Matthew 2:1-12
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
January 5, 2025
Sometimes those who ought to know don’t have a clue…while those we deem in the dark have the bigger insight.
With a few exceptions, the Israelites saw nothing remarkable that first Christmas. Though they’d had for centuries an insider’s view of God’s work on behalf of all humanity, they needed pagans from a faraway land to alert them to the possibility that at that moment God was doing something different and profoundly significant.
The Bible calls those idolatrous outsiders magi. Most scholars believe them to be astrologers from the land we now call Iran who studied the stars to read from them messages from the gods. They saw something in the sky that Israel’s religious leaders, so well-versed in scripture, were missing. Though the magi understood but little of what they were seeing, they grasped that some kind of great leader had been born to the Jews, one so great that He was worth travelling about a thousand miles on camel to honor with rich gifts fit for a king: of gold, frankincense and myrrh, and that they needed the Jews to fill in the blanks for them as to where He might be found and what kind of Person He might be.
While the insiders had spotted nothing of note, the outsiders discerned something deserving of their diligent attention, their serious investigation and their reverent recognition.
In this story there is, for those of us who love Jesus and His church, a warning that we need to beware of the blindness that long familiarity can create and to get out of our cozy cocoon of the converted in order to learn from those who find the church life we cherish boring, irrelevant or even destructive. We need to ask questions of them and listen patiently and carefully to what they have to tell us, even if the answers they give us may pain us to hear. We need to inquire of them why they don’t want to give church a try or why, if they once did, they don’t want to give it a second chance – and then hold our tongue and humbly and non-defensively take in what they say.
As was the case at the first Christmas, outsiders today may know better what God is up to than we insiders. We may need to be taught by those who find church life at best not compelling and at worst repelling. We the churched need to hear out the unchurched.
We of course must first clarify what we mean by “church”. Skye Jethani has identified four different uses of the word. First, it can refer to a structure in which Christians regularly meet, as in “Have you seen the new church they’re building over on the West Side?” Second, it can refer to a Sunday worship service, as in “Did you going to church today?” Third, it can refer to a 501c3 nonprofit organization with officers, employees, programs and budgets, as in “Do you give money in support of the Christian mission of the church?” Fourth and finally, it can refer to a caring community of women, men and children who follow Jesus, as in “Do you at church feel a part of a healthy and happy family whose members mutually support and encourage one another?”
Whenever the Greek portion of the Bible speaks of the church, it has this last meaning in mind.
But, as Jethani has noted, while it’s relatively easy to remember that church is neither a building nor an event, it’s hard to keep from confusing that community of caring with the organization that expresses its caring through institutional programming and application of resources.
The danger then is that we might fall into inviting people to church in order to sustain the institution as it is. But what’s the appeal of being plugged into the apparatus of an institution that presses people to devote to it their time, money and talent when they already feel stretched too thin? On the other hand, if we’re inviting people to be a part of a fellowship of love that helps us all be the best version of ourselves, they’ll always be some takers!
It’s a tough time for churches. Fifty years ago, Gallup found that two thirds of Americans had strong or high confidence in the institutional church, which was more appreciation than any other institution garnered. Today only a third of Americans say they have strong or high confidence in the church.
Actually, the church is caught up in a rising tide of mistrust toward all institutions. Not long ago, The Atlantic ran an article entitled “How Americans Lost Trust in Our Greatest Institutions”. Americans now hold in suspicion not only churches, but also the government, the world of entertainment, the news media, and colleges and universities.
What is most sobering for those of us who love the church is that many who find participation in church meaningless and uninspiring are people who love Jesus and are actively engaged in many of the activities that define following Him. Many who never get around to going to church regularly worship online, receive biblical teaching through podcasts, meet with others to talk about growing spiritually, and volunteer to feed the homeless, help youth achieve academic success or advance the cause of justice.
Jesus’ word, “Those who lose their life for my sake will find their life,” applies to churches as well as to individuals. If we invite people to share in the life of the church because we’re short of people to perpetuate the programs we’re used to or to fill up our officer boards, we’ll get a lot of “Thanks but no thanks!” After all, who wants to preserve a status quo they’re not already sold on? But if we ask, not “Will you serve the church with us?” but rather “How might we the church serve you in the spiritual and ethical quests on which you’ve already embarked?”, some will be intrigued by our offer to support them in their efforts to accomplish what they already believe God is wanting them to accomplish.
No good comes of our pointing an accusing finger at our big bad secular culture or of our wagging a judgmental finger at our stuck-in-the-mud institutional church. But a lot of good comes of our aiming more to listen to and learn from outsiders than to get them to listen to and learn from us, of our striving more to serve them in their growth as people of God than to get them to grow as members of our church, of our seeking more to support them wherever and however they’re serving God’s purposes than to get them to support us here in what we’re already doing.
This is the gold, frankincense and myrrh by which we can pay Jesus homage, and to honor as well those who in some ways know better than we.
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