The Glory Shines Even Here

Ephesians 3:1-12   Matthew 2:1-12

Everyone seems to have their personal preference about where to shop. Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury Morrison or even the Co –op maybe, but I have a favourite that stands well outside this big five – for if I can, I will always choose Spar. Spar is a very special chain of grocers as far as I’m concerned – for unlike the other retail giants – their branches can be found in all sorts of out of the way places serving communities in places where others have given up. On the island of Iona – there is only one shop and it’s a Spar, and if you come down to the furthest corner of the Isle of Wight, there you will it again, the only shop serving people locally. Many’s the time I have  walked through out of the way villages, supplies in the rucksack running low and there has been the Spar grocer, and only the Spar grocer,  to meet my every need.

Epiphany means manifestation. The revealing of the glory of God to people and places beyond the cosier environment of those who thought they were the chosen holier ones. It’s not much of a jump from Spar to Star.

 At the first Epiphany the coming of the Wise Men becomes a focus for this uncontrolled breaking out of glory . This is not just a magical tale of stars and camels and royal treasure. With our eyes open wider than that we can see,  it as the moment where our horizons are broadened in the search for  where God is and what he looks like.

If we dare to drag the story of the wise men into our own day, we will find it doing at least three things for us,  it redeems our culture, our life’s journey discovers its purpose and it brings unexpected hope to the place of dominant fear.

The culture is redeemed. The background of these wise men was about as far as you could get from the standards of the Gospel.  They were astrologers who sought their fortune in the position of the stars. They were magicians who believed in spells and potions for the restoring of wholeness. They were rich and possessive of the trappings of the good life. All attitudes we might be inclined to condemn using many a back up quote from either of the Testaments. Yet God does not banish their culture to a harsh judgement rather he meets the wise men in the midst of that culture and uses it as a way of blessing which leads to Christ. He comes as one of their star signs.

I know that I am quick to pour scorn on the shopping culture of the age or the sense of being British which appears to have deteriorated into fish and chips and football chants. Instead of standing outside that culture and pointing the finger, what if the preacher pitched his tent at the heart of it and what if those intent on being mission shaped, tried to understand why the accumulation of goods had become  so important to people and why the grouping together in like minded gangs gave this strong sense of belonging.

Jesus went missing when his family were travelling back from Jerusalem and there they found him in the midst of the religious culture of the day – that was all well and good for a fledgling Messiah, at that stage he was matching up to expectations, but it didn’t last.  Soon he would be found consorting in the midst of tax collectors and other types of sinners and condemned for doing exactly what the star of Bethlehem was doing – shining holy light over a seemingly alien culture and redeeming it.

I was therefore quite struck when Kevin Dring, one of our RC colleagues gave the talk at the Belfry carol service and remarked that he had expected the service to happen when all the shops were open – not when they were closed and there was scarcely a shopper left to be seen. Our ability to engage properly with the prevailing culture of the day rather than turn our nose up at it – might be that which determines whether the church has a future or not.

Our journey discovers its purpose– nobody really knows where these Wise men had been or where they were going. A royal visit?  A trading exchange?  An economic meeting?  It strikes me that they were used to being on the move and navigating themselves about the desert. Doing what kings would do, tracking along a predictable route, going about their business.

Travelling gives many of us quite a buzz, and it’s  those journeys that have something positive waiting at the end which we enjoy the most. Yet our need to be on the move is also indicative of our restlessness. Can’t sit down and just be. Have to be out and about in order to justify existence. Important to look busy.  I fall for it all time and again. So much of it becomes a treadmill or is about the impression we leave on other people.

Now these Wise Men find themselves on new ground, going a different way, taking a crazy risk, and why? Because the destination was irresistible in its promise of encountering the heavenly king.

There are roads we take every day. Steps that we take that we hardly even think about. How would we look at the dull routine of our lives, if we believed in Epiphany, the manifestation of the glory of God at any point along our life’s pilgrimage.

So many of Jesus’ miracles seemed to be roadside affairs. He hears a beggar cry out just as he is leaving Jericho, out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of a funeral procession leaving the village of Nain, he feels the touch of a sick woman in the back streets of Jerusalem. Sudden Epiphanies as the saviour of the world walks along,like a star touching the earth, like an Epiphany along our way.  How much do we miss as we struggle down Station Road in the rain. The wise men went home by another way ,we are told – that doesn’t mean they went along a different path – it is that because of their encounter – the whole notion of travelling had been transfigured.

Unexpected hope is found at the heart of dominant fear – in the story of the Wise Men there is a lot of mixing up of bad news and good news, celebration of life and fear of death, rumours of hope in the midst of great fears. This story set at the beginning of Jesus’ life anticipates so much of the story’s end.

The threat of a new King stirs up Herod now as much as it will the religious authorities in Bethlehem, Herod tries to secretly plot with the wise men, just as secret plans for betrayal will be laid with Judas and others,  the death of Jesus is sought in the murder of the innocents, just as it will result in the murder of his innocence at Golgotha. At Bethlehem – many children will die for the saving of one. At Golgotha, one man will die for the saving of many.

There is  much shadow in evidence as the wise men’s story is told, but alongside all this darkness is the miracle of incarnate birth, the liberation of the Good news of the kingdom preached and the rending open of the empty tomb – and the second Epiphany, the resurrected body of Jesus made manifest to hesitant believers.

 We should not make the mistake of separating God’s impact out into the things that feel only positive and using the negative as increasing our doubts in his saving grace. Two things I hover on the edge of learning – God does not work to a twenty four hour clock, his understanding of past, present and future does not get separated out as ours is, and suffering and love, hope and fear are not poles apart from each other, they are bound up in one and the same . When you dare to search for hope – there is it right at the heart of your fear.

 Very sadly, as research for this sermon, I decided to Google the Spar grocery website and I looked up their mission statement – we pride ourselves in serving you right where you are – it said . Not sure if Spar will survive the recession or not – but there’s the essence of Epiphany for me – God serving right where we are – in the culture in which we live, in the journey we happen to be making and in the fears we’re facing.

Here in this tale – we see made manifest – all the Gospel we need to know!

RH 6.1.10