Journey's Weekly Homilies

Epiphany Sunday – January 4, 2004

Isaiah 60:1-6
Eph. 3:2-3a,5-6
Matt. 2:1-12

Homily by Tom Kinzie 

So, this familiar story once again, the story of the Magi or what we with the accretions of custom and tradition now know as the Three Wise Men.  In this age of “The Sopranos” we should probably call them the Three Wise Guys.  But as has often been said, wise people still follow the star that leads to the sacred. 

This comes as no surprise, but I am not always wise.  Still, it’s troubling to me that at my age I still do stupid things and with an alacrity and regularity that is ridiculous.  There is, however, some small evidence of progress.  I no longer believe that I personally hold the key to understanding correctly the intricacies and mysteries of the Christian faith.  Thus, the terrible burden of being the holder of the truth of our tradition has been lifted from my shoulders.  For this I, and I am sure all who have contact with me, are eternally grateful.  

I think there was a point right after seminary that I really believed that I understood the Christian faith in a deeper and more creative way than almost anyone else in the world.  I suspect that if Jesus himself had come along and engaged me in good Talmudic fashion over some question about who and what he was, I am sure I would have found even his arguments deficient. 

That sense of theological sureness is one of the reasons, no doubt, that I used to get so worked up when someone would come along and ask me whether Jesus was my personal Lord and Savior?”  I mean it used to really get my goat.  In those early days right after seminary I was leading a church youth group on a Sunday afternoon hike.  All of a sudden a bushy haired, wild eyed young man (we used to call them Jesus Freaks, if you remember) came up to me and asked if I had accepted Jesus as my personal Lord and savior.  I don’t know why, but it bugged me even more than usual and I’m afraid that I responded to his earnest question with the Bonzi Wells salute.  Well, that certainly stopped the Jesus Freak in his tracks, but I’m afraid that the youth group was also stunned and they let out a collective gasp of shock.  I guess the youth had never seen a pastor display such dexterity with his middle finger before.  But then I used to be angry about so many things. 

Recently, I heard something helpful from a Trappist monk on what it is about that question of taking Jesus as our Lord and savior or being asked if we are saved, that isn’t quite right.  It’s not the most interesting question, he said.  It’s not the right question.  It’s a static question.  It’s a head question.  Instead, the question we need to be asking ourselves is whether we are on the journey, what journey are we on, and where on the journey do we find ourselves?  It is the spiritual journey he was talking about, of course. 

The novelist Willa Cather once said that there are really only two or three stories in the world.  I believe we tell these stories to each other in one form or another over and over again.  One of those stories is about the Journey.  In this community this is the chief metaphor of how we understand ourselves.  This is how we name ourselves.  It’s true that we do not always understand where we are going or where we will end up.  But that isn’t the point.  The point is that we are traveling, that we are going somewhere and we are being led to someplace.  We are on a journey of faith.  The main thing is that we are traveling and how we travel is just as important, no, is even more important than our final destination.  

The story of the Magi is a story-symbol about the journey.  And it says some very interesting things about the journey we are on.  There is no way that I can touch all of the possible meanings of this symbol, but here are a couple I have thought about recently. 

First of all we can follow a star.  This is the meaning of epiphany.  A light comes to us, shines for us, and reveals some meaning or purpose that can give direction and hope to our lives.  I mean we are going to follow something.  Why not follow the path of love?  A hiker got lost and at first it was exciting.  But then the night came on, then the cold, and then hunger.  The next day the hiker stumbled out into a clearing and there was a house with a sign that read, “Good home cooked meals. Five dollars or less.”  The lost hiker was ecstatic and walked in the house, sat at a table and said, “I would like to see the menu.”  “Oh,” says a person in the house.  This isn't a restaurant.  We’re a sign-making business. 

We can follow the wrong sign.  So, why not look for a sign, an epiphany that will bring us to something interesting, something meaningful, something to fill our days?  As is often said, wise folk still follow the star.  But what star is it?  How will we look for it?  Will we recognize it if we see it?  Will we follow it if we do see it?  Thomas Merton once wrote that a “change of perspective is impossible as long as we are afraid of our own nothingness, as long as we are afraid of fear, afraid of poverty, afraid of boredom—as long as we run away from ourselves.  What we need is a gift of God which makes us able to find in ourselves not just ourselves but (God).”  What star will we see?  Will it be the bright star that enlightens our lives?  And if so, will we follow it? 

Secondly, when we follow this star, this inward journey that leads us to ourselves and to the divine presence that is within us and around us, when we follow that star, when we are on that journey, trouble happens.  When Herod hears what the maji are about he pretends to be interested.  But he (and all of Jerusalem) are troubled.  Herod pretends interest but it is only so that he can manipulate the inner journey.  The power structures want to co-opt our journey so there won’t be any trouble, so we won’t ask questions about the way the world has been organized. They want our journey to be a ratification of the way things are.  But when the power structures of the world are troubled by our sacred journey then there is trouble indeed.  I think this goes with the territory.   For when we are truest to this star of God, this revelation of God, which is a revelation of love, it will be like entering a dangerous territory.  We will see only too clearly that power cannot hide behind the thinly disguised plans to do away with the divine.  The power structure wants to kill the sacred.  The wise know this and like the Magi will find another way to go on with their journey.  Increasingly I am convinced this other way is a path of committed nonviolence.  It is a path that knows it will be up against the way the world too often operates -- a world in which power, prestige, and privilege are jealously guarded even to the point of murder and the killing of the innocents. 

Finally, the journey involves joy.  I love the King James Version here: 

When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.  When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. 

They rejoiced with exceeding great joy.  That’s a lot of joy.  The journey to the sacred is meant to bring us great joy.  That is not to say that it will be easy or that we will always be happy.  An older person was once asked their secret, how it was after all this person had gone through, that they were still in love with life?  The person replied that at a young age they had discovered that there were three basic words or phrases a person could use as they lived each day.  They could respond to the day by saying “damn it,” or they could respond with a shrug of the shoulders and an “oh well,” or they could simply say, “thank you.”  It was the “thank you” which guided this person’s life.  And it could guide our lives as well.  In our journey we could be guided into an ever-deeper sense that life is essentially a gift.  We could live our lives out of a sense of wonder and gratitude.  We could even offer the gift of our lives in a response of thanksgiving. 

So, we are on a journey and on this journey we can be led, if we are open to it, by the bright star of the presence of God.  This journey is an everyday journey and everyday this journey will lead us ever more deeply to ourselves, to the sacred in all of life, to a commitment that this sacred is to be honored by our choices and even our lives.  This journey is not a burden.  It is a great gift that will bring us much joy. 

And so I would only ask, “Is this the journey we are on?”