January 4, 2009

Matthew 2:1-12

“Worldly Wisdom & Street Smarts”

Hear this sermon in MP3 format by clicking HERE!
 

How do you get from here to there? How does one proceed from point A to point B safely, quickly, smoothly, and perhaps with just a tiny bit of scenic beauty along the way? How can we make it on this journey to witness God incarnate without getting waylaid by the principalities and powers?

How to achieve your dreams, goals, hopes, resolutions… Here in the New Year, it is important to think carefully about the goals we set, at whatever time of the year, and how to best get from here to there without getting lost, giving up, getting distracted, getting hijacked, or losing momentum. It’s fair to ask the question: How we gonna get there?

That’s the question the magi asked themselves, and the stars, repeatedly. You know by now that the traditions we’ve come to hold dear in our Christmas festivities are mostly of our own making, and are not in scripture. Only three gifts were mentioned, there may have been others. The travelers were called “magi” which is closer to “astrologers” than it would be to “kings.” And the only reason we say there are three is because of the three gifts mentioned. Certainly we don’t know their names nor do we know their racial identities. Most likely they were Persians, from the area we now know as Iran. We don’t even know for sure if they were wise men… or wise women!

But we do know they asked themselves this question: “How shall we get from here to there?” Being masters of the science we now call astronomy and specialists in the dramatic superstition of astrology they traveled many miles, probably over many months, perhaps years, to arrive to see the child whom the ancient texts and the patterns of the heavens foretold. How did they get from their faraway lands of the east to the home of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in Bethlehem?

Well, they had at their employ the very same tools we have as we seek the goals, dreams, hopes, and even resolutions of our years and of our lives.
1. Education
2. Trusted Friends & Shrewd Truth Tellers
3. Wisdom & Instinct
4. Divine Guidance

First we must have the foundation of a good education. Now, it is true that the content of the education of the magi and others of their day pales to those of modern science, but they clearly had access to, and used, the very best scholarship available to them to plan for their journey and stay the course. We can never underestimate the fundamental importance of an education, for it allows us to glean the wisdom of all those who have gone before us. We do not have to recreate the wheel if we learn how others did it. We can turn to the new truths of the day that God has in store for us to learn and pass on to those who come after us.

People often ask me if I open my college or seminary books up to get information, or my class notes that I still have, and I say yes, on rare occasion. But what people fail to ask me is how often I know that I use the wisdom I learned from school – and from the ongoing continuing education I push myself to get every year of my life. If they did, I would tell them I use that education daily, if not hourly, and I thank God that I had the resources to get an education. It has made a world of difference in who I am and who I can become.

Second, we must be willing to gather around us trusted friends and shrewd truth tellers who will build on the education we have and make it personal for us. We need people who know about us and care about us to help us reach for our goals and follow our stars in such a way that is right for us and for nobody else. We also need those cunning and honest folks who will tell us the truth no matter how harsh it feels.

Even the great royalty of medieval Europe had jesters whose job it was not to entertain the kings and queens, but to point out their faults and foibles so that they could learn and either correct them or accommodate for them. The magi could easily tell that King Herod was not a trusted friend.

Third, we must learn to trust the wisdom and instinct with which God has graced us. Far too often we skip to this step, and blame the Holy Spirit for giving us “instinct” without doing the hard work of educating ourselves and gathering around us and listening to trusted friends and shrewd truth tellers. But when we do prepare ourselves well, then we must learn to trust our gut, follow our instinct. It is one of the most dramatic stories of all of scripture that led the magi to leave “for their own country by another road” because they knew in their hearts and in their heads that Herod’s schemes were terrible and death-dealing.

The first year I was in Cleveland I went to an HIV/AIDS education event for clergypersons. A young, gay, African American, educator from the AIDS Taskforce was talking about this inner wisdom and instinct. He described a former drug-dealer who was a client who kept belittling his own lack of education. The HIV/AIDS educator looked at him directly and said, “Do you understand how smart you really are? You used sociology when you tried to find and get customers. You used mathematics when you divided up the drugs equally and business mathematics in figuring out how much you had to sell it to make a profit. You used marketing to spread the word about your business. There are so many skills you learned and used selling drugs. Now we just have to get you to use them for something that brings life and not death!

Fourth, we must listen to the divine voice speaking to us as to what we should do. Now, let me be very clear: I believe with all my heart, soul, strength and mind that if we are people of good will, all the above will be avenues in which God talks to us: the education of books and teachers; the wisdom of trusted and honest individuals in our lives; and the inner voice of our hearts and guts.

Nonetheless, there are times when God gets straight to the point with us, and usually it is in prayer. God will speak to us clearly if we but open ourselves up to God. As the boy Samuel said, “Here I am Lord! Speak, for your servant is listening.” And we must listen. Far too much of our prayer life is spent chatting up God, and no matter how powerful the Creator of the Universe is, no one wants to speak wisdom when they can’t even get a word in edgewise! If you’ve been following Sally Forth in the comics recently, you saw that happen in yesterday’s paper when Ted nervously demanded to know what Sally was trying to communicate by her silence. She said simply, “You’ve been talking non-stop the last ten minutes, that’s why I’m silent!”

Just like the magi of old, we all have very important journeys to travel to find the Christ child in our lives. We will wander a bit. We will get sidetracked. We will meet up with evil people, and with good people, and oftentimes we won’t be sure which is which. But there are several things those magi relied upon to get them to their destination that we, too, can rely upon:
1. A good quality Education (dare I say “Lifelong Learning?!”)
2. Trusted Friends & Shrewd Truth Tellers (we need ‘em both!)
3. Wisdom & Instinct (do the work, then trust the gut)
4. Divine Guidance (prayer, which is mostly to say “shut up and listen!”)

We know the journey is never going to be as we originally planned. Either we choose to take the “road less travelled,” as eminent poet Robert Frost would say, or we get diverted by a multitude of interruptions. I just love the phrase from the Indigo Girls’ song “Wathershed,” which expresses how to deal with life’s little diversions this way:

“You'll never fly as the crow flies, get used to a country mile.
When you're learning to face the path at your pace
Every choice is worth your while.”(1)

So… knowing we will wander interesting but less charted paths, and life’s little interruptions will sidetrack us now and then, nonetheless, how will we get from point A to point B in life? Let’s learn from the magi and through education, friends, instinct, and prayer we will confidently follow God’s star!

Amen.


(1) Indigo Girls (Amy Ray and Emily Saliers), “Watershed” from “Retrospective” written by Emily Ann Saliers
 

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2009 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096