Feast of the Epiphany, transferred

Matthew 2:1-12

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Jan. 4, 2009

The Rev. John Spicer

Being a Holy Detective

Today’s Gospel reading is one of those stories we know too well, as a friend of mine from seminary likes to say.  We hear this reading every Epiphany; and more than that, the story is part of our iconography this time of year, with wise men and camels routinely showing up on Christmas decorations.  So it’s tempting to think, “Oh yeah, the wise men bringing gifts to Jesus – I know this one.”  But when we react to Scripture like that, it’s a good idea to go back for a second listen because God always has something more in mind for us to hear than just “the same old story.”

For whatever reason, as I read this Gospel passage, what I heard this time was a detective story.  What gives the story energy is the searching by these court astrologers or magicians or, as they became in later tradition, kings.  The magi ask, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1).  To solve this case, they use their professional expertise from studying the stars, as well as a willingness to follow hunches, and search for clues, and persevere through what must have seemed sometimes like a long and fruitless search.  Now, another major character in this detective story is the bad guy – King Herod – who wants to throw our heroes off the trail so he can secure his own power and who’s willing to resort even to murder to get what he wants.  And then we have the true main character, silent but always active – God, who offers the guidance of the star and who gives the magi a miraculous break in the case when the star reappears over Mary and Joseph’s dwelling in Bethlehem.  The magi follow this divine sign and solve the case, breaking open the real mystery – a divine king who’s just a little child, God’s own sovereign ruler living in a peasant’s shack.  Finding Christ brings the magi the deepest joy they’ll ever know – but wait, there’s still one plot twist left.  There’s still the bad guy out there, Herod, threatening the magi and the baby king.  But God comes to the magi in a dream and helps them outsmart the villain, who finds out only too late that his pawns have gone home by another way.  The story ends just the way we like it:  Our heroes crack the case, the bad guy is foiled again, and good triumphs over evil – but only after enough twists and turns to make us worry a little about the outcome.  That’s what makes a detective story interesting.

Well, OK; it’s a detective story.  But we might reasonably wonder – why.  Why doesn’t God just bring the magi to Bethlehem directly?  What’s up with all the detective work and suspense?  Clearly, God wants these court astrologers to find Jesus.  God sets a star in the sky to attract them, and guides them to Herod so they can learn in what city the messiah will be born, and leads them precisely to Mary and Joseph’s place.  God wants these court astrologers to return to their royal households and report the news that the true king has been born.  Well, if God wants the magi to find the Christ child, and worship him, and then go tell the Good News back home, why doesn’t God just send an angel to them saying, “Here’s where you’ll find him”?  Or, better yet, why not just cut to the chase?  God is God, after all, and presumably could have just transported the magi in a snap from their palaces in Persia directly to Mary and Joseph’s little shack in Bethlehem.  Why didn’t God just bring about what God wanted to see happen?  Why does the story need all that detective work?

And while we’re at it – why does God play out this same kind of complicated story line with us?  If we’re honest about it, wouldn’t we say that sometimes God’s whole project of bringing in the kingdom seems a little more convoluted than it needs to be?  If God wants all creation to acknowledge the lordship of Christ, why not just topple all the pretenders to the throne?   If God wants each one of us to follow as a disciple, why not just appear out of the clouds and demand our allegiance?  If God wants us to be obedient to God’s call to us and claim on us, why not tell us a little more plainly exactly what we’re supposed to be doing with our lives?  What’s up with all the mystery?

I think at least part of the answer is that God knows us better than we do.  And, on top of that, God loves us enough to let us be the curious, investigative creatures we’re made to be.

If you’ve spent any time at all with kids, you know that what they find most compelling is almost never what we tell them they should find most compelling.  On Christmas morning, a toddler surrounded by expensive presents is guaranteed to want to play with the boxes they came in, rather than the presents themselves.  It’s all about the exploration – climbing into a big box is much more interesting than the plastic doll you can plainly see in front of you.  After all, you never know what you might find in that box….

I think that’s why God leads the magi through such a detective story – and why God guides us that way, too, in our search for truth and meaning.  Frankly, what’s plainly true and absolutely clear isn’t all that interesting.  We may acknowledge it’s plainly true and absolutely clear that what goes up must come down, but gravity isn’t much of a principle around which to order your life.  Instead, we become deeply invested in that which requires deep investment from us.  So God calls each of us into a relationship with Christ in the way that will make that relationship most meaningful – by guiding us to search it out for ourselves.  God wants each one of us, on our own terms, to seek the deepest meaning of life, the true object of worship, the source of comfort and strength, the source of forgiveness for our failings, the source of salvation and new life.  And the reason why God wants us to search for all this is because searching is what we humans do. 

It’s also true that there are divine purposes to be accomplished along the way of our searching for God, purposes that may not affect us individually much at all.  In today’s Gospel story, God’s primary purpose had to do with the magi finding Jesus.  But along the way, God also used the magi’s search to send a clear message to King Herod, and to all of us who find ourselves in the dangerous position of pretender to the throne.  Someone else’s search for the true king leaves the pretender quaking in his royal boots.  By the same token, each of us, in our quest for relationship with God, will have effects on others we may never know.  But if our quest is true and holy, we can be sure that God will be present in the side effects as well, using our searching to lead others toward the brightness of Christ’s dawning.

So, don’t be discouraged or frightened by the journey of discernment you travel.  When you find yourself asking all those questions we ask – wondering who Jesus really is; questioning God’s power or love when times get tough; wondering, frankly, whether God is even really there – when you find yourself wondering about things like these, remember that God has created you to be a holy detective.  God invites us to ask the hard questions, so don’t let them scare you.  Embrace them instead.  And then, keep on searching.

But by the same token, don’t delude yourself into thinking that any answer is as good as another.  A good detective does his or her homework, like the magi did studying the stars.  To find God, we have to know where to look.  We have to remember the stories of our ancestors in the faith and the promises God made to them.  We have to seek God’s purposes rather than outcomes that serve our own interests.  And we ought to be suspicious when we find ourselves cozying up to pretender kings in warm palaces while the Christ children among us shiver in the cold.  The easiest answers, or those that seem to serve us best, are almost never the right ones.

But we have to keep looking for God, even when life’s burdens drain us and when rationality tells us to give up the search.  We keep looking because we can trust in our creator’s faithfulness.  God has made us to be holy detectives, hard-wired us to dust for divine fingerprints.  And God always leaves us clues, stars in our own night’s sky, that will lead us into the mystery of God’s presence among us and God’s promise to give us new life.  It’s our task to take up the challenge and invest ourselves in the search.  If we do, God’s gift to the magi is God’s gift to us as well: the deepest joy we can know, on this side of eternity at least.