Preached by the Right Reverend Grant Lynn Ford at the Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, New Year’s Day, January 1, 2006.
The grace of our master Teacher, the love of God, in the unity of Spirit be with you all.
Gracious God, we ask that you would bless this New Year that we are about to enter. We look forward to all the newness of life you have to offer us. The excitement of being a part of what you have planned for us is almost more than we can endure.
Yet, we do admit that we are impatient and do what we want to do for our immediate gratification. Lord have mercy.
We try to control our own lives without asking for your advice. Christ have mercy.
We know it is fear that prevents us from stepping out and making a difference. Lord have mercy.
Loving God, this is a good day for new beginnings. We praise you for your help in ages past and know that you are with us now and always. Give us strength to face difficult challenges, to celebrate every triumph and to fearlessly make needed changes in our lives. We are indeed celebrating this joyous, whistle-blowing, toast-raising moment in this New Year for it is the threshold between the old and the new in us. Amen.
The Yasna 29, 11 (Ford)
O Divine Righteousness, Good Mind of the Eternal, Sovereign All-Powerful: Come quickly to me to give me strength for my task, for my mission.
O Great Creator, O Living Lord: Without you I can do nothing; I cannot move forward, I cannot accomplish my assigned work. Direct, therefore, your help and assistance to aid us. Let your abundance bless our great cause, that we may partake of the same bountiful grace as all your servants and counselors.
Matthew 2:1-12
1After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, during the reign of King Herod, Magi arrived in Jerusalem. They 2went around asking, “Where can we find the newborn King of the Jews? We observed a star in the eastern sky signifying his birth. We’ve come to pay homage to him.”
3When Herod heard about this, he was quite upset at the disturbance they were causing. 4So he summoned his religious advisors and asked them, “Where’s the Messiah supposed to be born?”
5“In Bethlehem in Judea,” they answered. “The prophet Micah foretold it.”
6“‘Little town of Bethlehem,
You are not just an unimportant Judean village!
From your midst will come a Leader
Who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.’”
7So Herod arranged a clandestine meeting with the astrologers, getting them to tell him everything about the star. 8When the meeting ended he pointed them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go find this child. Look everywhere! Then rush word to me so I can come and reverence him.”
9So they quickly left the king and went their way. And right there in the sky was the star they had followed. It had at last led them to the child, shining more brightly than ever. They were ecstatic with joy! 10The right place at the right time!
11They entered the house, and found the child in the arms of his mother, Mary. In reverence and awe they knelt down. Then they opened their treasure bags and presented him with gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. 12In a dream they were warned not to report back to Herod, so they returned home another way.
The Three Wise men were traveling in the desert when nightfall came, so they had their faithful servant set up their tent, whereupon they all went inside—including their servant—and went sound asleep.
A few hours later the faithful servant woke them up. “Masters,” he exclaimed, “look up in the sky and tell me what you see.”
. “Astronomically,” Melchior said first “it tells me that there are millions of galaxies, and potentially billions of planets.”
“Astrologically,” continued Balthazar, “it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three in the morning.”
“Theologically,” concluded Gaspar, “it’s evident the Lord is all-powerful and we are small, and insignificant. Meteorologically, it seems we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.”
At which point the faithful servant and camel-herder said, “And they call them wise men? Look again! Someone took our tent!”
When the medieval translators confronted the idea of the three Magi coming from the east, they didn’t quite know how to translate it into English. Wise men seemed a good idea, but it missed the point that these three were probably Zoroastrian mages. Today we would call them ‘magicians’ and miss the wonder of it all completely. ‘Magi’ were mystery-workers, a combination of astrologer, astronomer and alchemist. They sought for the meaning of things, both in the natural and supernatural worlds.
How many wise men were there? We don’t know. It doesn’t tell us, not does it give us names. Those names were medieval additions to the story. We only know there were three gifts: gold, frankincense and myrrh.
I am reminded of a column Dave Barry wrote in the Miami Herald last December 5, 2004. He writes: “We know from the Bible that the Wise Men showed up in Bethlehem and gave the baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now, gold is always a nice gift, but frankincense and myrrh—at least according to my dictionary —are gum resins. Who gives gum resins to a baby?
“The answer is: men. The Wise Men, being men, didn’t even start shopping for gifts until the last minute, when most of the stores in the greater Bethlehem area were closed for Christmas Eve. The only place still open was Big Stu’s House of Myrrh.
“So the Wise Men showed up at the manger, handed their baby gifts to Mary, and headed for the eggnog. Mary looked at the gifts—which were not wrapped, nor were they accompanied by cards—rolled her eyes, tossed the gum resins to the goats (which ate them) and said: '’Next Christmas, we are going to have some gift-giving rules.’ But the Wise Men didn’t hear her, because by then they were over by the crib trying to teach the Baby Jesus to pull their finger.”
Well, I don’t know about all that. Perhaps Dave Barry doesn’t appreciate the gift-shopping ability of some men.
Here we are, on the first day of a new year. In a few days in many countries of the world, the real time of gift-giving will be celebrated…on Epiphany, Tres Reyes, the Three Kings. If we were to buy gifts for the Christ-child, what would they be? What can we give to the Christ Child, to the universe, to our world as we know it?
Even Dave Barry agrees that gold is always a good gift. I agree with him on that. Gold could represent the wealth of the material world, and it certainly does on one level. I might be tempted to preach on giving. Admittedly it is one of my favorite topics, and not because the church needs money, but because we need to give in order to live. As Amanda Bradley so well put it:
For happiness brings happiness,
And loving ways bring love,
And giving is the treasure
that contentment is made of.
But let’s look a little further. Charles Fillmore, in his Metaphysical Dictionary, identifies the gift of gold by saying: “They bring gifts to the Christ Child, the inner resources of Spirit, which are open to the Christ mind. Gold represents the riches of spirit.”
In our giving we are invited not just to give of what we have but more importantly to give of who we are. It is ‘who we are’ that incorporates the resources of Spirit. It’s far easier to write a check to a charity than it is to write some thank you notes to people who have touched your life. One could even combine the two, making a donation to a charity in someone’s name, and then letting them know you’ve done it to show your appreciation.
One of the greatest gifts I ever received was when Joe Mumpower donated the green window to the Cathedral in my honor. It’s a gift I will never forget, and I am truly grateful for such gracious generosity.
I’m planning to make it a practice to send at least one handwritten thank-you note to someone every week in 2006 and share just a little of myself with others. You might make a similar resolution, sharing your inner resources of Spirit with others.
What about that resin frankincense? Mr. Fillmore first says: “God represents the riches of Spirit; frankincense, the beauty of spirit.”
I believe there is no better way to share the beauty of spirit than to pray for someone else. The burning of incense, in biblical scholarship, is a symbol for prayer. “Let my prayer be like incense placed before you,” says the Psalmist, “and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice.” Psalm 141:2
Why is prayer the symbol of the beauty of Spirit? Because when we pray for others out of the richness of our inner Spirit, we move out of the self-centeredness of the ego into selfless ‘other-centeredness’. As Jesus suggested to us, we die to self and are alive in the Christ-spirit.
This is one of the reasons why I wanted to establish in terra pax as a praying guild to establish a consciousness for peace. It not only helps establish world peace, but it encourages the growth of inner peace, “the peace that surpasses all understanding,” as Saint Paul calls it, going on to say, which “guards your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” Eugene Peterson, in his translated The Message, describes it as “God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good.”
The final gift is myrrh. Mr. Fillmore again starts at the beginning: “Gold represents the riches of Spirit; frankincense, the beauty of Spirit; myrrh, the eternity of Spirit.”
Many scholars have seen in these three gifts the three aspects of Jesus’ ministry as king, priest and savior. Frankincense is sweet, but myrrh is quite bitter, but it was used as a long-lasting perfume. It was also used to embalm bodies, which is why it speaks of eternity.
For us today it means giving the gift that last throughout eternity: the gift of love, of compassion, of caring. Ruth Smeltzer put it so well when she said: “You have not lived a perfect day, even though you have earned your money, unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”
That’s the gift that lasts for all eternity. That’s truly giving the riches of Spirit, the beauty of Spirit, and the eternity of Spirit.
And that’s the truth!
I am amazingly blessed!
All God’s good is directed to me.
flowing through me to bless others.
Life is a gift…
I will open it with joy.
I will share it with joy.
I will live it with joy.
And so it is. Amen.
Kahlil Gibran, that wonderful Lebanese essayist, poet and prophet, wrote: “There are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.”
What gift will you give back to the universe, and how will you give it?
