January 6, 2019: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
Today is Epiphany, which ends our Christmastide – our twelve days of Christmas. So, as I said in previous years, don’t let anyone give you a hard time about still having the tree up. Besides, they can be thankful you don’t celebrate Christmas until Candlemas on Feb. 2ndas some do!
Every year we tell the story of the Magi who travel from the East to bring gifts to the Christ child, and as it is good to repeat each time the origin of this story of the three wise guys.
Matthew, the only gospel account of the magi, never tells us how many there were, or even if they were all men. But since Matthew mentions three gifts, later Christian tradition came to identify three them, and in the late sixth century Armenian Infancy Gospel, the Magi are even given the names-Melkon or Melchior, Balthasar, and Gaspar. But just as we don’t really know the names of the people who wrote the gospels, we also don’t know the names of these folks, so call them whatever you want – Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, and Ron Weasly…or perhaps Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, Han Solo and the Wookie…it’s really up to you.
Whatever you name them, we know you can’t call them “on time.” As we hear today, Jesus was not a baby anymore, but a child, and living in a house. Apparently Waze was not available to these Eastern travelers. And I think there is something to them being men, not only because they didn’t bother to stop and ask for directions, but because you know women would have brought more practical gifts, you know – diapers, baby food, clothing.
Well, even if they were late, and brought really weird gifts to a young child, each year we like to tell the story of their visit…
Loud Knock Heard From The Back
Ceremonial Music Plays As King Approaches
King 1 presents Mother Diana with gift.
Mother Diana opens the box, inside is a pair ear buds, a sleep mask, and a scroll.
Mother Diana reads the scroll aloud –
“We were not really kings, but sages –interpreters of dreams and of the stars. Perhaps 
today some would call us astrologers, mathematicians, or even magicians. Yet it was our ability to dream, to see beyond what others see, that sparked us on our epic journey to follow the star to the Christ child.
How many of you are able to disconnect from the busy world –the constant barrage of noise –to dream? These ear plugs and the eye mask are sleep aids to allow a person in your time to enter into a dream state no matter where they are, or what time of day it may be. Dreaming is important, and it may even save your life, or that of another, for you see, when Herod tried to lead us into darkness, we took a different path because we were warned by God in a dream about Herod’s evil intentions.
The truth is –God is trying to speak to you, each one of you, perhaps in the night sky, perhaps in your dreams. Are you disconnecting to listen, to see, to dream?”
Mother Diana rolls up the scroll and says,
“…Thank you great sage! I LOVE taking naps, so these will come in handy. Now, as I was saying…”
Ceremonial Music Plays As King Approaches
King 2 presents Mother Diana with gift.
Mother Diana opens the box, inside is an organ pipe, and a scroll.
Mother Diana reads the scroll aloud –
“This was NOT easy to get our camel to haul through the desert, but it was worth it. Do you know what this is? It is a pipe from an organ. On its own, it doesn’t seem like much, does it. And we can tell you that it won’t really be what it is meant to be in isolation. But place it among other pipes, and let the wind blow through it, and it will sing the most glorious sounds. It will be what it was created to be!
We didn’t take this journey alone, but rode with one another as we went where the star led us –to the gift of the Christ child. Jesus too traveled with others, as we did.
The truth is –You are part of a larger whole. Are you connected to your community of faith, and breathing in the gift of the Spirit?”
Mother Diana rolls up the scroll and says,
“…thank you great sage for this totally awesome, and really heavy, gift!”
Ceremonial Music Plays As King Approaches
King 2 presents Mother Diana with gift.
Mother Diana opens the box, inside is a bird cage, and a scroll.
Mother Diana reads the scroll aloud –
This antique bird cage (well, antique to you –stunningly futuristic to us) is beautiful. Yet as lovely as it is, and as comfortable a bird may be within it, it is still a cage.
The freedom to follow the star that goes before each human life is precious. Yet it seems to be humanity’s cruelty that we build walls of division rather than bridges of inclusion. We create boundaries –real and imagined –that seek to exclude others. What we don’t realize is that in doing so, we imprison ourselves.
The truth is –God is calling you to follow a star too. What cages are keeping you and others from the journey?”
Mother Diana rolls up the scroll and continues the sermon…
A bird cage, an organ pipe, ear plugs and an eye mask…these Magi have given us something to really think about, haven’t they? I think I need a nap to consider it all…oh wait, maybe later.
The thing is, these all might be quirky gifts, but the magi did manage to come up with just what we need this year. Especially in this moment in our nation’s history, when talks of walls to block out the poor and suffering bombard us in the daily news, when there are LGBT people pushed to the margins, when women are beaten and enslaved, when people of color are denied basic human dignity, and when all of creation groans under the weight of our neglect and abuse – we know the reality of the bird cage.
We know how tempting it might be as well to settle in safely into the cages we have built around us, or to look at those in other cages we or others have built and think about the occupants that“at least they are safe, and they aren’t complaining.” Yet we know that these words, from the poet Maya Angelou’s poem, ring true:
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.[1]
So many are suffering in our midst, not only on a national or global scale, but perhaps some of you or those you love, know the feeling of the caged bird –imprisoned behind walls of fear, oppression, poverty, hate, depression, addiction, or loneliness. The heights of the walls can seem insurmountable, the number of them can seem overwhelming, the enormity of what humanity has, and is doing, weighing us down. We can feel unable to sing anything –not even a song of freedom – for the dreams we once had, or the ones we never have seen, have gotten too lost in the shuffle of life. That is where those ear plugs and sleep mask might just be the gift we all need.
It’s a funny thing, we are one of the most sleep deprived societies in the history of the world, right? There are sleep clinics to diagnose the problems, and all sorts of devices –medical and otherwise –to induce sleep. The thing is, we need the deep dream cycle sleep to rejuvenate –and to have that –we have to be still, let go, and unplug. In fact, studies are showing that the light from all our devices need to be removed from our sight a good hour at least before trying to sleep –it seeps into our consciousness just that much. Without realizing it –we have created the waking dead that we joke about pervading the movie and TV culture –and it is us!
And yetwe know dreamingis important –the prophetic voices of history came from those who dared to dream, the ones who were able to envision a new way of being in the world –the ones who heard God in dreams –the God that hopes to lure us toward Her dream of a world filled with love, joy, and peace for all creation.
One of the reasons I live up in Sussex County is that I love to be able to see the night sky –really see it –the millions of stars and the planets all lit so beautifully in the stillness of the dark. It is stunning in its simple beauty and peacefulness. I can’t get that here so close to all the pollution of the city lights. That’s why so many flock to secluded places to gaze up the stars –they need to be removed from the distractions –in sight and in sound –to take in what God offers to us, not only in the night sky, but in the brightness of day too. It is a reality that one of the ways we have imprisoned ourselves is by the chains we have forged that bind us to the noise around us –our phones, our TVs, our tablets/laptops/and game sets.
To dream we must disconnect. You are not meant to permanently block your senses, but you are meant to hear and to see in a different way by shutting out the noise of the world whenever you are able. Perhaps the first step to freedom is to disconnect enough from the noise of our lives to give life to the dreams God hopes for us –to envision what is possible, to imagine what might be. For it is in letting go of what distracts us that we will begin to pay attention to what is around us. Like the way our hearing becomes more acute when we place a blindfold over our eyes and listen in a new way, we will become deeply connected to the vibration of God’s universe all around us, and in us too, when we shut out the clutter of our lives for a moment. And when that happens, we will break free from the ordinary to become the extraordinary people we can be. We will also be rested for the work we are called to do –the work of Christ, which brings us to that enormous organ pipe.
The magi saw the star, and followed it to find the Christ Child. They took this journey together. Organ pipes are meant to be one of many, working together, to be what each was created to be. We too cannot fully be the beautiful creations of God we were meant to be in total isolation. But bring us into community –into a fellowship of ministry –we have the potential to live into all God hopes for us, because God is love, and love is rooted in relationship. God wanted to be in relationship with us –enough to become flesh and dwell among us –just that we might know how deeply we are loved and enter more fully into that relationship. Jesus too gathered friends around him to share in his ministry, because relationship is that important to God.
And we must remember too that, even if that pipe organ is placed among the ranks of all the other pipes, it still needs wind to be what it was meant to be. We also then must allow the breath of God, the wind of the Holy Spirit, to enter into us. When we do, the music we will sing will bring love to a world in need.
The gift of the Magi is the gift of Epiphany –the awakening to the Christ that is revealed to us in so many ways each and every day. God came to us, that we might know the power of love, the importance of relationship with God, with one another, with ourselves, because God knew that somehow we had gotten lost, disconnected, unable to dream, encaged in the noise, encaging others, and we were drowning out in our hearts the song of the universe –the dream of God for us and for all creation.
So, let us break free from the noise and open our hearts to the dream God has for us.
Let us come together here to be nourished in relationship with one another and in Christ to be the people we were born to be, singing a harmonious song of freedom & joy.
And let us be filled with the breath of God, and follow the star God sends to us – that we may find the Jesus who is imprisoned or sick and visit him, who is naked and clothe him, who is hungry and feed him, who is thirty and give him something to drink, who is a stranger and welcome him.
For that is why this gift was given, the greatest gift of all – the gift of God’s unconditional love – given to each of us. May we receive it fully, and give it freely.
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
[1]Maya Angelou, “Caged Bird” from Shaker, Why Don’t You Sing? Copyright © 1983 by Maya Angelou.
Based upon a concept by the Rev. Phillip Dana Wilson –Used with permission
Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
January 6, 2019
The Feast Of The Epiphany
1stReading – Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-7,10-14
2ndReading – Ephesians 3:1-12
Gospel – Matthew 2:1-12
