CENTER OF POWER/EDGE OF HOPE

Scripture Readings: Micah 5:2-5a, Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12

I’m nothing if not a good Congregationalist, and it was long tradition in the Congregational churches that, as civic elections approached, the preacher would inform the congregation how he (and in those days it was exclusively he) was going to vote. So as the election season is now officially underway, I thought I’d begin this morning by following their example and informing you of who I’m going to vote for.

From your collective gasp I get the feeling that I’m treading on dangerous ground but here goes anyway: After long and careful examination and exploration of all the candidates, I have decided that I am going to vote for Tim Hanna as he runs for reelection as the mayor of Appleton. There – I said it and I’m glad I did!

Now that I’ve said it, how many of you think that my public declaration was an act of political courage? How many of you are wondering if my support has something to do with the fact that Tim is a member of the church? And how many of you are not so impressed with my political courage because you heard the news earlier this week that Mr. Hanna is running unopposed for the office of mayor?

I want to talk about a real act of political courage this morning, and I think we all agree that it isn’t mine. Where we find it is lurking just beneath the surface of our Gospel Reading.

Imagine the scene – these learned men from Persia show up in Jerusalem – tradition says there were three but the Bible doesn’t give a number, it could be dozens! The crowd is amazed at the sight of them, their outlandish foreign garb, the towering camels, the heavy packs filled with treasures: gold, frankincense and myrrh. In awe, these magi are directed to King Herod. Falling before the King, they ask a boon from the powerful man; an answer to their question, to their quest: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”

Now this story and plot line come straight out of Isaiah 60, a poem recited to Jews in Jerusalem almost 600 years earlier. Those ancient Jews had been in exile in Iraq for a couple of generations, and when they came back to Jerusalem it was devastated; bombed out and burned out. Understandably, they were in despair. Who wants to live in a city where the towers are torn down and the economy has failed?

In the middle of this mess, Isaiah invited his depressed and discouraged neighbors to look up and hope: “Rise, shine, for your light has come.” Isaiah promises a real reversal for Jerusalem: it’s going to rise again to a new level of prosperity. It will become the focus of other’s nation’s attention and a center of international trade: “A multitude of camels shall cover you… all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”

Flash forward 600 years back to King Herod’s time, when that royal procession from Persia arrived, and I bet this passage from Isaiah was spreading like wildfire around Jerusalem: The camels.., the gold and frankincense… the old prophecy is coming true! Jerusalem will be lifted up once again! The Romans cast out! Rise, shine, for our light has come!

And now these exotic strangers, these brightly dressed harbingers of a new era, kneel before Herod and ask: “Where is the child? Where is the king that is to come?”

With the words of Isaiah 60 running so fresh in their minds, the answer had to be obvious: here! In Jerusalem! The seat of Judaism! The center of power for Israel! And it only makes sense that the “king that is to come” must be one of Herod’s sons. After all, he had three of them. One of them must be it. And imagine Herod’s reaction to that. The thing Herod had been wishing for was coming true: he was to be a real king!

You see Herod was elected so-called King of the Jews by the Roman Senate and only because of his family’s violent loyalty to Rome. He wasn’t in the lineage of David, in the bloodline of the great Kings of Israel. But now, with these words from the magi, perhaps it was coming true – a real king with hereditary heirs!

And that’s the way history works, right? It’s about centers of power that rule over us, determine our lives and livelihoods, that pass the power over to those that are handpicked to receive the power. It’s all about Jerusalem and Herod, the king and capital city, the Powers that Be. And that hasn’t changed over time, has it?

This next year will show us a slow procession from Iowa to New Hampshire to South Carolina and all the way to Washington D.C. as we elect a new President. This is where our attention will be directed. “Where is he or she who will save this people?” Isn’t that the question we’re asking ourselves as we examine these individuals running for the Presidency?

It’s about Presidents and Kings. It’s about Washington D.C. and Jerusalem. It’s about the center of power radiating its influence out on all of us. Right?

That’s what most of Herod’s scribes and scholars must have thought. But then something happened, someone must have raised their voice; one scholar, one scribe offered a minority opinion in answering this question of the magi. “You have the wrong text,” he must have nervously told Herod, knowing his words might be a death sentence. “Not Isaiah. Not his words about Jerusalem. No. The one you should be looking at is Micah. The place you should be looking for… is Bethlehem.”

Micah was a contemporary of Isaiah and Hosea. But rather than coming from noble descent, Micah was the son of peasants. Rather than doing his prophetic work in the city, Micah lived and worked in the countryside, in a small village. And rather than seeing great hope in urban renewal and the revival of Jerusalem’s power and influence, Micah foretold Jerusalem’s destruction and looked for hope emerging from the small towns and peasant lands of Judah.

One can only imagine the courage it took for that scribe to lift up his voice in quoting Micah: “But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah… from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old… and he shall be the one of peace.”

And that courageous scribe, the one with real political courage, somehow his voice prevailed. Who knows why those are the words Herod passed on to those Persian intellectuals? Perhaps the other scribes recognized it as a true word of the Lord. Perhaps Herod knew his own sons too well and understood that greatness was not in them and must be looked for elsewhere. Perhaps he was simply sending those magi out to do his looking for him and would grab the child himself once this would-be usurper of the throne was located. The execution would soon follow.

So off he sent those magi. They headed for Bethlehem, a rural place, dusty, unnoticed, no-wheres-ville. And there they found… what they were looking for. There they found the future. There they found the child.

Not in Jerusalem but in Bethlehem. Not at the center of power but at the edges of hope.

The Epiphany story is not the story of three kings, rather it’s the story of two communities: Jerusalem with its great pretentions, and Bethlehem with its modest promises. Jerusalem, with its scheming ruler, and Bethlehem with its humble child. Jerusalem, the center of power, and Bethlehem, at the edge of hope.

It’s amazing that the scribe speaks up. It’s amazing that the other scribes agree. It’s amazing that Herod somehow believes them. And finally, it’s amazing that these wise people go on to the village, come face to face with a baby with peasant parents and are touched, moved, converted. They lay down their wealth, set aside their preconceptions, and their lives take a new turn, a different road.

When we face the great issues of our day, our eyes are trained to look to the centers of power in our world. I wonder if the Epiphany story tells us that we may be making a mistake.

Many of us are terrified over the threat of global warming and deeply disappointed that the leadership from the corridors of power in this country has been so lacking. Some have said that this President’s long-term legacy will be that he was fiddling in Iraq while the world was burning. You might find justification for such angry words, but you also won’t find any hope in them. You might satisfy yourself with sanctimony, but you also won’t change anything.

Last year I spent many Thursday evenings with a group of interested citizens studying “The Natural Step,” a citizen advocacy program on economic and environmental sustainability that comes out of Sweden. (I don’t’ know about you, but when I think about real power in this world, I don’t immediately think Sweden.) One of the people in our study group came from the village of Johnson Creek. He brought this program back to the village and the council, and, as a result, they ended up officially voting themselves an environmentally sustainable village. From now on in Johnson Creek every village expenditure, every development, proposal and project will be evaluated not just for its economic and aesthetic impact but for its long-term environmental impact as well.

Hope didn’t come from Washington D.C. It came from Johnson Creek, Wisconsin, a Bethlehem if I ever saw one. Not from the center of power but from the edge of hope.

We talked with a dear friend of ours who works with Learning Disabled kids at a high school in another town. The LD program is often overlooked by the administration. The old goal of mainstreaming the kids into the larger student body is being more and more abandoned. Instead, the program and those kids, (the number of which is now nearly 15% of the student population), are being isolated, set aside, pushed off to the edges of the High School . Our friend made an interesting observation: those LD kids, after they graduate, are the ones most likely to remain in the community while many of the others go away to college and work. By neglecting these kids at the edges, at the margins, the community is destroying its own future.

Where is Bethlehem in this community? Who are the people we marginalize, push off to the edges, regard as being of little value and powerless? And yet it is those people at the edges and how we treat them, the Bible tells us, that defines our moral life, that defines our community.

Not in Jerusalem but in Bethlehem. Not at the center s of power, but at the edge of hope.

Molly was one of those people who just radiated negative energy. She had a perpetual frown, an air of disapproval, and projected the message to pretty much everyone around her: it’s just not good enough. Whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re trying, whatever you’re thinking, it’s just not good enough. She projected that on her children, on her friends, on her pastor. Do you know someone like Molly?

Of course an attitude like that doesn’t just come out of nowhere, and where it came from for Molly was from her husband Dave who projected that negative attitude in spades. Dave was the center of power in Molly’s life and that power was being applied abusively. “You’re not good enough. Nothing you do is good enough. You yourself are no good.” Those were the messages Dave was giving Molly, his kids, his former friends, and his former pastor, but especially Molly.

Then Hurricane Katrina struck. Molly had a connection to a Mississippi school that had been devastated, the school closed, their supplies ruined. Somehow Molly got the idea that she could do something about it. She gathered some friends in other churches and shared her idea. Together they hastily put together a school supply drive. Two weeks later, several trucks left our town chock full of supplies and on their way to Mississippi. She did it. Molly did it. And what she did was good enough. And Molly’s spirits began to lift and her life began to change. We have a religious word we use for what was happening to Molly: salvation.

And not from Jerusalem but from the Bethlehem of Mississippi. And not from the center of power in her life but from the edge of hope.

Today we begin the New Year with a reminder that we have met a God in Jesus Christ who comes from Bethlehem not Jerusalem; a God often unknown in the centers of power who somehow finds opportunity to reach us, to change us, to save us, by gnawing at the edges of our world, our communities, ourselves.

God is coming to you too. And not in Jerusalem but in Bethlehem, Not at the center of power but at the edge of hope.

Make the journey. See for yourself. There’s the child. Hope has been reborn. Amen.

Sermon preached by Reverend Steve Savides at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Appleton, Wisconsin on January 6, 2008.