:27 | |
and working to relieve the misery of the Afghani people, | 19:31 | |
and others around the globe. | 19:35 | |
Christ will be born when, | 19:38 | |
in the painful conflict happening between Israel | 19:39 | |
and Palestine, leaders take risks for just to see peace. | 19:42 | |
Christ will be born in quiet, almost invisible ways, | 19:47 | |
as individual wounds are healed, | 19:53 | |
and lonely people are embraced, | 19:55 | |
and the grieving are comforted. | 19:58 | |
Christ will be born when children | 20:02 | |
across the world are given what they need. | 20:06 | |
Food, health care, | 20:11 | |
education, love. | 20:14 | |
Christ will be born, when, when? | 20:21 | |
I was put in mind of a story I heard | 20:27 | |
on national public radio several years ago, | 20:30 | |
during the crisis in Bosnia. | 20:32 | |
Here as we think so much about what's happening | 20:35 | |
in the Middle East, across the globe. | 20:37 | |
It took place when an NPR reporter | 20:40 | |
was covering events in Sarajevo, | 20:43 | |
and he happened to see a little girl, | 20:46 | |
shot by a sniper. | 20:48 | |
The reporter threw down his pad and pencil, | 20:50 | |
and for a few minutes, stopped being a reporter. | 20:53 | |
He rushed up to the man holding the child, | 20:55 | |
and got them into his car, and sped off | 20:57 | |
to get the child to the hospital. | 20:59 | |
Well, as the reporter was racing as fast as he could, | 21:02 | |
the man holding the bleeding child said, | 21:05 | |
"Hurry, my friend, my child is still alive", | 21:08 | |
and a few moments later, as they sped on, | 21:12 | |
"Hurry, my friend, my child is still breathing", | 21:14 | |
and they sped on faster and faster, | 21:17 | |
"Hurry, my friend, my child is still warm", | 21:20 | |
but then he said, "Hurry, oh my god, | 21:25 | |
"my child is getting cold", | 21:29 | |
and when they got to the hospital, | 21:33 | |
the little girl had died. | 21:35 | |
Well, the two men were washing up in the lavatory, | 21:38 | |
getting the blood off them afterwards, | 21:40 | |
and the man turned to the reporter and said, | 21:42 | |
"This is a terrible task for me, I have to go | 21:44 | |
"and tell her father that his child had died, | 21:48 | |
"he'll be heartbroken". | 21:51 | |
Well, the reporter was confused. | 21:54 | |
He looked at the grieving man and said, | 21:56 | |
"I thought that was your child", | 21:58 | |
and the man looked back at him and said, | 22:01 | |
"No, but aren't they all our children?". | 22:03 | |
Aren't they all our children as we watch | 22:11 | |
what's happening across the world? | 22:14 | |
Aren't they ours, in Afghanistan, and Iraq, | 22:16 | |
on the streets of Boston, and Los Angeles, and Durham? | 22:19 | |
They are little Christs. | 22:22 | |
And so, my fellow Magi, | 22:29 | |
my fellow seekers after wisdom, | 22:34 | |
we who have peered into the manger this year, | 22:39 | |
what's next? | 22:45 | |
This marks a new journey, | 22:48 | |
here at the top of this year, | 22:51 | |
and so let us follow this Christ, | 22:55 | |
and serve the birthing of this Christ, | 23:00 | |
and be faithful to that love born in a manger, | 23:05 | |
and in doing that, we will find the wisdom, | 23:10 | |
and truth, and peace we seek. | 23:17 | |
Blessed traveling, for all of you this year. | 23:24 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund