The Changing Face of Happiness

Jesus says, “Happy are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” You know that’s another way to translate the Beatitudes. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit can also be ‘happy are the poor in spirit.’ But what is happiness?

I know a place full of happy people. “Animal Crossing.” It was a big hit in my house for awhile. In this video game you are a little guy or girl wandering about a town populated by animals who live in stylish little cabins and who seem to have an endless supply of errands that need to be run. There is a post office where you can mail notes to your new friends or other players. There is a stream where you can fish, a museum where you can take treasures you’ve found, and a train station where you can ride the rails to the next town, which looks just like the one you left.

The major task of your life in Animal Crossing, however, is to collect things and decorate your own stylish little cabin (which can quickly grow to a substantial house if you’re good at the game). To do this you earn bells, which are the currency of the land, and take them to Tom Nook’s store to buy things like carpet and wall coverings and furniture and knick-knacks. In Tom Nook’s store you can even buy the “executive’s toy,” that thing which consists of five steel balls suspended from strings and when you take one and bang it into the end of the others physics takes hold and merriment ensues.

There is something empty about the happy world of Animal Crossing, though. Is this what the good life is all about? Or does the game only mimic the worst trivialities of the real world? In a land with no culture, no churches, and no schools, what do people do? They busy themselves by filling up space with manufactured knick-knacks! The world will not end in fire or ice, it will end in an overstuffed chair watching an “executive’s toy” click-clack away the last fading seconds of our pitiful lives.

My house in the game, by the way, was always a wreck since I don’t have the patience to organize it correctly. Otherwise, though, it was sweet.

Why do I bring up Animal Crossing? Because I think we may be finding it hard to know when we’re happy these days. We comfort ourselves with diversions and devices but maybe you, like me, fear that something essential about ourselves is being neglected, that we are somehow disconnected from something more meaningful and more substantial. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever wondered if the ideals of the world or of your working life were tissue thin and ultimately deceptive?

The Sermon on the Mount begins with the Beatitudes, that series of blessings which we just read. Here Jesus takes his disciples up a hillside away from the crowds who could easily have deluded the disciples into believing that what they were called to be a part of us was a mass, popular crusade. When they looked at the people they could say, “This is not some sideshow. This is a movement! Look at all the people. We must be doing something right. We must be saying something that makes sense. You go, Jesus!”

But Jesus takes them aside and says, “No, it’s not like that. You think this makes us successful. Let me tell you a little bit about God’s standards. It’s not about feeling full, it’s about feeling empty. It’s about meekness and mourning. It’s about poverty of spirit and purity of heart. It’s about hungering and thirsting after righteousness. It’s about mercy and peace. And for you, even for you, it’s about persecution because when you really hear what I’m saying, you will not have crowds coming to celebrate your name. You will have nations who do not understand and powers that do not want to listen.”

With the beatitudes Jesus seems to say that we have lived too long in the bright lights of the city. We have become seduced by values that now seem wise and rational. We can call ‘war’ peace and no one will flinch. We can call ‘oppression’ freedom. We can call ‘neglect’ charity. We can leave a whole generation of children behind and say that we lost none.

It is no different in the depths of our souls. We can say we care for others, but can’t get over ourselves. We can say we’ve got it all together when inside we’re falling apart. We can say we don’t care about making a fortune, but we wouldn’t mind. We can say that sin is an old-fashioned word when our own limitations and delusions stare us right in the face every morning.

What Jesus says in the Beatitudes is that if you are frustrated in figuring out how to make it into this equation…if you can’t find yourself in one of these blessed categories, “poor in spirit, mourning, meek, peacemaker, persecuted,” then perhaps you are still too seduced. These words are not meant to be comforting. They are meant to be disturbing. They are not meant to be a pat on the back, they are meant to be a kick in the rear. God is not waiting in the world we have created for ourselves. If God were there we would have already found her. God is waiting in the world and home we have left behind…in the world which operates according to standards that make no sense unless we live with them every day. Jesus gives us these strange little notions of happiness (Happy are those who mourn? Really?) because we need to be tripped up to pay attention again.

Martin Buber, was a twentieth-century Jewish thinker who felt that God could be discovered in dialogue. His most famous writing was “I and Thou” and in it he talks about how our normal interaction with the world is instrumental. I see the world as a collection of “its” - things which I can more or less comprehend and which I don’t have to interact with as if they have a claim on me. I can pick up my spoon at breakfast and it usually doesn’t talk back. I don’t think about my spoon very often. We can even start to treat other people that way. This is the bank teller, that’s the bus driver. Even in our most comfortable relationships we fall into a pattern.

But when we call something “Thou” we say something more intimate. A “Thou” has an impact on me. It troubles my easy definitions. When I have a long talk with a person I thought I knew, what I thought I knew about them and about me changes. They rise above the level of my previous understandings. They become a “Thou” and it is no accident that this is also the most common reference to God in old translations of the Bible. “Thou hast made us.” In the true encounter with others and the world we sense the eternal source of others and the world. We sense God. But we have to get our understandings messed up first. We have to hear how upside down God’s values are when compared to the world’s.

So my message today is to pay attention. Being happy in this world does not consist of comfort and riches. Happiness is about being God-directed. It’s about letting God come disturb us. It’s about listening to the deep hunger within us for righteousness. It’s about looking for God in our poverty of spirit and in our mourning. It’s about the humility that knows we don’t know it all, but which trusts with a purity of heart that God does.

Happiness is knowing that the world is God’s. The world is shot through with God. And God leaves no place untouched or unredeemed. Thanks be to God.

Matthew 5:1-12 [NRSV]

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

"Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Travel Plans

When I was in about the fifth grade my best friend in the whole wide world was John Crowder. I grew up in Orange County and John lived on a farm up the road from my house, right along the Rapidan River. I remember spending many a weekend with John when I was young, either at his house or mine, but I especially remember the times I stayed at his place when we got to run all around his folks' farm.

We had great imaginations. One time we took two old cardboard boxes and put them together to make a Skylab and we roared off into space. We'd swing from the ropes in the hay barn and pretend we were Tarzan. We rode this old farm horse he had bareback and made believe we were those fancy riders from the steppes of Asia you see in the circus.

But our biggest fantasy was about the gang from Hong Kong. For several months we had this elaborate game in which we imagined that there was a gang of folks from Hong Kong that was intent on getting us. Now why a gang on the other side of the world would have been interested in two fifth-grade boys in Orange County is another question, but we were convinced that they were. So as we ran across the fields we would watch the sky for signs of the blimp that they were riding in. (I'm not sure why we decided they'd be in a blimp, either.) Near the river was an old abandoned car that we were convinced was where they hid out to spy on us. Of course the river itself was a great place for them to sneak up on us, too.

When John and I couldn't get together on a weekend for some reason, we'd call each other to report any sightings either of us had made. And when we spent the night together we always had our flashlights ready in case we heard a mysterious noise in the night. It was a great mystery, and the gang from Hong Kong never caught us, but the time we spent running from it was sure exciting.
It was wonderful to imagine what life would be like we weren't just pre-teen boys in a backwater county. It was great to think about what life would be like if it were more exciting, if we could leave everything behind to become professional adventurers. There's a part of me that would have gone in an instant if it had meant high adventure.

Now, though, I'm in a much different place in life. I've got two children and I know what other parents meant when they talked to us before Joel and Rachel were born about the joys and the challenges of parenthood. It's a big responsibility to be a parent. You have to think about your children's health, their safety, their education, their development, the financial implications--and pretty soon you realize how hard it is to provide something that we Americans are obsessed with: security.

Now, that's not all bad. Hardly. We need to be concerned for ourselves and our loved ones. It's a natural part of who we are as caring people, but we also run a risk. Our obsession with security also makes it very difficult to hear passages like the one we heard in the gospel lesson this morning.

Did you hear it? What do we remember about it? Peter and Andrew fishing in the Sea of Galilee. Jesus calling them. Maybe we've heard it in church so many times that the image is kind of golden in our minds--like a comfortable movie filmed in the light of sunset when there is a glow and a warmth to the faces. There's strong Peter and there's gentle Jesus easily calling the fishermen from their nets.

When we really hear it, though, this passage is a scary thing. Because if we see ourselves as disciples, (and that is what we Christians tend to call ourselves), then to think that we might be called to leave it all behind makes us think twice and three times about whether we're cut out for this following Jesus business. We like to try to explain away the disciples response. "Maybe they had seen Jesus around before and had seen him do some miracles." "Maybe Jesus just had them follow for a little while without really leaving everything for good." All of that is speculation, though, because the only thing Matthew tells us is that Jesus called and they went.

The story begins with Jesus hearing that John the Baptist had been put into prison. He picks up where John left off, proclaiming the same message, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus took a different route, however, and everything about him said that his ministry was going to be a very different kind of ministry.

John went into the wilderness, the desert, of Judea, in the south where the majority of the population was Jewish. Jesus went back to Galilee in the north where the majority was probably non-Jewish, it was called "Galilee of the Gentiles". John chose the life of a desert nomad. Jesus settled in Capernaum--a seaside village with activity and life. John was the voice talking about the "pathway in the wilderness for our God". Jesus fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy about "the road by the sea". John was everything you expected a prophet and a rabbi to be. Jesus broke the mold. People came out to see John. Jesus went out to see the people. This was going to a different kind of ministry.

So Jesus was walking by the Sea of Galilee when he saw Peter and Andrew throwing their nets into the sea and he calls them. It was very simple really. He says, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fish for people." Which is a surprising thing to say to somebody you've just met, but it's no more surprising than what happens next. What happens? Peter and Andrew drop those nets and they follow him. No questions asked.

The second call is probably even more mind-blowing. Jesus finds James and John, brothers, mending their nets in their boat with their father Zebedee. He calls them and--guess what?--they drop those nets, too, and leave their boat and their father, and they follow Jesus.

Now as I read this, I find myself torn between two different parts of myself. On the one hand, I can read it through the eyes of that fifth-grade boy who loved all the adventure on John Crowder's farm and who wondered about what lay down the river and down the road, just waiting for me to come find it. When I think like this, I feel envious of those disciples who were brave enough to chuck it all to follow Jesus.

Then I can read it through the eyes of the adult with a hundred different responsibilities and I can't believe these disciples did what they did. How could they find it so easy to lay aside their work and their families and all that they had built up for themselves? When I think like this, I think that surely this can't be what I am called to do, too!

Then I realize that the figure who changes all of this is Jesus. Jesus was not interested in what Peter and Andrew and James and John had accomplished or in what they had accumulated. Jesus didn't care about preserving what little security they may have had. Jesus saw the people he needed and perhaps he saw the deepest needs and the quiet desperation in their hearts--desperation that they themselves may not have even known they had. Jesus changed this scene dramatically.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a Christian writer who resisted the Nazi movement in Germany and who was executed by them in the last days of World War II, once wrote that "discipleship is not an offer people make to Christ. It is only the call which creates the situation."

Being a disciple is not an offer people make to Christ. It is only the call which creates the situation. Peter and the others could not have known what they needed to offer Jesus. They had not seen his miracles or known his ways. They were at work in their everyday lives, maybe not even aware that there was a place within them that cried out for connection and giving. Then the call came through loud and clear and suddenly they saw exactly what they needed to do.

Jesus can come to us like that. Maybe he's passed our way before and maybe he's called to us before, but we didn't pay attention. Maybe it's a calling we haven't yet heard.

Underneath our layers of security, though--those layers that we have blanketed and muffled ourselves with--behind the masks and roles we hide behind--there is a thirst waiting to be satisfied and a hunger to hear the voice calling us, "Come, follow me." When we hear it it will be like that first sip of a necessary drink and we will hold on for dear life and never let go.

Maybe you've heard that call already in your life and have turned to follow the clear, compelling voice. Maybe you're seeking that call desperately or are concerned about how it will change your life. Maybe you don't even know you need to hear it or know that you don't want to hear it. But I know this: the call will seek you out in the place where you live and work. You can't hide from it and you don't have to travel the world looking for it. When it comes, Jesus will not care about your accomplishments or your accumulations. Jesus will not ask you about your grades in Econ 101 or your ability to tap dance. Jesus will only seek you and Jesus will accept nothing more and nothing less.

Then Jesus will invite you--no, then Jesus will command you--to come and follow and to share in the joy of the good news, because it is good news. Then you can trade in your quiet desperation for inspiration and exaltation because this invitation is for you.

Have you ever wondered what it's like down the road? Have you ever wondered what lies around the next bend in the river? There's somebody there calling you. Come, follow. This adventure is yours. Thanks be to God.

Matthew 4:12-23
When Jesus heard that John had been handed over, he retreated to Galilee. After leaving Nazareth, he came to live in Capernaum-by-the-Sea in the region of Zebulon and Naphtali. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:
"Land of Zebulon and land of Naphtali,
on the road by the sea, beyond the Jordan:
The people residing in darkness have seen a great light,
and to those residing in the land and shadow of death, light has dawned."

From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, because the Kin-dom of heaven is drawing near."

While walking around the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (called Peter) and Andrew, his brother, casting nets into the sea, for they were fishers. He said to them, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of people." So, immediately, they left their nets and followed him.

Then, going on from there, he saw two more brothers, James-ben-Zebedee and John, his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets, and he called them. So, immediately, they left the boat and their father and followed him.

He traveled around the whole of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the Kin-dom and healing all the diseases and all the maladies of the people.

Community Unity Day Invocation - Northampton High School

God of Life,

the Scriptures say, "How good and pleasant it is

when brothers and sisters dwell together in unity."

We have been living together too long apart

We have been occupying the same space,

the same land,

the same ground of our ancestors,

we have been breathing the same air,

listening to the same birds,

feeling the same cold and heat as winters and summers pass,

but we have not been sharing the same community.

So we gather together

to share a dream.

And we are bold enough to believe

that it is not just our dream,

not just Dr. King's dream,

not just the patriot's dream we sing of

when we sing 'God Bless America,'

not just the dream and hope of scattered prophets through the years.

We are bold to believe

that it is your dream

that brothers and sisters should dwell together in unity.

So here we are -

men and women,

young and old,

'born here's and 'come here's,

black and white and brown and all shades in between,

bayside and seaside,

up the road and down the county,

here we are

gathered to share a meal and that dream.

Forgive our forgetfulness.

Forgive our ignorance.

Forgive our lack of courage to claim

what is given and right before us.

Give us eyes to see what you see.

We live on a little strip of dry land

between two great waters.

We live on the edge of the world.

But we know what you can do

with a little dry land between two great waters.

You can lead a group of slaves to liberation.

You can take a people who were no people

and make them a people.

We know what you can do with people

who live at the edge of the world

in a place that the world counts as nothing.

You can set forth a light to the nations.

We don't claim to be that yet.

But we know we can be that,

if you will come.

How good and pleasant it is

for brothers and sisters to dwell together

in unity.

And may it start with this hour.

Amen.

Who is He? Who are We?

Who Is He? Who Are We?
January 9, 2011
Franktown United Methodist Church

I'm guessing that this week you probably got to know Ted Williams. This was the week that Williams went viral, as they say. He was standing by an intersection in Columbus, Ohio holding up a sign that said "I have a God given gift of voice. I'm an ex-radio announcer who has fallen on hard times. Please! Any help will be great fully appreciated. Thank you and God bless you. Happy holidays."

A reporter with the Columbus Dispatch was passing by and thought he might have a human interest story. So he asked Williams to say a few words into his video camera. Sure enough he did have a gift. He slipped right into his old radio announcer persona and thanked the reporter for giving him a dollar.

The reporter was the multimedia producer for the paper and he didn't rush to get the story out. Five weeks later, during a slow news week, he pulled out the video and the rest is history. Williams went from being homeless to getting multiple job offers, including doing voiceovers for the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team. He also was given an offer of a home. And he was reunited with his 92-year-old mother whom he had not seen in twenty years. Everybody knows Ted Williams now.

The story worries me a little. The media has made Williams into something of a sideshow act and it doesn't seem right, even if he's willing, to exploit him as the media darling of the week. I also wonder how this sudden change in circumstance will affect him, especially since he has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction in the past. But really, who can begrudge him this? He now has a little bit of security and a new opportunity. I pray that for every person living on the edge.

Did you hear about the reporter, though? Doral Chenoweth the 3rd has a habit of stopping to talk to homeless people he sees on the street. It's not part of his job, it's part of his faith. Chenoweth says, "You may not be able to help someone with money, but you can at least say hello, how you doing, and look at them." Doral Chenoweth joined New Life United Methodist Church in Columbus, Ohio because of its outreach to the homeless and he has participated in mission trips and the homeless mission with his wife and two children. So when he saw Ted Williams he didn't see a homeless guy, he saw a child of God. And he stopped.

That's the backstory on Ted Williams. Now let me give you some backstory on Peter. No, not Peter Surran, the apostle Peter. Jesus' number one disciple. He's the one who delivers the sermon that was in our reading from the book of Acts today. But what we didn't read was the context for that sermon and the context makes all the difference in the world.

I mean, part of the context is that this is the prelude to a baptism. Peter is speaking to the household of Cornelius, a Roman centurion who had become a believer. Peter tells them about Jesus and then the whole household is baptized in Jesus' name. But nobody is more surprised than Peter that this is all happening.

You see, Peter had been under the impression that his ministry was going to be with his people, the Jews. Jesus had made reference to going out to the world, but Peter hadn't grasped what Jesus was saying. So there he was at the house of Simon the tanner in the coastal city of Joppa, going about his ministry with his people.

He went up on the roof of Simon's house to pray, which isn't as strange as it sounds. The roofs were flat and it was a common practice to go up on the roof. Peter is up there praying and he begins to get hungry. He falls into a trance-like state and he has a vision. Out of heaven comes a huge sheet, like the sail of a boat. And on the sheet are all kinds of creatures.

A voice comes from heaven and says, "Peter, slaughter something and eat it."

Peter looks at the animals and sees that they are all unclean animals that a good Jewish boy would not eat. So Peter protests and says, "No, these are unclean."

The voice comes again and says, "Peter, who are you to call something unclean when God has made it clean?" Three times this happens and Peter is puzzled by what it all means.

Then some men show up from Cornelius' house. He has also had a vision and his vision told him to send for Peter. So Peter goes and suddenly it all becomes clear to him. God was doing a new thing. This good news that Jesus brought was not just for the disciples, not just for the Jews. This good news was for all the world - even Roman centurions.

So that is what has just happened when Peter begins his sermon with the statement, "Now I know that God truly has no favorites. In every nation, whoever fears God and does what is right is welcomed." Then Peter goes on to give witness to what he has seen. He tells the story of Jesus' life and ministry and he starts with Jesus' baptism.

That is the launching pad for everything that is to come. Jesus comes up from the water and is sent forth in the power of the Holy Spirit. He goes about the land doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. Then he was crucified and rose again. That's the gospel in shorthand for Peter. And that's the message that Cornelius and his house hear as they are baptized. But Peter is also converted because what happens is that he is now able to look at these Romans and see, not foreigners, strangers, unclean, but children of God.

Do you know people who are oppressed by the devil? I know we don't use that language to talk about it very often, but I bet you do. There are people who are caught in the grip of evils they can't control. There are people who are enslaved to temptation. There are people who have cancer and other serious illnesses that rob them of life. And there are people who have a deadly kind of blindness - the kind of blindness Peter had. They can't see the people right around them who are children of God.

Every day we meet the Ted Williamses of this world. They are people with lots of flaws whom we might size up and offer a quick judgement about when we see them. We might see their problems as too big for us to make a difference. We might worry, as I did about Ted, that they might misuse whatever they get. We might label them so that we don't see them as individuals. We might call them homeless or illegal or unemployed or unchurched. But if we fail to see them as people whom God has made and whom God loves...if we never stop to appreciate their humanity...if we do not love our brother or sister whom we can see, how can we say that we love God, whom we can't see?

The baptism of Jesus was the moment at which the heavens split open and the Holy Spirit was unleashed - not just on Jesus, but on everyone whom he touched. His baptism meant that he was launched into a ministry that had him doing good and healing those who were oppressed by the devil. The Holy Spirit still does these things. The Holy Spirit still empowers us to do good and to heal the oppressed. How do I know this? Because Christians who have gone through the waters of baptism are still doing these things.

For those of you who have been baptized, I can tell you that there was a moment. You may have been an infant. Maybe you were older. But there was a moment when you were touched by water and by the hands of a preacher. A congregation of folks watched and welcomed you as part of their family. And all of those people knew that you were not just some unclaimed person. You were not a mistake, no matter how you got here. You were not a castoff or someone who was left behind. When you were baptized everyone in the room knew that you were a child of God with your own unique gifts for the world.

I hope Ted Williams knows that. I hope every person on the Eastern Shore who goes to bed without enough to eat or enough warmth knows that. I hope every child who lingers in an abusive home hears that. I hope every sinner hears that. I hope you hear that. And feel that. And share that. Because Jesus has gone under the waters, a whole new world is flooding in. For all God's children. Thanks be to God.

Acts 10:34-43
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/01/06/golden.voice.homeless/index.html?hpt=C1

What Others See

There’s a Christmas song that begins like this:

Said the night wind to the little lamb,

“Do you see what I see?

Way up in the sky, little lamb,

Do you see what I see?

A star, a star dancing in the night, with a tail as big as a kite.”

Of course, the star is the star that came and settled over Bethlehem when Jesus was born. But the mystery in the song is not really about the star. It’s about what you can see. Beyond the star. If you can believe that the night wind speaks to little lambs…if you can hear a song being sung with a voice as big as the sea, the song says…if you can see what the wind sees, then you will know that something astounding is happening in this world.

It’s a new year. 2011. And now that the first decade of the new century is over can we please go back to naming the years without having to throw a “thousand” in? It wasn’t that long ago that we were saying ‘nineteen-ninety-nine.” It wasn’t ‘one thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.’ It was just ‘nineteen-ninety-nine.’ So much simpler. So let’s agree – twenty-eleven.

So, yes, I’ve been thinking about that for while. But our minds are on much bigger things in this time of the year. A new year means new resolutions. We say to ourselves, “I will lose that weight. I will stop smoking. I will drive the speed limit. I will be kinder to my neighbor. I will learn to play the banjo. I will floss.” All these resolutions. But also an awareness that time is passing. Things are changing. We are not who we were when two thousand ten…er…twenty ten came calling. And are we able to see something new?

Sometimes people get visions. They can see things with new eyes. They can see things perhaps the way God sees them. About thirty years ago a couple of Virginia United Methodist clergy and their spouses got such a vision. Ken and Jean Horne and Ray and Marian Buchanan felt called to live a lifestyle that would be a witness to the world. They asked the bishop at the time, Bishop Kenneth Goodson, to appoint them to a special appointment beyond the local church so that they could start something called the Society of Saint Andrew in Big Island, Virginia. They felt a special calling to address the problem of hunger in the United States, particularly as they saw all the food being produced that never made it people who were in need of it.

Here’s what it says on the Society of Saint Andrew website about what happened next:

From 1979 to 1982, the Horne and Buchanan families shared all things in common as they modeled a simple lifestyle that rejected consumerism. They grew their own vegetables and raised sheep, chickens, and rabbits. At the same time, Ray and Ken led workshops on responsible lifestyles and hunger issues.

By October 1982, the two families had learned that the “simple lifestyle” was not so simple. Growing children made for very cramped quarters, so the Hornes moved from the farm to a home in Bedford, Virginia. While Ken and Ray continued to lead workshops, they began to consider taking regular church appointments again. However, at a hunger awareness workshop they led at Franktown United Methodist Church on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, a farmer named Butch Nottingham questioned Ken and Ray about the facts they presented regarding food waste. From the discussion that followed, the Potato and Produce Project was born.[i]

Now, every year, potatoes that would have rotted in the field, are gleaned by church people like you and me in states all across the country and are donated to local food banks. And it’s not just potatoes. I helped to glean grapefruits for the Society of Saint Andrew in Texas. Apples, oranges, sweet potatoes – farmers have gotten on board to allow gleaning for all of these. And in two thousand…er…twenty-oh-nine they salvaged and distributed 26.4 million pounds of produce nationwide. All it took was running into Butch Nottingham and a vision from God for them to see something they might never have seen.

So why am I talking about visions and potatoes on a day that’s supposed to be about the three kings? Well, let’s look at that story. First of all, let’s get a few things straight. We call them kings, but they weren’t. They were astrologers, men who studied the stars for their wisdom, living in far off lands. We say there were three of them, but we don’t know how many there were. They bring three gifts to the baby Jesus, so we assume three. They almost surely didn’t arrive on the night of Jesus’ birth because they go to visit Jesus and his family in a house in Bethlehem, so they have moved on from the stable. And I’m not sure they were even men because they stop to ask directions.

At any rate, their story is the focus of our gospel lesson today and of the liturgical holiday of Epiphany, which falls on January 6. We are observing it today. But here’s the thing about these multiple wise persons – they have this vision thing, too. Even though they are not Jewish, they know something important is happening when Jesus is born. They know this child is going to change the world.

Which, of course, is what scared the dickens out of King Herod. Herod was a king. At least that’s what it said on his business cards. But Herod was not a king like the old King David. In many ways he was just a vassal of the Roman Empire. He was called King of the Jews, but he didn’t have any real authority of his own. It was given to him by Rome and Rome could just as easily make somebody else King of the Jews. It wasn’t given to him by the people, who were always ambivalent about their so-called rulers. Herod was perched on a pretty precarious throne.

So how do you THINK he felt when these foreign astrologers appear out of nowhere from the eastern horizon and come to ask him where the King of the Jews was? If I were Herod, I would have said, “The King of the Jews? You’re looking at him! What do you mean you saw a star leading you to somebody else? What do you mean it’s a baby?” Does he see what the night wind sees? No, Herod was shaking in his sandals.

Matthew tells us that Herod the King (he makes a point of telling us that it was Herod THE KING) was stirred up by what he heard from the magi. And not only him but the whole city of Jerusalem because when the king ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. So Herod did what people in power do when there’s a scandal brewing – he appointed a blue ribbon panel as a study commission. He called in the chief priests and the scribes and let them answer these impertinent foreigners.

Now to their credit, the chief priests and scribes of the Law don’t cover over the fact that Herod was not the Messiah. Even though they will be Jesus’ biggest opponents at the end of the gospel story, they are able to read the scriptures and to understand that the promised one was to be born in Bethlehem of Judah, about six miles from Jerusalem.

Herod called the magi in secretly to tell them the news and to find out a little more about this star. He decides to do something else that people in power often do. He tries to co-opt them for his interests. Tries to make them his agents. He sends them on to Bethlehem to do the searching he personally wants to do. Then he tells them, “As soon as you find him, come back and tell me where he is so that I can go worship him.” Of course, as we read on in Matthew we know that’s not what he intends to do at all. Herod is scared to death of this child, this rival, and he wants to put him to death. But also, as we know, he doesn’t have a chance of succeeding.

You see, what the magi see that Herod can’t see, is that this child that scares him is the source of salvation, even for Herod. These crazy magi. They show up in our nativity sets with their strange, vaguely inappropriate gifts. Surely Mary would have appreciated a few more Pampers and a little less incense. What is that they see? What are they trying to tell us by showing up like they do? Why do they cross deserts following a star? Why are they so darn joyful? Why can’t they just be afraid and anxious like everybody else living in these troubled times? Why can’t they admit that things are not looking so great? The religious leaders are corrupt. Civil liberties are being curtailed. Terrorists are threatening. They’re crucifying people left and right. What’s with their giddiness? What’s with their gifts? What’s with their joy? They’re not even from around here! What have ‘come here’s’ got to tell us about our salvation?

Do you see what I see? These wise men see that God’s promises have not been forgotten. What Isaiah saw about kings, foreigners, dignitaries, coming to Israel to give witness to God’s glory is coming true. The magi know that in the light of God’s coming to earth in Jesus everything is changed. And they see it long before a crown is placed on Jesus’ head – a crown made, not of gold but of thorns. They see it long before he is proclaimed King of the Jews, not in a ceremony, but on a mocking placard placed over his head on a cross. Jesus is coming to turn the world upside down and they know it. These foreigners know it.

The night wind knows it and whispers it to the lamb, “Do you see what I see?” The little lamb hears the song singing throughout the whole creation and brays to the shepherd boy, “Do you hear what I hear?” The shepherd boy, who has no right to stand with royalty, is so entranced, so emboldened by this song that he goes to the mighty king and says, “Do you know what I know? A child shivers in the cold. Let us bring him silver and gold.”

You can probably chuck that list of New Year’s resolutions. Here’s the thing about resolutions – to keep them you have to change and we are not too good with change. We cling to the old, to the habitual, to the way things are because…well, we’ve always done it that way. But if we can see the world differently…if we can learn to listen to the night wind and see with new eyes…if we can trust the witness of the wise men that God is still doing a new thing in this world…then maybe we can see the change already beginning, even in us.

Where did the wise men come from? The east. Later in the book of Matthew Jesus sees the faith of a Roman centurion, a man from the west, and he says, “I have not seen faith like this anywhere in Israel. I tell you, many will come from east and west and will eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.” Folks like the magi and the centurion were the first to break down the door. The door was opened to us to follow them into the promise given first to Abraham and Sarah. When we gather at the table we’re getting a glimpse of what God’s new day will look like. And when we open the door to others, to more, and invite them in – the kingdom of heaven is right here. Thanks be to God.

Matthew 2:1-12

Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the King. Look, magi from the eastern horizon came to Jerusalem. They asked, “Where is the one born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star rising in the east and we have come to worship him.”

When Herod heard this he was stirred up and all Jerusalem as well. He called together all the chief priests and scribes of the law and inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judah, for this is written by the prophets: ‘And you, Bethlehem, of the land of Judea are by no means least among the leaders of Judah. For out of you will come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod called the magi secretly to determine from them exactly the time when the star had appeared. As he sent them on the Bethlehem he said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report back to me, so that I also can come to worship him.”

When they heard the king, they went, and look, the star, which they had seen in the east, led them until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. When they came into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They fell down to worship him and they opened their treasure boxes to offer him gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

After receiving instruction in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed by another way to their own land.

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[i] www.endhunger.org/history.htm.