Some of you know I spent last week on retreat at the Society of St. John the Evangelist (SSJE) Monastery in Cambridge, MA. The Monastery is a beautiful, old building with a magnificent chapel that’s mostly made of very shiny marble. The seating is choir-style, so people sit across from each other, leaving a large, empty, rectangular floor space between. This space often has various liturgical, seasonal adornments.
This Christmas someone had gifted the chapel with an amazing crèche that had been made in Palestine, where the brothers have a mission. The carved, olive-wood figures ranged from about 18”-24”. Some were gently painted with pastels. They were displayed, not all grouped together, but in a “journey scene” with 7 differently shaped slate slabs, like you might use as stepping stones in the garden.
These were arranged at different heights and spread out in a line over about 8 feet of the floor. The Holy Family was on the center, highest stone. The shepherds, sheep, and donkey spread out over three other stones, and the Wise Men and their camels came from the other direction on the three remaining stones. The stones with the figures were surrounded by tiny, live evergreen and date trees. Votive candles were scattered among the figures, rocks, and trees.
I went into the dark chapel several times just to contemplate the scene, lit ever so gently by the candlelight dancing on the marble floors. What struck me were the Wise Men. For one thing, they’d already arrived, as they probably have at many
of our crèches at home, even though Epiphany’s not until Jan. 6. That’s the day
the Church celebrates the Wise Men’s official arrival at the manger.
Now these Wise Men, Magi, were probably astrologers, and probably not kings.
It’s the church’s tradition over the centuries that’s made them into kings. Tradition also gave them names and made them three in number. The Bible doesn’t tell us how many there were, or what their names were. What it does say is that they brought three gifts…gold, frankincense and myrrh. So we really know very little
about these mysterious ones from the East except that they were not Jews, and they were seeking a child who was to be born “The King of the Jews”. They’d followed a star to a place they did not know to find some kind of TRUTH they hoped the Child would provide.
Now as I sat in the Monastery looking at the Wise Men, I thought of the TRUTH they were seeking. What had they expected from this Child foretold by the stars?
And as they knelt to pay him homage, what did they see? How could it be that the hopes and fears of all the years, God’s very TRUTH itself, was wrapped in these swaddling clothes and lying in a manger? The wise men’s faces, lit by candlelight,
were transfixed. Even the animals seemed mesmerized by this Child. The holiness of the scene cannot be put into words…But it was there at the Monastery, as it was there in Bethlehem in the 1 C, and as it is here for us today, if we let ourselves really see the TRUTH that’s in the Child.
Whatever the Wise Men saw, they were not able to return home by the same road
they’d taken to get there. They’d been changed by the TRUTH they’d seen and could not do the conventional, worldly thing, which would have been to go back through Jerusalem and report to King Herod exactly where they found the Child.
Something happened to them in their encounter with the Child, and they trusted their dream, which warned them not to go back to Herod.
Somehow this Child had made believers of these “Gentile Wise”, and they became symbols of God’s Good News being meant for all the world, not just the Jews.
For us at St. James, I can imagine us right now kneeling at the manger. We’re encountering the Child, the TRUTH in our discernment process about moving forward as a parish. I believe the process the Child offers us is a process that honors everyone. It’s a process that really listens for God’s voice and for the wisdom in each other’s voices. This is based on the faith and knowledge that Christ is present in each of us. The goal in this spiritual discernment process is not to have our own way but to find the mind of Christ, believing that the Holy Spirit is an active presence who plays THE leading role as we go forward. So we must hold our own opinions lightly, so that the Spirit has room to move among us and within us. We must follow a star to a place we do not know to find a TRUTH we trust the Child will provide.
This is a process based on cooperation, not competition. That’s why it’s so important that the work that will be done in these next few weeks will be done as ONE TEAM with three committees that freely share their information and progress and do not act as three separate, competing groups. When the discernment work is done, we do not expect unanimity because we do, after all, come together as very different people with diverse ideas and values. However a common value I’ve heard expressed frequently is that we want to stay together. So although we don’t expect unanimity, we do pray for consensus, so that all of us understand and support the path that’s ultimately chosen for the future of St. James, even if it’s not our personal first choice. If we can find this consensus, I believe we will experience a sense of God’s peace. We’ll have a surge of joy and energy. Things will converge…come together and make sense. And our process will be fruitful.
If we can see the TRUTH and God’s goodness in the face of this spiritual discernment, in the face of the Child, then we, like the Wise Men, cannot return to Herod, who is so afraid of this Child that he would have him killed. We cannot go home by the ways of Herod’s world, by the paths of competition, win/lose mentality, or by decisions that don’t include really listening to all voices and honoring the movement of the Holy Spirit among us.
My dream, and I believe God’s dream, is that having seen the Child, we’ll not return to Herod, which would be deadly, but that we’ll set about “going home” by an entirely new and life-giving way.
Amen.
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