Where have all the prophets gone? (Or, if God is no longer up there, where is the new scary place where God speaks to us?

Readings:  Deuteronomy 18:15-20 and Mark 1:21-28

 Listening

In my teens (and in a very conservative evangelical church) I loved studying prophecy – at least I thought at the time it was prophecy.  Hal Lindsay's "Late Great Planet Earth" was like a text book for our youth group.  We read it, discussed it, knew it, and trusted it as the key to how to interpret and know all the signs of the end and the promises of God about the end.

Looking back on that now, what strikes me is how much it was really about being on the winning side – how that kind of fundamentalism was based on the world being divided into good/bad, right/wrong, godly/ungodly, and was about being on the good, right, godly, winning side.  I’m also struck by how we never really questioned – didn’t even seem to notice, how any fundamentalism – whether North American Christian, Jewish, Islamic or any other fundamentalism, always is able to interpret their Scripture to support their need, desire, longing to be on the winning side

I wonder if that's what the Deuteronomists were doing when they wrote the history of Moses the way they did – including the part of Moses' great sermon today promising the rise of great prophets like Moses to lead the people in God's way?

It was a time of political anxiety, with a lot of political game-playing, and economic and military pundits all giving advice about how to win, survive, compromise, and thrive.  And here we have the religious leaders, not immune to the spirit of their time, caught up in the same concerns, saying, “Oh, if only we had someone like Moses to tell us what really to do, to guarantee our winning and coming out okay  (as though that's what having faith and serving God is all about in the end).  If only there were someone today to go up on the mountain into the fearsome abyss and whirlwind of God like Moses did, to tell us the will of the all-high, almighty who is surely on our side.”

Because that's where they thought God was.  In the story they were retelling about the early days, at that early stage of their life under Moses when they were on the run from Egypt and the army of the pharaoh, that's what they needed – a god greater and higher and more fearsome than the gods of Egypt, or of any other people and kingdom they might meet along the way.

And that's what Deuteronomy longs for again – a god who will help them win, be great again.  And someone who is able to go and see and meet and talk to and bring back directions from that god.

Except, God is in the process of showing them something else.  When we read the whole of the Old Testament and the whole of the Bible, we see that God who Moses met on the mountain is not just their God, to help them win against and over others, but is God of all the world / cosmos, of all people / nations.  Remember what Jonah struggled with last week? With God’s desire to save the enemies of Israel from the consequences of their evil?

The will of God that’s slowly being revealed is for a world and a universe in which there are not winners and losers, but only all winners beyond any losing, and the well-being of all together.  And what slowly comes clear is that God became Israel’s God when God did because at that time they were oppressed and at risk of genocide – at risk of being wiped from history … and God is likewise the God of any and all who are similarly oppressed and at risk at any time and in any place.

Which means then, that the way to see and meet and hear and learn the way of the true God is not so much up on the mountain, but out on the fringe and on the bottom among the poor, the oppressed and the at-risk.

Simon and Garfunkel caught a glimpse of this in their song, Sounds of Silence: “the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls…”

And there are others like Wade Davis, Canadian anthropologist and 2009 CBC Massey lecturer – one of many who sees society and our civilization spinning out of control, with the centre no longer holding, and who also sees that the way ahead and the answer we are looking for, is to listen to voices at the fringe and on the edge.  In his case, he tries to pay attention to the values, the voices, and the concerns of Indigenous peoples.  We have a lot to learn, he says, by attending more carefully to the light at the edge of the world.

And isn't this what the Me Too movement is about, and the Great Reckoning – maybe all the Great Reckonings of our time?  Isn’t it about listening to the voices from the underside of our culture – voices that we’ve managed not to listen to for a long time, but that now are let loose among us?

And it isn't easy.  In many ways, it’s as fearsome and scary – as much of a whirlwind and a revelation of the dark abyss, as it was for Moses to go up on Mt Sinai and face the dark and uncontrollable glory of God.  It takes as much courage really to go to the edge, and out to the fringe, or look down to the underside, and commit time there simply to listen, and to hear what women, the poor, the First Nations, refugees, the unemployed and disillusioned, dishonoured veterans, and so many others have to say. 

There are so many voices.  Hard and hurting voices.  Angry voices.  Long-silenced voices.  Challenging and upsetting voices.  Voices that raise more hard questions than give easy answers.

But isn't this exactly what Jesus incarnates and calls us to, if we are really to be living towards the kingdom of God, living in the direction of God's presence and purpose?  Like he does in the synagogue in Capernaum.

The synagogue in those days was a real social gathering spot in the town or the village.  It was where people went to worship and pray and hear the Scripture read and interpreted.  But it’s also where people got caught up on news, transacted business, made deals, saw one another, got seen by others.  It’s where all the layers and levels of town society gathered, and where in the ways they gathered and in how and with whom they related, the layers and levels were evident for all to see, to enjoy and to suffer.

And it’s in this society of up and down, in and out, respected and dis-respected that Jesus is drawn precisely towards the most broken and anguished among those there.  It’s the ones on edge and the fringe, the ones on the underside that Jesus specifically chooses to hear and to touch, to attend to and heal, to include and raise up, and to call and treat as his brother and a fellow-child of God.

The prophet and the prophetic community and voice that the world really needs, that we long to hear, and that we long and are called to be, is not the one that knows who is going to win and come out on “the right side.”  Those kinds of prophets are actually part of the problem.

                                                                                                       

What the world needs, what we long to hear for ourselves, and what we are called and enabled to be in the world as we live in and with Christ, is people who have the courage and the faith to venture into the land and the neighbourhoods of the broken and hurting, to listen to the voices at the fringe and from the underside, and to hear there the voice not of the God who will help us win, but the voice of the God who desires and works for and lives and dies for the well-being of all, which is the greatest and only real victory of all.

Not listening ??

Readings: Deuteronomy 18:15-20 and Mark 1:21-28

Deuteronomy 18:15-20 is part of a purported sermon by Moses to the people of Israel before he dies, in which he says God will raise up other prophets like him to guide them after he is gone.  

Scholars tell us the Book in its present form actually comes from the 7th century B.C.E. -- a time when Israel is in dire need of knowing God's way for them as a people, and longing for some vestige of the good old days.  

Assyrian imperialism is now the dominant factor in the world's politics.  The kingdom of Israel is long-divided, with Israel in the north already under Assyrian control, and the smaller kingdom of Judah still independent but now finding itself playing political games, measuring everything it does by economic and military terms, listening to and trying to follow the advice of all the pundits of the day, imitating the political behaviour of some of their neighbours and enemies, and even beginning to practice the ways and the worship of foreign gods just to try make a go of it in the world.

Sound familiar?

So the religious historians write the Book of Deuteronomy to re-tell the story of the long-ago good old days under the prophetic leadership of Moses who was able to meet the fearsome God up on the mountain, go behind the big curtain that shielded the people from the great and powerful God, and find out from God just how the people should live.  

And they put into Moses' mouth what they most long to hear -- a promise that God will raise up another prophet just like Moses, to tell them God's way.

Do we still look for prophets today?  Men or women (or even children) who can cut through the crap of all our gurus and sages and pundits and self-help magi, to tell us straight-out what God's way is for us as a people?

Or have we given up?  And assume that there are no real prophets any more?

Or does the story of Jesus, and the way people around him sensed the "authority" -- the divine and holy true-ness, of what he said and did, how he did it, and who he did it with, have anything to say to us? 

Fishing with a net as big as God's love (sermon from Sunday, January 21. 2018)

Readings:  Jonah 3:1-5, 10 and 4:1-4; Mark 1:14-20

In the ancient folk tale of The Book of Jonah, Jonah is a prophet of Israel who is told by God to go to the enemy city of Nineveh, and preach to them about what they will suffer for the evil they have done.  But Jonah tries not to go.  He is afraid the people might actually listen to the message and repent of their evil, and then God will forgive them and heal them – which is the last thing Jonah wants to see happen.

In the Gospel of Mark, the story of Jesus begins with the preaching of John the Baptist, and the readiness of the people for the coming of God’s kingdom in their time.  When John falls victim to the kingdom of the day because of what he has been preaching, Jesus begins to gather people for a new kind of community.

I heard the crash.  And then the cry.

When I got to the dining room where Aaron was playing, I saw one of the good dining room chairs overturned and lying on its side, and Aaron on the floor beside it holding his leg and crying.  To my surprise – maybe also to Aaron’s at that point in his life, instead of me bending down to pick him up, to assure him everything was okay, and then sending him on his way to play again, before I had time to think both he and I heard these words come out of my mouth: “Well!  If you hadn’t been climbing on the chairs in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.”

I was shocked.  I wondered where those words had come from.  And I knew.  It was my dad’s voice, and my dad’s words coming out of my mouth.

But not just my dad.  I can’t – and don’t blame him.  It was – and still is, a whole culture that he was shaped by, that he suffered from, and that he perpetuated and passed on, as I was now.

It’s a culture that when something goes wrong, looks for who is to blame.  Assumes it must be somebody’s fault, and if only we can find the bad person – or a scapegoat, and make them suffer – make them feel bad, we will somehow be setting things right again.  Somehow some cosmic moral balance will be re-established.  Some imagined ideal account-book of right and wrong will be balanced again. Even if it’s ourselves we make suffer and feel bad sometimes.  Although usually it’s someone else.

It’s a culture as old as the hills, as old as humanity.   And it’s a culture that’s very religious and moral.  Usually we are convinced it’s God will and respect for God’s laws that we are acting out and enforcing when we act this way – whether it’s a parent scolding a child for an accident and telling them what they did wrong to deserve their hurt, or good God-fearing Christians praying for gays to die of AIDS or not really caring that heathens die in floods or by diseases, or leaders of godly nations identifying other nations as axes of evil or just simply the “bad people” who we don’t really need to care about or be in good relationship with.

The problem is, though, when we actually read some of the stories of God that we have, we see that over time God doesn’t really accept that kind of world, and actually acts in ways to create a very different kind of world for us and others to dwell in together.

In the story of Jonah – a story of God a few thousand years old now, Jonah is a prophet of Israel called by God to go to Nineveh, an enemy city, to preach a message of judgement to the people who live there, and who are deadly enemies of Israel.  At first you might think Jonah would be happy to do it – happy to go to Nineveh, tell them something terrible is about to happen to them because of their sin, say smugly that if they only hadn’t been so evil this wouldn’t be happening, and then stand back and watch the scales of God’s justice get balanced by tipping against Nineveh and for Isreael.  How delightful it is sometimes when you see the bad guys get their come-uppance, and learn their lesson the hard way.

Except Jonah was anxious.  He took the time to think this through.  He wasn’t stupid.  And he wondered – if he preaches coming judgement and the need to repent and live differently, what if the people listen and accept what he says, and repent of their sin and resolve to live differently?  Jonah knows enough about God to know that God might just forgive, that judgement will not come, and the people of Nineveh will be saved without having to pay a thing for all the evil they have done.

Jonah knows, in fact, that this is precisely God’s will and purpose in sending him to preach.  Which is why Jonah tries to run the other way and hide – not preach at all to the people, not even see them, just hear from a safe distance the happy news of their eventual, inevitable destruction because of the path they have been on.

God, though, really is determined.  Runs after Jonah.  Will not let him get away.  Makes him go and preach to the city, so the city will not be list to its sin.  Makes Jonah the “good guy” be part of the salvation and healing of the “bad guys.”

Because God is the God of them both – God of all humanity, together.  And far from having a Nice List and a Naughty List like Santa, or an accounting book of right to be rewared and wrong to be avenged like a heavenly Judge Roy Bean, God has only a Book of Life in which all names and all stories have a place and which God is determined to bring to a good ending.

Jesus understands this about God as well.  Except Jesus – unlike Jonah, is happy to live it out when he sees it, and when he comes to understand that this is God’s way – to create the kind of conversation and community in the world between all people that leads not to judgement and retribution, but to shared healing and salvation together.

First-century Galilee was as divided and polarized a society as any.  There was rich and poor.  There was free and slave.  There was Roman and Jewish – occupier and occupied.  There was patriot and traitor, zealot and collaborator.  There was oppressor and oppressed.  Privileged and disillusioned.  And even within Jewish society, there was higher and lower, righteous and sinful, touchable and not.

And everyone on either side of any of those lines of division had their own ways of feeling how unbalanced things were, and of how things might be balanced out if you could just find who was to blame and make them suffer.

Except Jesus.

Because when Jesus begins to act out what he sees of God’s will, and to call others to become disciples with him – to become learners with him of God’s way, it’s a new kind of community he calls them to.  He doesn’t subscribe to, nor give in to the easy polarization of things.  He doesn’t preach righteous violence against the oppressors like some of the other preachers of the day.  Nor does he preach or practice a kind of pious withdrawal into holy sectarianism to save your own soul while watching all the rest of the world go to hell.  He doesn’t accept any such division of the world into good guys and bad guys, nor any of the normal strategies of rewarding the good and punishing the bad as though that somehow makes things balance out.

The image itself that he uses says a lot.  “You are fishermen,” he says, “and I will make you fishers of men” – fishers of men and women, of persons around you, regardless of whether you or others see them as good or bad.  We will cast the net, he says, and we will draw them all in – good and bad, fish we want, and fish we never thought of, and even fish we thought we didn’t want – we will cast out the net of God’s love for all people, and we will draw in whoever will come, whoever will let themselves be caught in any way by it and by its good news.

And thus a new kind of community – a community of healing and salvation together, is formed, and a new kind of world – the kind of world intended by the God of all life, begins to take shape against the kind of world that moral and religious humanity too often creates and imagines as having to be.

And isn’t that what our life as a church of Christ is really all about – what our pastoral care and our outreach, our Christian education and even our worship are about?  About again and again casting the nets of inclusive love and care as widely as we can, in whatever direction and whatever way we can – to throw out the net of God’s healing and saving love, so as to draw in whoever is there and will let themselves be caught – good fish and bad fish alike, fish we want and fish we didn’t know we wanted until they are here, fish that all are part of God’s great plan for the healing and saving of all the world together.

Readings:  1 Samuel 3:1-18 and John 1:43-51

(God calls and invites, but does not force.  And it's through those who respond with openness, humility and surrender that the kingdom of God takes shape.)

“Speak, Lord; your servant is listening.”

It’s what old Eli the priest in the dying years of his ministry taught young Samuel to say when he heard the voice of God calling his name in the darkness.

It’s also the title of a little book by Rosalind Rinker – a simple instruction book on prayer that was one of the first books I remember owning.  I think someone gave it to me as a gift. 

Being taught, teaching others, and helping one another along the way to pray – to listen to God as servants listen to a Master or a Lady for direction, seems pretty fundamental to our being a faithful church and an honest community of faith – let alone to our being faithful and honest Christians and persons of faith in our own lives.

I wonder, though, how easy it is. 

“Speak, Lord; your servant is listening.”  I wonder how much I might yet learn from that book today.  Because do I really trust God, love God, open myself to God that fully and that habitually?

In my job, with all the talking I do, do I really listen as much?  My education and training have given me a Master of Divinity degree – and sometimes it seems that’s what I try to be and to do.  Personally, I’m obsessive-compulsive enough to think it’s my job to know the answers more than sit with the questions.  And practically, I like to know ahead, to not be blind-sided, and not have plans upset mid-stream.

So how often do I honestly say, “Speak, Lord; your servant is listening.”

On Friday the on-line daily meditation that I read from Fr. Richard Rohr kind of hit me between the eyes. 

                                  

“To begin to really see,” he says, “we must observe – and usually be humiliated by – the habitual way we encounter each and every moment.  It is humiliating because we will see that we are well-practiced in just a few predictable responses.  Not many of our responses are original, fresh, or naturally respectful of what is right in front of us.  The most common human responses are about trying to be in control of the data instead of allowing the moment to get some control over us – and teach us something new!

“To let the moment – and God as God is in that moment, teach us, we must allow ourselves to be at least slightly stunned by it until it draws us inward and upward, toward a subtle experience of wonder.  We normally need a moment of awe to get us started, and then the spiritual journey is a constant interplay between moments of awe followed by a process of surrender to that moment.  This is the great inner dialogue we call prayer.  We humans resist both the awe and, even more, the surrender.  But both are vital, and so we must practice.”

Thomas Merton puts it this way:

“Every moment and every event of every person’s life on earth plants something in their soul.  For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds, so each moment brings with it germs of spiritual vitality that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men and women.  Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost, because we are not prepared to receive them: for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love” – the kind of freedom, spontaneity and love of God and all that God loves that honestly and readily says, “Speak, Lord; your servant is listening.”

It makes me think that the kingdom of God – that realm and that way of living in which we know ourselves living in God’s care, doing God’s will, and sharing God’s love is by invitation only – and that the problem – the reason we sometimes don’t feel part of it, or feel left out, or that it’s somehow beyond us, is not that only some are invited, or that only a few invitations are given, but that while invitations to all of us abound every day, we somehow learn to ignore them, throw them in the garbage or the blue box like so much junk mail, or tell ourselves that a lot of the calls from God that come to us must be from a telemarketer or be a wrong number intended for someone else.

I have – I think we all have, so many ways of staying in control of the calls we take, and of screening and predetermining the invitations we accept.

In my first pastoral charge – back in the early 80’s I was already feeling spiritual dry-ness.  I was just a year or two out of theology school, in my first pastoral charge finally doing what I had dreamed of doing, felt called to be doing, and had trained to be doing for all those years.  And already I was feeling empty, depleted and more than a little anxious about it.

That’s when I looked through the brochure for the fall and winter offerings of the Toronto School of Theology School of Continuing Education, and I saw the title of a week-long course at Regis College – the Jesuit School in TS T.   “Deepening the Spiritual Life Through Prayer.”  I sent in my registration and thought I’d found the answer to my prayer – so to speak.

I showed up at the course and no more than a few minutes into the orientation session I knew this was not what I had signed up for.  Rather than a week-long session of lectures and talks about prayer, and maybe a few discussion groups, from which I could take notes and learn a few tips and maybe a few new strategies and perspectives that I could try to put into practice once I got back to the safety of home, it quickly was clear this was a full-fledged Roman Catholic prayer retreat – a directed retreat, at which instead of “learning about” prayer I would be assigned a spiritual director for the week, would be given some passages each day to meditate on and pray with, and would meet once a day with my director to tell him or her what I was feeling and hearing and what my praying was actually like, and get further direction about how to open myself to God maybe even more.

My first thought was to wait for the coffee break, slip out, pack my bag and go home.  Not because it was too Roman Catholic.  Rather, because it would mean not being in charge, but being intimately and openly connected, under someone else’s direction, open to their gaze, and having no way of hiding.

It was like the time maybe 25 years ago when I first answered a call to volunteer for a while at Wesley Urban Ministries when they still operated an over-night shelter.  I was there Thursday nights, showing up around 10 when the doors of the shelter opened and I helped serve soup and sandwiches from behind the kitchen window.  But once that was done, from around 10:30 or 11 to midnight or a bit later when the lights went out, I was directed to go out and mingle – chat with the patrons, spend time with them, get to know them, play euchre with them.  That was the scary part – because that was the part without a role, a mask and a title, and without a protective barrier against the call to be there becoming more than I felt ready for.

But I did it.  At the overnight shelter once the soup and sandwiches part was done, I mixed and mingled, spent time at the tables with the patrons, got to know them a little, played euchre, and received back from them something I never imagined would be part of the bargain, something I never knew I needed, but which once they gave it to me I realized was maybe one of the reasons God called me there when God did.  It was their acceptance – a gift you sometimes don’t really know you’re missing until someone gives it to you.

And so it was with the prayer retreat.  I had signed up and I was there.  Something had convinced me this would be an answer to prayers I didn’t even know how to say.  So I stayed.  I remember still how momentous and big a decision that was for me to make at that time.

The director I was assigned was a little – and I mean little, old Irish nun named Maeve on a three-month sabbatical from her order in Ireland, and through the course of that week I experienced grace I had not known before.

I believe God called me there through my need and restlessness, and it was there I received what God knew I most needed.

And that’s how it is when we honestly open ourselves to God as a ready and willing servant.  The invitations to God’s feast of grace don’t always look like what we think we need, or want, or are praying for.  But God is always inviting us to come and see.

What if ... (sermon from Sunday, January 7, 2017)

Reading:  Matthew 1:1-12
(In the Gospel of Matthew's nativity story, magi from the East come to visit Jesus shortly after his birth, because they have seen his coming in the stars.  That the magi were foreigners from another culture and religious tradition, practicing arts of astrology and divination forbidden to the Jews, and that the cosmos itself seems to have been altered by the birth of Jesus all testify to the universal significance that the early church ascribed to the coming of Jesus.)  

  
What if ...

when the magi appeared in the front yard of the home

where Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus were living,

when Joseph looked up from his work in the yard to see

who this this grand but now-very-dusty entourage was,

and what they wanted,

when they said they were magi from the East,

wise travelers who had come a long way to see

a new-born king – God’s promised prince of peace

that all the cosmos was waiting to welcome,

and could they please see him now to pay homage,

what if when Joseph saw and heard all that he had said,

          “You’re who?  And you’re here to do what?

          And you think my son is who and what?

          I would rather you not puff him up

with such notions of grandeur and glory.

He’s not yet proven himself anything, 

and better he be taught a little humility, shame,

confession and repentance

if he is ever to learn to be acceptable to God

and of any pride to me or anyone else.

          So, I’m sorry you came all this way,

but I’d rather you be gone!”

Or what if ...

when Joseph did open the door and let the magi in

to see Mary caring for little Jesus,

when they introduced themselves and their purpose

and then opened their gifts –

          gold because this little one was a king

to lead the world in the ways of peace;

          frankincense because like a priest he would help

to cleanse the world of evil

and bring an air of sacred holiness

to every place, every person and every relationship

in his life;

          and myrrh because in the end

he would give his life and die

for what is right and good,

for the sake of the kingdom of God

being implanted that much more deeply

in the life of the world,

what if when Mary saw and heard all that she had said,

          “Fie on you!  And a pox on your houses!

          How dare you offer him gifts like that –

gifts and ideas of a life that will lead him away – away from home and safety and me and our family!

          Why don’t you just leave my boy alone? 

          Have you any idea what this world, what our land,

what our king is like?

          Please go, and take all these dangerous gifts with you!”

It would have been easy. 

Because isn’t what we imagine Joseph saying essentially what a lot of traditional religion tells us?  That really at heart there’s something wrong with us that the disciplines of humility, shame, confession and repentance will cure us of, if we only pay good attention to them.  And that then, maybe then, we can feel right with God and of use to others.

And what we imagine Mary saying, isn’t that just a natural impulse of any human heart – mother or father, sister or brother: to wish safety rather than risk, comfort rather than challenge; to set up a boundary – even a wall around home and hearth and homeland; to divide the world into us and them; and then wish for those we love and want to have near us, a long and happy life rather than risky, life-changing sacrifice for others?

But they didn’t say any of these things.  That’s not the way this story goes.

Joseph for his part seems to have opened the door to the magi – to these exotic, foreign, wise travellers.  And Mary for her part seems to have welcomed them and their gifts into her house and into the life of her family.  Together they offered these magi and their gifts as open a door and as ready a welcome as they themselves had longed for when they first arrived in Bethlehem with the gift that they were bearing for the world.

And in doing so they let themselves be led and instructed one step further into the Mystery of the life they were living because of Jesus – the Mystery of his calling to help lead the world in the ways of peace, to help cleanse the world of evil and bring an air of sacredness to everything and everyone he touched, and to give his own life as a seed of God’s kingdom coming to be on Earth.

The place where they were was inherently holy – holy by birth and divine purpose.  And holy requires openness.  Because holy is always a pointer to something bigger than just one place.

And I wonder if that is one of the things this story teaches us – we who read it more than two thousand years after its first telling.

I think sometimes we tend to put a halo on things like this.  In pictures of the home where the magi came to visit and pay homage to Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, we paint an extra special light around it, maybe place some angels hovering just above it, or hanging around it as a sign that it’s somehow set apart.  Different from all the rest. 

And it becomes one more way of keeping God and what’s holy and what’s truly life-changing in the world at a distance – somehow set spart.  Different from us and where we are, and different from what our lives are about.

But what if the message is different than that?  If the message is that what we see now, in and because of the story of Jesus, is that God is in all places, that God always was but now we see it more truly -- that God is to be named Emmanuel, “God-with-us” and that all places, all homes and all towns, even all human lives and hearts are haloed and to be hallowed, because they hold within them the mystery and the miracle of holy birth, holy presence, holy promise and holy good purpose? 

What if the message is that the glory and good purpose of God are afoot in the world and within humanity, that they always have been, and that now it’s just coming more and more to light?

Very briefly, three things about this and how we share in it, from the story.

One, this is something that all humanity is involved in.  Looking for the light and living within the good purpose of God is something that crosses all borders and boundaries.  We make a big deal of how, after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the gospel and the church that preached it very quickly moved beyond the limits of Judaism and the “covenant community,” and learned to embrace all the world – all people and all cultures, as people and cultures of God.  But who would have thought – what a bold twist in the tale, that some of these foreigners – these apparent outsiders to God’s plan, would have a role like this even before Jesus is known to his own people?  The search for truth, wisdom, peace and holiness is something shared by all humanity, and all have something to say – all have something to contribute to the quest.

Two, this happens best when doors are opened.  When we respond to others not with fear, suspicion and defensiveness (remember King Herod?), but with wonder, curiosity and openness.

And three, this happens most often and most productively in the humblest of places.  The journey of the world and of all its people towards truth, wisdom, peace and holiness is not a top-down enterprise, but a bottom-up adventure.  It happens most often and most helpfully for the world when it happens in humble homes, in the daily-ness of neighbourhood and little town life, in the glorious dust of daily life lived between people just trying to share what they each have, to make the world a better place to be. 

Could it really be that what we see in Jesus is true of all people – including ourselves? 

That as the Gospel of John says the Light has come into the world, and the Light is really the life that is in all people. 

That in our own ways, in our own daily lives, in our own little corner of the world, we all are called to the Mystery and the miracle

·        -  of helping the world to live in peace,

·        -  of helping to cleanse the world of evil and bring an air of sacredness to everything and everyone we touch,

·        -  and of giving our own life as we are able as a seed of God’s kingdom coming to be on Earth?

“We have seen his star at its rising, and we have come to pay homage to the one God has promised for the healing of the world.”

Could it really be us?  And others around us, too?   

Could it be all of humanity really, as we learn to grow up to what and how we are created to be?