What Good News?

3^rd Sunday after the Epiphany

January 25, 2015

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

What Good News?

“After John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God.”[1]  What was the good news of God that Jesus shared?  Usually, when we talk about sharing the good news of our faith, it has something to do with Jesus’ death and resurrection and our salvation.  But Jesus hadn’t died yet, much less rose from the dead.  Today’s Gospel story comes at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, we’re in Mark, chapter one.  So, what was the good news that Jesus announced?  He couldn’t proclaim his death and resurrection.  He couldn’t claim he had died for our sins.  He couldn’t preach the message of the cross, because that hadn’t happened yet.  What was the good news that Jesus shared? 

First, Jesus said, “Now is the time!”[2]  Other translations say, “The time is fulfilled.”[3]  Either way, the right time has come, and the time is now.  The good news is that the wait is over.  Israel was waiting for a Messiah, a Savior.  They’d been waiting what must have felt like forever for the Holy One of Israel to come and redeem them.  In this particular case, Jesus doesn’t say he’s the one to save them, but he does announce that their wait is over.  The time is fulfilled, the right time has come.  What are you waiting to be saved from?  What place have you been waiting for Jesus to enter?  What are you waiting to do?  What are you waiting to see?  Dare I step out in faith and say, “Now is the time”?  Your wait is over.  Now is the time.  Your salvation is at hand. 

Isabel’s favorite TV show right now is “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” and a line from the theme song says, “It's a brand new day, whatcha waitin' for? Get up, stretch out, stomp on the floor.”[4]  

In other words, get going!  Get your butt in gear and get moving!  The wait is over and the time is now.  Whatcha waitin’ for?  Or, instead of quoting Mickey Mouse, in today’s epistle lesson, the apostle Paul also gave a sense of urgency, writing that “the time has grown short.”[5]  Since there is not much time left, Paul explained that we are to live as if other people matter, as if we ourselves are beloved of God.[6]  The time is now, we are out of time.  How do you live differently if time’s up?  In 2004 country artist Tim McGraw released a song “Live Like You Were Dying.”  Some of the activities he’d do if he lived with more of a sense of urgency included things like sky diving and Rocky Mountain climbin’.  Other things included loving deeper, speaking sweeter, and forgiving those he’d held a grudge against.  Time is up.  The wait is over.  You don’t necessarily need to go sky diving, but we should live as if we love other people and as if we, too, are beloved of God. 

Why is the time fulfilled?  Because next, Jesus said, “God’s kingdom is here.”  Some translations say God’s kingdom is near instead of here; the King James says God’s kingdom is at hand.  Whether it’s near to you or here in front of you, either way, his kingdom is close, and that is good news, too.  God’s kingdom is a different way of living, it’s a different way of seeing the world, it’s a different way of treating others and treating yourself.  In God’s kingdom the first are last and the last are first.  Those who are sick are made well.  Those who are broken are healed.  In God’s kingdom those who are hurting are cared for, the hungry are fed, the naked are clothed, and the homeless are sheltered.  That’s what God’s kingdom looks like.  And we get to see glimpses of it from time to time, which is how we know it is near us, if not here in front of us if we had the eyes to see it.  We get glimpses when we reach out to those who are hurting, when we visit the sick, when we work well together and build each other up, when we help those who need help.  When the church is the church, then God’s kingdom is here among us, as we live into who he is calling us to be.  God’s kingdom is here.  When we honor his name, when we do something that is worthy of being called Christian, when we forgive, when we pray, when we gather together in his name and are about his business, then we get glimpses of God’s kingdom.  It is near to us and we help bring it about.  We pray “thy kingdom come.”  We work to help bring in God’s kingdom. 

“The time is now.  God’s kingdom is here.”  Next, Jesus said, “Repent.  Change your hearts.  Change your lives.  Turn away from your sins.  Seek forgiveness.  Change your actions.”  We’re three weeks away from Lent, but already we’re hearing about repentance.  Jesus seems to say, you don’t need to wait three more weeks to repent.  It’s time now.  Lenten discipline?  How about a lifelong spiritual discipline?  The goal of a spiritual discipline is to draw you closer to God, whether it’s a commitment to prayer, or bible study, or service, whether you’re adding something or taking something away.  I read recently that a former professor of mine from Duke preached about listening as a spiritual discipline.  Listening can draw you closer to God.  If you practice it well, or just practice it a lot, what happens?  What do you learn about the person you’re listening to?  What do you learn about God?  What do you learn about yourself? 

In our Old Testament lesson, the city of Ninevah listened to Jonah, although they really didn’t have any reason to do so.  The modern-day Iraqi city of Mosul, Ninevah was a place of power, built by King Sennacherib, and heavily fortified with thick city walls, huge buildings, and strong foundations.  There was absolutely no reason for Ninevah to listen to a no-name foreign street prophet, much less one that was proclaiming their destruction if they didn’t repent and change their ways.  That was Jonah’s message: “In forty days, Ninevah will be overthrown.”  If this was today, you might imagine a great, big doomsday clock counting down the forty days.  Talk about urgency!  Time was up for Ninevah, and, most importantly, the Ninevites recognized it.  For some reason, they listened to Jonah’s message and took heed.  All of the Ninevites, from the greatest to the least, listened to Jonah and repented, ceased their evil behavior, and changed their ways.  And, as a result, they were saved.  God didn’t destroy them, because he saw the change that took place in them.  Not being demolished is good news.  To put it positively, being saved is good news. 

Finally, the last thing Jesus said was to believe the good news.  All this has happened: the time is now, God’s kingdom is at hand, salvation has come; the last step is to believe it.  Do you believe time is of the essence?  Do you believe God’s kingdom is near?  Do you believe your salvation has come?  Simeon was an old man when he met Jesus as a child in the temple.  The Holy Spirit had promised Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah.  When he finally saw Jesus, he praised God, saying, “My own eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples.”[7]  Simeon believed.  Do you?  Have you seen God’s salvation?  Why is believing the hardest part?  Because it means walking by faith and not by sight?  Because it means accepting that there aren’t always scientific explanations for God’s miracles? 

There is a story later in Mark about when Jesus heals a boy who is possessed by an evil spirit.[8]  In the course of the conversation with the boy’s father, Jesus says, “All things are possible for the one who believes,” and the father’s immediate response is, “I believe!  God help my unbelief!”  Does that statement resonate with you?  I believe.  God help my unbelief.  I do have faith.  God, help me with my doubts.  God, help me live into the faith I believe.  Instead of “live like you were dying,” how about “God, help me live like this is all true”?  Help me believe the good news.  Help me believe time is urgent.  Help me believe that your kingdom is breaking through, that in spite of all the bad news, there is good news, that the church can be the church.  Help me believe that I need to change, that I can change, and that other people can change, too.  Help me listen to your prophets.  Help me turn away from my sin, to see it as sin, to hate it, and not just its consequences or that I got caught.  Lord, help me be a Christian, and not just a Christian, but a saint.  Help not just believe the good news, but live like it’s true.  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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[1] Mark 1:14

[2] Mark 1:15, CEB

[3] NRSV, NKJV, among others

[4] http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Hot_Dog_Dance

[5] 1 Corinthians 7:29

[6] Preaching God’s Transforming Justice, Year B, p. 80

[7] Luke 2:30-31

[8] Mark 9:14-29

Better Coverage than Verizon

2^nd Sunday after the Epiphany

January 18, 2015

1 Samuel 3:1-10; Psalm 139; John 1:43-51

At the age of 26 I had my dream job: I was a missionary in Nicaragua.  You see, I didn’t grow up wanting to be a pastor; I grew up wanting to be a teacher and that was what I studied in college.  I used to be an elementary school teacher.  Because my family had moved around so much while I was growing up, including living abroad, I had always wondered about teaching in another country.  Twelve years ago this month, I started the Disciple II bible study.  Disciple II goes in depth in Genesis, Exodus, Luke, and Acts.  Like all Disciple studies, it has daily readings and the study book has space for you to take notes.  Only this time the facilitator suggested we divide our notes into two sections: “What I Read,” a summary of that day’s Bible reading, and “What God Said,” what God said to us through that Scripture passage.  Well, we got into Acts, and all of my “God Said’s” were some variation of “Heather, can you do this?  Can you be like Stephen?  Can you be like Paul?  Can you be like Barnabas?  Can you go where I send you?  Can you proclaim the gospel with truth and grace?”  And, eventually, I got the point and began exploring ways to serve God in another country. 

The United Methodist young adult program was on hiatus, and I searched through over twenty different mission agencies, finally choosing a nondenominational one based out of Phoenix called Food for the Hungry.  They served in Latin America, which was good, since I already spoke Spanish; they offered health insurance; and they had a clear mission and vision of why they did what they did.  Many mission agencies I looked at just had a vague statement of we do this because we’re Christians, and that wasn’t enough for me.  Food for the Hungry had a much more detailed statement of specific actions as a result of specific beliefs.  The one thing I was less sure of was that they required a three year commitment.  But, I was 25 and single, so why not?  I signed a contract to teach with them for three years in Nicaragua.  The first two years I’d teach in Nicaraguan schools; the third year I’d conduct teacher training, since I’d studied methodology classes and how to be a teacher.  Most Nicaraguan teachers I met had no training in teaching, but I wasn’t going to tell them how to teach until I’d taught in their classrooms. 

I LOVED Nicaragua.  I fell in love with the people, the culture, the land, the food.  My mom said she had never seen me so happy in my life.  It was clear that I was where I was supposed to be, where God had called me to be.  I’m not saying life was easy and I didn’t at times struggle with unreliable electricity or a lack of hot water.  But I knew and everything affirmed that God had called me there.   I thought about staying longer than three years. 

Just shy of completing my first year, I developed rheumatoid arthritis.  The doctor put me on bed rest so that I didn’t damage my joints while they were so inflamed.  I was house-sitting for an American family at the time, and it was the best place to be on bed rest!  I had air conditioning, cable tv, internet, and their maid still came by every couple days to clean and to check on me.  It was not easy to sit, or lie down, and rest.  I was used to moving.  So, I decided to look at the ten days of bed rest as a personal retreat, and find out what God had to tell me while I was on my butt that he couldn’t tell me when I was too active.  I prayed a lot, read my Bible, journaled, and talked with friends.  The word that came through was that it was time to go back to the U.S.  Three years was not God’s number.  Yes, I had been where he called me, but now he was calling me somewhere else.  He wasn’t just calling me back to the U.S., he was calling me to go to seminary, to become a pastor. 

The doctors’ best guess is that I would have developed rheumatoid arthritis anyway, just not as young, and perhaps it was the dengue fever I’d had a few months before that triggered the arthritis to start when it did.  Either way, it’s what God used to get my attention and redirect my life.  God didn’t call me in the middle of the night, like Samuel.  I wasn’t sitting under a fig tree, like Nathanael.  The gospel of John says that Jesus found Philip.  Each and every call story is a little different, and we’ll read a few more in the coming weeks.  Each one’s a little different, and yet each one has similarities as well.  One thing we can tell from these stories is that God calls people at all different places and times.  In fact, there is such a wide variety in God’s calls that you could say he has better coverage than any of the cell phone companies!  It doesn’t matter whether you’re sitting under a fig tree or on the couch, whether you’re asleep or awake, whether you expect a call or not, whether you’re young or old.  God’s not done with you yet, and there is nowhere you can go that he cannot.  As our psalm this morning said, “If I went up to heaven, you would be there; if I lay down in the world of the dead, you would be there.  If I flew away beyond the east or lived in the farthest place in the west, you would be there to lead me, you would be there to help me.”[1]

God’s got the coverage; the reception is up to you.  How has God called you?  What call has he placed on your life?  And how is he calling you now?  Is he calling you to teach Sunday school?  To feed the homeless?  To work with children?  To serve on a committee to make our church more effective at making disciples of Jesus Christ?  To become yourself a better disciple of Jesus Christ?  God’s not done with you yet, which means there is still a call on your life for you to live into. 

Or perhaps you know what God’s calling you to do.  Perhaps you have an idea, something that’s been laid on your heart, that keeps you up at night, that excites you and terrifies you at the same time.  It may not be Jesus right there in your face saying “Follow me,” it may be a little more subtle and so you can try to ignore it.  But if you know what God’s calling you to do next, if you’ve received it and have prayed and discerned what your new call is, if one thing is done and it’s time for something new… well, that can be scary.  Some calls are easier to live into than others.  Some involve leaving the country; others involve crossing the street.  If you know what God’s been calling you to do and you’re dawdling, it’s time to get up off your butt and do it.  Bed rest is over!  Procrastination is over.  What’s God laying on your heart?  And what are you going to do about it?  Samuel was afraid to tell Eli what God told him, because it was something Eli wasn’t going to hear.  But with Eli’s encouragement, Samuel shared it, and Eli accepted it.  Nathanael was skeptical that Jesus could really be the Messiah.  He had his doubts about following someone from Nazareth, he didn’t think too highly about Nazarenes.  “Can anything good come from Nazareth?”  “You want me to do what, Philip?  Are you crazy?  Don’t you know that town’s reputation?  Nothing good can come from there.”  Philip simply invited him to come and see, and Nathanael did, and was pleasantly surprised. 

Whether you’re afraid of sharing your call or have your doubts about it and how it’s going to work out, if it’s from God, that’s good.  Don’t be afraid to share it.  Yes, people are going to call you crazy.  It happened to me when I told people I was going to Nicaragua.  And if you have doubts, that’s good, too, because it means only God can work it out and you’ll have to rely on him.  I had to raise all my own funds to serve in Nicaragua.  I was nervous about it.  Who likes to ask people for money?  But you know what?  I had no problems raising funds and prayer partners.  God provided, and then some!  When I left, after only a year, there were enough funds in my account for my Nicaraguan colleagues to buy a new car, which we desperately needed.  If it’s a call where you have to rely on God to carry it out, it’s something you cannot do by yourself, it’s scary, but it’s good.  It means living by faith and not by sight.  It means God’s about to do something awesome! 

 At Cowenton I keep hearing bits about children.  This church was started as a Sunday school for youth.  And children and youth seem to be one of the important core threads of our identity.  Even at finance this past week, it came up again about doing something with children in the old Terrific Tots room above the Fellowship Hall.  I sense that children are important here, it’s one of the reasons I want to get a nursery going, which we will be in the next few weeks.  And I could be wrong, but I sense that we want to be in ministry with children in some way.  So, the question is how is God calling us to go about it?  What’s God calling us to do about it?  What’s God calling you to do about it?  It may not be for you to sit and read stories with a child, it may be for something completely different, and that’s ok.  God’s got some wild dreams, beyond what we could imagine.  If we can grasp hold of this call, of this vision, then we can start living into it.  I don’t think God’s done with Cowenton yet, I think he’s calling us to a new thing.  Has he laid on your heart just what that is?  Do you have a glimpse of it? 

And how about individually, not just as a church, but for yourself.  What’s going on in your life?  Is God calling you to a new thing?  Or have you been ignoring an old call?  Please know that I am praying for you, and the altar is always open if you’d like me to pray with you.  God’s calling.  What is he saying and what are you going to do about it?

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[1] Psalm 139:9-10, GNB

This Sermon Is All Wet

Baptism of the Lord Sunday

January 11, 2015

Genesis 1:1-5; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

Water.  I love water.  This is the first time in my life I have lived this close to water.  Gunpowder River, Bird River, Middle River, Back River, all tributaries into the Chesapeake Bay.  And yet what slightly frustrates me is that I can’t see it very often when I drive around.  There’s a glimpse of it on Pulaski Highway.  There’s the bridge over Middle River on Eastern Avenue.  A few of your houses and some parks have a view.  But by and large, it’s not very often I actually see the water that is our neighbor to the east.  Water is a pretty ordinary thing, and yet it has great power.  Water washes things clean.  Lots of water can cause flooding and damage.  Water is essential to life.  That is why it was such a big deal to discover water on Mars a few years ago.  We can’t live without water.  In the church, water means baptism.  The waters of baptism wash away our sin and make us new.  It mirrors the death and resurrection of Christ in that our old self dies and we are born again.  Baptism means being made clean and new life.  It means becoming part of God’s family, the Church.  In the waters of baptism, Christ names us and claims us his own.  Our primary identity is no longer man or woman or husband or daughter or Ravens’ fan; our primary identity becomes beloved child of God. 

            You see, baptism is all about love, because baptism is a sign of God’s grace, or unconditional love.  This is God’s prevenient grace, which is the grace that comes before we even know God.  “Prevenient” is a word we don’t often hear outside of United Methodist conversations about grace.  “Pre-,” of course, is a prefix, meaning “before.”  And “-venient” is related to “venir”, which in Spanish or Latin, or another Romance language, means “to come”.  So, this is the grace, or the love, that comes before.  It’s recognizing that God is at work in a person’s life even before that individual is able to understand it or chooses to accept it.  It’s why we baptize babies, because we recognize that God is already at work in their lives, that God already loves them, and so when we baptize a baby, we are affirming this grace on behalf of the child and promising to raise the child in the faith until the time that the child is able to accept God’s grace for themselves.  Baptism is recognizing that God has already loved us, loves us now, and will continue to love us and offer us unconditional love.  This prevenient grace is available to everyone; whether you recognize or accept God’s love is up to you.  It is a gift freely offered to all. 

And like we cannot follow Jesus on our own, we need the community of faith to help us along the way, so baptism is not something that happens by itself, but takes place in the faith community.  Baptism is a shared celebration, and it takes place in the worship service, in the midst of the body of Christ, the church, “because it marks our entry into the body of Christ and affirms our connection with one another.”[1]  In baptism, we join God’s family, the church.  Just like any other family, it’s not perfect and I’m sure there’s a crazy uncle somewhere, but we know that we belong to God and we belong to each other.  A baptism involves the entire congregation, not just the person being baptized and their sponsors.  In the baptismal covenant itself is a promise that the congregation makes to the person being baptized, to “surround that person with a community of love and forgiveness, that they may grow in their trust of God, and be found faithful in their service to others,”[2] to “pray for that person, that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life,”[3] and to “do all in their power to increase [that person’s] faith, confirm their hope, and perfect them in love.”[4]  I’ve joked that I hold the congregation to keep their end of this vow more so than others because I do ask you to help with my children and please correct them when they need correcting and keep them safe when they’re in harm’s way and teach them about Jesus and what it means to follow him. 

Baptism is when you become part of God’s family and as all part of the same family, we look out for one another and help one another.  We share in our joys and in our struggles.  We pray for each other.  We work to build each other up and not tear each other down.  That grace, that unconditional love that God has for us is what we are to also show and allow for each other.  We’re not all going to get along all the time.  My sister knows exactly which buttons to push to get me going and I know her buttons.  We can bring out the worst in each other.  But when we start from love, when we refrain from criticizing, when we work towards making each other better and understanding each other, even though we’re very different, then our relationship is blessed, then we have the most amazing conversations.  When we allow each other grace and the benefit of the doubt, it makes all the difference.  I’m not saying we always do that.  There are times I push her buttons without even consciously realizing I’m doing it.  But I’ll tell you one of the things that helps the most is communication.  The more we talk, the better we get along.  Families are like that.  Communication, rather than wondering or assuming what the other person is thinking, goes a long way toward a healthy relationship. 

Finally, baptism is the basis for ministry.  Everything we do as Christians stems from our baptism.  We don’t do good things because they’re good things or it’s good for us to do them.  We do what we do because God calls us to do them and he calls us because we have accepted his love for us.  God offers his love, we accept it, and then we respond to it.  Your life ought to be different because you’re a Christian.  And the reason it’s different is because you are living up to your baptism.  There are a variety of ways we do live into our baptism.  Some ministries are things that are obviously good things, like serving dinner to the homeless and donating our clothes.  Other ways we live into our baptism are ministries we don’t necessarily view that way, like serving on a committee or vacuuming the church.  Not all ministry is glamorous, but it’s the work of the church and the reason we do any ministry, whether administrative or behind the scenes or serving the least of these, is because of our baptism. 

As we read through the covenant and recommit ourselves to it again, I encourage you to pay attention to the words, the promise you’re making and the promise God has made to you.  Baptism is a sign of God’s grace, of his unconditional love.  We do it as part of a regular church service because we need the body of Christ here.  It doesn’t make sense to join something without that something being present.  Baptism is initiation into God’s family, and so God’s family is present and shares in the celebration.  Finally, this baptismal covenant is the basis for all our ministries, regardless of which specific ones we are called to, doing the work of the church is how we live into our baptism that molds us and shapes us and names as God’s own.  When we say to remember your baptism, this isn’t just remembering a past event, which some of us don’t even remember.  This is remembering how our baptism defines who we are and who God is calling us to be.[5]  So, remember your baptism: remember who and whose you are.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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[1] A Disicple’s Path Daily Workbook by James Harnish, p. 57

[2] UMH 35

[3] Ibid.

[4] UMH 38

[5] A Disicple’s Path Daily Workbook, p. 58

Follow that Star!

Epiphany of the Lord Sunday

January 4, 2015

Matthew 2:1-12

Let’s see a show of hands: who still has their Christmas decorations up?  You don’t need to feel bad if you do, we still have some up here at the church because it’s still Christmas!  In the church, the Christmas season is 12 days long, the basis for the song “The 12 Days of Christmas.”  The first day of Christmas is Christmas Day and the 12^th day of Christmas is tomorrow.  The day after that, January 6^th, is Epiphany.  Epiphany is when we celebrate the coming of the wise ones to see Jesus.  Because January 6^th isn’t always a Sunday, the first Sunday in January is marked as Epiphany Sunday, which is why we read the story of the magi today.  Epiphany means “to make known” or “to show forth.”  To have an epiphany is to have a sudden revelation or a great realization, what you might call an “aha!” moment.  In this Epiphany story from Matthew 2, what we see revealed is Jesus’ divine mission, and this is in the quote from the prophet Micah.  When the magi came to Jerusalem, they went to the King, which is a normal thing to do for foreign dignitaries upon entering a different country.  They asked King Herod about this new king.  King Herod didn’t know anything, so he asked the chief priests and teachers of the law and in response, they cited the Old Testament prophet Micah, chapter 5, verse 2, which says, “Bethlehem in the land of Judah, you are by no means the least of the leading cities of Judah; for from you will come a leader who will guide my people Israel.”  And this is the epiphany, or revelation, of who this King is to be – a leader who will shepherd God’s people.  This is Jesus’ mission and in this season that follows Epiphany we’ll read about his baptism, his miracles, his ministry, and his call for us to follow him. 

However, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Back to the Epiphany story with the magi.  I imagine this story is probably too familiar to most of us.  We know that they came from the east.  We can picture them in the nativity sets with their camels and their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.  We know that the fact that there were three gifts is why it’s thought there were three wise men and that each of those gifts have meaning.  As our middle hymn explains, these gifts coordinate with characteristics of Jesus: gold is an appropriate gift to give a King, incense is something that’s offered in worship to God, and myrrh was used in ancient embalming techniques, foreshadowing Jesus’ death.[1]  This is a story many of us know well. However, Scripture is inspired by God, God speaks through it, and we are different each time we read it, which is why we can read the same passage over and over again and continue to learn more about God and more about ourselves.  This year, reading this story again, I found myself wondering about the magi’s journey.  Matthew doesn’t tell us much about their journey; just that “Magi came from the east to Jerusalem.”  But there are a few things we can infer about their journey from the other details that Matthew gives us. 

First, the star was enough to guide them.  Whether “the East” was Persia, which is modern-day Iran, or points farther east, following this one star was enough to get them all the way to Jerusalem.  It was enough to get them through many days of walking through the desert without losing their way.  It was enough for them to trust it for guidance without anything else to help them along the way.  The one star, by itself, led them to Judea.  This star sounds similar to the North Star that sailors used to use for navigation to figure out which way was north so that they could determine which direction to sail.  The North Star was also used by slaves escaping the oppression of the south to make their way north to freedom.  Can anyone here find the North Star today?  I’ll confess, knowing that it’s at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper constellation doesn’t help me a whole lot.  So, even if we can find it, would we be able to use it as a GPS to guide us where we want to go?  It’s a lot harder to see the stars than it used to be, thanks to city lights and pollution, and you have to really pay attention to follow them.  Even when the night sky is clear, it’s not like a GPS that tells you out loud when and where each turn is and will recalculate if you miss the turn.  When you follow a star, you have to pay attention and it’s up to you to make sure you’re going the right direction.  Keep in mind, the magi didn’t know exactly where they were going.  They were solely reliant on this one star to guide them, and it was enough. 

The star is a symbol for God’s guidance, light for our journey.  Is God’s guidance enough for you?  Is following his word and his path enough for you to keep your way?  Or do you try to add other things, like reading your horoscope to find out what will happen to you?  Or gambling, because you don’t believe that God has provided you with enough?  God’s guidance is enough, if you’re looking to other sources, to other stars, then it sounds like you don’t trust God to take care of you.  God’s guidance is enough.  If the problem is discerning it and figuring out how God is guiding you, let’s talk.  I’d love to listen with you to what God is saying. 

            The second thing about the magi’s journey that struck me was that they came ready to worship.  They didn’t know their destination or what country they were going to.  They didn’t know how long it was going to take to get there and how many days the journey would last.  They didn’t know exactly what they were going to find at the end, other than a newborn King.  They didn’t know how many sets of clothes to pack, but they knew to bring gifts for the King.  They didn’t know how much food to bring with them, but they knew that when they found the King, they would worship him.  They were ready.  In this case, the journey wasn’t the point.  The end was what mattered and it involved worshipping Jesus. 

When you come to worship, even though you know all of those details like how long it takes to get to church and that worship will last about one hour, even though there are fewer unknowns when you come to worship than there were for the magi, do you arrive ready?  Or, when you arrive, are you still concerned about business matters or chatting with friends and neighbors in the pews?  When you get here Sunday morning, are you ready to worship?  If not, why not?  What else do you need to do to prepare yourself before the service starts?  The magi didn’t know much about what the journey would be like, but they journeyed ready to worship at the end. 

Finally, let’s look at the end of their journey.  What happened when they got to Jesus?  Matthew says they were “overwhelmed with joy.”  Overwhelmed with joy.  Can you remember a time when you were overwhelmed with joy?  What caused you to be filled with joy?  For the wise ones, it was when they saw that the star had stopped moving and stood over the place where Jesus was.  Their journey was at an end.  Their search was at an end.  They had finally found Jesus, and joy is the word used to describe what they were feeling.  I’d think that after that long trip with so many unknowns, I’d be relieved or exhausted or glad to no longer be traveling.  I don’t know that “joy” would be the word that came to mind.  But these wise ones are joyful, which implies almost a giddiness, or glee, and a huge smile.  It’s the difference between saying “Thank God that’s over!” and “Thank God we’re here!”  Their focus wasn’t on their journey; it was on the destination.  They had their eyes on the prize, and what a prize: Jesus! 

Last weekend in North Carolina, my husband and I got to go out, and since we don’t have the energy to be very creative in our dates these days, we went to a movie.  We saw “Into the Woods,” which is a creative mishmash of fairy tales and overall a pretty good movie.  But we didn’t like the ending.  It felt like the writers just ran out of steam before they finished writing the script.  And it made me wonder, how do you end well?  Does our culture have trouble ending well?  Is that why there are so many movie sequels these days?  We can’t let well enough alone?  We don’t like ending?  Have we gotten to the point where we no longer know how to end well?  There seems to be so much emphasis these days on the journey and that it’s the journey that counts, not the end.  And then there’s another phrase about “it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you get there.”  I really think both matter.  The journey matters and the destination matters.  How you go somewhere and where you are going are both important. 

Paul uses the metaphor of a race in many of his letters in the New Testament.  He encourages his readers to run the race in such a way that you might win the prize,[2] the prize being God’s call in Christ Jesus.[3]  The author of Hebrews says to run with perseverance the race set before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus.[4]  This race is not a sprint but a marathon, and when it’s over, if we have persevered, then we will have ended it well and will reach the end with joy.  How do you feel when you reach the end of a journey?  Are you joyful?  If not, why not? These magi trusted in the star to guide them, they traveled prepared, and they were filled with joy at the end.  Sounds like a good model for all of us to follow. 

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[1] We Three Kings, UMH 254

[2] 1 Corinthians 9:24

[3] Philippians 3:14

[4] Hebrews 12:1-2