Follow the Stars

Follow the Stars

A Sermon for Epiphany

by Griff Martin 

Matthew 2:1-12 and Isaiah 60:1-6

On the The Second Sunday of Christmastide

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

January 7, 2018

Incarnate God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing Resurrected reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Risen Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

We love trails. Trails in the words of Wendell Berry, are “perfect adaption, through experience and  familiarity, of movement to place.” Trails are part of the very nature of being alive. Humans have created trails as long as we have existed, much of the US roads lie on top of ancient Native American trails. The oldest trails known to man were created by a primitive creature called Ediacarans and these trails seems to be some 565 millions years old, yet were only discovered 8 years ago along the coast of Newfoundland.  

And we are not alone in our trail making. Ants create pheromone trails. Elephants create trails that are not only well placed but contain emotional journeys, for instance elephant herds often have trails that are routes to the graveyard of relatives). Sheep follow trails perfectly, their problems comes when encountering new trails, one of the primary roles of the shepherd is to keep sheep on the right trail. Even animals in a zoo typically create a pacing trail they walk up and down all day long.

Even more intriguing than single cell organisms can do this work of trail-making. In an experiment a slime mold was placed among several oat clusters that mirrored the major population centers of Tokyo, in makings it’s way from cluster to cluster, the smile mold- again a single celled organism- created trails that (and I quote) “effectively recreated the layout of the city’s railway system.” A single cell organism that did designed a system of trails as effective as the one’s created by Japan’s top engineer, which means that a single cell organism would put Austin’s roadways engineers to shame.

We rely on trails, on patterns. And it’s not just in how we get places, most of our life is complex trails and patterns. 

The Harvard Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry once paid a group of students to play Tetris for multiple hours a day, three days in a row. So for three days students played Tetris most of the day. At the end of the study the students went back to normal life and a few days later were brought back. The side effects were amazing. Almost all of the students had dreams of Tetris shapes. Many reported that they could not stop seeing the world through Tetris shapes, standing in the grocery stores and seeing the groceries as the different Tetris shapes and sequences of Tetris blocks. Scientifically and formally this is known as cognitive afterimage, we look at something long enough and that pattern becomes engrained in our brains. We see what we have trained our brains to see, we walk the familiar trails.

We crave routine and pattern. So imagine what it’s like if it takes just three days of Tetris to engrain that pattern in your soul and thought imagine the trails you have created in your soul over a lifetime.  It’s why when you get ready in the morning or when you go to bed at night you unconsciously go about the exact same pattern. It’s why you sit in the same pews each and every Sunday. It’s every pattern you have with your family and partner. It’s the morning drop off at school routine. It’s going to your favorite restaurant and not even needing a menu. We love the well established trails that we have built.

It’s why I hate Waze. It is hard for me to choose in the morning if I am going to choose the Waze app and be routed a different route to work or if I would rather just choose the one I normally take and sit in a bit of traffic.

It’s why we hate change.

So imagine what all of this means to our faith, to our relationship with God and to church and how we do church. How long have we read Scripture the same way? How long has our devotional life with God followed a routine, a chapter of Old Testament and New Testament each morning followed by time in prayer, as if any significant relationship was built on a formal like that? How long have we done the same thing in church…. the same community in our Sunday School class, the same orders of worship, the same hymns, the same mission projects.

What are we missing by staying on the same trails we have always been on?

Most of you know the Gorilla Study, if not youtube it this afternoon and you will be fascinated. A group of folks were brought into watch a 2 minute clip of a basketball team and told to count the number of passes in the video. At the end they were asked 2 questions: 1) How many passes were made? 2) How many men in gorilla costumes were in the video? Most got the number of passes correct, more than half missed the man in a gorilla costume who comes out halfway though the video and stands there for 15 seconds. Because that is not the trail their brains were on… they were on the counting passes trail, not the main in gorilla costume trail.

When we stay on the same trails, we miss so much.

That is why this Sunday, Epiphany Sunday is so important to us because it reminds us to get off the trails and to see more. Everything about this text is topsy turvy and off the familiar trails. 

And we have tried to make trails of it…. three kings for instance. There are no three kings in the text. The number three is never mentioned, we just guess it because there are three gifts but that tells us nothing and they are not kings and they are probably not part of the Christmas story, certainly not the nativity. These are not trail followers, these are trail blazers.

To start with they don’t belong in the story. These are Gentiles, these are outsiders. In fact it’s really surprising that they show up in Matthew’s Gospel, which is an insider edition and not Luke, who welcomes the stranger. Matthew’s audience would have turned their nose at these guys, they don’t belong. Surprise one: outsiders belong.

And then these guys are guys who probably student the stars for a living, they are some combination of spiritual gurus- star gazers- astronomers- fortune tellers. These would have been the group sitting in the square in New Orleans who wanted to read my palm and tell me my fortune. And these are the ones who lead us to Christ. Surprise two: the outsiders actually know truths that we don’t know.

And they go on this journey and they follow familiar trails leading them to Jerusalem because of course if something big was going to occur it would occur there. And once they get there they have a little encounter with Herod and it spooks Herod and these guys are wise enough to know when Herod gets fearful, people die. And so they continue to follow a star, find Jesus, listen to a dream and understand they have to go home another way. Surprise three: new trails are being created in Christ following. 

Epiphany Sunday might be a long held church tradition but that tradition better always be tradition innovation, this tradition needs to always remind us to be weary of traditions, of doing things the same way, of following the same trail.

Which might be why despite Matthew’s Gospel being an insider’s edition, he puts this story right front and center to warn his audience, which is largely traditional Jewish followers, that an encounter with Jesus is going to involve finding a new trail, a new way of doing things, a new way home. 

Christ following will always result in a strange and unfamiliar road as the new path… and that goes for those encountering Christ for the first time or those who have been on this journey for decades. 

If Christ following continues to look the same year and year after year, then you are probably not doing it right. 

If Christ following does not consistently lead you to new trails and experiences and new ways of thinking and new theology and new ways of practicing your faith and into scary and messy places, then you are probably not doing it right. 

“See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up: do you perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.”

Maybe this one of those rare Sunday’s we get where the Hallmark Calendar and the Liturgical calendar line up (which trust me does not happen much, esp this year when Easter and April Fool’s are the same day). But Epiphany as the start of the new calendar year makes perfect sense because it reminds us: Christ following better look different this year than it did last because it’s always a new trail. 

And that is scary. Last November we went for a camping trip at Inks Lake. One afternoon we decided to hike the Lake Trail, it was going to be marked with dark green markers. Halfway through the hike the green trail markers disappeared or so we thought, well at first we thought we were lost and then eventually we discovered that someone who had walked the trail before us had covered all the trail markings with rocks, you had to pay careful attention to find them. It was most annoying at first and in my head I cursed what I figured had to be teenagers thinking they were playing a great prank, but by the end of the trail I was grateful to them because it made me pay more attention, it made me see things I would never have seen, it made me find new trails. 

Maybe that should be our prayer for the year, that all our old trails are covered up and we cover new terrain together, we find a new trail of Christ following. And pay attention to those words Christ following: Christianity is not trail blazing, we follow in the footsteps of Christ who is the trailblazer. And pay attention to that because it means if we find a trail we really like and we keep wandering it over and over and over while Christ continues to trail blaze, well in the end we end up pretty far away from Christ. 

So may this year be full of Christ following on new trails, may we find our way home by a different way, may we make new maps together. I want to end with this poem- really a prayer- by Joyce Rupp.

I keep pulling it out -

the old map of my inner path.

I squint closely at it,

trying to see some hidden road

that maybe I’ve missed,

but there’s nothing there now

except some well-traveled paths.

they have seen my footsteps often,

held my laughter, caught my tears.

I keep going over the old map

but now the roads lead nowhere,

a meaningless wilderness

where life is dull and futile.

“toss away the old map,” she says

“you must be kidding!” I reply.

she looks at me with Sarah eyes

and repeats, “toss it away.

it’s of no use where you’re going.”

“I have to have a map!” I cry,

“even if it takes me nowhere.

I can’t be without direction.”

“but you are without direction,”

she says, “so why not let go, be free?”

so there I am – tossing away the old map,

sadly fearfully, putting it behind me.

“whatever will I do?” wails my security

“trust me” says my midlife soul.

no map, no specific directions,

no “this way ahead” or “take a left”.

how will I know where to go?

how will I find my way? no map!

but then my midlife soul whispers:

“there was a time before maps

when pilgrims traveled by the stars.”

It is time for the pilgrim in me

to travel in the dark,

to learn to read the stars

that shine in my soul.

I will walk deeper

into the dark of my night.

I will wait for the stars.

trust their guidance.

and let their light be enough for me.

May it be so for us as well. Pilgrims on a new path. Amen and Amen.