Epiphany of Our Lord

January 6, 2008

Sermon by Pastor Joy Bussert

The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew. (Matthew 2:1-12)

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet:

‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of

Judah,

are by no means least among the

rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler

who is to shepherd my people Israel.’”

Then Herod secretly called for the wise magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

How I wonder what you are.

When a child looks up into the sky and sings, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,” the child captures the same sense of reverence and wonder for creation that captured the imagination of the wise Magi who followed a star to the place where it stopped over a child in a manger in a lowly cattle stall.

A child who looks up and sings, “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,” gazes upon the heavens with wonder, just as the wise Magi looked up, saw the wonder of the star, and chose to follow such dazzling light and beauty in a night sky. What kind of reverence, what kind of wisdom for the vast universe of creation would prompt such knowing beyond all knowing that the three Magi would trust the mysteries of creation enough to follow a star, a star that today we might be inclined to quickly reduce to something interesting to observe, or something remarkable to analyze, or something to explain scientifically.

Surely, we would honor the scientists’ point of view in our day. Scientists can tell us amazing things about the stars, out of an informed discipline. We need the scientific point of view to draw attention to creation, especially today. Listen to some of what they have to tell us about the stars.

A star, they say, is a massive luminous ball of plasma. Stars group together to form galaxies. The nearest star to the Earth is the sun, which is the source of most of the energy for Earth. A star begins as a collapsing cloud of material that is composed primarily of hydrogen, along with some helium and heavier trace elements. Many stars are between one billion and ten billion years old. Due to their great distance from Earth, all stars, except the sun, appear to the human eye shining points in the night sky that twinkle because of the effect of the Earth’s atmosphere. The sun is also a star; that it is close enough to the Earth to appear as a disk instead and to provide our daylight.

Scientists can tell you about the chemical composition of the stars, about their size, their rotation, their temperature, and their radiation. It is very important to have the scientists’ observations, especially as they let us know what we need to know today to preserve and protect the planet and its stellar atmosphere.

But what about the child’s sense of wonder? Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.” What about the story of the Magi at Epiphany who, we are told, were wise enough to follow a star, without scientific explanation? The child and the Magi draw our attention to a different kind of knowing, closer to the psalmist way of knowing, when the psalmist sings, “The heavens are telling the glory of God”; closer to what God asked Abraham to do when God shows Abraham a sky full of stars; promises Job that the morning stars will sing together; or reassures Israel that there shall come a star out of Jacob.

It is a kind of knowing closer to the impulse of the child, who has not yet lost the sense of wonder that we grownups so soon forget. It is the kind of knowing that would prompt wise Magi, who follow a star against all political and conventional wisdom to an unlikely place, where a king would be found in a manger, a lowly cattle stall.

This kind of knowing is different from the kind of knowing that analyzes a poem, or dissects a frog, or examines the chemical composition of a star. It is a kind of knowing that invites us to wonder, as a child wonders, to ask more than to answer, to reverence more than seek to understand.

Sometimes I think the sunsets of the winter solstice sky and the stars in all of their silent yet flickering grandeur are there to get our attention on behalf of all of creation today; for what else will alert us to the well being of the trees, the water, the bugs, the birds of the air? Perhaps the stars are there, especially in our time, to get our attention for the sake of the most voiceless of the planet, which today includes not only the poor and the oppressed, who are surely the most affected by environmental degradation, but the very creatures and flora and fauna of the creation itself. Who knows, had we grownups followed the example of the child and paid more attention to the stars, perhaps we might have explored solar energy, for the sake of creation, learning to live in sync with the requirements of renewable resources and the rhythms of the universe long before now. Perhaps we would have been asking different questions of our world and reverencing all of creation in new ways.

Last Sunday, I arrived at church and noticed right away that one of the poinsettias that I had watered the Friday before, right in the front, had been missed. It had that kind of droopy, hanging, wilted, “Please Water Me” sort of look. And so I did water it. And as worship went on, I noticed it gradually changed, until by the end of the hour it had been restored. Sometimes the smallest bit of attention to creation can restore the smallest things in our world.

On Thursday morning, I was up early, finishing some dishes in the kitchen. It was pitch-black out the window, it was dark, it was cold. And suddenly across the airwaves of Minnesota Public Radio came, of all things, nothing other than Mozart’s Variations on “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,” all twelve of them. And the kitchen, and even the kitchen sink, was transformed by beauty, even light and wonder.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are.” Perhaps in the end it will be the child’s restored sense of wonder in each of us—who have grown up sophisticated in our understanding—that will transform our largest scientific questions and wildest imaginations about the future of creation into a posture of reverence and hope for all creation.

Imagine if every bird, every tree, every ladybug, every snowflake, and, indeed, every star was an occasion for not analysis but for wonder and reverence and love. And imagine if, in the moments of reverence, we also felt upheld by love. For a God who points wise Magi away from the palace of kings to a tiny manger by the beckoning of a star is the same one who upholds all of us, you and me, and all of creation, in a gentle embrace, and invites us to see and follow a different kind of knowing. It is the child’s way of knowing; it is the Magi’s way of knowing. And it is led this Epiphany season by a star.

Amen.