December 29, 2024
• Rev. Mindie Moore
December 29: Persia—A Place of Return
Scripture: Matthew 2:1-12
Intro Self & Pray
Think about the last journey that you took. Now, you can define that word, “journey” any way you want. It could be a flight to a place on the other side of the world, or it can be something closer to home like walking around your neighborhood to see Christmas lights.
But think about that time, that experience. And think about how it impacted you. My most recent journey was pretty fantastic. Back in November, I went on a retreat for pastors at a retreat center in Malibu, CA. (SLIDE) Here’s a picture, just to make you feel extra sorry for me. And it was an awesome as this picture makes it look. The setting was perfect, the weather was amazing, the people were incredible...it was everything I hoped for. And there were some real, tangible ways that I experienced God’s presence and love during those days away.
But, after a few days, I had to return home, as we usually do after any journey we take. And coming home was a bit of a challenge. Because as I was enjoying 70 degrees and sunny, I was watching my weather app. And I could see that on Thursday, the day I was flying home, it would NOT be 70 degrees and sunny in the place I would return to. In fact, my app told me that a snowstorm was expected to start at 4pm in Indianapolis that day...and I was scheduled to land at 5pm.
And as I entered the Indianapolis airport, and found a terminal full of people whose flights had been delayed and I changed out of my sandals into my close toed shoes, it felt pretty familiar. Like...yes. This is Indiana on the cusp of winter. But it was also clear to me that even though I was returning to something familia, I wasn’t returning as the exact same version of me that had left this place just several days earlier. My journey had changed some of my perspective, some of my posture towards the places I found myself. It had changed some of the ways I felt connected to God and the priorities I was holding for the rest of the year. Because of what I had experienced during that retreat, I was coming back to a familiar place, but with a new perspective and in a different way.
Today, we’re looking at a group of people that went on a journey that changed them in an even more profound way. A group of people who set out for their journey with one perspective, with one way of looking at the world...and returned home very much changed. We’re looking at one more part of the Christmas story—on one more piece of our senior pastor, Rob Fuquay’s, book, “On the Way to Bethlehem.” And the people we’re meeting today, we know them as “The Magi” or “The Wisemen” and the Magi are an interesting group of people. They came to Bethlehem from far away and while there’s some debate over where this group of people came from, many think they were probably from Persia, which is modern-day Iran. They were likely priests of the Zoroastrian religion, which is the oldest monotheistic faith still in practice in the world. And their faith taught that there was a never-ending battle between good and evil, and because of that, the magi would have been people who were committed to finding good...and one of their tools was using the stars for guidance.
The bottom line is that the magi were a group of people who were seeking something.
And I think it's really helpful to spend some time with these seekers, especially as we get ready to wind down the 2024 year and look to a new one.
Because this is the time of year when the pressure to seek out something new can feel so big. Like, you’ve got 2 days to end the year strong and make some really big goals for the next one. And when we get caught up in that sort of pressure, we think, “ok, this is it. This is the thing I’ve got to change.” We think we need to move to a new city, or breakup with our partner, or change jobs, or just do something major that breaks the whole thing and sets us up for this huge life overhaul.
And, look, maybe need that right now. If you do, that’s just fine. It could be really exciting and lead to some new possibilities in a new season. But...maybe you don’t need to do all of that. Maybe your invitation in the New Year is to let yourself BE in a familiar place...but to do so in a way that is experiencing growth and transformation. (SLIDE) In fact, maybe, for a lot of us, our ability to find what we’re seeking requires a new perspective in a familiar place.
The Magi experience a shift in their perspective as they go about this journey that takes them from home to Jerusalem to Bethlehem and the back home again. And when the Magi show up to King Herrod in Jerusalem, they have a certain understanding of how the world works. These seekers have seen a star that has given them an indication that God is up to something big, something that they have to experience for themselves. And they come to King Herrod because they think he can help. They think that he might have some intel to guide them to this child. Maybe he’s the one who can show them the path to what they’re seeking.
But Herrod really isn’t any help at all. In fact, it turns out that the Magi are the ones bringing HIM this news. And the thing about Herrod is that he’s already an unpredictable, insecure King, so the idea that there’s some kind of NEW king in town doesn’t go over well. And after he has his moment with his own advisors, probably filled to the brim with anger and fear...he calls the Magi back to him. Because now he’s got a plan, and he gives them a job. And he basically says, “oh it’s wonderful that you’re going to do this—go! Find him! And then come right back here and let me know where I can find him so I can go pay him homage too.”
Now, we know he’s lying and we know that his intentions aren’t pure. We know this is all an act and that Herrod has no interest in worshiping Jesus, but of getting rid of Jesus. He wants to use the Magi to do his dirty work.
But the Magi don’t know this yet. And so they agree and they keep going on their way, following the star, fully intending to help Herrod out.
Now, what’s interesting about this whole set up is why Herrod would need their help in the first place. Because the Magi are looking at the same night sky as Herrod. In theory, they should all be looking at the same star. But it doesn’t seem like this is something that Herrod or his team of advisors are able to see or understand without the Magi’s help. And so it makes you wonder in this story—what if the star was visible only to those who were actively seeking something? (SLIDE) What if we can only see the ways that God is working if we’re actively open to receiving it?
The other week, I was sitting at a coffee shop in Broad Ripple with our Midtown Kids’ Director, Sarah Flores. And I’ll be honest, when I looked out my window that morning, I thought, maybe this should just be a Teams meeting. I mean, it was gray. It was cold. The sky had started rain these little ice pellets. And I don’t how much time you spend in Broad Ripple, but parking can be a whole adventure sometimes, and so as I paid for parking at the lot near this shop, and I kind of trudged through the parking lot and the puddles...I was in a whole mood by the time I got inside and got my coffee.
And so we're meeting and I’m trying to warm up and not be cranky, and all of a sudden Sarah looks at me and says, “You need to turn around right now!” And when I did, I could see out the window, and now all of a sudden this gray, dreary, terrible day had turned into this perfect snow globe. I mean, it was those giant flakes and it was so pretty and the BEST part was not just watching the snow...but it was watching the people entering the coffee shop. Because it HAD been a bunch of grouchy, frowny faces walking in there. One after another. But once it started to snow, it was like all these grownups turned into kids. There was this one guy, who just sort of did this as he walked down the sidewalk.
And it just made me think—I had decided that this day was just going to be bleak. I had decided what I was going to find and what it was going to be like. I wasn’t looking for any kind of inspiration or hope or positive shift. And what did I do when I went into that coffee shop? I sat with my back to the window and stopped looking. And it was only because of Sarah being on the lookout that I was able to see it.
Are there any areas of your life where you’ve stopped looking for God might be up to? There’s no judgement in that question, but I think it’s a helpful one to consider. Maybe we’ve let ourselves become fearful or cynical or maybe we’ve experienced enough pain that we’re not quite sure that God could make anything redeemable come out our experience. Maybe our routines are just so mundane and the same thing over and over that we’ve stopped believing something new is possible for us.
What would you need, in whatever your life looks like right now, to be able to look for something new and different? What would it look like, not to make a massive change where you uproot your whole life, but what would it look like to let God transform you to be in the exact place that you are...but with a different perspective?
For the Magi, they had decided that they were going to be people who earnestly and actively sought out where God was leading. And that seeking took them straight to Jesus and this encounter that the Bible tells us “overwhelmed them with joy.” They meet Mary and Joseph and Jesus, they generously give them these expensive gifts. Meeting Jesus changes them, and so they’re now able to hear from God beyond following the stars. And when God speaks to them in a dream and says, “don’t go back to Herrod because terrible things will happen if you do,” they’ve been paying attention and seeking enough to trust that message.
And so because of Jesus, because of the word they receive from God, they still go back home, they return to that familiar place...but they go back different people. They go back with a different perspective. They even go back a different way. And at that point in their story, they CAN’T just do the same things they’ve always done. They CAN’T be the exact same people who had set out on this journey months ago or who had stood in front of Herrod’s throne. Because now, they knew too much, they had experienced something too life-changing, that to simply redo the journey the way they had before, it wouldn’t be enough. They had to find a new way home.
(SLIDE) Sometimes we have to find a new way home to ourselves and to God. None of us can predict what the coming year is going to bring, but maybe the biggest opportunity we have is to approach the things that stay the same, the things that feel familiar, in a way that feels different and shaped by God and helps us keep growing, and seeking, and becoming new versions of ourselves.
And to do that, we might need new tools. This might be the perfect time to evaluate where we are in our spiritual lives. What we do to connect with God. To really ask ourselves—is it still working? Does it honor the season I’m in? Does it allow me to have the space to seek what the Holy Spirit might be prompting me to look for? Maybe right now is exactly the right time to try something new, to learn a new way to grow in our faith, something that feels a little out of our comfort zone, but that takes us where we need to go.
When I was in college, I worked with a short term missions organization in Chicago and one of the key parts of my work was riding in the front seat of a 15 passenger van with the out of town youth group that was there for a mission trip, and helping them find their way from place to place around the city. Now this was the early 2000s and so most phones were not very smart yet. My friend Aaron had one of the first generations of smartphones and I remember we used to call it his “Google phone” and we thought it was SO COOL. Just to give you some context.
And, because the whole smartphone thing was new, there were a lot of things that didn’t work quite right. Google Maps being one of them. Once you got in downtown Chicago, it would just get SO confused. And you’d find yourself in this endless cycle of “recalculating, recalculating” like it just couldn’t figure out where you were with all of the buildings and signals and all the stuff.
And so because of that, one of the things that we had to do was learn to use a paper map to navigate these groups around the city. One of our training days was devoted to learning how to READ a map (which I did not know how to do before that job) and then how to USE a map once we were in transit—these are not necessarily the same thing. And even though Chicago is a big city, and I am directionally challenged, what was amazing is that by the middle of the summer, I could get you ANYWHERE in that city just by using that paper map.
And I would have group leaders who had smartphones say, “oh just let me do it.” And I’d have to explain to them that while that tool worked in a different context, where we were now, we were going to have to use something different. The thing that could guide us before, couldn’t guide us now.
Maybe that’s a lesson we can take into this new year. Maybe we can be open to new tools and new ways of finding God. And maybe, as we let ourselves be open...we can trust that God can go with us, wherever our journeys take us. God’s not put off by our changing. God’s not offending if we shift and evolve. I think God delights to be on the journey with us, whatever that journey looks like.
Because just like the Magi experienced, those changes can create something so good and lifegiving for us. And when we’re open to seeking God’s work in us, we can find ourselves on a journey no matter where we are.
So I just wonder as we go into a new year, (SLIDE: What new things is God inviting you to seek in familiar places?) if maybe God is inviting to seek something new in whatever familiar place you’re in. If maybe God is leading us to encounters with Jesus that shape us in new ways. If maybe God is offering us new roads home and new ways of finding connection to the one who loves us the most.
Our journeys are going to be varied. Or stories look different than the person sitting next us. Our challenges and the things we have to navigate can take us by surprise. But I think one thing is constant—all those experiences can lead us to Jesus and enounters with God that help us experience something new.
We just have to be open to seeking it.
Let’s pray.
Benediction: Compass