Yesterday we entered the second decade of the 21st century, and it seemed such an ordinary day. Fred and I stayed up to watch TV and see“the ball drop” in Times Square. We listened to one of the hosts enthuse about how New York couldn't be more amazing than it was on this New Year's Eve. And I just didn't feel it! It was a pleasant enough evening, but so are many evenings.
We mark time in human terms—the Greeks called it chronos. Time continues to move on whether we make a big deal about a certain date or not. Our birthdays are big deals when we are young—less so for most of us as we age. Anniversaries of all sorts of events are celebrated with great attention to the date when it happened. In fact, we at St. Nicholas' remember our blessings on these dates with special prayers.
Times continues to move on, yet we make a point of marking not just anniversaries, but also new beginnings. If we say this is the beginning of the new year, as we did yesterday, it seems to give us permission to put our difficulties or mistakes in the past. We turn over to a new page—wipe our slate clean—whatever metaphor works for you—and resolve to make a better go of it now.
Resolve—yes, that verb can be changed into the noun “resolution.” At this time of year, of course, two words usually precede the word “resolution”—“New Year's.” I haven't made mine yet, so I haven't broken them either.
But I have a suggestion for a resolution—one that could work for anyone, one that fits with our readings this morning. A New Year's resolution for 2011 could be—to become wiser. Not just wiser in a general way, although that wouldn't be a bad thing—but wiser in discerning what God desires for each of us and in recognizing how God acts to redeem the difficulties in which we find ourselves.
The letter to the Ephesians talked about a resolution to become wiser in the ways of God. The writer of that letter, perhaps it was St. Paul, offered a “prayer” for this Christian community: “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. . .” So I guess it's not so much the Ephesians—and us—resolving to be wise, but resolving to accept the gift of wisdom—and gift of the spirit of revelation—from God.
So becoming wiser mean accepting God's gift—a gift that will lead you to see more clearly the hope to which we have been called because God loves us. This hope will fill us with confidence, that no matter what happens, God will see us through it. The “glorious inheritance of the saints” and the “immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe” are simply fancy ways to say God stands ready to be there for us with the gift of hope that can sustain us—in all circumstances—if we will accept it.
The magi (wise men) whom we heard about in today's gospel from Matthew experienced such a gift. We often focus on the gifts they brought to Jesus—but indeed they received a gift first. God blessed their quest for the special child. They had set out on a strenuous journey in faith that they somehow would be led to a place where they had never been before and to the child they had only a hope of finding. They sought to complete their important quest for, as wise men, they believed they were being led to a special child who deserved homage—who deserved their giving themselves completely to this worthy child. They called him “the child who has been born king of the Jews.” (Of course, we know Jesus as the Holy One who became human.) Through the sign of the star and through the traditions found in holy scripture, God led these wise men to the place and to the person they sought.
These magi, indeed, have become exemplars for us. As they did, we must trust that God will bless our journeys of faith and lead us to the revelation of God's love, God's care and God's call for each of us. Yes, our trust will lead us into accepting God's gift of wisdom.
And the fruit of this wisdom is homage. Homage is not a very contemporary word, because it comes from a time when rulers demanded that their subjects physically show their loyalty and obedience by kneeling or lying face to the ground before the ruler. The wise men knelt before Jesus to offer their homage to the child for whom they had left all that was secure in their lives to journey into uncertainty—yet to journey with the hope God had placed in their hearts.
Our life journeys may not be as spectacular as the journey the magi made, but our response to God's revelation of God's self during our life journeys should be the same as theirs—homage. How will that homage look in the second decade of the 21st century, here at St. Nicholas' in Newark, Delaware? Although taking a posture of humbleness can help us overcome the tendency to trust only in our own efforts, I think homage today will be a bit more than lying prostrate or kneeling or bowing deeply. But it will be up to each of us and up to our faith community of St. Nicholas’ as a whole to resolve in 2011 to see the wisdom God is placing in our hearts. What is God revealing? What is God's call to us? How will we resolve to show our homage for the wisdom we have been given and will continue to be given?
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