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“Follow the Light” |
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Sermon Preached By The Rev. Bruce Sanguin Matthew 2:1-12 |
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This morning I want you to play the part of one of the Magi in today’s gospel reading. I want to look at this timeless tale as a drama that unfolds in our own psyches over the course of a lifetime. It’s unlikely that three astrologers from Persia literally made this journey to Bethlehem. Such an event would likely be remembered and retold by all the gospel writers, but it’s not. It’s unique to Matthew’s gospel. Not to worry – these birth stories don’t have to have actually happened to be profoundly true. In other words, the story of the Magi captures a timeless and enduring truth about the human condition. “It never happened”, as New Testament scholar John Crossan summarized, “yet it’s always happening.”
This wonderful tale of three astrologers scouring the heavens for signs of new happenings on the planet captures the imagination of every generation. You see, we are meaning-making creatures eternally searching for the Mystery at the heart of the universe that dignifies and enchants our lives. The indignity of the modern era lies precisely in our being told that the cosmos – this universe in which we live and move and have our being – is essentially purposeless. Scientism is science that slips into an ideology of materialism – that every thing and every body is nothing more than the random collision of atoms and molecules, a cosmic fluke of enormous proportions going nowhere in particular. Any meaning we might attribute to our existence is therefore just that – our own arbitrarily generated attributions of purpose to a journey to what is at the end of the day the purposeless march of time.
How very different is this tale of the Magi! For these ancient astrologers, “the heavens are telling the glory of God, and the earth proclaims God’s handiwork”, as the Psalmist put it (Psalm 19:1) A new star appears in the heavens and for those with enchanted hearts, it means that God is on the move – something new is about to happen. We live in a culture in desperate need of enchantment and awe. We are so meaning-starved as citizens of the Western world in the 21st century that we chase after almost any kind of novel spiritual movement. The pendulum swings from scientific materialism to the latest cult so starved are we for spiritual re-enchantment. In our state of spiritual hunger we’ll accept any morsel from the smorgasbord of spirituality.
The list is long and I was taught to include astrology among the list of flaky spiritual pursuits. When I became a Christian I was taught to be deeply suspicious of astrology in all its forms. It wasn’t until I read historian Richard Tarnas’ book Cosmos and Psyche that I gained a new appreciation for the worldview associated with astrology. Here’s a serious and highly respected scholar having done 20 years of research in the field and concluding that there is indeed a correlation between the alignment of the planets and significant historical events on the planet earth. For example, Tarnas finds that Neptune and Uranus have been in alignment or opposition during periods of epochal shifts of cultural vision, including during Jesus time on earth. (Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche, 357.)
The upshot of this worldview is that the cosmos is infused with meaning and purpose – even the stars and the planetary bodies participate in this journey of cosmic meaning. What it suggests to me – this is my experience - is that there is a power at work in the large-scale structures of the universe, in the evolutionary unfolding of the planet, and in our own personal and collective lives that is drawing us toward more abundant life, a divine life.
We are being drawn, non-coercively, gently, and in a way that respects our freedom, toward what Roman Catholic priest and palaeontologist, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, calls the Omega Point – the completion and perfection of all creation. And how do we find our way there? This is the beauty of it, friends. It’s a completely natural process that kicks in the moment we decide to trust this Power – it goes by many names this Power, God, Christ, Wisdom or Sophia, and all the other names in all the other religious traditions. All we must do is to follow the way of the Magi and look for the light.
What do I mean by “looking for the light?” Well, just as the Magi in our story gaze up at the light in the heavens and follow it to where it stops – over the birthplace of the Christ-child in a manger in Bethlehem – so we can follow the light in our own lives through a process of what physicist Brian Swimme calls “attending to our allurement.” For him, allurement is a fundamental dynamic embedded in the evolutionary process itself. So allurement takes place at all levels of creation, material, biological, psychological and spiritual. It involves trusting what deeply fascinates you. This fascination is the light we must follow – it will lead to the sacred – not without some dangers and detours as we’ll discover however.
Let me offer an example from creation. Five billion years ago, our planet became fascinated by an enormous star, a million times its size. The earth spends a billion years just hanging out in its orbit in a relationship which Swimme characterizes as adoration. There is something about the star that has the capacity to awaken this planet, and the planet gives this source of allurement its undivided “attention”. When it figures out how to make a chlorophyll molecule, the love affair really begins. Through photosynthesis, the earth discovered how to convert the sun’s light into the energy required for the procession of life to emerge. This is why it found the sun’s presence so alluring. The sun had the capacity to awaken the latent potential of the planet earth to come to life.
Now, let’s look at this same dynamic of allurement from a human, psychological perspective. When I was in junior high school, on Sunday afternoons, I would find an excuse to leave the football or baseball game I was playing with my buddies, make my way home, and turn on the TV at 3:00. A program called The Firing Line aired at this time. The host was a man named William F. Buckley Junior, whom I later discovered to be a staunch Republican, and an ultraconservative philosopher. But I didn’t leave the football game because of his politics or philosophy. I loved to listen to him speak, the way he carefully formed his words, and then strung them together in such a spell-binding way to make meaning. If someone caught me watching the program and asked me what I was doing, I would have gone mute. I didn’t have a clue.
I understand now that William F. Buckley Junior was a source of “allurement” for me. In his presence a mysterious power, beyond and beneath my conscious awareness, and transcending my capacity to name it at the time, was drawing me towards its light. It was as though this is what I was intended for. In a mysterious way, his presence reminded me of what my life was to be about. I would fall in love with words, written and spoken. It would matter to me how words were used to make meaning. My sense is that most of us have this kind of experience, but there is no way in our culture to talk about it. I ended up following the light, by the grace of God, into my present vocation. But the light will lead you to your own distinct calling.
Think of the Christmas presents you were given as a child that charted a course for your life: the lego set of the future engineer, the microscope of the future biologist, Wayne Gretsky’s first hockey stick, the artist’s first set of water-colour paints. This Christmas we gave our seven year-old grandson, Henry, a digital camera. It was the perfect gift, and what is the perfect gift if not that which deeply fascinates the recipient, and draws them deeper into the mystery of their existence.
The light shining in the darkness can draw us toward divinity with books, music, other people, world events, dreams; anything and everything may function as the light. The spiritual journey involves following the light to its source – like the Magi. God has made it easy to find God. The points of light to guide our feet to the Christ are as numerous as the stars in the sky. The essential skill to hone is the capacity to notice your life. As you begin to take notice of your life, an enchanting awareness may surface – that there is a Mysterious Power at work weaving together all the various strands of your life into a unique and beautiful tapestry. You may begin to discern the presence of what physicist David Bohm called a hidden wholeness or an implicate order.
The next step – after noticing that there is this Light guiding your path – is to set out upon a conscious spiritual journey. Become the Magi. Load up your metaphorical camels and set out across the landscape of your soul to where it is the light stops. Here’s a little secret; there is no single, final destination that we’re ever going to arrive at in our lifetime. Do you think that the Magi’s spiritual journey was over when they arrived at the stable – that they found Christ and then stopped growing spiritually? Don’t believe it. Christ is the ever-present light of our lives, beckoning from the many stars that allure us, calling us toward our own divine image and to give our lives as an offering that all creation may continue to evolve.
Finally, let’s not be naïve. Each of us possesses an inner Herod who doesn’t like that we are paying homage to any king other than our self. The story of the Magi got this detail exactly correct. Something within us resists God – (call it ego) - thinks that it alone deserves gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrhh. It does not want to worship or pay homage; it wants to be on the receiving end of both and will go to great lengths to make it happen. It wants to know where the light is leading, not to submit to it, not to give thanks, not to sing praise and be in awe, but rather to scope out the enemy – and, if possible, destroy it. Herod is also found in our families, and in our social, political, economic and religious systems. He is present as the power of domination. He hates the fascination others, unless it is directed toward him. Herod – within and without – refuses to serve any higher power; he refuses to fit in, to take his place in grace. He will rule the show, thank you very much.
But fear not. Your inner Magi is very wise. According to the Biblical story Herod summons the Magi for a meeting, ostensibly to find out where the light was leading so that that he too may offer gifts. But another light shines upon the Magi. An angel speaks to them in a dream, warning them to not to cooperate with Herod. They ignore Herod, leave their gifts with the Christ child, and head home by “another path.” This is the path of Epiphany, then; the “other” path, the path of spiritual wisdom that trusts the light, follows it wherever it may lead, discerns the wily, violent intentions of the inner Herod, and returns home – always home – to the heart of God
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