Seekers and Strangers--January 10, 2020

Seekers and Strangers--January 10, 2020

"And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road." [Matthew 2:12]

And, just like that, the Magi vanish into the mist of Matthew's storytelling, never to be heard from again.  That... perplexes something in me.

I mean, as far as the Magi are concerned, this is just about the perfect exit.  They are mysterious and shadowy figures who dabble in mystical arts and magic, so it seems just about right that they disappear with a puff of smoke like a magician finishing his act down an unseen trapdoor in the stage.  

But for us who are left with this strange ending to their cameo appearance in the story, something feels unresolved, like the leaving of loose ends we wish had been tied up better.  For one, some voice from the Respectable Religious Person parts of our brains probably wants to ask questions like, "So, did the Magi believe in Jesus enough to go to heaven?  Did they understand who they were visiting when they opened up their treasure chests?  Did they leave their old religion of Zoroastraianism behind, or give up their practice of astrology?  And, if so, what would they believe in, since there was no Christianity yet, and they don't appear to have become Jewish converts by the story's end?" T.S. Eliot's famous poem about the Magi (go check it out if you don't know it--I'll wait) offers some interesting speculation about what happened to the Magi and their faith after they went home, but it is all poetic license (or smoke and mirrors if you like) and nothing solid. The lack of black-and-white answers makes us squirm, I'll bet.

That same Respectable Religious part of our brains has been taught to think in terms of litmus tests for salvation--ways to tell if someone is "in" or "out" the "Heaven Club."  In some traditions, it's whether you have prayed the "Sinner's Prayer" to accept Jesus into your heart as your personal Lord and Savior.  In others, it's whether you've been adequately baptized (whether with the proper amount of water, or at the proper age, or with the proper liturgical formulae to make it "count"). And others might insist on a thorough affirmation of the proper creed or faith statement, or a sufficiently changed lifestyle demonstrating that a person has turned from their sinful ways and personal vices.  There is no shortage of ways that Respectable Religious Folk divide the world into acceptable "insiders" and heathen "outsiders."

But the Magi defy all of those categories and boundaries.  They don't even come back to go to church somewhere.  They are the one-time visitors you see on a Sunday who sit in a nearby pew and then vanish.  And we are left wondering what happened, in part because some strange impulse inside us needs to categorize them to know if they "belong" or not... if they are "acceptable" or not... and if they made it into "the club." Significantly, the Gospel doesn't give us an answer--but the storytelling seems satisfied that God accomplished what God wanted accomplished by drawing the Magi near, even for just that brief moment.

We won't know in this life, of course, what became of the Magi.  And we won't know a lot of the time what becomes of the church visitors, the newcomers to the neighborhood, the friends and relatives who show up for a moment or a season in your life, and then are led somewhere else in life's journey.  We won't know if the homeless families we offer shelter to at our church will have an encounter with God because they slept on our classroom floors or not.  We won't know if the lone stranger sitting in church next Sunday heard something they needed to hear, or felt genuine love from the people who sat beside them.  We won't know what comes of the word of kindness, or the held door, or the moment of encouragement for a stranger in line at the grocery who is having a bad day, or any of a hundred other chance encounters we might have in a day.  The story of the Magi suggests that it is not all that important for us to know what the outcome will be, and that the people we meet in those moments are worth making the effort for, regardless of what they do with our words or actions.  It was worth it for God to ignite some celestial body millions of miles from Earth into brilliance, just for the chance that it would draw some star-watchers toward Bethlehem.  It was worth it, even if it wasn't for long, for Mary to welcome those wild-eyed wizards into her doorway to let them meet the child--even if we don't know what happened once the Magi got home.  And it is worth it for you and for me to make the effort to reach out in the love and name of Jesus, in the hopes that we might be a part of God's work to bring the world to life... even if we don't find out what comes of that effort.

Despite our wish for clear labels to identify others as "insiders who belong" and "outsiders who don't," neither the Bible nor daily life are obligated to give them to us.  Instead, again and again we are brought face to face with seekers and strangers, visitors from a afar who come through our doors just once, foreigners to whom we may get only one chance to offer Christ's love, sojourners whose stories we will not know the endings of.  If the story of the Magi is any indication, God is ok with that--even if it makes us squirm.

Maybe we could learn to be ok with it, too.

Lord God, teach us to love people as you bring them into our lives, even when we don't get to know the end of their stories or the meaning of our time together.