January 5, 2003 - Epiphany

Liz and Erin will be telling us the story of the ?wise men? - the "three kings" as the famous Christmas carol calls them. You adults will know it because you?ve heard it every Christmas all you life. But as familiar as it is, try to listen to it the way the youngest children here today will hear it: as a new story. Listen for what we might learn about Jesus from how these mysterious travelers from the east treat the young child.

In the book about this history of this church - Independent of Mind, Open of Heart - Mary Fallon fondly remembers a Christmas Eve decades ago when three kings came down this aisle. That Christmas it seems the Irish were well-represented in the royal procession as down marched Fallon, Sullivan, and McCain. One of those August if not always dignified kings is with us today - Don Sullivan.

This morning we have Nichols, Shultz, and Sheveland to be our kings. And the carol we and they will sing tells not only the story of Christ?s birth and the visit of the magi, but also his death in verse 4, and his resurrection in the last verse. So let us hear now the story of the wise men read from the Scripture, and then sung in the carol.

There they go ? back home. Probably to Bagdad. For we think that if they indeed came "from eastern lands" they probably came from Babylonia - the country we now call Iraq. And while the carol we just sang made them kings, the biblical text does not. We think that the "magi" ? "wise men" were scholars ? astrologers, really. But whether kings, astrologers, scholars, or simply "wise men," they were foreigners to this peasant family Joseph and Mary and the young boy Jesus. And their arrival at their humble abode would have been amazing indeed! Travelers from far-off lands, distinguished and learned, and bearing gifts . . . Expensive, but odd gifts! Gold is useful enough, and the frankincense could be used in worship at the temple. But myrrh for burial?

Whatever their reasons for bringing these gifts, the wise men are credited with starting the custom of giving each other gifts at Christmas. It is a custom that has become the mainstay of most retailers? existence in our country. A good Holiday season means a good year. A bad season could put a store or an entire chain of stores out of business.

And so we Americans historically have gone about our Christmas shopping with patriotic fervor, haven?t we. We are, after all, serious (if not manic) about the acquisition of more and more stuff to fill up our expanding homes and multiple garages, and even spill out into the storage rental units that seem to spring up on every empty lot. And we train our children well to follow in our steps! In one of our local grocery stores you can get a little shopping cart for your child to push, with a little flag on the cart that proudly announces "Shopper in Training." That?s not even very subtle, is it! The magi may have given extravagant gifts to the Christ Child, but I think they would be amazed at our level of spending to celebrate ? we say ? that same holy birth.

Now of course I am just as susceptible to the attractions of material goods as any of you. And I enjoy as much as anyone receiving gifts. I was just telling someone at First Fridays that Carol had given me a ?67 Corvette for Christmas ? and for a minute I think they thought that she had given me a REAL ?67 Corvette with a 427 engine! No, it?s not a REAL car, but a model just like the ones I used to make when I was a kid and Corvettes were new! So I enjoy the receiving and giving of gifts at Christmas.

I just think that we have gone way too far. (And a REAL Corvette would have been way too far!) But on this Sunday just eleven days after Christmas, as the glitter of our gifts has already started to fade a bit, all those Packer products sorrowfully set aside, and we await those credit card bills to show up in the mailbox, as they will, perhaps this is a good time to reflect on this Christmas past.

How well did we do in resisting the millions and millions of dollars of advertizing that was thrown at us? Why DID we buy what we bought? In what spirit did we give to others? Were we able to find in the midst of hurried schedules, expectations of family and friends, the pressures of the season . . . were we able to find what really matters to us and to everyone? To use a much-worn phrase, were we able to remember the ?reason for the season??

As we think about gift-giving, and perhaps make plans to it differently next year, I want to share with you a custom that Carol and I began four Christmases ago. It was the year that a tremendous earthquake had hit Turkey, and a similar natural disaster had effected Mexico. We knew personally people working in those areas: Mick and Sally McCain in Turkey, and the Norberto and Lisa Cortes at the Mazahua Mission. As we looked at our Christmas list of brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, friends, and considered the 100s of dollars we were about to spend on those gifts; and as we looked at the unimaginable need in Turkey and Mexico we made a decision. We wrote a letter to family and friends telling them about the needs, and saying that their gift that year would be our making a donation in their honor to those missions.

We were a little nervous about doing that. We didn?t want to appear to be ?holier than thou? and we didn?t want to say that they should necessarily do the same thing (although we have been very pleased that some have picked up on it). But we thought it worth the risk. And it was.

This year we made donations to one of the projects we visited in Philadelphia on our sabbatical, and another to the Mennonite Central Committee?s relief work in Iraq. For the younger family members we gave to the Heifer Project, in their names.

I recommend that you consider doing something like that next Christmas. It makes shopping a whole lot easier! It doesn?t cost any more ? and in fact the deduction you can take on your taxes will allow you to give even more money to a charity. We haven?t had anyone get mad at us for doing it. AND now four years into this practice thousands of dollars have gone to needy projects.

Each of us, of course, has to decide how we can best honor Christ in our gifts to reflect his glory in the world. Whatever we do, let us be imitators of that Christ ? the One who gave to us not only his teaching and his example, but gave his life that we might have life. The Lord?s Supper we are about to celebrate declares that great truth in the words we say and in the bread and the cup we eat and drink. This Table is a gift from our Lord. A gift that announces to the world that God?s love is free and unbounded; God?s grace is for all. In response to that gift, may we give freely not only at Christmas, but in all of our lives.