Readings for Third Sunday after Epiphany, January 27, 2019

• Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10  
• Psalm 19  
• 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a  
• Luke 4:14-21

"Sax and Trumpet, Flute and Drums"

It started with lots of early morning practices.  Before the school doors even opened.  We were High School know-it-alls, and we weren’t sure yet, if this was worth it. 
 
There we were, on the football field.  Not with pads and cleats, but in our regular civvies, lining up in our respective marching lines.  As an alto saxophone player, I was somewhere in the middle, as I recall.  Not up front, like the trumpets and trombones.  Not in the back, like the snare drums and big vertical bass drums.  Near the clarinets and the flutes. 
 
Even before the marching practice started, we had to spend, hour after hour memorizing our music.  Some people were pretty good at that.  I was ok.  But, I realized, I didn’t have it all down perfectly – once we were playing  and marching, at the same time!  Which  - as it turns out – was another level of difficulty. 
 
Actually, we were pretty pathetic in the beginning.  It was hard just to walk in straight lines.  You could see the genius, though, in starting on the football field, with its regularly marked chalk lines.  But still we were all wavy and disjointed, like breezes blowing through wind chimes.  No one, really seemed to know the music by heart that first time.  And so everyone was trying to play softer than the person next to them.  And it made the song, On Wisconsin, sound like it was coming from a clueless grade school band.  And it didn’t help that outside, on the football field, our sound was swallowed up and dissipated, compared to being in our enclosed band room.  We had to learn how to project like never before, and get some wind behind our instruments, even as we became winded, just from marching up and down the field. 
 
Yah, it was pretty awful, the first time!
 
But the carrot that kept us going, was that, we were the first class at our school to be invited to march in the Rose Bowl parade!  Yes, that Rose Bowl, in Pasadena, CA.  Thank goodness it was some 15 months away.  But it was a pretty big deal, and somehow we managed to keep at it.  Practicing on those early mornings, and on some weekends.  Polishing our sound, and our formations.  And we kept going to some smaller, regional parades, to polish our performance. 
 
Eventually, we got better.  We kept at it for over a year, which is a long time when you’re a teenager, and we finally lived up to the expectations of the Rose Bowl invitation.  We became as good, or better than, any band we’d seen in all our competitions.  Our music was finally crisp and on cue.  Our marching steps were precise and in sync. 
 
As much as anything, that’s what it was all about.  Working together in harmony, as ‘one’.  That meant, being aware, not only of the person next to you, but in front, and behind.  We learned to all step-out together.  To start and go forward as one.  To stop as one.  To play music as one. 
 
By the time we went to the Rose Bowl, we were awesome together! 
 
St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians, was concerned about how the church community he helped create, was playing and marching together.  Or not!  As it turned out in the church in Corinth, they weren’t playing all-that-well together.  Some kind of a Trumpian character, or Russian Bot, had come in, after Paul had first formed the church.  And this interloper, though they claimed to be a representative of Christ, had sowed chaos and division.  The fledgling church was divided, one against the other, each claiming they knew better, or they should be in charge.  Remember that in the next chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, is Paul’s famous poem about love.  ‘Love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or boastful, arrogant or rude.’  The Corinthians needed a little more humility and love, and a lot less prideful rudeness. 
 
And that’s how they could become ‘one’ again, said Paul. 
 
“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ,” Paul tells us.  What if the foot would tell the hand, it wasn’t needed, or wasn’t as good?!  Or what if the ear would internalize their oppression that the eye had perpetrated on them, and feeling like they didn’t belong, threaten to stop participating?!  Or what if eye said it was most important, and didn’t need the body’s other parts, and would act as if the eye was the whole body?!  And if the ear said the same, what then would happen to the sense of smell?  If the hand said the same to the feet, how would the body walk and get around?  “If all were a single member,” Paul says, “where would the body be?  As it is, there are many members, yet one body”
 
So, just like a good band, that has many different instruments, trumpets and saxophones, flutes and drums, and each one is needed to complete the band to create beautiful music.  So the body of Christ needs all the parts, all the members, to produce a well-orchestrated song.   
 
This is not to say, of course, that a paraplegic isn’t a full body, or that any person that loses the use of one of its members, isn’t fully human.  But Paul is speaking metaphorically, that we might comprehend what the Body of Christ is.  It takes all kinds, to make the Body of Christ.  Many different members.  And one is not better than another.  No one member can dictate the whole.  In Paul’s analogy, we are all equal, we all need and depend on one another, and together we make up the whole Body of Christ. 
 
In Colossians, in the New Testament, a letter written a generation after Corinthians, the metaphor of the Body of Christ is used somewhat differently.  There, Christ is the head of the body – Christ is the brains of the operation.  Which is different.  Not necessarily wrong.  But here in 1 Corinthians, Paul clearly says that we are the Body of Christ, and all the members of the body are necessary.  No one can say they don’t need the others.  All of us make up the Body, equally. 
 
In fact, the only qualification Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 12 is, “the members of the body that seem to be weaker – are indispensable – and those members of the body that [are often regarded as] less honorable, we ‘clothe’ with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this.”  God arranged the body like this, Paul says, “that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.” 
 
Just as putting a marching band together takes a lot of hard work, so maintaining a church congregation, and the whole Christian church, takes a lot of love and understanding. 
 
We can point to some historic leaps forward, like in 2009 when the ELCA, Lutheran Church, reversed its policy of exclusion against LGBTQ members.  It’s not like lesbian and gay and trans people weren’t already sitting in our pews, but cis-gendered straight people had mis-understood the welcome Christ taught us in Paul’s inclusive ‘Body of Christ’ metaphor.  No one should be excluded because of who they love.  “If one member suffers,” Paul taught, “all suffer together with them.”  And there is still work to be done, as we learn how to depend on members, and body parts, we have been missing for too long.
 
And so, it’s still a lot of hard work to march together and make beautiful music, in the church.  But to “strive for the greater gifts,” that’s what we are called to do.  We don’t just walk by ourselves on this journey, but we are aware of those marching around us, before and behind; and those considered less honorable by the world, we clothe with greater honor and respect. 
 
So, on this day of our Annual Meeting, let us deepen our walk together, that can only make for a more healthy and whole Body of Christ.  “For if one member is honored,” as Paul said, “all rejoice together with them.” 
 
Alleluia!  And let the people say, Amen.
​

Readings for 2nd Sunday after Epiphany, January 20, 2019

• Isaiah 62:1-5   
• Psalm 36:5-10  
• 1 Corinthians 12:1-11  
• John 2:1-11

Missed Signs, Pastor Fred
If, the story of ‘the Wedding at Cana’ is primarily a miracle of abundant and overflowing wine, it’s probably not enough to actually make it into the gospels!  But if it’s a sign, of something deeper, and more meaningful, about the realm of God, then yes, that’s significant. 
 
‘Jesus did this,’ John, the Gospel writer tells us, ‘the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.’
 
Weddings in Jesus time were not just one afternoon or evening, but lasted days, many days sometimes, and wine was a key ingredient of the celebration.  This was long before the dangers of drinking and driving, of course.  Long before alcoholism was listed as a disease by the AMA, and 12 Step programs came along. 
 
But one thing is still the same today.  For a private, or public party of any note – the good wine is always served first, and once the top-shelf stuff is gone, and the guests senses are less keen, then the 2-buck-chuck and the wine in a box, are brought out.  And no one will much notice, at least, until the next morning! 
 
That’s the first meaning of the water changed to wine at the Wedding in Cana!  Not that they miraculously didn’t have a hangover, but the wine that Jesus serves, even at the last hour, is only, the finest of wines.  Which is a sign, to all disciples and followers of Jesus, that what Jesus is bringing, in the dawning of the kingdom and realm of God, is better than anything else we’ve ever experienced. 
 
John says, ‘When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk.  But you have kept the good wine until now.”’ 
 
Another 1st century tradition that is foreign to our wedding celebrations today, is that weddings in Jesus time were much more of a BYO affair.  i) Because the whole small-town was basically invited, and ii) because it lasted days on end, and iii) because most families couldn’t afford to host a wedding celebration on their own, and iv) because there was no Macy’s or Target Gift Registry’s! – the guests would bring gifts of food and wine to share with everyone, potluck style. 
 
It reminds me of our reception, Kim and I had, some decades ago, thrown together with the help of our classmates in the Seminary’s Refectory.  Friday was graduation, and the next day we got married.  Friends brought the wine, and my sister made the cake at our celebration, and we had more than enough too!  I’ll never forget the Seminary receptionist, who was invited to the wedding, and, even though he was on desk duty that night,  joined the celebration!  Someone told me the next day, he had a whole bottle of wine sitting on the welcome counter!  (Luckily, we were the only thing happening on a Saturday night at the seminary!)
 
When Jesus’ mother urges her son to get out there in the field and start using his talents – the wedding in Cana was his first public appearance in John’s gospel – Jesus reluctantly goes into action.  “Do whatever he tells you,” his mother says to the servants.  And, once engaged in his mission, Jesus doesn’t hold back!  ‘Standing there,’ says John, ‘were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.’  They were empty because they had already been used for ritual hand-washing before eating.   So, ‘Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim.’  
 
This is like a brew-pub quantity of drinks – somewhere between 120-180 gallons of wine!  The guests would probably have had to stay many weeks, to finish all that! – I’d guess – but that’s not the point.  The amazing overflowing quantity, of high quality wine, at the wedding in Cana, is a sign of the heavenly wedding banquet, the long awaited Messianic feast, where all will be made whole, and celebrate endlessly, in the kingdom of God. 
 
Scholars argue over how many Signs there are in John’s gospel – 7 or 8 – because most are not labeled, as such.  But some are obvious anyway, like the feeding of the 5,000 from 5 barley loaves and 2 fish.  Or the healing of the man born blind from birth.  And the raising of Lazarus, after 4 days in the tomb. 
 
Miracles, or signs?  Or, perhaps both?!  Jesus often down played his healings and exorcisms, teaching that the ‘wow factor,’ was not the point.  He was not a magician – though you could say he did some pretty magical things!  John called them signs, because they were meant to point to something beyond what you could see in the moment, something bigger, something much deeper, in meaning. 
 
Jesus wants to connect us up, to the power, of the kingdom and realm of God:  to the breath of life.  To the power of humility, and strength of community.  The miracle of grace and love.  The want and need for justice and peace, realized thru collective non-violence. 
 
For so long the Christian Church missed these signs, especially in the west.  For centuries, in what is now called the era of Constantine, the gospel message was twisted into a worldly message of, might is right – all that glitters, is gold, an earthly politicized kingdom of majesty, is the destiny, and right, of the rich and well-educated, while people of color have been exploited and excluded.  It’s so sad – and maddening – to see this, today in the Trump era.  This is a last gasp, of a reactionary and very twisted message.  For they still identify, church and state together, using the misnomer that we are a ‘Christian nation,’ which is a battle that should have been buried with the founders of our Constitution. 
 
But the true gospel message is always being revealed through Jesus’ signs!  There is no one miracle to solve all our problems.  For, the kingdom and realm of God grow, person to person, one pop-up public sign, to another. 
 
And even Jesus’ signs, were seen by relatively few followers.  The changing of water into wine wasn’t witnessed by the wine steward, or the wedding couple, or anyone one of the guests, but only by the servants – which, when you think about it, we might have expected of Jesus – i.e., for him to hang out with the waiters and cleaning crew.  The raising of Lazarus, as amazing a sign as it was, was still only witnessed by the mourners, at Mary and Martha’s house, in the tiny village of Bethany.  The feeding of 5,000 may have been his largest crowd.  But that’s still Chicago Theatre size venues, and not Wrigley, or Soldier Field size crowds. 
 
Mostly Jesus appears to us in a stranger we meet, or in smaller groups, at Food for the Soul, or in a good play or powerful book, that reveals a sign, of the realm and kingdom of God, we had never seen or experienced before. 
 
We often hope for a mind-blowing miracle.  But it’s what they point to, that matters.  They point to the glory of God, and the most fundamental realities of life itself, the kingdom and realm of God.  And they always enter through our hearts and minds, one believer at a time – respecting our human freedom, while modeling for us, unending love and grace. 
 
Let us celebrate the wedding feast – the ongoing miracle and sign – that has no end! 
​

Readings for Baptism of the Lord, January 13, 2019

• Isaiah 43:1-7  
• Psalm 29  
• Acts 8:14-17  
• Luke 3:15-17, 21-22​

Green Book, Red Book, Pastor Fred
In Luke’s birth story of Jesus, at Christmas time, the gospel proclaimed that Jesus, son of Mary, born in barn, was the true Son of God, and not Emperor Augustus, who ruled through a line of elites, and Roman conquerors, declaring himself, Son of God.  The rule of Jesus came directly from God, who reveals to us, what God would be, and act like, if God were one of us.
 
Today in the baptism story, on this Baptism of Our Lord Sunday, we see that that person of God, Jesus, now an adult, is tied-into a very public ministry, a whole movement. Jesus is baptized in community! 
 
For some years in the Lutheran Church, at least up until the new liturgy in the green book in 1978, baptisms were often done in private, usually at the parent’s home.  It was a big occasion for the family, but not the church.  I often heard stories, ten or twenty years after that, from the old timers in my Upper Michigan parish, about how the preacher was called to come and baptize them, about a week after they were born.  In Iron County in the early 1900’s there was one preacher, shared by the county’s 3 Lutheran congregations, about 15-20 miles apart, and the pastor traveled by train.  So the family would have to send one of the children from the farm, to pick the preacher up at the train station, with the horse and buggy.  So it was quite an occasion for the family, (as I said).  The preacher stayed for dinner, and had housing overnight, and it was a great private-family celebration – another Finnish or Swedish child of immigrants, was christened and made part of the whole clan. 
 
The focus at the time, was that, through the preacher, and the promise of the Word of God, baptism would save the child from sin, and more-or-less, guarantee eternal life.  Catechism slowly turned the tide as a teaching tool over time, leading up to the changes in the green book in 1978.  But back then, you didn’t want to wait more than a week to get baptized – in the days infant mortality was so much higher – and risk your child being gathered up with the chaff!  Baptism was your opportunity to enter heaven’s granary, in the words of John the Baptist. 
 
Those were still strong elements of baptism my parents taught me, growing up, but as I said, things changed with our new liturgy in 1978 (a year before I entered seminary, BTW).  And truth be told, we are still in various stages of learning what that change is all about!  The big change, of course, was the Rite of Baptism was crafted for Sunday worship in community, and Baptism at home, became a thing of the past, for the most part. 
 
And, we can point to our gospel reading of Jesus’ baptism by John, as the most obvious reason why.  Jesus’ baptism was a public baptism, a baptism in community. 
 
Jesus went down to the river Jordan and joined in the long parade of his fellow Jews, being baptized by John – his relative and elder by 6 months – and took his turn in the huge public event.  It did not take place in Mary and Joseph’s home, and neither was it like his relatively private birth in the manger, hidden away from the world, while Mary pondered the meaning in her heart. 
 
But, why didn’t John the Baptist go to Jerusalem where all the people were?  Why did he instead make all the people of Jerusalem’s metro area, trek on down to him at the Jordan in the wilderness?  Will the symbolism of John’s prophetic act of communal baptism was all about Israel’s geopolitics, at the River Jordan.  And there was no way the Israelites could miss its meaning! 
 
Here – everyone knew – at the eastern border of Israel, was the ancient boundary of the people’s entry into the Promised Land, under Joshua, the protégé of Moses.  After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness –where John the Baptist now was – after the Passover, which had liberated them for this journey; after being led by a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night, carrying the ark of the LORD the entire way – here at the Jordan, the Israelites entered into the promised land, finally, to begin their life of freedom, their life of peace and justice with the God who had freed them, and given them this incredible opportunity, this ‘holy land.’
 
It was a fulfillment of the promise, first made to Abraham and Sarah as the chosen people, a corporate consecration by their God.  At the Jordan River, they entered into all this, the whole community, together. 
 
But that was nearly 2 millennia ago.  And now, John the Baptist and (his cousin) Jesus, knew that God was doing a new thing, and was calling on the chosen people to once again be a brightly shining light, a beacon to the nations – and that the spirit that moved over the waters at creation, needed to be invoked for a new creation, that all the people were expecting – and needing! 
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; 
I have called you by name, you are mine.
(the prophet Isaiah declared on behalf of God)  
 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;  
 For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Isaiah 43: 1b-3a 
 
Baptism is about, the turning of the age, about entering the public sphere of God’s new order, about joining the movement. 
 
With the publishing of the new red book – the ELW now in our pews, about a dozen years ago – this public liturgy of Holy Baptism from the green book, was enhanced, including an optional Gathering rite of Thanksgiving for Baptism, which we do on certain appropriate Sundays like today, on the Baptism of Our Lord.  We even get a little dangerous, by sprinkling the assembly with water as a remembrance of your baptism!  And we remember, not just our own baptismal day, but that baptism is a public event, where God has named and claimed us, and called us beloved children, just like God did for Jesus. 
 
Baptism makes us members of a local congregation, as well as a member of the worldwide Christian church.  Baptism washes away sin, and joins us to the new life of the kingdom and realm of God. 
 
Now, we are engaged in the movement, and become followers of Jesus the Messiah, and we continue to ask for forgiveness, and lean into the Holy Spirit to reform our lives in the world. 
 
So, baptism is much more than a private affair.  Baptism joins us to the new age that God is revealing to us, through the incarnated Son of God.  Baptism calls us out from our homes and our private cultural faith, and into the arena of Jesus’ public baptism, at the entryway to the promised land, of the new age, which also has a history of conflict as we engage with those other cultures, those other peoples, who are also children of God, and who, we are called to live with, and share the good news. 
 
In Jesus, we find that God is a Reconciler.  God wants to make our world a beautiful life-giving place, and so we must stand up for respecting and care-taking it.  God wants to make our world an open responsibility, and a land where we share our resources and talents, and so we must stand up to those who would build walls and draw rigid borders, that mostly protect the greed of those who would hoard God’s resources and gifts. 
 
Baptism enrolls us in the new age, the realm of God that has dawned in Jesus the Messiah.  We are followers in public, as much as in private.  For, ‘if we do not work and pray for the kingdom of God for everyone, we cannot have the kingdom and realm of God on earth for anyone.’ 
 
We are baptized into the most universal principal of all, God’s gracious gift of love, which leads to our work in community, (of peace and justice).  When God carries us across the Jordan, from the wilderness to the promised land – we need not fear that our baptism includes a public naming – “you are my child, the beloved,” God declares; “with you I am well pleased.”  A public baptism is a community event, which Sends us out as the followers of Jesus, our Messiah. 

Readings for Epiphany of Our Lord, January 6, 2019

• Isaiah 60:1-6  
• Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14  
• Ephesians 3:1-12  
• Matthew 2:1-12​

The Tar of Bethlehem, Pastor Fred
When our tour bus rolled into Bethlehem after dark, we looked for our motel that we were assigned to: The Star of Bethlehem.  It was January of 2005, and the dust of the 2nd Intifada was still settling, and they were in recovery mode, like after a devastating hurricane, and not everything was up and running yet, like it had been before. 
 
We loved, that the name of our motel was called, The Star of Bethlehem, and we felt like we were traveling wise men and women, magi who were arriving from afar.  But when we looked up that evening, to see the sign all lit up in the night, it said – The Tar of Bethlehem – because the neon S that was burned out, had not yet been repaired! 
 
The Intifada – a kind of civil war between Israel’s Defense Force and a coalition of Palestinian organizations – had taken a toll on Bethlehem.  And the partially burned out sign, was also a sign of the shape, that our motel rooms were in – disrepair, at least by American standards.  What did this mean, we wondered, for the city of David where Jesus was born, and where magi had come, following the king of the Jews’ star, to bring their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh? 
 
As I reread the birth story of Jesus in Matthew this week, I wondered, for the first time – what if the magi had just been a little more accurate in their celestial calculations?  Maybe they could have avoided all the conflict when they stopped in Jerusalem, and met with King Herod, who was so jealous of Jesus?
 
What if they had been able to follow the star all the way to Bethlehem, without stopping in Jerusalem?  They had come all that way from the east, from Persia – which is present day Iran – and Bethlehem was just a few miles SE of Jerusalem.  They probably passed very near it.  But maybe the bright lights of Jerusalem, the capital city, attracted them?  Or, maybe they figured, the birth of the King of the Jews, must have to take place in the largest city of Israel, the seat of its financial, social and political life, where all the leaders resided?  It would be, an understandable mistake. 
 
The magi, who made the long trip, who we often call kings, were really not kings or wise men, like we think of them.  Magi, were priests of Zorastrianism, an ancient religion, still practiced today.  They were scholars of astrology, and they believed in what we call horoscopes, and that reading the signs in the sky, in the stars, could tell them about important events, about to come to pass. 
 
The primary prophet for Zoroastrianism is Zoroaster (makes sense!). But it’s interesting for Christians, that the Zoroastrian faith story, is also about how a 15-year-old Persian girl, who was a virgin, miraculously conceived and gave birth to Zoraster.  And, also just like the story of Jesus, Zoroaster later started his ministry, at the age of 30, a ministry that began after he took on and defeated all of Satan’s temptations.  And furthermore, like the Jews of Jesus time, Zoroastrian priests, like the magi in our story, were anticipating the birth of the true Savior. 
 
But, for some reason, their astrological skills didn’t lead them directly to Bethlehem.  For some reason, they stop first in Jerusalem and meet, Herod the Great.  Herod had already earlier declared himself, King of the Jews, with the blessing of Emperor Augustus.  But being born in neighboring Idumea, the Jews of Israel never really accepted Herod, even though he married into the ruling Jewish family.  So when the magi come 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 worship him?’  That really throws Herod the Great off, who’s already insecure, about that title!  Matthew tells us, that when he heard the question from the magi, ‘he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him!’ 
 
So immediately, Herod asks the Jewish priests in Jerusalem, where the Messiah was to be born.  And the priests and scribes look it up in the books of their prophets and historians, in Micah and Samuel, and let Herod know, it has been foretold, a Messiah will be born ‘In Bethlehem of Judea.’  And so Herod, always scheming – after all, he didn’t last 33 years as a local Roman king without a ruthless nature! – Herod huddled up with the magi, and on the one hand, encourages them to go to Bethlehem and worship the child, but he also makes sure, the magi promise to bring him word, back, so that he, Herod, may then go and pay Jesus homage too!  You can trust me, he says in his most charming voice!
 
The star leads the magi, not only to Bethlehem, but right to the very doorstep of the holy family, where they knelt down to worship, and offered their gifts fit for a king, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
 
And that’s the kind of pinpoint accuracy of the star, that made me wonder, if they had only followed it all the way to Bethlehem in the first place, without being distracted by all the glittery lights in Jerusalem – if they would have avoided contact with Herod – then, maybe, all those innocent children, may not have been slaughtered, soon afterward. 
 
Because, when the magi were warned in a dream not to go back through Jerusalem, and tell Herod where to find the baby Jesus, that’s what really enrages Herod, and pushes him over the edge!  That’s when he ordered all the children, 2 years and younger, in Bethlehem, and even the surrounding neighborhoods, to be killed, in a mad attempt to “off” the one child, Jesus, who Herod was so afraid of. 
 
But, all that wondering on my part, I think, misses the point of Matthew’s story anyway.  Matthew wants to show, the reality of the human and divine intersection – he wants to reveal on this Day of Epiphany, that the new born king, Jesus, was indeed a threat to the kingship of Herod, and that Herod knew it.  The miraculous star, is meant to point to Jesus’ divine birth, a revelation, which breaks through the corrupt and failing leadership of the Empire’s King Herod, and all human kingdoms, and shines a light for us on what true leadership is, in Jesus, a king who will ride a donkey, a king who will heal the sick and liberate the oppressed, and a king who will serve his own followers.  God anoints a shepherd-king, in the spiritual line of David, who rules in our hearts and minds, so that we can learn to live by the peace and justice of God’s kingdom and realm, with faith and courage. 
 
And also in Matthew’s story, the magi, had to go to Jerusalem, to find out that the king of the Jews, the Messiah, was promised to God’s chosen people in the scriptures, in Micah and Samuel – as well as being searched for, by foreigners from afar.  In Matthew’s birth story, the birth of Jesus, the Messiah and king, is that he is looked forward to, by both the Jews, and the Gentiles.  
 
The birth of Jesus, is the story of the fulfillment of God’s promises, and the fulfillment of the longing of all human hopes and dreams, for salvation.  God had always wanted the Jews to be a light for the world, that all peoples and nations might come to the light of the one God.  And that’s literally, what the magi do, in following the star.  They are us, the Gentile believers, who come looking for light and life.  The magi found it at Jesus’ birth, but the rest of us need the whole story of the gospel, to see it in his saving grace, in the cross. They followed the Star of Bethlehem.  We often take a little longer, to see the light, which is probably more realistic. 
 
So the task, for us, the followers of Jesus, is often to discern and articulate how the quest of following the star, is done, in human ways, and not necessarily with theological or even biblical words – but is made understandable by us, and digestible for those who know little or nothing of Jesus, and whose own quest, none-the-less, can be fulfilled in God’s anointed one, the Messiah. 
 
We, the followers of the Star of Bethlehem, lodging in subpar motels along the way – may only see “the Tar of Bethlehem,” but we are still on the right road!