Audio solamente.
MP3 File
January 29, 2008
January 16, 2008 - Extraordinary results from ordinary people - Hayward Fong
Matthew 5:13-16
I have been both intrigued and mystified by the dreams and visions in the Bible...wrestling angels, burning bushes, chariots of fire, a blinding light on the road to Damascus. Though these mysterious events have stirred my imagination, at the same time they seemed a bit out of this world for my engineering oriented mind. They seemed to only happen to specially chosen people, living in a period many millennia before my lifetime.
However, a deeper study in recent years of those events has shown me that these are windows through which we can see how miracles can take place in our everyday existence. In each instance, God gave the person something specific and tangible to take back into ordinary life. A guiding torch, a new name, a fresh start, a safe place…these events gave our spiritual ancestors a closeness to God, a companionship we can also attain. These people were not Superman or Wonderwoman. They were ordinary people like you and me.
Yesterday, Tuesday, January 15th was the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Next Monday, the third Monday in January has been set aside as a national holiday in his memory. During this coming week, there will be various interfaith activities held in his honor throughout our nation.
On August 28, 1963, he spoke these words to the multitude gathered in our nation’s capital, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He was a man of vision, and though his children are now adults fast approaching middle age, his vision is yet to be fulfilled!
Today, I want to speak about another person of color who also carried out a dream. About five years ago, I heard Leontyne Price sing “God Bless America” at the Met on the occasion of its tribute to Richard Tucker. Leontyne Price’s road to fame was made possible by the dream of another woman of color from an earlier generation, Marian Anderson.
In 1939, Marian Anderson was denied the use of Constitution Hall in the nation’s capital for a recital because she was a black woman. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) prohibited its use by persons of color. Learning of this, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly resigned from the organization. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes invited Miss Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. More than 75,000 people heard the concert live, a record at that time, and millions more heard the radio broadcast. The event was so momentous and inspiring that the DAR finally invited her to sing at the Hall for a war relief concert, an event attended by both black and white people.
Miss Anderson’s honors are legion. She was our delegate to the General Assembly of the United Nations. She received honorary doctorates from over two dozen universities, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Presidential Medal of Honor, and decorations from numerous countries. She won the United Nations Peace Prize in 1977 and her face adorns the $5,000 U.S. Savings Bond.
I believe the stand that Eleanor Roosevelt took in resigning from the DAR was a witness of her wisdom and selfless love for all the people of world, and provided spiritual strength for Miss Anderson in dealing with racism down the years.
I would like to share Mrs. Roosevelt’s wisdom and values with you as we cross the threshold into the Year 2008.
Throughout his writings, Paul speaks of our ministry as a commission, as beaming light, extending grace to more and more people, becoming ambassadors for God and working as partners with our Creator.
In our often dark joyless world, people yearn for sunshine. And when they see it shining brightly and unashamedly in another person’s life, they are drawn to inquire about it. You can be that light. Beaming light into the world depends on how we forge our friendships. Through friendships, the love of Christ can break through.
People are looking for demonstrated love. The people of God need to reach out to others in genuine love, care and empathy. Jesus said that love would mark true discipleship when he gave his new commandment (John 13:34-35).
You can tell if someone cares. He or she sends a card, provides transportation, volunteers, takes care of a child, delivers a meal, listens actively, holds a hand, extends hospitality, visits a hospital, tutors, offers a prayer, cleans, does the laundry, makes phone calls.
The story is told about a minister named Vincent who wanted to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to slaves in the Roman galleys. He was utterly unsuccessful until he chose to be a galley slave himself. Vincent became one of them, pounding with the oars and sharing their trials and hardships. The story hits the essence of true discipleship. You can only make disciples of your friends.
So tell your story when the time comes. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was stung into wholehearted Christian service by a skeptic who said, “If I believed what you Christians believe, I would not rest day or night from telling people about it” (Evangelism Through the Local Church, Michael Green).
Possessing the good news of the gospel bears the obligation of sharing it. That which God divinely gave us must be passed on. You and I can be Christ’s hands, feet and lips that will bring his gospel to those who have not heard it.
Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? If so, then “Let Your Light Shine!”
Amen.
I have been both intrigued and mystified by the dreams and visions in the Bible...wrestling angels, burning bushes, chariots of fire, a blinding light on the road to Damascus. Though these mysterious events have stirred my imagination, at the same time they seemed a bit out of this world for my engineering oriented mind. They seemed to only happen to specially chosen people, living in a period many millennia before my lifetime.
However, a deeper study in recent years of those events has shown me that these are windows through which we can see how miracles can take place in our everyday existence. In each instance, God gave the person something specific and tangible to take back into ordinary life. A guiding torch, a new name, a fresh start, a safe place…these events gave our spiritual ancestors a closeness to God, a companionship we can also attain. These people were not Superman or Wonderwoman. They were ordinary people like you and me.
Yesterday, Tuesday, January 15th was the birthday of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Next Monday, the third Monday in January has been set aside as a national holiday in his memory. During this coming week, there will be various interfaith activities held in his honor throughout our nation.
On August 28, 1963, he spoke these words to the multitude gathered in our nation’s capital, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He was a man of vision, and though his children are now adults fast approaching middle age, his vision is yet to be fulfilled!
Today, I want to speak about another person of color who also carried out a dream. About five years ago, I heard Leontyne Price sing “God Bless America” at the Met on the occasion of its tribute to Richard Tucker. Leontyne Price’s road to fame was made possible by the dream of another woman of color from an earlier generation, Marian Anderson.
In 1939, Marian Anderson was denied the use of Constitution Hall in the nation’s capital for a recital because she was a black woman. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) prohibited its use by persons of color. Learning of this, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt publicly resigned from the organization. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes invited Miss Anderson to perform at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. More than 75,000 people heard the concert live, a record at that time, and millions more heard the radio broadcast. The event was so momentous and inspiring that the DAR finally invited her to sing at the Hall for a war relief concert, an event attended by both black and white people.
Miss Anderson’s honors are legion. She was our delegate to the General Assembly of the United Nations. She received honorary doctorates from over two dozen universities, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Presidential Medal of Honor, and decorations from numerous countries. She won the United Nations Peace Prize in 1977 and her face adorns the $5,000 U.S. Savings Bond.
I believe the stand that Eleanor Roosevelt took in resigning from the DAR was a witness of her wisdom and selfless love for all the people of world, and provided spiritual strength for Miss Anderson in dealing with racism down the years.
I would like to share Mrs. Roosevelt’s wisdom and values with you as we cross the threshold into the Year 2008.
“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but true friends will leave footprints in your heart.As Christians and being disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to go into the world and share our faith in the hope that others will become disciples. The greatest thing we can do for people is to bring them into a relationship with our Lord and Savior. To do this, the lamp must be put onto the lamp stand and the salt sprinkled onto the meat.
“To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.
“Anger is only one letter short of danger.
“If someone betrays you once, it’s his fault; if he betrays you twice, it’s your fault.
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
“He who loses money loses much; he who loses a friend loses much more, but he who loses faith loses all.
“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
“Learn from the mistakes of others for you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.
“Friends, you and me…you brought another friend and then we were three. We started a group, our circle of friends and like that circle there is no beginning or end.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift; that’s why it is the present.”
Throughout his writings, Paul speaks of our ministry as a commission, as beaming light, extending grace to more and more people, becoming ambassadors for God and working as partners with our Creator.
In our often dark joyless world, people yearn for sunshine. And when they see it shining brightly and unashamedly in another person’s life, they are drawn to inquire about it. You can be that light. Beaming light into the world depends on how we forge our friendships. Through friendships, the love of Christ can break through.
People are looking for demonstrated love. The people of God need to reach out to others in genuine love, care and empathy. Jesus said that love would mark true discipleship when he gave his new commandment (John 13:34-35).
You can tell if someone cares. He or she sends a card, provides transportation, volunteers, takes care of a child, delivers a meal, listens actively, holds a hand, extends hospitality, visits a hospital, tutors, offers a prayer, cleans, does the laundry, makes phone calls.
The story is told about a minister named Vincent who wanted to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to slaves in the Roman galleys. He was utterly unsuccessful until he chose to be a galley slave himself. Vincent became one of them, pounding with the oars and sharing their trials and hardships. The story hits the essence of true discipleship. You can only make disciples of your friends.
So tell your story when the time comes. William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, was stung into wholehearted Christian service by a skeptic who said, “If I believed what you Christians believe, I would not rest day or night from telling people about it” (Evangelism Through the Local Church, Michael Green).
Possessing the good news of the gospel bears the obligation of sharing it. That which God divinely gave us must be passed on. You and I can be Christ’s hands, feet and lips that will bring his gospel to those who have not heard it.
Are you a disciple of Jesus Christ? If so, then “Let Your Light Shine!”
Amen.
January 26, 2008
January 13, 2008 - Spirit of Gentleness - Frank Alton
Isaiah 42:1-9; Matthew 3:13-17
MP3 File
Last Tuesday evening I officiated at a memorial service for a young man named Frank Nieves who had died on January 1 just up the street from our home from an asthma attack complicated by an addiction to crystal meth. Chichester Chapel, which seats a maximum of about 100 people, was packed with close to 200 people for the service. I had met Frank when I first came to Immanuel 13 years ago through the HOLA program that operated at Immanuel during those years. I had spent some time counseling Frank; because he was open to receive love from just about anywhere it was being offered. Frank was a sweet, loving kid; and he was full of rage. He had been kicked out of his home by his mother because she couldn’t cope with him. He was taken in by his grand mother. I lost touch with Frank for about ten years after that. Then, last year I saw him walking by our house, and discovered that he was living up the street from us.
Ten days ago when I heard that he had died I felt a surprising sadness for someone that had been so marginal to my life. Frank had obviously left his mark on me. But why? As I watched the crowd gather for the service, and listened to the stories shared there, I realized I’d been drawn in by a combination of Frank’s capacity to love and his insatiable need to be loved. That combination led to an ability to create community around him self in ways and in places most of us would never imagine even looking for, much less finding it.
The image of community communicated thru testimony after testimony is what I believe we all long for; at least I do. When Frank arrived at HOLA, he was so full of rage that he would walk off the basketball court with ball in hand and refuse to allow the game to go on until he settled down. Sometimes that took 5 minutes; sometimes it took an hour. But when it passed, he came back as if nothing had happened and said, let’s play ball. His rage led him to continue to behave like that far into his 20s.
Yet the very people who told those stories through tears on Tuesday night spoke of how much they loved Frank, and how much they felt loved by Frank. Big guys who were still dressed like gang bangers were willing to stand up in front of 200 people and say through their tears, “I loved Frank Nieves.” One guy spoke of the period when he and Frank were homeless, and how if either of them came up with $20, it was split right down the middle between them without a thought given to not sharing it. Another spoke of being in jail with Frank, and how they supported each other. I have never had any desire to experience homelessness nor prison; yet I felt envious of the community those guys had in the midst of those circumstances.
As I was preparing this sermon, seeking a fresh word from this familiar story, I tried to get hold of the power of the image of Jesus standing on the banks of the River Jordan waiting his turn to be baptized. The image that came to mind was the community that gathered around Frank Nieves last Tuesday night. When Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, Matthew alone of all the Evangelists tells us that John tried to prevent him. Jesus responded, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” In which way? What does it mean to fulfill all righteousness? From the context it has to refer to Jesus submitting to John’s baptism, and to standing in solidarity with everyone else who had come to submit to John’s baptism. And who were they? Who else was there? Well, there were prostitutes & the adulterers who were their clients; there were tax collectors & the religious hypocrites who judged them; there were revolutionaries & the conformists who feared them; there were wimps & the bullies who beat them up. In other words, they were all there. I imagine it was a very socially uncomfortable gathering on the banks of the Jordan that day.
I have come to conclude that most of us have been sold a false bill of goods around the meaning of righteousness. We’ve been told that we become righteous by performing certain behaviors, by avoiding other behaviors, & by avoiding & distancing ourselves from people who perform those behaviors in order to assure that we will not be contaminated or tempted by them. That conviction is drummed into us at such an early age that we barely know we believe it.
But if we believe Matthew’s presentation of the story of Jesus’ baptism, we have to conclude almost exactly the opposite: that righteousness has more to do with submitting to each another, and to standing in solidarity with the very ones we have been taught to avoid. By that definition Frank Nieves was righteous – not an adjective I imagine was ever applied to him during his life time. I remember learning as far back as seminary that in Hebrew the word “righteousness” had as much to do with right relationships as with right morality – probably more so. I have felt drawn to that idea for a long time & have preached it frequently. But the image I witnessed on Tuesday night showed me that it is more than an idea. It is one of the core truths of life. That truth sunk into me a little more deeply last Tuesday night. I realized in addition that not only does righteousness enrich individual relationships; it is a key part of both creating and sustaining community. The congregation gathered for Frank’s memorial service was a true, albeit unlikely and uncomfortable, community.
Today we are reaffirming our baptism. In the Reformed understanding, baptism has everything to do with community. Yes, baptism is about entering into the death and resurrection of Jesus. But it is also about being welcomed into the covenant community of God’s faithful people. We have to transform our sanitized view of that community. I talk to many people who don’t want to come to church because they think they are not good enough. I hear from others that people in the church aren’t good enough: “I thought Christians were supposed to be righteous?” So the consequences of our misunderstanding of righteousness are serious both inside and outside the church.
We must begin to change our view of righteousness, and begin to heal the wounds that result from our misunderstanding, so that we can start to experience a more authentic community. But there’s a hitch: authentic community is messier than our sanitized version. And most of us don’t like things messy. It’s also full of surprises, and most of us like a little more control over our surprises. So what will it take for us to move toward authentic community?
I believe Matthew’s story of Jesus’ baptism offers us some clues. “As Jesus came up from the water, the heavens were opened to him & he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove alighting on him. A voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ Whatever you believe about the Trinity, all three members of it were present at that moment: Jesus, the Spirit of God, & the heavenly parent of Jesus who calls him beloved.
Christians have come to believe that the three persons of the Trinity have existed in community since before time. In the passage from Philippians I preached on to begin the season of dialogue we have called “Open”, Paul recites that Jesus, “though in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, being born in human likeness.”
The voice from heaven affirmed for Jesus that in the midst of his humanness he was still a beloved part of that community. Isn’t that what we all want to hear? That in the midst of expressing the most authentic part of ourselves – no matter how different we may be from some one else; no matter how at odds we might be with someone else’s view of what humanness should look like – at least one person will say, “I see you as you are, and I love the you that I see.” That affirmation is precisely what empowers us to live in community, to stand with others in solidarity, & to offer our lives in service to others. And that is the affirmation that we are invited to hear from and say to each other as a baptized community.
Let’s examine what that looks like in Jesus’ baptism. Both the Spirit of God & the voice of God came to rest on Jesus as he arose from the waters of baptism. The voice of God spoke the words we have just said that every human being longs to hear – words that transform us into people who can and will do almost anything asked by the one whose voice it is: “this is my beloved.”
In the same moment the Spirit of God led him into the wilderness where he could discern & test out what that voice was calling him to do. There in the wilderness Jesus faced all the voices both inside and outside himself that resisted following the call to be his most authentic self. From there he returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where he entered the synagogue & read from the prophet Isaiah. He found in those words the voice that won out in the wilderness: the voice that told him that the Spirit had anointed him to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, & to proclaim that just as the voice of God had spoken favor to him, he was anointed to announce that God’s favor was available to all.
Is that level of graciousness available to us? Could that kind of authenticity, that kind of solidarity, that kind of service, actually come to be practiced here at Immanuel to transform us into the community we long to experience? I believe it could be, but it will require some risk, it will require some letting go of assumptions and stereotypes we may have held our entire lives, and it will take some bucking of systems that keep us from changing.
We took (will take) a little risk today in the way we are reaffirming our baptism. It’s threateningly intimate to touch each other, to look into each other’s eyes, and to speak words that call us to something we don’t find easy: to submit to the waters of baptism with people I may disagree with. Let me put that risk in perspective. I recently read about a Rural Presbyterian Church in northern India. It’s an indigenous church composed of the dalit (untouchable) people who are victims of that vile form of injustice known as the caste system, something most of us have only heard of. Though officially illegal, the caste culture still thrives and crushes the poorest of the people. By Hindu law, children of dalits can only be given a derogatory name at birth (stupid, ugly, dumb). But at the Rural Presbyterian Church when dalits come to faith in Jesus Christ, they have a re-naming ceremony, which utterly re-labels them in light of God’s grace & mercy. They step into a new identity with a new name. This extra-ordinary gift shifts power in every part of life.
To imagine a caste system in far off and exotic India from here in Los Angeles creates a dramatic contrast with our own life. But if we are honest with ourselves, don’t we need that new name just as badly as the dalits? Aren’t we just as disempowered by the pressure we feel to be inauthentic in order to be accepted, rather than risk expressing our true selves that might be misunderstood & rejected? Let us take the risk to be ourselves & stop judging each other from that place of insecurity. Let us remember our baptism and accept the new name that we are given there: beloved child.
MP3 File
Last Tuesday evening I officiated at a memorial service for a young man named Frank Nieves who had died on January 1 just up the street from our home from an asthma attack complicated by an addiction to crystal meth. Chichester Chapel, which seats a maximum of about 100 people, was packed with close to 200 people for the service. I had met Frank when I first came to Immanuel 13 years ago through the HOLA program that operated at Immanuel during those years. I had spent some time counseling Frank; because he was open to receive love from just about anywhere it was being offered. Frank was a sweet, loving kid; and he was full of rage. He had been kicked out of his home by his mother because she couldn’t cope with him. He was taken in by his grand mother. I lost touch with Frank for about ten years after that. Then, last year I saw him walking by our house, and discovered that he was living up the street from us.
Ten days ago when I heard that he had died I felt a surprising sadness for someone that had been so marginal to my life. Frank had obviously left his mark on me. But why? As I watched the crowd gather for the service, and listened to the stories shared there, I realized I’d been drawn in by a combination of Frank’s capacity to love and his insatiable need to be loved. That combination led to an ability to create community around him self in ways and in places most of us would never imagine even looking for, much less finding it.
The image of community communicated thru testimony after testimony is what I believe we all long for; at least I do. When Frank arrived at HOLA, he was so full of rage that he would walk off the basketball court with ball in hand and refuse to allow the game to go on until he settled down. Sometimes that took 5 minutes; sometimes it took an hour. But when it passed, he came back as if nothing had happened and said, let’s play ball. His rage led him to continue to behave like that far into his 20s.
Yet the very people who told those stories through tears on Tuesday night spoke of how much they loved Frank, and how much they felt loved by Frank. Big guys who were still dressed like gang bangers were willing to stand up in front of 200 people and say through their tears, “I loved Frank Nieves.” One guy spoke of the period when he and Frank were homeless, and how if either of them came up with $20, it was split right down the middle between them without a thought given to not sharing it. Another spoke of being in jail with Frank, and how they supported each other. I have never had any desire to experience homelessness nor prison; yet I felt envious of the community those guys had in the midst of those circumstances.
As I was preparing this sermon, seeking a fresh word from this familiar story, I tried to get hold of the power of the image of Jesus standing on the banks of the River Jordan waiting his turn to be baptized. The image that came to mind was the community that gathered around Frank Nieves last Tuesday night. When Jesus came to the Jordan to be baptized by John, Matthew alone of all the Evangelists tells us that John tried to prevent him. Jesus responded, “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” In which way? What does it mean to fulfill all righteousness? From the context it has to refer to Jesus submitting to John’s baptism, and to standing in solidarity with everyone else who had come to submit to John’s baptism. And who were they? Who else was there? Well, there were prostitutes & the adulterers who were their clients; there were tax collectors & the religious hypocrites who judged them; there were revolutionaries & the conformists who feared them; there were wimps & the bullies who beat them up. In other words, they were all there. I imagine it was a very socially uncomfortable gathering on the banks of the Jordan that day.
I have come to conclude that most of us have been sold a false bill of goods around the meaning of righteousness. We’ve been told that we become righteous by performing certain behaviors, by avoiding other behaviors, & by avoiding & distancing ourselves from people who perform those behaviors in order to assure that we will not be contaminated or tempted by them. That conviction is drummed into us at such an early age that we barely know we believe it.
But if we believe Matthew’s presentation of the story of Jesus’ baptism, we have to conclude almost exactly the opposite: that righteousness has more to do with submitting to each another, and to standing in solidarity with the very ones we have been taught to avoid. By that definition Frank Nieves was righteous – not an adjective I imagine was ever applied to him during his life time. I remember learning as far back as seminary that in Hebrew the word “righteousness” had as much to do with right relationships as with right morality – probably more so. I have felt drawn to that idea for a long time & have preached it frequently. But the image I witnessed on Tuesday night showed me that it is more than an idea. It is one of the core truths of life. That truth sunk into me a little more deeply last Tuesday night. I realized in addition that not only does righteousness enrich individual relationships; it is a key part of both creating and sustaining community. The congregation gathered for Frank’s memorial service was a true, albeit unlikely and uncomfortable, community.
Today we are reaffirming our baptism. In the Reformed understanding, baptism has everything to do with community. Yes, baptism is about entering into the death and resurrection of Jesus. But it is also about being welcomed into the covenant community of God’s faithful people. We have to transform our sanitized view of that community. I talk to many people who don’t want to come to church because they think they are not good enough. I hear from others that people in the church aren’t good enough: “I thought Christians were supposed to be righteous?” So the consequences of our misunderstanding of righteousness are serious both inside and outside the church.
We must begin to change our view of righteousness, and begin to heal the wounds that result from our misunderstanding, so that we can start to experience a more authentic community. But there’s a hitch: authentic community is messier than our sanitized version. And most of us don’t like things messy. It’s also full of surprises, and most of us like a little more control over our surprises. So what will it take for us to move toward authentic community?
I believe Matthew’s story of Jesus’ baptism offers us some clues. “As Jesus came up from the water, the heavens were opened to him & he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove alighting on him. A voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.’ Whatever you believe about the Trinity, all three members of it were present at that moment: Jesus, the Spirit of God, & the heavenly parent of Jesus who calls him beloved.
Christians have come to believe that the three persons of the Trinity have existed in community since before time. In the passage from Philippians I preached on to begin the season of dialogue we have called “Open”, Paul recites that Jesus, “though in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, being born in human likeness.”
The voice from heaven affirmed for Jesus that in the midst of his humanness he was still a beloved part of that community. Isn’t that what we all want to hear? That in the midst of expressing the most authentic part of ourselves – no matter how different we may be from some one else; no matter how at odds we might be with someone else’s view of what humanness should look like – at least one person will say, “I see you as you are, and I love the you that I see.” That affirmation is precisely what empowers us to live in community, to stand with others in solidarity, & to offer our lives in service to others. And that is the affirmation that we are invited to hear from and say to each other as a baptized community.
Let’s examine what that looks like in Jesus’ baptism. Both the Spirit of God & the voice of God came to rest on Jesus as he arose from the waters of baptism. The voice of God spoke the words we have just said that every human being longs to hear – words that transform us into people who can and will do almost anything asked by the one whose voice it is: “this is my beloved.”
In the same moment the Spirit of God led him into the wilderness where he could discern & test out what that voice was calling him to do. There in the wilderness Jesus faced all the voices both inside and outside himself that resisted following the call to be his most authentic self. From there he returned to his hometown of Nazareth, where he entered the synagogue & read from the prophet Isaiah. He found in those words the voice that won out in the wilderness: the voice that told him that the Spirit had anointed him to preach good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, & to proclaim that just as the voice of God had spoken favor to him, he was anointed to announce that God’s favor was available to all.
Is that level of graciousness available to us? Could that kind of authenticity, that kind of solidarity, that kind of service, actually come to be practiced here at Immanuel to transform us into the community we long to experience? I believe it could be, but it will require some risk, it will require some letting go of assumptions and stereotypes we may have held our entire lives, and it will take some bucking of systems that keep us from changing.
We took (will take) a little risk today in the way we are reaffirming our baptism. It’s threateningly intimate to touch each other, to look into each other’s eyes, and to speak words that call us to something we don’t find easy: to submit to the waters of baptism with people I may disagree with. Let me put that risk in perspective. I recently read about a Rural Presbyterian Church in northern India. It’s an indigenous church composed of the dalit (untouchable) people who are victims of that vile form of injustice known as the caste system, something most of us have only heard of. Though officially illegal, the caste culture still thrives and crushes the poorest of the people. By Hindu law, children of dalits can only be given a derogatory name at birth (stupid, ugly, dumb). But at the Rural Presbyterian Church when dalits come to faith in Jesus Christ, they have a re-naming ceremony, which utterly re-labels them in light of God’s grace & mercy. They step into a new identity with a new name. This extra-ordinary gift shifts power in every part of life.
To imagine a caste system in far off and exotic India from here in Los Angeles creates a dramatic contrast with our own life. But if we are honest with ourselves, don’t we need that new name just as badly as the dalits? Aren’t we just as disempowered by the pressure we feel to be inauthentic in order to be accepted, rather than risk expressing our true selves that might be misunderstood & rejected? Let us take the risk to be ourselves & stop judging each other from that place of insecurity. Let us remember our baptism and accept the new name that we are given there: beloved child.
January 9, 2008 - Be the best you can be - Hayward Fong
Luke 19:11-27
Last October before I had my hip dislocation, we examined the parable of the talents as recorded in Matthew 25:14-30. Today’s account as recorded by Luke bears a close resemblance to the account in Matthew. Perhaps they are two versions of the same story, or perhaps Jesus used the same story in slightly different forms on two different occasions. Whatever.
There is one very interesting thing about Luke’s version. Jesus in His parables frequently takes incidents from everyday life to illustrate great truths. He liked to teach. It may be in this instance that he used an incident from history to teach a truth.
The parable tells of a king who went to claim a kingdom, whose subjects sent an embassy of protest. He was given the kingdom but took revenge on his opponents. In the year 4 B.C., Herod the King died; he had the title of king but was always subject to the permission and goodwill of Rome. It had been expected that he would will his kingdom to his son Antipas, but he altered his will and left it instead to his son Archelaus. Before Archelaus could inherit the throne, he had to go to Rome to receive its “blessing.” The Jews promptly sent an embassy of fifty men to beg that the kingdom not be given to him. Augustus the Roman Emperor heard the embassy but gave Archelaus the kingdom. He did not, however, confer on him the title of king until he had proved himself worth of it, which, in fact he never did. These are exactly the circumstances in the parable and it looks as if for once Jesus is taking an incident from history to teach His lesson.
This parable repeats many of the lessons of the parable of the talents; but there are others we might examine. The nobleman did not demand the same result from each man. Though each received the same amount, equal results were not required. The one who turned his allocation ten-fold and the other who had turned his five-fold were both equally praised.
God does not demand the same from everyone. He knows well that people have different abilities. God’s demand is not, “How great is your work?” not even “How good is your work?” but rather, “Is this the best you can do?” In school and usually in the world it is the highest mark that receives the highest prize. But even in school it may well be that a score of fifty-five from a student who is not very sharp, represents more honest effort than a score of ninety from a student who finds things easy. God knows about these things and God sets the right value on our efforts when we do our best. As I stated when we last met, the U.S. Army had at one time a recruiting slogan, “Be the best you can be.”
This parable teaches, too, that if we should some day be given a task we must first prove ourselves by doing the little jobs well. It was because they had been faithful in quite small things that the servants were given greater tasks to do.
When I first went to work with the Los Angeles County Road Department, a graduate civil engineer with prior experience with the State Division of Highways, I was given many menial tasks, delivering papers to meetings, setting up conference rooms with everything needed at the meeting such as visual equipment, pencils, notepads, water pitchers, drinking glasses, etc. To be honest, it went against my grain to be assigned these tasks. One of the older men in the Department, who became one of my closest friends and mentor, saw my anguish. He showed me the positive side of these assignments. He said, “Hayward, you have a rare opportunity of seeing who the Department heads are, but more importantly, letting them see you. Do the best you can do with these assignments and it will pay off in years to come.” In later years that exposure did pay off. When promotional opportunities arose, I was more than a name on the roster. They were able to match a face with the name and recall how I cheerfully carried out those menial tasks.
Booker T. Washington, was one of our nation’s great educators. At the end of his life, he was President of Tuskegee Institute and held in honor by peoples around the world. But when he found it was very difficult for a Negro boy to obtain a college education. He heard of a university where Negroes were accepted as students and he walked miles to get there. But when he arrived he found that there were no openings left. They offered him a job sweeping the floors and making the beds in the dormitories. He took it at once, and did the menial job so well that soon he was admitted as a student.
My son, Stephen, wanted to learn how to create the special effects in television productions but didn’t know where or how to get the training. At that time, people took their basic technical knowledge and learned these special effects techniques on the job. He applied at various places, but his basic skills were sorely lacking. Eventually, he was offered a job as night custodian at a post production company which entailed sweeping the offices, answering the phone, where people could order TV tapes from their library and run errands for the people working on production work at night. At every opportunity, he would let the production people know of his interests and they reciprocated by teaching him as time permitted.
This is a very mobile industry, and as his co-workers moved on, various ones would invite Stephen to join them. One such move took him to work on the CBS TV crew for the Winter Olympics in France; others have brought him on the teams producing TV shows such as Star Trek, Lost, Alias, etc. none of which I’ve seen. He has been awarded three Emmys as a member of the winning teams.
It is impossible to start at the top and it would be bad for us if we could. It is foolish to despise the small jobs and to think they do not matter. It is doing the lesser things well that we prove ourselves fit for bigger things.
Further, this parable illustrates a great truth; the reward of work well done is more work to do. The servants who had done so well were not told to sit back and rest; they were given still more responsibility and still greater tasks to do. In almost all spheres of life we see that principle. The actor who is given a small part longs for the day when he will be given a lead role. The surgeon beginning his life work longs for the day when the hardest operations will be assigned to him.
We should always remember that it is not a millstone but a compliment to be given a task to do. The general chooses his best soldiers for his hardest tasks. The teacher puts his best students in for the hardest examinations. The coach makes his best players and athletes train the hardest. The bigger the task and the more the tasks given us the bigger the compliment is being paid us. The higher we rise in the world’s work the heavier the responsibilities. The real man regards a task not as something to be avoided but as a challenge to prove himself and as a compliment to his ability.
Both Matthew and Luke speak of the day when the master came back and demanded an accounting. In the early days people believed Jesus was going to come back to this world at any moment. They expected Him soon, certainly within their own lifetime. That didn’t happen. It is useless to speculate when it will happen; but the day will come when we will be called to account for the way in which we used this life and the talents that God gave us. It will make us work far better if we remember that all our work must some day pass the test of God. George Eliot wrote of Antonio Stradivarius that he winced at all false work and loved the true. At all our work we must remember that we must do it in such a way that it is fit for God to see.
As we step forth into 2008, let us make a single resolution, “Be the best you can be.”
Amen.
Last October before I had my hip dislocation, we examined the parable of the talents as recorded in Matthew 25:14-30. Today’s account as recorded by Luke bears a close resemblance to the account in Matthew. Perhaps they are two versions of the same story, or perhaps Jesus used the same story in slightly different forms on two different occasions. Whatever.
There is one very interesting thing about Luke’s version. Jesus in His parables frequently takes incidents from everyday life to illustrate great truths. He liked to teach. It may be in this instance that he used an incident from history to teach a truth.
The parable tells of a king who went to claim a kingdom, whose subjects sent an embassy of protest. He was given the kingdom but took revenge on his opponents. In the year 4 B.C., Herod the King died; he had the title of king but was always subject to the permission and goodwill of Rome. It had been expected that he would will his kingdom to his son Antipas, but he altered his will and left it instead to his son Archelaus. Before Archelaus could inherit the throne, he had to go to Rome to receive its “blessing.” The Jews promptly sent an embassy of fifty men to beg that the kingdom not be given to him. Augustus the Roman Emperor heard the embassy but gave Archelaus the kingdom. He did not, however, confer on him the title of king until he had proved himself worth of it, which, in fact he never did. These are exactly the circumstances in the parable and it looks as if for once Jesus is taking an incident from history to teach His lesson.
This parable repeats many of the lessons of the parable of the talents; but there are others we might examine. The nobleman did not demand the same result from each man. Though each received the same amount, equal results were not required. The one who turned his allocation ten-fold and the other who had turned his five-fold were both equally praised.
God does not demand the same from everyone. He knows well that people have different abilities. God’s demand is not, “How great is your work?” not even “How good is your work?” but rather, “Is this the best you can do?” In school and usually in the world it is the highest mark that receives the highest prize. But even in school it may well be that a score of fifty-five from a student who is not very sharp, represents more honest effort than a score of ninety from a student who finds things easy. God knows about these things and God sets the right value on our efforts when we do our best. As I stated when we last met, the U.S. Army had at one time a recruiting slogan, “Be the best you can be.”
This parable teaches, too, that if we should some day be given a task we must first prove ourselves by doing the little jobs well. It was because they had been faithful in quite small things that the servants were given greater tasks to do.
When I first went to work with the Los Angeles County Road Department, a graduate civil engineer with prior experience with the State Division of Highways, I was given many menial tasks, delivering papers to meetings, setting up conference rooms with everything needed at the meeting such as visual equipment, pencils, notepads, water pitchers, drinking glasses, etc. To be honest, it went against my grain to be assigned these tasks. One of the older men in the Department, who became one of my closest friends and mentor, saw my anguish. He showed me the positive side of these assignments. He said, “Hayward, you have a rare opportunity of seeing who the Department heads are, but more importantly, letting them see you. Do the best you can do with these assignments and it will pay off in years to come.” In later years that exposure did pay off. When promotional opportunities arose, I was more than a name on the roster. They were able to match a face with the name and recall how I cheerfully carried out those menial tasks.
Booker T. Washington, was one of our nation’s great educators. At the end of his life, he was President of Tuskegee Institute and held in honor by peoples around the world. But when he found it was very difficult for a Negro boy to obtain a college education. He heard of a university where Negroes were accepted as students and he walked miles to get there. But when he arrived he found that there were no openings left. They offered him a job sweeping the floors and making the beds in the dormitories. He took it at once, and did the menial job so well that soon he was admitted as a student.
My son, Stephen, wanted to learn how to create the special effects in television productions but didn’t know where or how to get the training. At that time, people took their basic technical knowledge and learned these special effects techniques on the job. He applied at various places, but his basic skills were sorely lacking. Eventually, he was offered a job as night custodian at a post production company which entailed sweeping the offices, answering the phone, where people could order TV tapes from their library and run errands for the people working on production work at night. At every opportunity, he would let the production people know of his interests and they reciprocated by teaching him as time permitted.
This is a very mobile industry, and as his co-workers moved on, various ones would invite Stephen to join them. One such move took him to work on the CBS TV crew for the Winter Olympics in France; others have brought him on the teams producing TV shows such as Star Trek, Lost, Alias, etc. none of which I’ve seen. He has been awarded three Emmys as a member of the winning teams.
It is impossible to start at the top and it would be bad for us if we could. It is foolish to despise the small jobs and to think they do not matter. It is doing the lesser things well that we prove ourselves fit for bigger things.
Further, this parable illustrates a great truth; the reward of work well done is more work to do. The servants who had done so well were not told to sit back and rest; they were given still more responsibility and still greater tasks to do. In almost all spheres of life we see that principle. The actor who is given a small part longs for the day when he will be given a lead role. The surgeon beginning his life work longs for the day when the hardest operations will be assigned to him.
We should always remember that it is not a millstone but a compliment to be given a task to do. The general chooses his best soldiers for his hardest tasks. The teacher puts his best students in for the hardest examinations. The coach makes his best players and athletes train the hardest. The bigger the task and the more the tasks given us the bigger the compliment is being paid us. The higher we rise in the world’s work the heavier the responsibilities. The real man regards a task not as something to be avoided but as a challenge to prove himself and as a compliment to his ability.
Both Matthew and Luke speak of the day when the master came back and demanded an accounting. In the early days people believed Jesus was going to come back to this world at any moment. They expected Him soon, certainly within their own lifetime. That didn’t happen. It is useless to speculate when it will happen; but the day will come when we will be called to account for the way in which we used this life and the talents that God gave us. It will make us work far better if we remember that all our work must some day pass the test of God. George Eliot wrote of Antonio Stradivarius that he winced at all false work and loved the true. At all our work we must remember that we must do it in such a way that it is fit for God to see.
As we step forth into 2008, let us make a single resolution, “Be the best you can be.”
Amen.
January 6, 2008 - The Fourth Magi - Frank Alton
Matthew 2:1-12
MP3 File
On this Epiphany morning I want to tell a few stories that are evoked by Matthew’s story of the magi from the east coming to pay homage to the baby Jesus. The stories invite us to enter into the story even as they call us to go beyond the story.
In the time of King Herod, wise men from the east came seeking the King of the Jews. When Herod heard this, he was frightened; & he managed to stir up fear in all the citizens of Jerusalem. What were they afraid of? That a rival king was being born? That some foreign nation was playing a trick on them? That these astrologers had some magical power that posed a threat for them? Right at the beginning of his gospel Matthew gives us a reading of the political environment of fear into which Jesus was born. Matthew also suggests that the good news that this new baby was bringing into the midst of all the bad news of his day was part of a larger movement of God’s Spirit – a movement that wasn’t parochial in its boundaries. The presence of the Magi from a foreign land demonstrated that the Spirit of God was stirring up hope & newness in cultures, religions & nations that went beyond Israel.
How does that speak to what’s going on in our world? We stand at the beginning of a year in which we will hold elections for President. That’s one thing we know about the coming year. Who knows what else will happen this year? Whatever else may happen, we are beginning this year on shaky ground. The war on terror shows no sign of ending or of producing what it promised. On the near horizon looms an economic recession that will hurt some more than it will hurt others. On a farther horizon is the threat of global warming that many politicians still aren’t sure we should take seriously. As in Matthew’s story, the leaders of the nations have stirred up fear in their citizens. One specific axis of fear is between Christians & Muslims. Many Christians view Muslims as the greatest threat to peace on the planet. Many Muslims view Christians as the greatest threat to holiness.
Last fall, in the midst of all that, 138 “wise” Muslim scholars and clerics sent an open letter "to leaders of Christian churches, everywhere" to promote constructive engagement between these two major religious communities. It was motivated in part by tension created around the speech that Pope Benedict gave about 15 months ago. But its significance went way beyond that. It addressed one of the central issues of this moment of history: the animosity between Christians and Muslims.
It’s no coincidence that many Muslim scholars & clerics who were signatories to the letter are natives of the same lands from which the wise men came to seek Jesus. What kind of response would be given to these wise readers of the signs of the times?
Unlike Herod, and unlike some politicians in this election year, 300 Christian theologians and leaders responded to the letter with their own generous words: “We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians worldwide. We extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God & our neighbors. Muslims & Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense. We acknowledge that in the past and in the present many Christians have been guilty of sinning against Muslim neighbors. Before we "shake your hand" we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community.”
That response, among others, evoked yet another communiqué – this time, a Christmas greeting: “During these joyful holidays we write to you, our Christian neighbors all over the world to express our thanks for the beautiful and gracious responses that we Muslims have been receiving. May the coming year be one in which the sanctity and dignity of human life is upheld by all. May it be a year of humble repentance before God, and mutual forgiveness within and between communities.”
What a beautiful exchange of sentiments. Into an environment of animosity came an invitation to reconciliation. But does the exchange make any difference in the real world? Just as the visit of the magi signaled a broad movement of God’s Spirit in the world so the letter exchange by representatives of religions that are generally at enmity signals something similar. Matthew focuses our attention on what the magi “saw” versus what Herod and all Jerusalem “saw.” Herod’s seeing was ruled by fear. The Magi’s seeing was guided by light. The rest of the Gospel demonstrates that their seeing aligned with God’s agenda, in contrast to what the rulers saw. And that is significant!
This morning we celebrate the beginning of the Season of Epiphany. The word “epiphany” itself comes from the Greek word epifaneia - radiance. The radiance of God’s face is one way God is revealed to people. We know from history that epiphanies of God are by no means a benign thing. Promises of the Day of the Lord warn that its coming will be full of awe (epifanhz). The Magi had been looking at a star whose radiance had led them from the East to the land of Judah. Announcing to Herod that the radiance was close by generated fear; that fear led to the bloodiest scene in the Gospels – the slaughter of an entire generation of babies in Bethlehem. Without that excruciatingly painful story, the Christmas story becomes a sweet tale without much connection to reality – a warm fuzzy story about poor but noble parents who had a beautiful baby who was born in a nice sanitary stable among contented beasts. The shepherds came to admire him, the Magi came to bring expensive gifts, & he lived happily ever after. The slaughter of innocents blows that version out of the water.
When God comes close, the response is not uniform. God’s epiphany evoked fear, darkness & death in Herod. But when the Magi arrived at the place where the child was, the star stopped and they were filled with exceeding joy and awe, which made them first kneel down before this baby, then offer their generous gifts. God’s radiance has a double effect – fear & darkness upon those who oppose it; blessing on those who seek God’s face. The Gospel always confronts us with a decision: will we choose light or darkness, life or death, compassionate generosity or fear? That question confronts us today.
In many Christian cultures today is referred to as “King’s Day” –a designation that emerges from this story of the Magi. The Magi have been known as kings in fulfillment of the Psalm we sang this morning: “May the kings of Sheba & Seba bring gifts to him.” (Ps. 72:10). The tradition we celebrate at Immanuel around King’s Day symbolically acts out & invites us to find our place in this story. We bring a Rosca de Reyes to the convivio. The rosca has dolls hidden inside to symbolize the fact that the baby Jesus needed to be hidden from Herod because of the fear he evoked. As John put it, “the light was in the world, yet the world did not know it.” Tradition dictates that those who find one of the dolls representing the Christ child in their piece of bread bring tamales or Hot Chocolate on Feb 2 – Candlemas – when we remember the day Jesus was presented in the temple, 40 days after his birth. The message is that all of us are invited to bring Jesus out of hiding & into the light through acts of compassion that overcome fear.
That brings us to the story that gave the title to this sermon. What really matters in our response to the radiance of God’s face? We sing a song during Advent and Christmas that says, “Every day now Jesus is born.” Henry van Dyke wrote a story a number of years ago that fleshes out that song. I found many versions of the story, so I feel justified in modifying it slightly to make the fourth Magi a woman – Simona. Simona never made it to the manger to pay homage to the new born king. She thought she’d failed in her calling. Her gift was three precious gems: a ruby, a pearl, and an almost perfectly shaped diamond.
Simona was on her way to meet with the other three Magi when she came upon a wagon train that had been waylaid by bandits, its cargo gone, its passengers beaten, left for dead. The Magi were healers by nature, but Simona had nothing to offer. No medicine. No food. Not so much as an extra blanket. Her gifts for the King had exhausted everything she had. Surely to give up the Baby Jesus' gifts would be unthinkable. She reluctantly passed the poor travelers by, when a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere at all, told her, "You know what you have to do."
Well, this scared Simona because, being a healer, she had seen people that heard voices that no one else seemed to hear, and she knew the way they were treated. And yet it made sense. She went back to town and sold the ruby. It yielded enough money to buy medicine to heal the victims of their injuries, feed them, & repair their wagons. This set her so far behind schedule that she missed her compatriots; worse still, they were to arrange passage for the four of them.
So she set out walking towards the Star. She came upon a colony of lepers. Once again a voice that seemed to almost come from within, assured her that she had to put these poor souls first, and so she sold the pearl for just enough to buy enough tannis leaf to heal and make them whole. Well, this took a long time and also took a lot out of her. Many seasons passed before she could resume her journey, and when he finally reached Bethlehem, the Baby Jesus was gone!
She would have given up then, but she began to hear tales of this healer, the likes of which she could only dream of being. She started to follow the stories, but always reached this town or that town, only to hear that he had been here last week, or even yesterday, but he left and headed over the hills, across the sea, east, west, north, south. Simona was always just short of fulfilling her quest.
One year turned to two. Two turned to ten, and ten to thirty. Simon found herself at Calvary, when she felt a tugging at the pouch with the diamond she had carried all these years. It was gone! She turned and saw the thief running away. She gave chase but could not catch him. Finally, she picked up a large stone and took aim at the back of the thief's head. She wound up and . . . was just about to let go when she heard a voice, a voice she heard just twice before whisper "Let him go."
Simona stood there, broken. Not only had she lost all three of her gifts for the King; but, here she was, a healer, about to commit murder! She dropped the stone and burst into tears. If only she knew what to do next! Her prayer was answered soon enough when she heard a cry. When she got to where the cry came from, she saw three men on crosses. The law forbade her to help. She was about to turn when she saw the inscription "King of the Jews" over the cross in the middle. For over thirty years she’d searched; now to miss him one last time. She was about to turn and leave, when she heard the voice she had heard just three times before, and as clear as a bell it told her, "My dear sister, you haven't missed me. You've been with me all my life."
What matters today is that Jesus be born in you by evoking acts of compassion that touch the lives of those who need it most. The 3 Magi worshipped a baby in a stable for animals. That’s a beautiful scene. But the baby grew up to teach that even more important than worshiping the baby is recognizing God’s epiphany in the midst of the fearful realities of the world. The story of the fourth Magi seals that teaching.
MP3 File
On this Epiphany morning I want to tell a few stories that are evoked by Matthew’s story of the magi from the east coming to pay homage to the baby Jesus. The stories invite us to enter into the story even as they call us to go beyond the story.
In the time of King Herod, wise men from the east came seeking the King of the Jews. When Herod heard this, he was frightened; & he managed to stir up fear in all the citizens of Jerusalem. What were they afraid of? That a rival king was being born? That some foreign nation was playing a trick on them? That these astrologers had some magical power that posed a threat for them? Right at the beginning of his gospel Matthew gives us a reading of the political environment of fear into which Jesus was born. Matthew also suggests that the good news that this new baby was bringing into the midst of all the bad news of his day was part of a larger movement of God’s Spirit – a movement that wasn’t parochial in its boundaries. The presence of the Magi from a foreign land demonstrated that the Spirit of God was stirring up hope & newness in cultures, religions & nations that went beyond Israel.
How does that speak to what’s going on in our world? We stand at the beginning of a year in which we will hold elections for President. That’s one thing we know about the coming year. Who knows what else will happen this year? Whatever else may happen, we are beginning this year on shaky ground. The war on terror shows no sign of ending or of producing what it promised. On the near horizon looms an economic recession that will hurt some more than it will hurt others. On a farther horizon is the threat of global warming that many politicians still aren’t sure we should take seriously. As in Matthew’s story, the leaders of the nations have stirred up fear in their citizens. One specific axis of fear is between Christians & Muslims. Many Christians view Muslims as the greatest threat to peace on the planet. Many Muslims view Christians as the greatest threat to holiness.
Last fall, in the midst of all that, 138 “wise” Muslim scholars and clerics sent an open letter "to leaders of Christian churches, everywhere" to promote constructive engagement between these two major religious communities. It was motivated in part by tension created around the speech that Pope Benedict gave about 15 months ago. But its significance went way beyond that. It addressed one of the central issues of this moment of history: the animosity between Christians and Muslims.
It’s no coincidence that many Muslim scholars & clerics who were signatories to the letter are natives of the same lands from which the wise men came to seek Jesus. What kind of response would be given to these wise readers of the signs of the times?
Unlike Herod, and unlike some politicians in this election year, 300 Christian theologians and leaders responded to the letter with their own generous words: “We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians worldwide. We extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God & our neighbors. Muslims & Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense. We acknowledge that in the past and in the present many Christians have been guilty of sinning against Muslim neighbors. Before we "shake your hand" we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community.”
That response, among others, evoked yet another communiqué – this time, a Christmas greeting: “During these joyful holidays we write to you, our Christian neighbors all over the world to express our thanks for the beautiful and gracious responses that we Muslims have been receiving. May the coming year be one in which the sanctity and dignity of human life is upheld by all. May it be a year of humble repentance before God, and mutual forgiveness within and between communities.”
What a beautiful exchange of sentiments. Into an environment of animosity came an invitation to reconciliation. But does the exchange make any difference in the real world? Just as the visit of the magi signaled a broad movement of God’s Spirit in the world so the letter exchange by representatives of religions that are generally at enmity signals something similar. Matthew focuses our attention on what the magi “saw” versus what Herod and all Jerusalem “saw.” Herod’s seeing was ruled by fear. The Magi’s seeing was guided by light. The rest of the Gospel demonstrates that their seeing aligned with God’s agenda, in contrast to what the rulers saw. And that is significant!
This morning we celebrate the beginning of the Season of Epiphany. The word “epiphany” itself comes from the Greek word epifaneia - radiance. The radiance of God’s face is one way God is revealed to people. We know from history that epiphanies of God are by no means a benign thing. Promises of the Day of the Lord warn that its coming will be full of awe (epifanhz). The Magi had been looking at a star whose radiance had led them from the East to the land of Judah. Announcing to Herod that the radiance was close by generated fear; that fear led to the bloodiest scene in the Gospels – the slaughter of an entire generation of babies in Bethlehem. Without that excruciatingly painful story, the Christmas story becomes a sweet tale without much connection to reality – a warm fuzzy story about poor but noble parents who had a beautiful baby who was born in a nice sanitary stable among contented beasts. The shepherds came to admire him, the Magi came to bring expensive gifts, & he lived happily ever after. The slaughter of innocents blows that version out of the water.
When God comes close, the response is not uniform. God’s epiphany evoked fear, darkness & death in Herod. But when the Magi arrived at the place where the child was, the star stopped and they were filled with exceeding joy and awe, which made them first kneel down before this baby, then offer their generous gifts. God’s radiance has a double effect – fear & darkness upon those who oppose it; blessing on those who seek God’s face. The Gospel always confronts us with a decision: will we choose light or darkness, life or death, compassionate generosity or fear? That question confronts us today.
In many Christian cultures today is referred to as “King’s Day” –a designation that emerges from this story of the Magi. The Magi have been known as kings in fulfillment of the Psalm we sang this morning: “May the kings of Sheba & Seba bring gifts to him.” (Ps. 72:10). The tradition we celebrate at Immanuel around King’s Day symbolically acts out & invites us to find our place in this story. We bring a Rosca de Reyes to the convivio. The rosca has dolls hidden inside to symbolize the fact that the baby Jesus needed to be hidden from Herod because of the fear he evoked. As John put it, “the light was in the world, yet the world did not know it.” Tradition dictates that those who find one of the dolls representing the Christ child in their piece of bread bring tamales or Hot Chocolate on Feb 2 – Candlemas – when we remember the day Jesus was presented in the temple, 40 days after his birth. The message is that all of us are invited to bring Jesus out of hiding & into the light through acts of compassion that overcome fear.
That brings us to the story that gave the title to this sermon. What really matters in our response to the radiance of God’s face? We sing a song during Advent and Christmas that says, “Every day now Jesus is born.” Henry van Dyke wrote a story a number of years ago that fleshes out that song. I found many versions of the story, so I feel justified in modifying it slightly to make the fourth Magi a woman – Simona. Simona never made it to the manger to pay homage to the new born king. She thought she’d failed in her calling. Her gift was three precious gems: a ruby, a pearl, and an almost perfectly shaped diamond.
Simona was on her way to meet with the other three Magi when she came upon a wagon train that had been waylaid by bandits, its cargo gone, its passengers beaten, left for dead. The Magi were healers by nature, but Simona had nothing to offer. No medicine. No food. Not so much as an extra blanket. Her gifts for the King had exhausted everything she had. Surely to give up the Baby Jesus' gifts would be unthinkable. She reluctantly passed the poor travelers by, when a voice that seemed to come from everywhere and yet nowhere at all, told her, "You know what you have to do."
Well, this scared Simona because, being a healer, she had seen people that heard voices that no one else seemed to hear, and she knew the way they were treated. And yet it made sense. She went back to town and sold the ruby. It yielded enough money to buy medicine to heal the victims of their injuries, feed them, & repair their wagons. This set her so far behind schedule that she missed her compatriots; worse still, they were to arrange passage for the four of them.
So she set out walking towards the Star. She came upon a colony of lepers. Once again a voice that seemed to almost come from within, assured her that she had to put these poor souls first, and so she sold the pearl for just enough to buy enough tannis leaf to heal and make them whole. Well, this took a long time and also took a lot out of her. Many seasons passed before she could resume her journey, and when he finally reached Bethlehem, the Baby Jesus was gone!
She would have given up then, but she began to hear tales of this healer, the likes of which she could only dream of being. She started to follow the stories, but always reached this town or that town, only to hear that he had been here last week, or even yesterday, but he left and headed over the hills, across the sea, east, west, north, south. Simona was always just short of fulfilling her quest.
One year turned to two. Two turned to ten, and ten to thirty. Simon found herself at Calvary, when she felt a tugging at the pouch with the diamond she had carried all these years. It was gone! She turned and saw the thief running away. She gave chase but could not catch him. Finally, she picked up a large stone and took aim at the back of the thief's head. She wound up and . . . was just about to let go when she heard a voice, a voice she heard just twice before whisper "Let him go."
Simona stood there, broken. Not only had she lost all three of her gifts for the King; but, here she was, a healer, about to commit murder! She dropped the stone and burst into tears. If only she knew what to do next! Her prayer was answered soon enough when she heard a cry. When she got to where the cry came from, she saw three men on crosses. The law forbade her to help. She was about to turn when she saw the inscription "King of the Jews" over the cross in the middle. For over thirty years she’d searched; now to miss him one last time. She was about to turn and leave, when she heard the voice she had heard just three times before, and as clear as a bell it told her, "My dear sister, you haven't missed me. You've been with me all my life."
What matters today is that Jesus be born in you by evoking acts of compassion that touch the lives of those who need it most. The 3 Magi worshipped a baby in a stable for animals. That’s a beautiful scene. But the baby grew up to teach that even more important than worshiping the baby is recognizing God’s epiphany in the midst of the fearful realities of the world. The story of the fourth Magi seals that teaching.
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