The Magi, Gordon Cosby and Transformed Hearts

I had been thinking since Sunday about Francie's Epiphany sermon, especially about her description of the demeanor of the Three Magi as portrayed in the Boar's Head Feast at the cathedral in Cleveland. Amidst a wildy boisterous procession they arrive unhurriedly, with dignity and composure, focused on their journey in a non-emergency kind of way.

Since Sunday I have been imagining what might have possessed them of such calm focus and dispossessed them of anxiety and striving. I also imagine them to be quietly pleased about being on the journey.

Then today I read the story in the Washington Post (cited below) about Gordon Cosby's last sermon and the changes afoot at Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. I remember with immense gratefulness our meeting with Gordon last summer arranged by the Berkshire Servant Leadership Center. He, too, was calm, unhurried, dignified, composed, pleased to be with us.

Two days ago, at our executive committee meeting, we prepared for the vestry meeting and the upcoming annual meeting. With the budget deficit and the closed, fallen, broken building, it has been easy for me to forget the most basic reason for our existence as part of this body of Christ--the transformation of hearts.

Remembering Gordon's journey these many years, one thing that has remained constant and evident is his fidelity to that transformation of heart that can only but result in transformed relationships with others.

It is breathtaking when I think that that may be, after all, what we are really called to do here in Great Barrington. Could my own heart really be transformed into one that would greet everyone with peace, calmly and with dignity, no matter how I have been treated by them? I do not yet know. But I do know that there is no way I can begin to do this without others. Their prayers, their companionship, their teaching, their examples.