Stargazers

Matthew 2:1-12, Epiphany

 Rev. Monte Marshall

There is something breathtaking and awe-inspiring about a nighttime sky filled with stars.  In the 1950s and 60s when I was growing up in Beeville, a Texas town of about 15,000 people back then, it was possible to look up into the night sky and see a brilliant star-field barely diminished by lights from town. 

I can recall on more than one occasion taking our portable record player out into the garage, plugging it in, putting on the turntable the soundtrack from 2001:  A Space Odyssey, and turning up the volume.  I would then open the garage doors, walk out under the night sky, lie down on the driveway and gaze up at the stars, looking for familiar constellations and sights like the North Star.  Each time, I was overcome with feelings of awe at the utter mystery of so many points of light penetrating the vast darkness of space. 

And I had already learned to make a connection between light and God.  I knew something of the creation story of Genesis 1:  “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light….God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.”  So when I gazed upon the stars, I felt close to God.

Today I understand that nuclear fusion causes stars to shine.  But I’m still in awe!  Get this:  When we look at a star like Sirius that’s located about 8 light-years from earth, we’re actually “seeing photons that left the surface of [that] star 8 years ago and traveled through space [unobstructed, until they met our eyes].”[1]  This, to me, is astounding!  The physics of it all does not diminish the wonder of it all.  So stargazing still speaks to me of God.

And as we’ve just heard, stargazing is an important aspect of the gospel reading for this Epiphany Sunday—and appropriately so, for the word “epiphany” literally means “showing” or “shining forth.”[2]  Stargazing involves attentiveness to a particular kind of “shining forth”—the kind of “shining forth” we see in stars.

But in Matthew’s story set after the birth of Jesus in the reign of Herod the Great—the stargazers are a scandalous bunch, at least that’s how they would have been perceived by many of the Jewish Christians who were among the original recipients of Matthew’s gospel.  After all, these stargazers are foreigners from the East.  They’re Gentiles.  And they’re more than stargazers; they’re astrologers.   

Scholars tell us that many Jewish Christians would have looked upon these astrologers with disdain.  They would have been viewed them as sorcerers and fortune-tellers. Astrology was not an accepted Jewish practice.  So to this segment of Matthew’s audience, these astrologers from the East would not have been perceived as wise at all, but as fools.[3]

And yet, these foreign-born, non-Jewish, fools from the East who spend their time trying to read the stars, are the very ones in Matthew’s story who see the light!   They’re the ones who seek the Christ.  They’re the ones who risk the journey.  They’re the ones who cross the boundaries of nation, culture and religion.  They’re the ones who are overjoyed at seeing the star.  And they’re the ones who find the Christ.  They’re the ones who worship the Christ.  They’re the ones who offer valuable gifts to the One revealed by the light. 

On the other hand, Herod doesn’t see the light.  He only sees an ominous threat to his power that needs to be eliminated.  The biblical scholars in Jerusalem don’t see the light.  They’re paralyzed by Herod’s paranoia.  They know his brutality well.

All of this is a foreshadowing of a point Matthew highlights later in his gospel.  In Matthew 11:25, Jesus prays this prayer:  “Abba God, Creator of heaven and earth, to you I offer praise; for what you have hidden from the learned and the clever, you have revealed to the youngest children.”[4]

To the church in Matthew’s day, made up of both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, this story of the stargazing astrologers from the East was offered as a bold affirmation of the inclusiveness of the gospel.

But this inclusiveness does not mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater!  This inclusiveness doesn’t just dismiss the old to make room for the new.  Instead, Matthew expands the gospel’s reach to include those formerly excluded, while also affirming the value of the Jewish tradition out of which Christianity comes. 

His gospel story point us in this direction.  Even though the biblical scholars in Jerusalem are not about to join the astrologers in their pilgrimage to find the Christ child, they do manage to discern a word from the prophet Micah that augments what the astrologers have discerned from the stars.  Indeed, the prophet’s message gives direction to the astrologer’s search:  “And you, Bethlehem, land of Juda, are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, since from you will come a ruler who is to shepherd my people Israel.”

It’s here in the story that the stargazers meet the scriptures.  And it is here that you and I are able to learn something about how to read the signs that then make us susceptible to divine epiphanies.  According to Dr. John Philip Newell, Celtic Christianity has learned this lesson well.  “In the Celtic world,” he writes, there is the practice of what is called reading from the two books of God—the big book and the little book.  The big book refers to the universe, to the creatures, to everything that has been spoken into being…The universe,” he writes, “is like a sacred vibration, a living text that we can learn to read.  And that includes the movement of the stars, the flowing of the seasons, the dreams of the night.”

But then he notes, “there is also the little book,…the book of Scripture in which we listen for God speaking to us through those who have gone before, our mothers and fathers in the faith.  Their experiences of God, their mistakes and failings, as well as their hopes and wisdom are given to us so that we too can learn the way in which God speaks in the human heart and in human history.  And what we are invited to do is listen to these two books in stereo, to the big book and the little book.  If we listen only to the little book (Scripture) and ignore the big book (Creation), we may miss the vastness of the utterance, God in all things.  And if we listen only to the big book (the expression of God in the universe) and ignore the little book (the word of God in scripture), we may miss the intimacy of the voice, God speaking in the secret places of the human heart.  The challenge is to listen in both books, and not just individually but in community, faithfully wrestling together to more deeply know the Sound of God and to resound with God…in our lives and relationships.”[5]

But this is not easily done, as Matthew’s story reminds us.  There are powerful Herods in the world who get in the way.  There are deeply entrenched interests to contend with.  And perhaps there’s a little bit of Herod’s fearful resistance in each one of us that blinds us to the light of God shining forth from whatever source—be it the big book or the little book.

Dr. Newell describes our resistance in this way:  “Tragically we have often been given the impression that we have all the light we need, within our nation, within our religious tradition, within our cultural inheritance.  But our Gospel story points to something radically different, that there is Light beyond our inherited boundaries, and that we need this Light, that it is given to complete the Light we have received, not to compete with the Light we have received.  We need one another as nations and religions as much as the species of the Earth need one another to be whole.”[6]

My brothers and sisters, we are here today because of a gospel affirmation proclaimed in a story about stargazing astrologers from the East.  This is the good news:  Divine light shines forth in Jesus, the Christ!  But this is not so much about the appearance of God.  This is about the transparency of God.  Dr. Newell says it beautifully:  “The divine light that shines in the Child is not a foreign light to the [cosmos].  It is the Light at the heart of all life.  It is the Light from which all things come.  If somehow this Light were extracted from the universe, everything would cease to exist.  So this is a [Gospel] story about the Light at the heart of everything, the Light at the heart of you, the Light at the heart of me.

“Look around you now at the people next to you, at the life forms growing from the earth, at the radiance of the sun or the whiteness of the moon.”  Gaze even upon the stars.  And then “look also in your own heart.  There in all things is the Light.  Maybe it is deeply hidden under confusion or falseness.  But it is there, waiting to come forth anew.  In the Christ Child this Light shines.  He is our epiphany, our showing.  In him we see the Light of life.”[7]

I can honestly say that I sensed a connection between stargazing and God a long time ago while sprawled out on a driveway in Beeville, TX, peering up into a night sky with the soundtrack of 2001:  A Space Odyssey playing in the background.  I can also honestly say that I’m spending a lifetime learning to see more clearly “the Light at the heart of you” and “the Light at the heart of me;”the “Light at the heart of everything.”[8]  For the light I say:  Thanks be to God! 

I offer for this morning, an epiphany prayer taken from the book, Praying with the Earth: 

May the angels of light glisten for us this day.

May the sparks of God’s beauty dance in the eyes of those we love.

May the universe be on fire with presents for us this day.

May the new sun’s rising grace us with gratitude.

Let earth’s greenness shine and its waters writhe with spirit.

Let heaven’s wind stir the soil of our soul and fresh awakenings arise within us.

May the mighty angels of light glisten in all things this day.

May they summon us to reverence.

May they call us to life.

Amen.[9]