2026-01-13
Brooke Strong
Sermon Text...
Scripture Matthew 2: 1-12 Rev. Kawolics
Matthew 2: 1-12 In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi[a] from the east came to Jerusalem, 2 asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east[b] and have come to pay him homage.” 3 When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah[c] was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:
6 ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd[d] my people Israel.’ ”
7 Then Herod secretly called for the magi[e] and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9 When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east,[f] until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10 When they saw that the star had stopped,[g] they were overwhelmed with joy. 11 On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
SERMON
I have a friend named John Edberg, a high school English teacher before he retired, who is a remarkable poet, and writes a Christmas Poem most years. These poems, while unpublished and known only to people on John’s Christmas card list, are so exceptional that early on, I started a file and kept them. I revisit them each Advent. And this year I was again taken by one he wrote in 1999, entitled “My Grandfather Balthazar’s Epiphany” in which the character of a young man tells the story of his grandfather, who was one of the three wise men. The poem is too long to read in its entirety, but I will read you a couple of stanzas where Balthazar, one of the wise men now grown old, is telling his grandson the story of when he and his two friends followed the star to the manger. As we begin, Balthazar is describing the face of the evil King Herod, whom you’ll remember the wise men had seen right before their trip to the manger. Herod asked them to return to him after they find the child, and tell him the baby’s location. His sinister plan, unknown to the wise men, was to have the baby killed. As we pick up the poem, the now elderly wise man is contrasting Herod’s face with the face of the baby Jesus. He starts with Herod’s face:
“Herod’s was a face so full of hate that neither words of welcome nor pretense of friendly partnership could mitiGATE the WEIGHT of its impression on us guests. It left us so unsettled and distressed that we three men were later more than eager to accept the vaguely recollected nighttime dream of Casper's
as sufficient sign, or even as a mark divine, that our first plan should be refined and we should not return to Herod. Thus we spurned the dreadful face, the route back through Jerusalem, and traced a new way home.”
(Balthazar continues) “Yet this stands balanced by another FACE; one no malice could disPLACE; that of the star found child: both youthful as a newborn’s and as old as mine is now. But not grotesque; delirious with joy, yet GRAVE; mysterious, afflicted, BRAVE. A face tempestuous and serene, a face like none we’d ever seen.”
And so we begin this morning with the contrast of the two faces: one innocent but somehow wise beyond its years. Full of love and new beginnings. What Paul Tillich called, “the New Being.” A brand new, spiritually evolved, highly conscious, love-based kind of being- incarnating wholeness and the love of God in a brand new way. Come to teach us this new way of being human together, a way of compassion and inclusion of the weak and vulnerable: babies, children, people of color, refugees, people differently wired neurologically or sexually, the poor, those not part of the in-crowd.
Then by contrast there is the other face, King Herod’s, the face of fear and evil, his dead eyes revealing a dead soul- motivated only by love of power and riches and the fear of losing those. It makes me think of a line I learned in seminary that has stayed with me in toto these forty years, that one definition for evil is “contempt for vulnerability.” Evil is contempt for vulnerability… I remember being a child and seeing a neighbor boy cruelly abusing his puppy, which was crying in pain. It evoked such a holy rage in me and the other children present, that I still remember palpably and without a moment’s thought that one of the boys ran into the center of the scene, pushed the guilty boy over and scooped up the puppy to take it to the boy’s parent and spill the story. I learned, through that experience, that there is something in whole and healthy people that simply cannot tolerate contempt for vulnerability, that rears up in full-bodied protest to scream “no” when it is witnessed. Contempt for vulnerability is injustice at its worst and evokes in us a God-given “no!” It’s how God wired us, and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that if that resistance to obvious evil is not in a person at some level, there is something deeply wrong.
And that is the first, most literal level at which we must hear today’s epiphany story, and at which I must preach it if I am to be faithful to my craft. That like Balthazer and his companions on that first epiphany, we are to say no to contempt for vulnerability- by rearing up to save its victim, like my friend did with the puppy out of pure instinct more than choice, or just by getting on another road and refusing to collaborate with evil, as did the wise men who went home by another road rather than provide Herod with the location of the baby.
As followers of Jesus, who went out of his way to include and indeed cherish the vulnerable, we must somehow resist, and scream or at least say no when and wherever vulnerability is being met with contempt. Be it in our individual lives, or in our national or international policies, no matter who is in power, where we simply must resist, say no and insist on another road home because anytime anyone vulnerable is being met with contempt, it is the case of a tortured puppy, no matter how we may dress it up by talk of policy or a veneer of politics as usual. If a puppy is being tortured, literally or figuratively, we scream no and we scoop it up and get it to safety. We say no and resist in whatever ways are possible…
John’s poem then continues for several stanzas before beginning to draw to its close, where Balthazar says: “O how can I explain, my son, the places you move toward or from, the faces you embrace or shun?”
At this point, Balthazer’s grandson becomes the narrator of the poem’s final lines, “That’s all he said; he’s never talked again of those two faces. Still, I’ve sometimes seen them behind his fire lit eyes. And I know long after Grandpa dies, when some forget he ever traveled far at all, the faces conjured by his words will haunt my dreams. And when I sense my own star’s call, or feel the lure of jealous power, his wisdom will redeem that hour.”
Where in your life do you see contempt for vulnerability? Because wherever we see it, on the micro or the macro level, we must resist. If it’s in our politics or our culture, we must call it out and not participate. If it’s in our personal life where someone is abusing a puppy or telling a racist or heterosexist joke, or gossiping about someone perceived as somehow less than, then we must call it out or at the very least not participate, and pointedly refusing to participate can speak volumes. Or perhaps it’s in you yourself, and you have come to hate and reject your own weaknesses or vulnerabilities instead of meeting them with love and compassion? You, too, can find a new road home, one of tenderness and care for your own vulnerability until you heal and find a better way.
(And finally, the poem’s conclusion-) “By journeys taken or not taken, worlds are spared and worlds forsaken. Lives are changed beyond our power to know, all because we do or do not go.”
Have the courage to take the journey, to follow the star wherever it leads. And when we bump up against contempt for vulnerability, have the courage to scream no, or at the very least, to go home by another way. It is the crux of our calling. It is the way of wise men and women. It is Christ’s way of compassion. Amen