Paying Homage
Matthew 2:1-12
Welcome on this first Sunday in a new year. Did you know that New Year’s Day is the one holiday that is almost universal? It is the world’s most observed holiday. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish, Hindu, Islamic, Christian, Buddhist, or any other faith, or even no faith at all, January 1 is January 1 for us all.
A tradition for many on this holiday is making New Year’s Resolutions. If I were to guess what your New Year’s resolutions are, I’d start with the one to be in worship each week. Well done for this first Sunday.
The late Erma Bombeck made some memorable resolutions over the years. They included: 1) I will go to no doctor whose office plants have died. 2) I’m going to follow my husband’s suggestion to put a little excitement into my life by living within our budget. 3) I’m going to apply for a hardship scholarship to Weight Watchers. 4) I will never loan my car to anyone I have given birth to.
Joke writer Ed McManus tried to tie our resolutions to our faith practices. “Don’t worry about [keeping] those New Year’s resolutions. You only have to deal with them until February and then you can give them up for Lent.”
As your pastor and resident spiritual director, I want to recommend a resolution that I know you have the means to achieve, a resolution that will apply to all of us. In this New Year, I resolve to live as a disciple. The vitality of any congregation is tied to each member, and every member, living as a disciple. It’s what we each promised to do when we became members of the church, when we confessed our faith and promised “our prayers, our presence, our gifts, our service, and our witness” for the kingdom of God revealed in Jesus Christ.
There is an ancient Christian tradition, largely unknown in the United States, which is still practiced in some parts of the apostolic Church. It is a practice done when we remember the coming of the three kings. In this tradition, people would gather outside of homes, and invite their clergy and their neighbors to use a piece of chalk to make a mark on their door while offering a blessing on the home. The marks would differ from place to place, depending on the language and local customs, but the blessing was always the same: “May Christ bless this house.”
Today, we remember the wise men coming to Herod, and then to Jesus. The wise men come to Jesus and they pay him homage. “Homage” is an old fashioned word we don’t use much any more, but simply it means showing your respect for one who is superior. The wise men humble themselves and give gifts to Jesus because they are acknowledging that Jesus is superior to them.
Today, we come to pay homage to Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Or, to put it in modern language, we come to renew our covenant to live as disciples of Jesus Christ in the New Year. We come with different gifts that can be used to honor Jesus. And today, I offer youseveral pieces of chalk so that you can make your sign to bless the house of God.
But what does it mean to live faithfully as a disciple? What is our motivation for the things disciples are called to do? Our scripture reading reveals several motives for what the people do in their relationship to Jesus, and not all of them are faithful.
Herod’s motive is fairly easy to figure out. Herod used a model I like to call “fear me, don’t ask questions.” If there had been reporters in that day covering Herod, he would have controlled the media, and its contents. The headline for the story of the wise men visiting Herod might read,“Herod adored as king of kings!” The spin on the story would come from the facts: the wise men had come looking for the one born to be king of the Jews, and Herod was the king of the Jews. Herod would do whatever he could do to make sure that his people knew that he was in charge.
Some churches use the Herod model. The goalis to serve the one leader at the top, whether it is the pope, the pastor, or the petite grandmother who runs the church as the sole authority concerning the will of God. This is an efficient model, with clear lines of authority that do not tolerate dissension within the ranks. Things happen when the top leader says it will happen.
The motive of the wise men perhaps can only be inferred. They seem to be pursuing a policy of “enlighten us, don’t bind us.” There is an independent streak in them. They have left behind responsibilities at home in order to satisfy their need to know what is going on in the mind of God. If there had been reporters covering their visit to Herod, the headline that might appear would be, “God goes international.” The spin on this story would come from the facts that the Jews considered God to be their God alone, tied exclusively to their land. But this visit by the wise men is evidence that God is interested in, and talks with, people in faraway lands.
Some churches use the Wise Men model. The goal is to keep before the congregation their mission, which is out there among the heathens and pagans who don’t know our God, with the goal of making them just like us in following God. It has a clear vision that has measurable results. Things may take a while to happen, but the members know where they are going.
While they are not mentioned in Matthew’s gospel, I don’t want us to overlook the shepherds, who also came looking for the Christ child. Shepherds were the blue-collar folks of their day. Tex Sample has written extensively about ministry with blue-collar folks. Their motivation is “bless me, don’t boss me.” These are folks who associate being bossed around with the ways of the world. The headline that might appear after the shepherds visit the manger could be something like: “Shepherds claim ‘God is just like us.’”
Some churches use the Shepherds model. The goalis to keep every thing familiar, since this is how God has come to them into the world. It is a comforting model, with a clear belief that the past we know defines our future. The best thing that could happen would be a return to the past, when everything was much simpler and clearer in our memories.
Clear lines of authority, clear visions of the future, clear beliefs grounded in the past – these are all goals that people seek, but they are just about impossible to hold together since they have different ways of defining success. Trying to hold these models together is a bit like the bloodhound that was given the mission to follow the trail of a deer. During the chase a fox crossed his path, so he began to chase the fox. A rabbit then crossed the hound’s path, so he began to chase the rabbit. After chasing the rabbit for a while, a tiny field mouse crossed his path, and he chased the mouse to the corner of a farmer’s barn. The bloodhound had begun the hunt chasing a deer and wound up barking at a tiny mouse.
There are strengths for each of these models, but there is also a problem with each of these models – and the problem is the same. They all are driven by power, as the world understands power. One of the problems facing our congregations today is that we are told to rework our administrative structures; we are advised to rewrite our vision statements; and we are encouraged toreclaim our traditions – but we are still going to fall short of the glory of God because we are still thinking in terms of worldly power.
Living as a disciple means knowing that the power of God is the power of love. Jesus did not say that the two great commandments are “obey God, and obey the leaders.” Jesus said the two great commandments are “love God, and love your neighbors.” Yet, we keep defaulting to obedience because we can measure obedience. Love, however, is about our relationship with God and our relationships with each other.
There is a parable that Jesus told that most people have never heard before. It isn’t part of the 3-year lectionary cycle so lectionary preachers miss it. This parable relies on a decidedly non-scientific viewpoint, so many contemporary preachers have trouble figuring out what it means for today. It is only found in Luke’s gospel, coming immediately after Jesus is accused of having an evil spirit as the source of his power against the demons. Jesus was seen as being disobedient by those who were not looking for the power of love.
Beginning at 11:24, Jesus says, “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ When it comes, it finds it swept and put in order. Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and live there; and the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
If we do not replace our sinful spirit that seeks its own power with the Holy Spirit that empowers us to love, we fall back into doing what we knew how to do when we knew we were sinners. We may have enough religion to avoid the big sins that we think are disgraceful, but we take up again those more ordinary sins of seeking power. This makes us worse than we were before, because now we claim our power to exclude and judge comes from God.
The model for Herod was “fear me, don’t ask any questions.” The model for the wise men was “enlighten me, don’t bind me.” The model for the shepherds was “bless me, don’t boss me.” The model for Jesus is “walk with me, love others.” Jesus shows us that those who are disciplesto love God, and love their neighbors. It is a model that, as John Wesley wrote near the end of his life, believes that even faith must be the handmaid of love. It is a model that believes the kingdom of God comes when we spend time with Jesus. It is a model that believes the kingdom of God comes to others when we love others as Christ has loved us.
It has been suggested that stories are for those who can understand them, and rules are for those who need them. If you need rules in order to be a disciple, let me offer you just three that are grounded in love: 1) do no harm; 2) do good; and 3) stay in love with God. We will be hearing a lot more about how to flesh out those rules in the coming Lenten season, because these are the three rules of Methodism.
This model for discipleship isn’t anything new, of course. This is also how the early church understood the way to follow Christ. Paul preserved for us one of the earliest Christian hymns in his letter to the Philippians. It emphasizes this vulnerability of Jesus, who came to love us.
Though he was in the form ofGod, he did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited, but emptied himself,taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness. And being found in human form,
he humbled himselfand became obedient to the point of death –even death on a cross.
Today, we renew our covenant to be disciples of Jesus Christ, using the covenant prayer of John Wesley. Today, we come to the table of the Lord to affirm again that we are part of the Body of Christ, and that we are the children of God. After you have received the sacrament this morning, I invite you to take a piece of chalk if you know you have a ministry to live out in this New Year. I invite you to use the chalk to make your mark on one of the door frames into the sanctuary, or on one of the altar rails, or on the ends of one of the pews, and to pray, “May Christ’s blessing be upon this church, and upon my ministry.” If you are still seeking your ministry, instead of taking a piece of chalk, I invite you towait for God to reveal this ministry to you as you pray, “Help me to pay homage to Christ.” If we will humble ourselves and pay homage to Christ, it will be a day of new beginnings, a day of newly creating the kingdom of God!
UMH 383 “This is a Day of New Beginnings”