Hearing the Word as a Community

[Title:] You're Bringing Us What?

Saint Matthew wrote his gospel for Jews who had become Christians. Their embrace of Jesus caused them predictable trouble with mainline Jews. This and the unpredictable drawing of some Gentiles to Jesus shook up their old categories. Now it was harder to know which people were chosen and which were not. Ancient hopes about what the Messiah would accomplish had to be revised. Matthew tells the story of Jesus to people engaged in a complicated dance with two other partners: Gentile converts and Jews who never accepted Jesus.

Let's read Matthew 2:1-12, the story of the Magi's visit to the newborn Jesus, in this light. To the people of Judea, including Herod, Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus, the magi are complete outsiders. They come from the vaguely described East. Their profession, astrology (Matthew doesn't say they were kings), really puts them outside Jewish orthodoxy, which prohibited divination and similar arts. But the magi come to the seat of this ancient religion, alien to them, looking for something of value both to Jews and pagans. They can only express their hopes in political terms, expecting to find a king who holds great promise for his own people and for the rest of the world.

Tradition interprets the three specific gifts of the magi as follows: They bring gold because that's the medium of tribute one offers a king, and they expect the object of their hopes to fulfill their hopes by the exercise of royal power. That's the only way they could imagine someone or something, or even some god, making a difference in the world. They bring incense because that was the medium of worship of any divinity; the magi assume the new king must be at least the agent of a god, if not a god himself. The magi also bring a burial spice, because, as everyone in Matthew's audience already knows, the whole story of Jesus culminates in his death, described in grisly detail, his burial, and his resurrection, described in a mysterious lack of detail. Matthew's audience also knew that some, maybe all, of Jesus' followers would follow him into martyrdom. So the evangelist doesn't shrink from casting the pall of death over the otherwise charming scene of elders excitedly gathering to visit a newborn.

Let's draw an analogy to the life of the church today. We within the church have something of value, and at least some outsiders are looking for what we have. They're like the astrologers from the East, coming to our Judea. We have a great truth, a great treasure, a great power, which attracts the outsiders. In some respects, the treasure we have is as underdeveloped as a baby, now full of promise only, but one in which we have great hope. In other respects, what we offer the world is solid, publicly known for centuries, well developed but ever adaptable.

Were these outsiders to choose to join us, it would make big differences for them and for us. We can fathom those differences by analogies to the gold, frankincense and myrrh from the magi story.

The gold they bring us represents wealth, some wealth in the crass material sense, but more importantly the wealth of energy and love they'd bring to the life of our church. They can help invigorate us, and bring new life to our withering communities. That's a mixed blessing, of course, because new energy and new members entail new challenges.

The incense suggests that new members can help us renew the way we experience and express reverence for God. Outsiders are interested in us not just because we're an attractive social group or a place to hear nice music. They hope we're a channel for contact with an ineffable, mysterious God. That we are, but sometimes we nail God down too tightly, and assume we understood much more about God than we really can. The essence of God will always be to us as elusive as the smoke of incense. It's an act of reverence to admit that, and to express humility about our theological certainties. Sometimes we express God in only narrow ways that admit no variation. Some of our practices are quite opaque to newcomers, who themselves may have ways of knowing God that we should share. So if we're going to let strangers bring us incense, we have to acknowledge humbly the God who alone is worthy of that.

The most daring thing for us to accept is the burial spices. The outsiders want us to be willing to bear the cross when a faithful life asks that of us. Those who want the prosperity gospel know where to tune that in. But the outsiders coming to us want a community of courageous believers whose convictions and bonds are stronger than death. When we act like cowards, we repel these seekers, as we have done by our botched, defensive handling of abusive clerics. The world has plenty of self-absorbed, smug and comfortable groups. We're called to offer a generous alternative, and to put our community at the disposal of the Reign of God in the world.