T.S. Eliot begins his poem The Journey of the Magi with these words: 'A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year for the journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.'

The magi only appear in the gospel of Matthew and by the way, scripture does not call them kings. Some translations call them scholars, some astrologers, some magi, today’s reading says wise men. We don’t really know how many there were. They weren’t Jewish, they didn’t go to a stable, they went to a house in Bethlehem, and they are not named. (Longfellow gave them the names Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar.) We don’t know how old Jesus was when they visited him. Whoever they were, they traveled a hard journey, seeking wisdom, perhaps a new life, wanting to be better people, to be alive to the moment, to fall on their knees in awe of God’s anointed, all while following a star that had piqued their curiosity.

Their journey tells us that the coming of God into the world was a revelation, an epiphany, which was not limited to simply one group of people. The king of the Jews arrived in unpredictable way which invited both local shepherds from the fields and wise ones who traveled a great distance to be witnesses. Immanuel, God with us, came into the world for the world.

We could look at the journey of the magi in terms of our own life journeys, such long journeys, the ways deep and truly up here, the weather sharp. Travel, journeying, usually takes us, like the magi, out of our comfort zone which is the familiar, ordinary routine distraction of the everyday living of our lives.

When we do travel we sometimes plan a trip months ahead of time or occasionally we decide, on the spur of the moment, to just get up and go. Traveling these days is not particularly easy. Air travel could mean lost luggage, delayed flights, or nowadays waiting to go through scanners at the airport. With driving there is always the threat of an accident, or the high cost of gas, and the amount of time it takes to get somewhere.

And once we get to where we’re going there could be a whole new set of challenges: where to eat, the cost of sight-seeing, the weather, or… relatives. For the most part we invest a lot of time, money and energy for our journeys, with an expectation that we will have an experience that will forever lift us up, give us great memories to reflect upon and because we have intentionally set out to search for the new, the unfamiliar, the beautiful, the unusual, we’re willing to take the risks involved.

In contrast, it seems that when we are working on our spiritual lives we aren’t very adventurous at all and often not open or welcoming to the unfamiliar, the unusual or the new. We like to be safe and secure, even in the church or maybe even more so in the church.

Before the Gospel we sang these words:
Jesus, in you the lost are claimed,
strangers are found, and known, and named.

Isn’t this part of our journey, wanting to be claimed, to be known, to be named – to be strangers no more? It’s hard to be found if we’re not willing to take a risk, to venture into the depth of our souls, to take a journey inward, and at the same time be open to others who are different from us. Much easier to put up barriers which can lock others out and keep us safe behind a façade of our own making.

In 1999 The National Catholic Reporter sponsored a contest to encourage artists to create a new image of Jesus at the Millennium. It was judged by Sister Wendy Beckett, art historian and BBC television host. The winning interpretation, painted by artist Janet McKenzie, featured a Jesus who seemed to be African American and female. It was a very unusual and unexpected Jesus of the People. Last year McKenzie created a new image of the magi as three women from diverse backgrounds: Asian, African, and Anglo-saxon. A company called Bridge Builders printed them as cards for the season.

On the card from Bridge Builders it stated: In Janet McKenzie’s interpretation of the Magi, women around the world find an image of the Epiphany that includes and validates their encounters with the One Who Saves. Here is global inclusiveness and a vision of mutuality and interdependence. Epiphany proclaims again and anew: Christ for all people. God’s favor extends to all!

Now here is one of the interesting aspects of our Episcopal Church – the stormy side of our life together as God’s children in today’s world. Our Presiding Bishop, a woman, sent the card to the House of Bishops and probably whoever else was on her card list. The pre-printed traditional message on the inside of the card said May the joy and peace of Christmas be with you always.

A group of leaders who were uncomfortable with women as priests, with change, the unfamiliar, and had a hard time accepting anyone who didn’t adhere to a particular ‘formulaic’ belief system, took it upon themselves to mail the clergy of that area a scathing criticism of this particular card, accusing the Presiding Bishop of re-interpreting the Scripture so as to exclude masculine images.

Now remembering that in the scripture we don’t learn much about the magi it was pretty sad for a message like that to be sent out from leaders of a diocese….in a church…as Christians. There was no openness to the arrival of God for all people, no welcome for those who felt like outcasts, no epiphany, no showing of God’s unconditional love for all people. There was just a bunch of upset people behaving badly, out of anger,anxiety or fear.

I suppose that kind of behavior is an example of those unattractive parts of all personalities that can reside in each of us, those parts that don’t deal well with change or differences. We all have those places in our hearts where we harbor prejudices, or deep hidden resentments against some person or persons. We all have the capability of lashing out to wound another. And we all carry within us some dreaded, unspoken fear. But through the love of Christ, we work on getting beyond our prejudices, by letting go of resentments, asking for forgiveness for those times when we have wounded another, and by bringing our fears into the light so we can face them, name them, be free of them. Otherwise we would not grow. The very reason Scripture remains alive for us is because we do question, do challenge, do discuss, do use our imaginations, in our desire for the wisdom of God.

Last Epiphany I flew to New Orleans to visit my daughter. Now I need to tell you that one of my deep fears is that of going to a restaurant by myself because I afraid I won’t be waited on. I am sure some shrink would tell me that this probably translates to some deep-seeded fear of rejection.

Since my daughter was working, I decided to go the Coffee Pot for breakfast by myself. I didn’t see anyone at the door but I spotted an empty table so I sat down. I waited. No one came. No one came. I did the entire crossword puzzle, without the benefit of coffee, and still no one was waiting on me. I folded up the paper and started to leave. A waitress came up behind me, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, “Dawlin – don’t leave. You seated yourself so no one was assigned to your table. Stay put, I’ll wait on you.” So I sat down. Later I said to her, “I’m sorry if I caused any upset.” She put her hand on her hip and quickly replied, “Chile – you upset yourself. You thought no one was going to wait on you, and you got upset.” Now there might have been all kinds of dynamics going on that morning but the fact that she voiced my fear right out loud with no hesitation “you thought no one was going to wait on you”-- said to me I better pay attention to that message. I upset myself because of my fear.

The group in that diocese upset themselves over some fear they had. I don’t know what it is about women in power that frightens people but apparently this makes some people anxious. This particular group upset themselves out of their own anxiety and fear. We probably have all upset ourselves from time to time out of our own fears or anxieties.

So I wonder again, why is it that when physically traveling, journeying, we are practically fearless in our looking for the unfamiliar, the extraordinary, the unknown, and the unusual? We take a risk every time we venture out our front door and yet, yet, sometimes within our very own hearts, in our spiritual lives, we are unwilling to risk anything and probably cling to our prejudices, resentments, and wounds because we are fearful…even though the angels have told us again and again not to be afraid.

The story of the Magi in the Gospel of Matthew clearly shows the unexpected and unusual: God’s grace was extended to the outsiders, the gentiles. God came for the world not just for one individual or a particular group of people or a specific church. God came for all people, for all of creation, for all time.

You might want to try getting outside your comfort zone. Take a journey inward. Go on a retreat. Read a book by someone like Marcus Borg, or Brian McClaren, or Barbara Brown Taylor or J. Philip Newell, or John Spong or be really challenged by Karen Armstrong’s The Great Transformation – the Beginning of Religious Tradition.

In this beginning of a new decade in our lives let us all like the magi, be open to making the ultimate journey, searching for truth, wisdom and a glimpse of the Divine and unpredictable God who somehow or other is at both the beginning and end of all journeys.