Sermon Title:  Are You Smart or Wise?

Sermon Text:  Matthew 2:1-12

Sermon Date:  January 4, 2009

 

                If you are reading this online, take a moment to take the quiz below before reading the sermon.

 

 

 

                I hope you have been taking the quiz that I put in your bulletins today.  Let’s see how you did.

 

1: Which prophet said, “Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son”?

                a.  Isaiah

                b.  Jeremiah

                c.  Ezekiel

                d.  Micah

 

2: What does the name Emmanuel mean?

                a.  God is for us

                b. God is with us

                c.  God loves us

                d.  God saves us

 

3.  Luke 1 says that “in the sixth month the angel was sent by God to a virgin engaged    to a man named Joseph.”  We know the virgin’s name was Mary but what is      important about the sixth month?

                a.  June, of course.

                b.  the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy

                c.  Six months after the Passover Festival.

 

4.   When Joseph learned that Mary was expecting a baby, he wanted to:

                a.  bring her up on adultery charges in the courts.

                b.  send her out of town.

                c.  quietly divorce her.

 

 

 

  1. When Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem the innkeeper said to them:            
    1. There are no rooms in the inn.
    2. I don’t have a room but I have a stable out back.
    3. Innkeeper?  What innkeeper?

 

  1. The shepherds were in the fields keeping watch over their flock by night.  How did the angel tell them they would recognize the Messiah?
    1. There would be a star over the stable.
    2. They would find a child wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.
    3. A and B

 

  1. The Wise Men came from the East to visit the Messiah.  Where did they find  

        the family?

    1. still in Bethlehem
    2. in a house in Egypt
    3. at home in Nazareth

 

8: What was the name of the old prophetess who saw Jesus in the temple when he was    presented to the Lord after his birth?

                a.  Huldah

                b.  Deborah

                c.  Hannah

                d.  Anna

 

9: What sacrifice did Mary and Joseph offer when the days of purification were               complete afterJesus’ birth?

                a.  A young lamb and two pigeons

                b.  A young goat

                c.  A young lamb

                d.  Two turtledoves or pigeons

 

10.  The angel said to Mary that Jesus would reign over the house of which Old               Testament character?

                a.  David

                b.  Solomon

                c.  Jacob

                d.  Abraham

 

Answers:

  1. Isaiah
  2. God is with us
  3. the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy
  4. quietly divorce her
  5. Innkeeper?  What innkeeper?
  6. they would find a child wrapped in cloths lying in a manger
  7. Still in Bethlehem
  8. Anna
  9. Two turtledoves or pigeons
  10. Jacob

 

 

            How did you do?  Who got them all right?  Way to go!  See me after church and get your prize of a leftover Christmas candy cane. 

            I’ll bet you had to think twice on some of you, didn’t you?  I took an online Christmas quiz marked “difficult” and missed five out of 20.  You see, several of those questions were about the prophets and who said what.  Apparently I’m not all that good at remembering whether Micah or Isaiah said what.  Oh well, I learn from my mistakes so…..

            The stories we remember from the scriptures are timeless and transforming, but we are also left without all of the details.

            We don’t know exactly how Mary and Joseph got to Bethlehem.  We don’t know whether the “innkeeper” was naughty or nice, but I love the story of the little boy playing the innkeeper in a church play who was so overwhelmed with compassion that when Mary and Joseph asked for a room, he cried out, “Don’t leave, you can have my room!”  Doesn’t that change the whole story?????

            We don’t really know how quickly the shepherds came to visit the baby Jesus?  Was it really that night or a couple of weeks later?  I mean, really, how quickly could they get from the fields into town? 

            We don’t know how old Jesus was when the Wise Men appear.  We assume he was around two because Herod ordered all boys under the age of 2 to be killed.  Sheesh.  So many details to think about.  We don’t even know how many Wise Men arrived.

            So, how about if we just don’t.  Know, I mean.  Think about what we don’t know…at least for a while this morning.  You see, I enjoy trying to figure out what isn’t there but on this day of Epiphany, how about if we just take the story at face value but think about some other ways that the story gives us wisdom.

            After all, we can be book-smart and get 100% on all the quizzes or we can be wise and figure out what we can glean from the scripture that Rod read for us.

            For a bit, let’s set aside the book knowledge and seek wisdom.  One of my favorite renditions of this story was a made for television movie called “The Three Kings.”  It came out in 1987 and as far as I can find, it isn’t available anymore.  And this is a shame because it is wonderful.

            The story is that there are three mental patients who play the Wise Men in a pageant at their mental institution.  One is a medic, the sole survivor of a helicopter crash, suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome and still reeling from the fact that he couldn’t save the others.  The second is a young man who lost his mother and doesn’t feel loved by his father.  The third is an older man who really believes himself to be King Melchoir, one of the Magi. 

            The movie is about their escape from the hospital – on camels – a journey to find the Christ Child, not in the Middle East, but in Los Angeles instead.  They are following a star.  Okay, we would call it a jetstream of a plane but let’s not be picky.  Can you imagine this?  Three men of varying ages, dressed in regal robes and funny headgear, on camels in Los Angeles.  The police are looking for them.  Their doctor is looking for them.  The whole city is aware of the escape and the news is covering it as you can imagine.   Some are afraid of what the mental patients might do to them.  The doctor is fearful of what the patients might do to themselves without their medications. 

             People, law enforcement and media are running around all over the place looking for these “Wise Men.”  Think OJ Simpson’s white Bronco without the murder and hysteria.   

            I said everyone was trying to stop them but there were  those who called into the television station urging the police not to stop the Wise Men from looking for the Christ Child.  Hmmmm.  Wise or smart?

            The story brings everyone together in a place in Los Angeles where the homeless live in cardboard boxes.  Our Wise Men believe this is where the star has led them, and here they find a baby, not necessarily born King of the Jews, but struggling for air, unable to breathe.   While everyone is standing around feeling helpless, the medic takes charge and saves the baby’s life.  He is restored to wholeness because while he wasn’t able to save the others in the helicopter, he was able to save this baby. 

            The young man who lost his mother never felt loved by his father because his father was unable to share his grief about losing his wife.   When the father found his son that night, he also found the tears he had never been able to shed and together, finally, they mourned together for a mother and wife and the years they had lost.

            King Melchoir was in this dream world because of the death of his son and daughter-in-law who were killed on their way to visit him.  He didn’t have a miraculous experience, nor did he leave his mental illness behind.  But he did see the star that brought the three of them to this moment….for a certain medic to be able to save a baby and a son who needed to see a grieving husband and father.  So who’s to say he was really mentally ill?  What if he was just really more open to the movement of the Holy Spirit than the rest of us?

            In any event, whether the Wise Men came from ancient Persia, wise and learned, or from a mental institution, they came to bring gifts.

            Some brought gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Others rescued a baby living in a cardboard box and helped a father and son find each other again.

            Sometimes we need “smarts” to remember the answers to quizzes correctly and other times we need “wisdom” to know what is right.  After all, you can be smart and not know what is important in life.  We all know people who are brilliant but have no common sense and yet we know people who flunked out of college and turned the computer world on its ear.

            We know people who never went to high school who have the ability to look into our hearts and instinctively know what is right and we know people who never went to high school who are stubborn and bull-headed.

            The world has all kinds, doesn’t it? 

            When I think about the story of these Wise Men I assume that we know them, not because of their book smarts, but more because of their willingness to follow the star…..and their hearts.  I’m sure many told them they were crazy to follow a star to find a baby and worship him.

            I’m not always smart or wise but my hope for 2009 is that I’ll learn more about what God can do in my life and yours.  My hope is that I’m going to be more open to being the person God has called me to be.  And my hope is that you want that for yourself too. 

            We Christians have been given a great gift in this story.  We have been given shepherds willing to leave their livelihood to worship a baby they know little about.  We have been given astronomers willing to go far from home to bring precious gifts to the one they will call the king of the Jews.  We have been given the gift of parents willing to risk it all to bring this baby into the world.  And we have been given the gift of the baby who will grow up to be the man we worship and adore.

            My favorite Christmas carol asks us “what will I give him, poor as I am?”  The right answer, the one only the wise know, is “I’ll give him my heart.” 

            Being “Smart” may serve you well in college and in your job, but being “wise” draws us closer to God and the gift of Jesus.  Which would you rather have?