Maybe It’s Time/Shoot for the Stars
By Griff Martin
On Matthew 2:1-12
For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On Epiphany Sunday
January 6, 2019
It’s easier
to catch a monkey than one might think…all it takes is a jar and a banana. The
opening of the jar must be large enough for the monkey to get their hand into
but small enough that they cannot get a clinched hand out of it. You see, the
monkey will reach into the jar to grab the banana and then once they have their
hand around the banana they will refuse to let go because they have what they
want. Thus, they are trapped.
Trapped,
when all it takes to get to freedom is to let go. Literally they can escape anytime
and choose another way: life in freedom and not captivity. This behavior gives
us a whole new way of thinking about the monkey mind. And maybe a much clearer
picture of the monkey mind that is a symptom of being a human being. Holding
onto something we think we need (even if it leads to our death), all while our
freedom could be found in simply letting go…stuck by their own making, stuck by
our own making.
And we
laugh at the monkeys and shake our heads, “if only they knew better….” But we
are doing the same thing. And while we do it, God is looking at us and the jars
we have our hands stuck in and God is shaking God’s head, maybe laughing and
probably crying, “If only they knew better.”
You
see, our problem is even worse than the monkeys because we have made our own
jars. The places that we are stuck often involve our own systems of thinking. They
involve that horrible phrase, “the way things have always been.” They are the
places we state will never change. They involve our involvement in systems
which might benefit us but are not good for everyone (and a good rule, actually,
the golden rule: if it’s not good for everyone, it’s not good for you). It
involves patterns that we have set and followed for way too long, patterns that
are not good for you but patterns you know by heart. It involves defense
mechanisms we put into place that have long outlived their purposes and easy
buttons that numb us briefly but don’t last. Our jars are our addictive
behavior and thinking. Our jars are our routines, our default thinking and our
unquestioned beliefs. Our jars are our historic thinking, “it was better back
when….”
Our
jars are the voices in our head that never stop; voices that tell us people
would like us more if we were a little skinnier or dressed a bit nicer or were
just a little bit less gay. Or that nagging thought that people really like it
when you act as though you are constantly running for Homecoming Queen and
trying to make the world better for everyone else, even if it’s at your own
expense. Or maybe you were raised in a family that taught you the verb of all
verbs was to fix, and you are really good at fixing things for everyone, even
if they don’t ask you to fix it.
These
are the places we find ourselves stuck like monkeys. Stuck thinking that what
we have is exactly what we need even though it is getting us nowhere and is
leading to our own demise, or at least keeping us from the freedom for which we
were created.
It’s
the story of Winnie the Pooh, who in one of my favorites. Pooh crawls into the
window of his friend Rabbit’s house. The rabbit offers him honey and bread, and
Pooh replies, “that would be great, except leave off the bread.” And he ate,
and he ate, and he ate until it was time to leave. He got half his body out
through the same window he had crawled in through except this time he could not
get his lower half out or back into the house – stuck.
They
tried everything they could think of to get him out; nothing worked. He was
stuck for a while, so Pooh offered a very wise suggestion to his friend. One
request: “Would you read a Sustaining Story, such as would help and
comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?”
This
morning we are the Wedged Bear in Great Tightness, and the good news is that
God has given us not just a sustaining story, but a calling story to help free
us.
It
comes in the second chapter of Matthew, immediately following the story of the
birth of Jesus Christ, with quite a scene change. One would expect that as we
continue the story of the birth of Jesus, the promised one of Israel, that the
story would center there with a Jewish cast of characters. Logically, as God
began to announce this Good News, we would probably see priests and religious
officials showing up, we would see Kings and Queens, Israel royalty – this
makes sense.
But
the scene changes drastically, and instead we move to the East. We open up on a
few astronomers, those who follow the stars, those who write horoscopes for a living,
those who read the signs in the stars…you know, the very ones that the Old
Testament warns us about, the ones we are not supposed to associate with. And
it’s to these that God announces the good news: The Gospel.
These
three, who have tried just about everything and anything religious they can,
they are the founders of the ‘spiritual but not religious’ movement. Until they
see the star. I like to picture them all one day walking out of their
respective homes, thinking it would be just another day, all while hoping for
more, and seeing this star and suddenly knowing that whatever that star is
about, it’s a truth for them. And so, they load up and each start to Jerusalem,
which just has to be where the star is pointing them, a major and important
city.
And as
they travel, they run into one another. They can spot the star gazers amongst
the others: it’s the look in their eyes, their gaze, a bit “out there.” And the
star gazers, the wiseman, form a traveling band. Personally, I think they look
a lot less like kings and more like Deadheads in their tie-dye gypsy ensembles,
with a look of adventure in their eyes…a bit dazed and confused.
They
head to Jerusalem and start asking around…there
was this star, and you know, there is something spiritual about the stars
(to which folks just rolled their eyes), and then someone remembered that
prophesy from the Wisdom literature and Prophets, one of the many religions
they have studied, about a star and king of the Jews. Now, talking like that
gets them more noticed, because that language is treason (kings don’t like
people vying for their position of power…see the newspaper every day this week).
It does not take long for the king to discover there are these guys looking for
the new king.
So, he
calls them to his palace and asks all sorts of flattering questions, and then
he makes it official: can this be a King’s errand? Can they go and find this
new King and then report back at once to him because he can’t wait to go find
this new King and worship him? (and I imagine he sounded just like Joffrey
Baratheon)
They
soon discover that they are off by just a bit – nine miles, to be exact. Close,
but not there. The star is actually in Bethlehem (which is why I think they
remember the Micah passage once they get to Jerusalem). So off to Bethlehem
they go, and it’s there they find Christ. And we don’t know much about the
encounter, except it changes them forever (of course, what more is there really
to say beyond that?). And they go home another way. They do not go back to the
king, they go a new route on new roads.
And
this is where I begin to question these wisemen, because if they go back to the
King, they will probably be put in powerful positions, prominent places. And
isn’t that what so many of us so badly want? Beyond that, at the very least,
going back the old way involves going on roads they know, paths they have
traveled, and is safer – way less risky. It’s terrain that has been covered and
crossed before, and that gives them the ultimate: power and control.
But
somehow, in seeing Christ they have realized that the old way is no longer good
and it’s not how they should travel. There is a new truth, a new Way. The
way things have been are no longer, the never
is now is, the impossible is
possible. Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
They
choose a new way home. And that is the very work of God. I wonder this new year
what it’s finally time for you to change, to let die, to surrender, to stop
doing or thinking…so that you can find a new way home.
To
learn what we can from the way things have been and carry that into what is
next. Don’t cling to what has been, because the past can teach us – it just
might not be everything we need to know. To realize that when we say never, God
often begins to do some of God’s best work (and some of our hardest work). Saying
“never” is like double-dog daring God. To work to change systems so they
benefit everyone and not just a select few. To find new patterns that lead us
to new places within our soul, our humanity and our world. To let go of the
defense mechanisms that are no longer helping us, because if it’s not bringing
us life, then why are we still holding it? To surrender our addictive thinking
and behavior because we deserve better. To hear the voices in our head for what
they truly are: voices that deserve little to no attention.
This
story is asking us some really uncomfortable questions, but also questions that
I think are holy and sacred: Do we follow what we know, or risk what we don’t
know? Are we willing to venture into places where we don’t have control, or
risk staying where we do? Are we willing to let the old go so we can hold the
new? Are we willing to follow Christ on a new way home instead of the way we
know that led nowhere?
Here
is what I know: Every time I have let go of an old way, let go and opened my
hands, I have always found that what I was holding onto was no longer
benefiting me; it was actually holding me back and it was keeping me from
taking ahold of what God had for me at that moment.
There
is a science to it. You know when someone takes a flash picture of you and for
a few seconds you see blue and green dots everywhere? That effect is known as
cognitive afterimage. The flash momentarily burns an image on your brain, and
when you look around the world you see the blue and green dots from the flash.
And this is much bigger than just a flash picture, this is how our brain works.
Cognitive afterimage gets us stuck in certain ways of thinking and behaving,
even if it’s not beneficial to us. It’s also known as the Tetris effect: A
group of students was paid to play Tetris for hours at a time and reported back
that the longer they played Tetris the more they saw the world as a big Tetris
game, trying to make pieces fit together. It’s why studies have shown that
auditors, lawyers and engineers who are trained to look for flaws and mistakes
tend to have a more pessimistic view of the world. They are doing what they
were trained to do. Cognitive afterimage is very important in how we think and
behave.
This
week one of the things I realized is that we can train our brains. What if we
all worked to get cognitive afterimage not of a flash or Tetris, but of the
Christ? It’s actually inherent in our baptist DNA, to see all things through
the lens of Jesus Christ. To see all things through a new way. I think that is
what happened to the wisemen, and it led them to a new way home. I think it’s
our calling, as well. See the world through Jesus Christ, and we find a new way
home everywhere we look.
Because
it’s time we let go of the old, so we can hold onto the new. To find a new way
home. Amen and Amen.
*artwork: Three Wise Men, Painting by Donna Race, donnarace.com
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