This sermon was preached on the 5th of January 2025, The Feast of the Epiphany.
Texts:
There’s something compelling about the magi, isn’t there? Something fun: they’re exotic, exciting, encouraging… and so the tradition of the church has given them backstories and names, Caspar, Melichior, Balthassar.
And it is those magi, the magi of the tradition, the kings of the tradition, who we see steadily processing towards the nativity every Christmas, finally reaching their destination today, on the Feast of the Epiphany.
It’s a lovely tradition, and so it almost feels grinch-like to do it, but let’s leave all of that aside for the time being, and look simply to the words of the Gospel.
The Gospel never calls these men wise, and it never calls them kings. It doesn’t even say that there are three of them: it says only that there are three gifts. But the Gospel does call them one thing – it calls them magi, magi from the east.
These are, almost certainly, Zoroastrian priests. Foreigners from Persia, adherents to a faith that would have seemed very strange to both Jews and Greeks. Zoroastrians were and are one of the first faith traditions to consider the possibility of a single uncreated God, whom they addressed by the name ’the Lord of Wisdom.'
In the eyes of many in Herod’s court, these would not have been three wise men, or three kings, but more likely three charlatans, or three fools. Three dubious foreigners, to be viewed only with suspicion.
And so the first part of today’s Gospel is surprising! Surprising because Herod and the people around him take these magi seriously. And it’s even more surprising that the discernment of the magi is the cause for the chief priests and the scribes to join the dots, and realise that the Messiah has been born in Bethlehem.
The magi are not chancers or charlatans. God appointed them to be messengers, and they responded to that call. And so they become disciples, bearers of the Good News.
And so how does God speak to these unlikely disciples? This is perhaps the greatest surprise of all! God speaks to them not through the Jewish tradition, but through their own.
These were learned people, people whose studies of the stars were intimately wrapped up in the understanding of the world that came from their culture and their faith. And so it was with a star that God drew them to the West, to Jerusalem, and then on to Bethlehem.
When they first set out they might have expected to find the newborn King at the centre of power and authority, in Jerusalem at Herod’s court. They might have been surprised to be taken on to the small town of Bethlehem… but they were told by the court priests that this was the place appointed by prophesy. But then, stranger still, the star led them on not to a great household, but to a plain, humble home in a common neighbourhood… where they found a boy lying in a manger.
These are important people, people comfortable playing a diplomatic role at court, people who would find esteem in such places… but they go where they are led. This is true fidelity to the Divine: fidelity not to themselves, to their egos, or their pride, but to God!
And as they stand upon the threshold of that holy home, we hear that they are overcome with joy.
Interfaith friendship and dialogue is something close to my heart. And in the magi we find a wonderful model for relationship between people of diverse cultures and faiths.
There is truth to the world: and as a Christian, I believe that that truth has been most perfectly disclosed to us through the Incarnation, through Emmanuel, God with us in the person of Jesus Christ. I confess God, Holy and Triune, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And yet there are many faiths in the world: and adherents to those faiths have different understandings.
What are we to do with our differing understandings, our differing traditions, our differing approaches to meaning and truth and the Divine?
Well, sadly, a lot of the time, people of differing faiths end up talking over the top of one other. And that’s a dead end: it’s like a conversation between five year olds: you’re wrong, I’m right –– no, YOU’RE wrong, I’m the one who is right! And so it goes, on and on, a tedious and never ending grudge match, graceless and dull.
Taking another tack, some might say that we all embrace the same underlying truth, but we’ve got different words for that truth, different stories about that truth. That might seem a lot better – it’s certainly kinder. But in the end this approach amounts to nothing more than squinting at another faith until you can find a way to make it look like your own. It doesn’t begin a real conversation, a real sharing of understandings.
We find a deeper and much more challenging model in today’s Gospel. The Magi, these faithful Zoroastrian people, receive truth from God, conveyed to them through their own religious practices. And they quite literally bear that truth – they bear, with joy and elation, the Good News of a boy King, the Messiah, across a long journey, finally meeting the King and bowing before Him.
They act from a conviction that finds its source in their faith. They listen to the Jewish priests in what was to them a strange and foreign land. And then they give gifts to Jesus. Gifts fit for a king; gifts that did, no doubt, help the Holy Family to survive their time as refugees in Egypt.
Warned in a dream of Herod’s malice towards the child and his family, the Magi leave by another way. And so once more, they act from their own convictions, out of love of the stranger, and love of God. In so doing they save the Holy Family. The magi live out their faith. And the Gospel today bears witness to the outworkings of that in the world. They answer the call of the Divine, providing help, hospitality, and sharing good news.
And I think that’s the starting point of real interfaith dialogue. Not talking over one another, not trying to smear everything together into one homogenous understanding, but rather being confident in our distinct faiths, and living them each out with generosity and good will.
As Christians we are never called to fear. We are never called fear the other, and we are never called to judge – Jesus is so clear in warning us against that! Instead God calls us to be generous: to love, to offer hospitality, and so by our words and deeds proclaim the Good News that we bear in our hearts. And when we respond to that call, God will work through us – just as God worked through those Zoroastrians, drawn to a boy King, the Messiah, by a star.
There is a vibrant community of Zoroastrians here in Perth – I was looking at their website just last night. They are in my prayers today.
As we come to the end of Christmas, let us hold in our hearts those great words of the season, pronounced by the angels to the shepherds on the night that Jesus was born, and make them our constant prayer.
Peace on earth, and good will to all people! Amen.