Sermon: Now What?

Matthew 2:1-12

Now What?

James Sledge                                                                           January 6, 2013, Epiphany

Our family went down to see relatives in South Carolina after Christmas.  We’ve always done Christmas at our house, and then traveled to the grandparents.  But now it’s over.  We made the drive back on Tuesday.  There are still remnants of Christmas morn lying around at the house, but more and more are being put away.  The tree is getting pretty dry.  Time to haul it out. When we had an artificial tree, we sometimes left it up till late January.  But no one acted like it was still Christmas.  Christmas is over, and we all know it.  Now what?

Although many of us like to attach the Wise Men to the Christmas story, adding them to our nativity scenes, they are a post-Christmas story.  The shepherds are all gone.  The angels are all gone.  In fact, they never even made an appearance in Matthew’s gospel.  There is no stable or manger.  Mary and Jesus live in a house, and Jesus is no longer a newborn.  He crawls or perhaps even walks around the house, getting into things like any toddler does.

 In his gospel, Matthew doesn’t say very much about Jesus’ actual birth.  It is noted only briefly in the story of the angel telling Joseph to wed the already pregnant Mary. He took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. Jesus has been born and been named with a name meaning “he saves.”  God’s anointed is here.  Now what?

The story of the Wise Men is a “now what?” story, and so it may be a good thing that the story has gotten attached to Christmas.  As much as we may enjoy the Christmas season and as much as it may touch us, there is a tendency simply to bask in its warmth, to drink in its hope and promise without ever asking, “Now what?”  But the story of the Wise Men won’t allow that.  It alerts us to choices that must be made, to powers that do not want God’s new day.  It warns us of danger.

Not that we should be surprised.  Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus is born in the city of David, but no royalty, no elite, no powerful are invited to visit, only shepherds, widely regarded as crass, uneducated, unreligious ruffians. Today we might call them rednecks, laughing that they prefer Hank Williams Jr. to Bach, theater, or symphony. But they alone visit the manger.

In Matthew’s gospel, God invites other, unlikely guests, sages from the east. God alerts them via a star, but it must not have been anything like the stars on Christmas cards.  It couldn’t because only these foreigners seem to notice it.  Who knows exactly what it was.  Perhaps a faint comet or distant super nova which appeared as a star where none had been before.  Regardless, its appearance was such that only these pagan astrologers noticed it and somehow interpreted it as a divine sign of a newborn Jewish king.

Spurred by this heavenly sign, the sages investigate, making their way to Jerusalem, the capital.  No one in Jerusalem has noticed the star, but the sage’s report of it and their questions about a newborn king shakes up everyone.  That reaction has always struck me.  We think the birth of a Messiah is good news.  We celebrate and sing carols.  But all of Jerusalem is frightened, agitated, stirred up.  And Herod begins planning how to be rid of this Messiah.  Herod calls him “Messiah.”  The Wise Men asked for the child born king of the Jews, but no one will use that title for Jesus again until Pilate does when Jesus is on trial.

Jesus is born.  Now what?  In Matthew’s gospel foreigners, foreigners with questionable religious backgrounds, get a sign from God and come to worship.  Meanwhile, insiders, including those with impeccable religious credentials, are all upset.  And the power in town looks to preserve that power by whatever means necessary.

The story only gets worse, snuffing out any remaining oohs and aahs from Christmas.  Perhaps trying to maintain some of the happy atmosphere of Christmas, the appointed verses for today stop with the Wise Men avoiding Herod and returning home by another road.  But the story does not end there.  Herod flew into a rage and ordered all the male children in Bethlehem younger than two killed.  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph escape, but the carnage is horrible.  It was like the Sandy Hook shootings, only carried out by the government.

I’ll say this for Herod.  He realizes what is at stake.  The inhabitants of Jerusalem seem to realize it too.  They know that a Messiah, a king, means much more than carols and candlelight.  He threatens the status quo.  He is a danger to all those in power, religious and otherwise.  He is a danger to all those who are comfortable.  If he is king then Herod and everyone in Jerusalem are his subjects, called to obey him and do his will.  They must answer to him, and they must be judged by him.  For Herod, the “Now what?” of Christmas meant doing anything to prevent that.

And for us…?  Sometimes it seems hard for us to find the “now what?” of Christmas.  The end of Christmas is like the end of football season.  There’s not much to do except discuss the last one or wait for the next one.  But Matthew’s gospel insists that Christmas invades our reality, shaking things up and demanding hard choices.  Unexpected outsiders worship Jesus and offer him the finest gifts they have.  But others are threatened by the sound of this kingdom where the last are first, grudges must be abandoned, loving and serving God are more important than money or success, enemies must be prayed for, and everyone must share what they have with those in need. Many, many of us, want nothing of such a kingdom.

Yet despite all that opposes it, God’s will moves forward, and the “now what?” of Christmas emerges.  T. S. Eliot hints at this in his “Journey of the Magi,” where a sage says,

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.

The “now what?” of Christmas emerges from this unease with business as usual, from a  discomfort with a world that is threatened by the ways of King Jesus.

Christmas is over, and many of us have or will simply slide back into business as usual, into the ways of a broken world.  But others are ill at ease and can no longer live in quite the same manner. And out of this dis-ease, God’s will and the ways of Jesus’ kingdom are revealed in the faithful acts of individuals and congregations and communities.

Christmas is over.  Now what?