LESSON: Matthew 2.7-12 (1-12), NRSVA

SERMON TITLE: What Can We Learn from the Magi?

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  1. ILLUSTRATIONS:


    2. "Abraham Lincoln was one of those appalled at the privileged perks members of Congress took, especially those who employed butlers during wartime.

    "Early one morning in 1863, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, noted for his large staff of domestic servants, called at the White House and was told that Lincoln was in a downstairs room and to go right in.

    "He found the President polishing his boots.

    "Amazed, the Senator exclaimed, "Mr. President, why do you shine your own boots?"

    "Lincoln replied: "Whose boots do you think I should shine?" (1)

    It reminds me of something one of my professors once told me about church work.

    We were studying a class in the Minister and His Duties.

    The professor said: Everyone has a little red wagon. People will spend a lot of time attempting to get you to pull their little red wagons. But remember if you pull their little red wagons, you'll not have enough time to pull your own.

  2. What in the world do shoes and wagons have to do with text for today?

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MAIN BODY:

  1. The Magi have a role to play in this sometimes ungainly drama.
    1. The question is: Who is going to determine that role?
    2. Herod seeks to enlist their aid for his own evil purposes.
      1. This is obvious in story.
        1. Through a closed meeting with them, he conspires to obtain their assistance.
        2. When was the exact time the star appeared?
        3. He sends them to Bethlehem.
          1. He sends them?
          2. He wants to believe they are doing his bidding.
        4. Search diligently for the child.
        5. When you have found him send me word.
        6. I want to come a pay him homage.
      2. In a sense he wants them to shine his shoes.
      3. In a sense he wants them to pull his little red wagon.
    3. We learn from this that we need to be alert and sensitive to the ways in which other people seek to enlist us and use us for their own personal needs.
      1. We are not to be used.
      2. We are to provide assistance, but we are not to be used.

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  2. The Magi have a objective which can only be achieved by continuing their journey.
    1. Truly they are excited about achieving the end of their quest
      1. They have a king to find.
      2. They have homage to pay.
      3. They have worship to offer.
      4. They have gifts to give.
    2. These incredible men provide us with an example of Christian essentials.
    3. It is vital to have a clear understanding of the meaning and purpose of it all.
      1. This is not always the case.

      Ill:    Theodore Wedel tells the story of The Parable of the Lifesaving Station (2)

        On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea and, with no thought of themselves, went out day and night tirelessly searching for the lost.

        Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved and various others in the surrounding area wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

        Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged building.

        Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely because they used it as a sort of club.

        Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club's decorations, and there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club initiations were held.

        About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had black skin and some had yellow skin.

        The beautiful new club was in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwrecks could be cleaned up before coming inside.

        At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal social life of the club.

        Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did.

        As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters, but most of the people drown.

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      1. Does this sound familiar?
        1. It applies to people who were once members of a congregation.
        2. It applies to the proliferation of denominations who are so often in spiritual, and sometimes physical, warfare with one another.
    4. Does this happen when people are shining someone else's shoes?
    5. Does this happen when we are busy pulling someone else's little red wagon?
  3. The Magi ultimately reach Bethlehem and find the home in which resides the child born to be king of the Jews.
    1. The Magi have assistance in reaching the goal.
      1. They have a star to guide them.
        1. As they leave Jerusalem the tar reappears.
        2. It guides them to the home.
      2. They have human assistance.
        1. The hastily called consultation in Jerusalem has provided the place name that they did not have.
      3. They are not willing to stop until they seen the child.
    2. Again there is an example of Christian essentials here to be understood and applied.
      1. How many people start out to find and achieve a level of success only to be turned aside by a sense of self-satisfaction?

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      ILL:    I read that there is a famous shrine in the Italian Alps.

         
        Every year thousands of people climb a mountain in order to visit this shrine.

        On their pilgrimage they pass the "stations of the cross" and walk up to an outdoor crucifix.

        One tourist noticed a grass-covered trail leading on beyond the cross. It was clear that most of the people who came to view the shrine stopped at the crucifix.

        This tourist fought through the rough thicket beyond the crucifix and, to his surprise, came upon another shrine

        This shrine symbolized the empty tomb.

        It was neglected, over-grown. Too many had stopped too soon.

      1. How often it is that people stop too soon.
  4. The beneficiary of the journey of the Magi is the family of Joseph, Mary and Jesus.
    1. They might have had dreams of what they could accomplish with more money.
    2. They might have had desires that could have been fulfilled with more money.
    3. What they could not have dreamed or desired was that they would find it necessary to flee for their lives.
    4. The gifts provided the means of leaving and sustaining life as they would live it.

CONCLUSION:

  1. Herod let his stubbornness and ego get in the way of his opportunity to truly pay homage to the King of Kings.
  2. The Magi humbled Themselves and found so much more than what they were looking for.
  3. We ought not to let anything get in the way of our understanding of God's will and purposes for his children.

    In a Montreal Newspaper was reported a conversation that took place between a U.S. Navy ship off the coast of Newfoundland.

    Please divert your course 15 degrees to avert a collision.

    Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees.

    This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again: Divert your course.

    No, I say again: Divert YOUR course.

    This is an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. We are a large warship. Divert your course at once!

    This is a lighthouse. Your call.

    1. This is God speaking.
    2. It's your call! 

      1. See Marvin Alisky, "White House Wit: Presidential Humor...from Lincoln to Reagan," Presidential Studies Quarterly 20 (Spring 1990): 375.

      2. Theodore Wedel, as quoted in Howard Clinebell's Basic Types of Pastoral Care and Counseling.

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