Right Place, Right Time, Right Action
Right Place, Right Time, Right Action
Matthew 2:1-12
So, as we are getting started this morning, let’s remember a few things. First, we have four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Of those four Gospels, only two contain stories regarding Jesus’ birth: Matthew and Luke. The other two begin with Jesus as an adult. The two Gospels which do tell birth stories tell very different stories. Luke has a genealogy which traces Jesus’ roots to Adam, the first human being, making Jesus a relative of all people. Matthew offers a genealogy which traces Jesus’ roots to Abraham, the father of faith, emphasizing Jesus’ religious heritage. Luke has Mary playing a central role. In Matthew’s Gospel, we learn more about Joseph. In Luke’s Gospel, shepherds—the working men—visit the child in the manger. In Matthew’s Gospel, something different takes place. Matthew’s “something different”is what I would like us to explore together this morning…
At the heart of Matthew’s account is a traveling band of scholars. We like to sing about the three kings. However, in the text, no number is given and they are never said to be kings. They are foreign scholars who have royal connections who seemed to be on a “fact finding” mission. They have seen something surprising. They are curious to find out if their assumption is true, namely, that the unexpected appearance of a star might well indicate the birth of a new king.
Let’s pause for a moment. All of the Gospels were written after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The writers faced a huge challenge. Most people would have known that Jesus could heal people and could preach a mean sermon. However, the people who witnessed those healings or heard those sermons were gone. What was left were stories about how the crowds ignored him and his message, how the authorities despised him, and how his life on this earth ended in the humiliation of the cross.
Matthew approaches this world and asks whether people are curious enough to come with him on a journey to find out whether there might have been more to the story and more to this man. “Is there enough here to make you wonder? Don’t you want to know?” Basically, Matthew says to his audience, “I know you think you know everything there is to know but I want you to look again.”
Matthew tries to spark our curiosity by telling us things that might surprise us. So, in our text, we hear this story of foreign scholars. Let’s remember two things. Matthew’s culture was very suspicious of foreigners. This was also a culture in which very few people were scholars. So, any listener would have heard this story and thought, “Okay…here are people who are very different than us who also happen to be way smarter than us and they saw something, something that mattered enough to take one heck of a long trip.”
Haven’t we all, at some point, realized that an “outsider” can sometimes see what all the “insiders” miss simply because the “insiders” are blinded by the familiar? Sometimes, someone who is not steeped in our world can tell us how strange our customs are or how odd our language is. We see things through their eyes for just a second. Suddenly, if we are open enough, we realize, “Oh my God, they’re right! Why do we have to put so much ice in our drinks and why are they the size of small trash cans? Why do we work so much and take so little vacation? Why does our health care system cost so much?”
So, Matthew shows us this roving band of foreign scholars who are smart enough to be curious. He looks us in the eye and implicitly asks, “Are you curious, too?” Then, Matthew takes a brilliant turn: he shows us these foreign scholars doing something that’s really pretty dumb. Who doesn’t love a story about someone who is incredibly book smart but who is not wise? The “absent minded professor” stories make the rest of us who might not be quite so smart feel a little better about ourselves. So, these really smart guys waltz into Herod’s court and announce that they are looking for the newborn king.
Everyone in Matthew’s audience would have known that Herod was one of the all-time most paranoid rulers in the history of the kingdom. This guy killed anyone whom he thought might be a threat to his power, including several of his own children. Herod was terrified of losing his power. As a result, everyone around Herod was terrified of Herod. Either you appeased this man or you wold pay the price. The wise men are like a person who walks onto the most dangerous “L” route, pulls out his wallet and asks, “Anyone have change for a hundred?”
Herod immediately turns to the religious authorities to see if they have any news about where the child might be found. They are at least as terrified as anyone else of Herod. That’s why they have mastered the art of telling the king whatever he wants to hear, to save their own skins and to hold onto their own power. They cite Scripture and point out that a good place to look might be Bethlehem. I suspect that they were averting their eyes and scraping the ground with their foreheads as they bowed to the crazy king: “Don’t kill us! We’re just the messengers!”
Let’s pause again…Matthew, in his brilliance as a storyteller, tells us that before the child was a year old, before he had done a thing, he was already in danger. As soon as they heard that the child might exist, those in power immediately began plotting against the child. Why does this matter? It matters because a common response in the generations who heard Jesus’ story had to be this: “If Jesus was the Messiah, then why did our smart people—our king, our religious authorities—not see this?” What Matthew says is that these authorities were blinded from the start by fear and the singular desire to hold onto their power. Jesus didn’t have a chance.
Though they might not be worldly and wise, the foreign, smart people would be the ones who went to find the child. Herod tells the wise men to head to Bethlehem. Then, he mentions that he’d love to hear back from them when they’ve found the child. (I like to imagine the phony smile on his face as he did what the powerful always try to do—manipulate others to do their dirty work for them.)
The wise men go. We are sure there must be three of them because the Pageant and that one hymn tells us so. We are sure that they are riding camels. However, there is never any mention of such animals. We are right about following the star but, really, what does that actually mean? At least we know for sure that they are headed to a barn outside of an inn and what they are going to find is Mary and Joseph and the baby—along with all those shepherds, right? Wrong! They arrive, not at a barn, but at a house. The shepherds are long gone. In fact, scholars think that Jesus might have been as old as two when the wise men arrived. And Joseph? He’s nowhere to be found in this initial meeting.
The thing that Matthew tells us is that before these scholars ever entered the house, they are overwhelmed with joy. They haven’t yet seen Mary or the baby. What they have seen is that the star is hovering over this house. Why would they feel such joy? I think they are experiencing one of the most amazing things that can happen to us in this life: they know, for a moment, that they are in exactly the right place at exactly the right time. They have arrived!
If it helps, as I pondered this moment, I found myself thinking about Thomas, who would insist, years later after Christ’s crucifixion, that he would not believe in the resurrection until he examined Christ’s wounds for himself. He wanted proof just like the wise men were pursuing proof. Yet, in both cases what was needed was not perfect proof but a tangible sense of being in God’s presence. Before Thomas ever thought to explore Christ’s wounds, he exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” Before the wise men see the child, they are flooded with joy. When it comes to faith, we don’t need proof. We need to know we are in relationship. We need to feel the connection to God’s presence.
Finally, the wise men enter the house. This house is certainly no castle or palace. This house isn’t filled with servants. It isn’t some sort of official sacred place. This house is a humble place. In this entirely ordinary house, they see a child. They see a mother. Amazingly, as soon as they enter the house and see the child and the mother, they know exactly what they need to do. They drop to their knees and pay their respects to this infant king. They are in the right place at the right time and they do the right thing.
In that moment, Matthew’s audience, who had heard so much about just how angry Jesus made the authorities and the smart people in his day, who knew how many people had listened to Jesus or been touched by Jesus but still did not believe, are challenged with a strange vision of authentic faith. Who saw Jesus and “got it?” The foreign, smart guys who were crazy enough to follow a star, who were so unworldly that they asked the world’s dumbest question of the world’s worst king. They took one look at the child and understood. What if we could be crazy enough and open hearted enough to go on that journey, too? What if there’s a chance that we could be in the right place, at the right time, and do the right thing?
Matthew does offer us a final warning: though the truth was there for anyone to see, this would be a dangerous journey. Two out of three of the wise men’s gifts to the child are burial spices. And as soon as the men fall asleep, they are warned in a dream not to go anywhere near Herod. One last time, the wise men do the wise thing and listen to that dream…and they are never heard from again.