A Sermon Preached at St. Stephen’s on Jan.6, 2008, by the Rev. Cork Tarplee

            After the busy-ness of Christmas last week, Judy and I took a day off just for fun.  We went with friends to a family resort in the Poconos that features a huge indoor water park.  So the order of the day was climbing up a lot of towers and then launching ourselves down water-filled plastic chutes that eventually hurled us into pools of water.  It was huge and great fun, but I have to admit to a sense of dread and anxiety each time I struggled to the start of a new waterslide.  On the most challenging of the slides, we’d meet a few frightened children climbing back down the stairs, too terrified to go down the chute.  I know how they feel.  The look of disappointment, longing and fear on their faces reminded me of the first and only natural waterslide I’ve ever attempted: “Sliding Rock” in a state park in western North Carolina .  It’s a cold mountain spring-fed stream with a long natural limestone ledge.  The brave can hop into freezing water, slide down the rough but slippery stone and slide off into a deep and even colder pool.  Not too surprisingly, many who go to Sliding Rock decide not to slide.  But those who hang back always know they’re missing something.  On their faces is that mixture of disappointment, longing and fear.

            Here on the Feast of the Epiphany—on the only day allowed by our lectionary—we read of the journey of the magi to Bethlehem .  It is a trip that involves both joy and fear.  The fear part concerns King Herod who is threatened by the rumors that a new king has been born.  And with him we read that “all Jerusalem ” was frightened.  Little wonder, a new king would mean a revolution in the social order, an upheaval in the status quo, so of course those who benefited from that order were afraid of a change.  If they had only known who this new king was, they would have been doubly afraid, for we know that Jesus came proclaiming good news to the poor and the outcasts, the very people the establishment has reason to fear.

            Our readings contrast the fear of Herod and Jerusalem with the joy of the magi.  We don’t know much about these strange oriental philosopher kings—we don’t know where they came from, which Gentile religion they practiced, or even how many of them there were.  But we do know that they came from far a way, struggled up more than one mountain and climbed more than one set of stairs to get to Bethlehem .  We also know that they did it on a vague promise—a star, perhaps the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, promised them something new and wonderful, though they had no way of knowing what that new thing would be. Their journey makes them heroes in our tradition, examples of those who would risk much in order to open themselves to the far-flung and unlikely.  We know only one more thing: when they got where they were going, “they were overwhelmed with joy.”

            It seems to me that this journey of the magi is a challenge to live our lives with courage, embracing the far-flung and unlikely for the sake of a promise of joy.  Every time we choose to seek the Christ in our world we are challenged to take such a journey.  We know a lot more than the magi did.  We know that the One we follow embraces the way of social justice and change.  Christ embraced the poor and outcast of the day and challenges us to do the same.  We know that the One we follow embraces wholeness—sometimes in costly ways.  Christ encouraged those he met to give up their self-destructive ways and self-serving delusions to find healing, and Christ challenges us to do the same.  We know that much, but we do not know how much it will cost us to follow this Christ, or where, exactly our following will lead us.  Like the magi, we are encouraged to set out in faith, on the promise of a star.  We are invited to seek the Truth, come whence it may, cost what it will.  The rest is in the hands of God.

            Here on this Epiphany Day in 2008, we might well remember the uncertainty of the magi—the fear as well as the joy this journey entails. For each of us, there are a lot of unknowns before we reach our destination.  I like the way Wendell Berry expresses that truth in his novel “Jayber Crow.”  In one scene Jayber is in seminary and deeply troubled by going into a profession that seems to him to involve giving people all the answers to life’s deepest secrets.  Jayber takes his troubles to his New Testament Greek professor Dr. Ardmire, saying, “I’ve got a lot of questions.”  He runs down a list of the questions that worry him and sits in silence as the professor ponders.  Finally Dr. Ardmire says, “You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers.  You will have to live them out—perhaps a little at a time.”  “And how long is that going to take?” asks Jayber.  “I don’t know.  As long as you live perhaps.”  “That could take a long time,” Jayber replies.  “I will tell you a further mystery,” says Dr. Ardmire.  “It may take longer.”

            We, too, have a lot of uncertainty to live out.  Today we are invited to live it with joy, to climb expectantly toward our own waterslides, letting go of safety and sameness.  We seek One who promises us new life, a life of justice, freedom and peace.  May we have the grace to take that journey with excitement, wherever it may lead.

                                                                                                            AMEN