[For the full manuscript, scroll on down.]
I gave the following homily at our seasonal vespers that my friends at Musica Sierra and I started hosting here in the Sierra Valley. This one is for the season of Epiphany and is based on the story from Matthew’s gospel about the “Three Kings” and the star of Bethlehem (click to read Matthew 2:1-12). Yes, I know we’re into Lent already, but I hope you won’t mind this slight step back into liturgical time.
The first thing I find interesting about the story of the “Three Kings” is that these mystics from the East weren’t kings nor does it say anything about them being “wise men”. This is where all of that boring Greek they make us learn in seminary pays off... The Greek word used here is magoi, which translates to Magi. The Magi were Zoroastrian priests. We might call them pagans in our culture today.
Now... Maybe they earned the title ‘wise’ because of their skills in interpreting dreams and understanding astrology. They were well known for telling fortunes and preparing daily horoscopes. They were scholars of their day and had access to the Persian emperor. Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest religions in the world - it pre-dates Islam - and is still active in Iran today.
The primary prophet for Zoroastrianism is Zoroaster. Zoroastrians believe that he was miraculously conceived in the womb of a 15-year-old Persian virgin. Zoroaster started his ministry at the age of 30 after he defeated all of Satan’s temptations.
...IS THIS SOUNDING FAMILIAR TO YOU RIGHT NOW? I digress...
Zoroaster predicted that other divinely appointed prophets would be conceived as history unfolded. Zoroastrian priests like the Magi believe that they could foretell these miraculous births by reading the stars.
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I have a dear friend who is deeply into astrology. She’s an amazing woman - a fantastic mom and a gift to her community. She’s been through a ton in her life and has overcome so much. She’s told me that astrology has given her the grace for who she was born to be and that it helps her understand that all is unfolding as it should. She texted me a little while ago and asked me a very honest and vulnerable question... She asked me if being into astrology was at odds with my Christian faith. She wanted to know if the two were in opposition.
What resulted was a long text conversation that I won’t belabor you with (because simple yes and no answers to these kinds of questions never do them justice).
Yes, Christians and astrologers have thrown stones at each other for a long time. But all I have to do is look at this passage from Matthew to wonder why. I mean, sure... It’s easy to fall into idolatry in astrology just as it is with wealth, personal development, parenting, partisan politics, yoga, health + fitness, or (yes) Christianity. I’ve met Christians who seem to idolize a punitive and damning God who Jesus came to disprove. It’s not that God damns us for our idolatry, it’s more that we damn ourselves by making up a tyrannical god who isn’t even there. But back to the story...
The Magi were astrologers. They’d been mapping the stars for 2,000 years before Jesus was born. Astrology is no new-age hippy-dippy thing. Humans have been finding meaning from studying the stars for a very long time. It’s all a part of God. I believe that I, as a Christian have lost touch with my human heritage of seeing God in the natural world. I don’t know what the rhythms of the planets are. I don’t know how to read moon cycles. Why does this stuff come off as being anti-Christian? I find myself so busy trying to find God in my heady western concepts and legalistic rules that I fail to, like the Magi, see God in the miraculous world under my feet and across the night sky.
When the Magi arrive, they meet the so-called king. The Sherriff in town, the puppet-king installed by the religious authorities - Herod. When Herod hears about this “newborn king” as the Magi say, he tells the Magi to report back to him as to the whereabouts of this newborn king so he can - ahem - “pay him homage.” (If you keep reading Matthew’s story, it turns out that Herod wanted to kill Jesus. When the Magi end up NOT coming back to Herod to give him Jesus’s location, Herod orders every child ages two and under to be killed).
See, Herod, the so-called king, lives from a place of total fear. For it is only fear that can cause such violence (Herod even killed two of his own sons because he was so afraid of losing his so-called ‘power’ to them). It is fear that grasps for worldly power. Power over others instead of power with others. It is fear that can’t stand to fathom losing the throne. Because this kind of so-called ‘power’ only exists in opposition to others. It’s scarce. Limited. It must be managed.
I want to contrast this worldly fear of this so-called king to the faith of the Magi who are open to God’s Epiphany as it was revealed to them through the stars in the sky. In other words, I want to hold up how incredible it is that the Magi fearlessly followed God’s Epiphany through a strange land to such an unlikely rundown shack.
This story shows me that God uses all things and people - from the stars in the sky to the mystic pagan astrologers - to show us who God really is (and in Herod, who God really is NOT)... And as they follow this epiphany, they see clearly that God is not Herod. Rather, they see God in the eyes of a child born of a peasant woman in an unconventional marriage... In this child, they see the love that they were created in as it gazes back at them. The love that we all are created in is... HERE? And, as the scripture says, the Magi were overwhelmed with joy.
See, this story shows me that God is found, not in the things that we humans usually deem to be powerful and magnificent. God is not found in the eyes of a fearful small man on a throne. God is found in the humblest of places. God is in the mundane. God is found in the things of this earth - in the vanilla glow of daybreak and the stars of the night sky over the Sierra Valley (btw, if you can’t see God in the stars here in the Sierra Valley, it might be really hard to find God in the Bible, just saying...).
In closing, I give you this blessing. May your path be well lit by the stars above. May your life be guided by a series of endless epiphanies. May you be drawn into the astonishment of the love that your life is made out of. When an epiphany such as this hits your heart, may you, like the Magi, go back home by another way. May your feet be guided away from the powers and principalities of this world that seek to tear down and destroy in order to maintain their fragile authority. And may you find your way home... Back to your original blessedness... For you are made out of stardust. You are the handiwork of the divine and in you, She is well pleased.
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