1-6-2019 “Presence”

Sunday, January 6, 2019 ~ All Saints Sunday

Gospel Lesson: Sermon: “Presence”

Matthew 2:1-12

If you attended the pageant a few weeks ago, you saw the Oscar-quality performance I gave playing Herod — how I died after giving instructions to the Wise Men to find the new born King of the Jews so that I could pay him homage as well. My wife is still asking for a copy of that so that she can embarrass me on social media. I really did feel, after tumbling down the chancel stairs, that I would awake in a great deal of pain the next day. It didn’t happen, which means if I ever give up this ministry gig, I can become a stuntman.

Both Joe Kendall and I studied literary theory in graduate school: ways of reading and understanding texts. One of the more complicated methods is called deconstruction. I am not going to bore you with all the details of this complex theory, but one of its points fit the theme of today perfectly.

The French philosopher and literary critic Jacques Derrida spoke of the difference between writing and speaking as one of presence and absence. Again, it is a very technical and convoluted philosophy, but think for a moment. When we speak, we are fully present to someone (excluding a recording of us speaking). When we write, it is secondary — we are communicating to people through our absence. Derrida has no problem with writing, but he felt that speaking was superior, just as presence is superior to absence. Reflecting on this, Prof. Mary Klages writes, “The idea of presence is central to most systems of Western philosophy from [the time of] Plato [the fourth century BC] until 1966.”[1] Nineteen sixty-six is the year that Derrida presented his groundbreaking, and controversial, theory.

Klages then gets theological and talks about the beginning of the Judeo-Christian tradition: the Book of Genesis. How does God create? He speaks. The first six days of creation, God speaks everything into existence: day and night, earth and sky, humans and animals. All of it is the result of verbalization. But what is more significant is that God is present when he creates, because he is speaking.

Our God is a God who is present. He is not some removed being, some distant deity. With the coming of Christ, God is even more present. He becomes one of us. This is the realization of the Magi on Epiphany.

I try to imagine what it was like being the Magi. According to the text, and mere geography, they must have travelled a couple years to get to the manger. Therefore, they were notified of the coming Messiah before anyone else was — even before Mary and Joseph. They knew before anybody. And then the trek — the long trek to Bethlehem: “The ways deep and the weather sharp,” as the poet wrote. When they arrive, the child has been born. Other than the shepherds (and probably the inn keeper) they are the first to see him. The story quickly focuses on the strange, symbolic gifts they bring: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Part of the focus is on who these visitors are: some say kings, some say astrologers. We are told that they pay homage to the Messiah, which is why they traveled there in the first place, but I really wish the camera had been invented and someone had one. I wish Joseph pulled out his smartphone and took a video of these unexpected visitors. Partly, because I would love to see the expression on their faces.

You’ve all seen those videos of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan surprising their children, or their moms, or their spouses. There is a complete look of astonishment at the unexpected presence of the loved one who was in harm’s way. It is followed by tears and a long embrace. It’s hard to watch those videos and not get chocked up yourself!

So, imagine how the Magi felt. Imagine what their reaction must have been. Pure joy. Utter elation. Here they are in a barn gazing upon God made flesh. The creator of heaven and earth, the one we spoke of a moment ago, made the leap from the infinite to the finite, from cosmos to a small city in Palestine to become one of us. The presence of God. They must have been in total awe, their hands trembling as they opened their chests to present their gifts.

This is not just some mythic story, although it contains elements of myth. It is a story that reoccurs early each January when we worship on Epiphany Sunday. We come to this sanctuary, that many of us have been in hundreds of times, and we are astonished at what we find. Through our prayers, through the Scriptures, through our celebrating the sacraments, we are in the presence of the God who chose to become known to us in Jesus. Like the Magi, we are amazed at what we see — what we find here. Some theologians claim that every Sunday is Easter, because we celebrate the resurrection every Sabbath. (This is why Sundays are not included in the forty days of Lent.) In that spirit, every Sunday is an Epiphany, because each time that we gather in this house we encounter the presence of God again and anew.

But it isn’t just about this place on this day of the week. If you tune-in your spirit, you will see and feel the presence of God out there, everywhere. I am not talking about seeing God in nature, although he is certainly there. I mean seeing God in each person, in each moment, in each experience. God saturates existence. He is wherever we live, move, breathe, work, and play. Every act of love, every act of compassion — you’ll find God there. In fact, you have to choose and try not to see God, and, even then, you’ll be in denial.

Matthew tells us that when the Magi saw the star they were overjoyed. Other translations say they were excited, overwhelmed with joy, ecstatic with joy, or that they rejoiced with exceeding joy. In The Message, Eugene Peterson says that “they could hardly contain themselves.” Maybe the greatest act of evangelism we can perform is to simply go forth and let people know that you can hardly contain yourself, because of what you’ve found here, there, and everywhere: the Living God made known in the Living Christ. Amen.

[1] Mary Klages, Literary Theory for Beginners (Danbury: For Beginners LLC, 2017), 47.