"What Star Do You Follow?" - Sermon from Jan 10, 2016, Appearance of the Wise Men to Jesus

“What Star Do You Follow?”
Sermon, Epiphany Year C, January 10, 2016
Plymouth United Church of Christ, Eau Claire, WI
©2016 Rev. David J. Huber
Focus Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12 (The Wise Men appear to Jesus)


Only in Matthew’s Gospel do we have a record of the Wise Men, or Magi, or Kings, or whatever you want to call them. I think Wise Men is probably the best way to refer to them, even though we sing “We Three Kings” and so on. And we don’t know how many of them there were. We like to say there were three, and that is likely only because they brought three gifts and somewhere along the line someone decided that no man would show up without a gift, so there must have been only three of them. But it could have been two, could have a dozen.

Only Matthew records them, Luke gives us the shepherds coming to see Jesus, Mark and John have no record of Jesus’ birth at all, and Matthew gives us the wise men. Unfortunately the shepherds don’t get a special Sunday, but the wise men do. Maybe because the shepherds were Jewish and part of the Jewish narrative, and not outsiders like the wise men were, being foreigners from far in the east. The wise men get today as their day, the day we call Epiphany.

They had followed a star from the east. They saw a star. The star could have been a divine being, or a real star in the sky, a comet, a conjunction of planets… who knows. No one does. But whatever it was, they saw it, and they followed it from in the east. Far outside of Israel. The men were certainly not Jewish. And probably not even in the Roman Empire, perhaps as far east as Afghanistan, India, or China.

They were from far in the east, which is to say that they were gentiles. They were not Jewish. And yet they saw. And having seen, they went. They saw some kind of a sign that leads them to a little country way to their west. This star they saw.

We have no idea what it was. We don’t even know who the wise men were, or what happened to them, or even what compelled them to go. But they went. There was something that drove them to go. They had an epiphany. We call today Epiphany. Actually, January 6 was Epiphany. It’s always twelve days after Christmas. But we celebrate it today. They had an epiphany, which could be an appearance of divine manifestation. It can also be a sudden realization of a truth. Something that we had not known before. It could be a discovery, an insight into something, an understanding. Like seeing how the pieces of a puzzle fit together. That moment when mulling over a problem that a solution pops into your head is a kind of epiphany. Or the first time that you realize that one plus one always equals two - that there is consistency there. Many of us probably had an epiphany about our mother’s warning that burners on the stove are hot and painful is actually true. Or the moment that a person you love first does something that annoys you or causes you pain and you realize that you still love them.

An epiphany is simply that “Oh, I get it!” moment. Understanding something. You’ve probably had many epiphanies over the course of your life that may have been a religious one, and others may be epiphanies of some kind of other understanding, seeing something in a new way for the first time.

What have been those moments for you? What have been your epiphanies?

For the wise men, it was the star. They observed it at its rising and they knew that something had changed. Something new happened in the world, and so they followed it. They followed that sar to wherever it was going to lead them. They didn’t know exactly where it was going to be. They only knew that it was leading them west. They followed that star.

That offers a question to me: what is the star that I follow? What are the stars that I follow? We all wear many hats in our lives, as children and parents, in our careers, hobbies, our faith, our relations.

For the wise men the star was Jesus. Not by name, of course. They would not have known what his name was yet> But they knew it as a sign that the king of the Jews had been born. So they followed it. They knew it meant something, and that it was important, so they followed it to find this king. And while they were looking for this king, there was another king: King Herod. One would think that when you have a king, you should follow the star of his authority, but the wise men decide not to follow Herod’s star once they realize that he wasn’t to be trusted. They disobey his orders, they refuse to follow his star, to instead follow the star to Jesus.

What is the star that we follow?

If someone were to look at your life, not knowing who you are, and look at all the things you have done in your life, the decisions you have made, and tried to deduce what has been driving you through your life, what might they come up with? Would they come up with the star that you think you’ve been following? Or might it be something else?

There are many stars to follow. I’d like to think that Jesus is the primary one, though we have many others. Some of which are healthy and helpful for us, and are worth following, and some which are not healthy or helpful to ourselves or to the world.

What are the stars, or what is the star, that you follow? Jesus? Family? Career? Faith? Church? Money? Comfort? Fear? Anxiety? Possessions? Peace?

Lots of stars to follow. And hopefully Jesus is high on the list of the ones that we follow, in one form of another. Even if not specifically by name, saying “I am guided by Jesus”, but perhaps even that it is the star of what Jesus called us to do. So maybe it’s the star of compassion that compels you. Or the star of mercy. The star of generosity. The star of loving your neighbor. Of Joy. Peace. These are all ways of following the star of Jesus.

As a church, as well, what star do we follow? As the people of Plymouth, what is our star? What star do we follow? What are our goals? What are we journeying toward?

I try to design our worship, when Lynn and I get together to plan worship and the music, we strive to design it (with varying levels of success, I’m sure) so that the words and music point to our incarnate God in Jesus as our star. Jesus is the star that we follow. But not just in a theoretical way of beliefs about Jesus, or the things we say about Jesus, but practical things about our lives as followers of Jesus. We try to make those words happen in the liturgy of our worship. So like today’s prayer of confession: by protecting the weak and distressed; by helping the poor and needy; by upholding the oppressed and defenseless. Or as we will say in the prayer of dedication: offering our gifts in gratitude, reverence, and thanksgiving. Or our benediction: by shining Christ’s light to the world, and do that by the way that we love those around us.

We have other stars as well can follow in our lives. New Year's’ resolutions are a kind of star. They are, if you make them, something that guides you to a specific goal. What is your star?

I hope that at least the big star would be Jesus, and maybe a number of smaller stars, like generosity, love, kindness. Learning to live with a neighbor you don’t like. Or dealing with a co-worker that you don’t get along well with. So these smaller stars, as well, that are guiding us are good and helpful. But hopefully always with Jesus there, his path of peace, respect, love, and compassion will always be there. He is the star that the church follows. We here at Plymouth are part of a tradition that says that Jesus is the only head of the church. You are not here to follow me, or our conference ministry, or our president of the United Church of Christ. We are here to follow Jesus, because he is the sole head of the church. We follow Jesus. We put Jesus in front.

But we also, as Plymouth, for a couple years have been following the star of wanting increased participation in worship and in the life of this fellowship. We made that choice a few years ago, that we have something very special with the fellowship that we share at Plymouth. So it’s not increasing numbers for the sake of increasing numbers, but because we have something special that is worth being shared. That others should experience. We transform lives, bring people to new life. There is a spiritual yearning out there. So we have that star before us, to increase the number of people who come here to be transformed. Part of that is the star of invitation. The star of doors that are open to those who come (which we are really good at) but also being out and inviting people, bringing people with us into this fellowship so their lives may be transformed by the good news of God’s love.

There is the star of increasing the footprint of our ministry in Eau Claire, with the ministry we do on the street. The ministry that our quilters do. Our giving to the food pantry. Our participation in ecumenical endeavors and interfaith endeavors. The columns I write in the newspaper, our website, our facebook page. The organizations that I am involved with. The things that we’re doing outside of our walls, that also is a star before us, that should continue to guide us through 2016. These are the stars that Plymouth follows, always with Jesus at the front. Jesus is the guiding star, as he was for the wise men, with the smaller stars of invitation and expanding our family. Which can be done! We have done that in the last year. The star of our ministry of loving our neighbors as Jesus asked us to do.

So at the beginning of 2016, a new year, a Sunday of the Epiphany is a good time to think of what star or stars we will follow this year. Which will be follow as individuals, which will we follow as Plymouth church? A good time to think about the stars that are before us, and which ones we will follow.

That is the question that is left before us this Epiphany Sunday, as I read the story of the wise men this year. That is where my heart is sitting. Sitting on this question that I think the wise men have set before us, as their gift to us. As they gave gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus, they also leave a gift to us: to ask the question, What star will you follow?

I leave you with that question: which star will you follow?

Amen.