Knowing Where to Look (Matthew 2: 1-12)

Let’s go for a walk, shall we?

I know, we did that last week. We walked with Mary and Joseph to Jerusalem, to the temple. In the gospel of Luke, we read about how they arrived at that magnificent building – the largest human-made structure on earth. They went there 40 days after Jesus’s birth, to offer their sacrifice in accordance with the practices of their Jewish faith.

Our story today is from Matthew’s gospel. Keep in mind that Matthew’s story is, well, it’s a different story than the one Luke tells, really. According to Matthew, Mary and Joseph and Jesus are still in Bethlehem. According to Matthew, they haven’t walked anywhere, not yet at least.

In Matthew it is the magi who walk. The magi – or, “wise men” – who came from some undesignated region in the east. They come seeking the child who has been born ”king of the Jews.”

So today, we walk with them. And where do they go?

To Jerusalem, naturally.

Jerusalem is where the temple is.  We covered that last week. It’s hard not to be drawn to the temple, with its gleaming walls of polished white and green marble reaching up to the sky. Jerusalem is the center of Jewish life. It’s also a political and economic center, a place of importance, wealth, and power.

Certainly, if there is a new king, that’s where he would be.

So the magi walk to Jerusalem, and when they get there, they wander up and down the streets of Jerusalem, perhaps even going to the temple itself (although they could only go in as far as the Court of Gentiles, the only place non-Jews were allowed). Walking up and down the streets, they ask everyone they meet: “Have you seen the newly-born King of the Jews? Do you know where he is? We want to honor him.”

But Jerusalem already has a king. Herod is the king. The people they meet, even if they know, say nothing. They don’t want to get in trouble with Herod.

These “wise men” (as we like to call them) aren’t very discreet. Word reaches Herod that some magi from the east are searching for this new king. And Herod freaks out.

After all, he’s the king of the Jews. He’s the one building the temple. He’s the one appointed by Caesar, the self-proclaimed lord and savior of the world…

Herod summons his chief priests, those leaders he appointed to run his temple and to keep the Jews in line. He instructs them to tell him what the scriptures say about this messiah, this new king that the strangers are asking about.

The chief priests respond by quoting the prophet Micah, who pointed to Bethlehem as the place where the messiah would be born.

Well, OK, Herod thinks; I got two things going for me. One, those travelers are searching in the wrong city; they don’t know where this new king is supposed to be born, but I do. Ha ha! … and two, it’s Bethlehem!  I mean, really; some backwoods little town a half-day’s journey from Jerusalem. What threat could possibly come from little Bethlehem?

Bethlehem is the city of outsiders, of poor, ordinary people. Half the residents are involved in sheepherding, for crying out loud!

You might as well say that the next superstar, the next great rising political leader, is going to come from a town like Agua Dulce, where I spent Christmas day with my family. My cousin lives there. She has two horses, and her husband is thinking about buying a buffalo.

You might as well say that the next superstar, the next great rising political leader, is going to come from a town like McFarland, in the middle of the San Joaquin valley farmlands. It’s one of those little towns you pass through on your way to Yosemite or Sacramento. I told my sister that Disney is making a movie about McFarland, and she laughed. She couldn’t believe it. Why would anyone make a movie about McFarland?

Why would anyone think that a king could come from Bethlehem?

Modern Bethlehem has a population of about 15,000 people, which is about the same as McFarland, by the way. Of course, 2,000 years ago, the population was much, much less.

No wonder the magi went to the wrong city. No wonder they went to Jerusalem, and not backwoods Bethlehem.

I think the fact that the prophecies point to Bethlehem brought some relief to Herod; however, Herod was not one to take chances.  So he summons the Magi. They arrive, and the interrogation begins.

“When, exactly, did you see the star that, you say, indicates the birth of this new king?... I see… I’ll tell you what: you go to Bethlehem, find this child, and when you do, come back and tell me so that I can also go and, uh, honor him.”

So the Magi leave Jerusalem and start walking to Bethlehem.

Huh; Bethlehem. Imagine that.

Perhaps they had doubts. I wonder if they thought to themselves, “Bethlehem? This can’t be right. That’s no place for a king to be born…” Especially since they weren’t Jewish, and likely didn’t know about the prophecies.

I wonder if they kept second-guessing themselves, like the teams on my favorite TV show, the Amazing Race. “Are we going the right way? Were the directions we were given right? Should we turn around?”

Then again, there was that star, leading them onward…

Then again, why didn’t that star just lead them to Bethlehem in the first place? Why did they end up in Jerusalem?

Or did the star try to lead them to Bethlehem, but they went to Jerusalem anyway, figuring that the star must have been wrong?

Maybe now, as they followed the star from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, they were engaged in a little friendly argument…

“See, I told you we should have gone to Bethlehem in the first place. I told you that’s where the star was leading, but noooo… you wanted to check Jerusalem first. You said that if there was a new king, Jerusalem is where he’d be. So we went to Jerusalem, and guess what? The only thing that happened was that we very nearly got in trouble with the current king, Herod…”

Well, who could blame them? It’s always Jerusalem that commands our attention, isn’t it? The big city, the bright lights, the huge buildings, the glitz, the glamour. Jerusalem, the center of power.

Aren’t we still tempted by Jerusalem?

There are many discrepancies between the birth story in Matthew and the birth story in Luke. They are, in many ways, two very different stories.

We try to mash them together. We take the shepherds from Luke and the magi from Matthew; We take Joseph’s dream from Matthew and Mary’s vision from Luke; We take Joseph and Mary’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem from Luke, and ignore the fact that, in Matthew, they were in Bethlehem all along.

And yet, for all their differences, Matthew and Luke agree on at least this one important point. They both agree that those who go looking for Jesus in Jerusalem, among the kings and the high priests, will not find him. Both Matthew and Luke agree that Herod’s temple in all its glory is not where salvation is to be found. The temptation to dwell in places of earthly power and authority has no power over Matthew or Luke.

These birth stories are overtures to the plays that follow; and in these overtures, as different as they are, one finds the themes that will be explored more fully in the chapters to come. Already, the focus is on the people and the places that history tends to forget: the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden.

When Jesus began his ministry, he did so in Galilee, far from the influence of Jerusalem. However, eventually he did go to Jerusalem, not to be a part of the city, not to ingratiate or align himself with those in power, but to challenge the city and all it stood for.

When people journeyed to Jerusalem, they couldn’t help but be impressed: by the city, by the walls, by the magnificent temple.

They approached the city in awe.

But when Jesus finally journeyed to Jerusalem and saw the city for the first time as an adult, he wept.

So many people in the “city of peace” had placed their hope in rulers and power and wealth. So many tried to scale the ladder of success by climbing on the shoulders and heads of those below them.

Jesus saw all the misplaced priorities, all those who oriented their lives toward Jerusalem, toward Herod, toward Caesar and the Roman way of doing things, and wept.

And he said, “If you, Jerusalem, had only recognized the things that make for peace!” (Luke 19:41-42)

It’s so easy to get our priorities mixed up. We focus on accumulating wealth, on making a name for ourselves, on filling our houses with nice furnishings and so on… and we neglect the things that make for peace.

We neglect the things that make for peace in our lives, the things that bring us joy, the things that make our relationships stronger, the things that bring more love and harmony into our lives. We neglect these things. We have no time for God and no time for ourselves. We’re just busy. And stressed. And overwhelmed.

We don’t take care of ourselves. We eat and drink so much junk, we don’t exercise, and our bodies are falling apart sooner than they should, so we go to the doctor. The doctor says “eat healthy; get exercise,” but we don’t like that advice, and instead hope for a magic pill that will make our bodies feel good again.

We become so focused on making and managing our money that we never have time to enjoy life. Faced with a choice of “your money or your life,” most of us choose our money.

We accumulate so many goods, and then complain about all the time and energy required to maintain those goods. Car maintenance. Computer maintenance. Heating and air conditioning system maintenance. Entertainment system upgrades.  Projects that never end. And we worry about security, protecting all these things we’ve accumulated.

The actor Jim Carrey famously said, “I hope everybody could get rich and famous and have everything they ever dreamed of, so they will know that it’s not the answer.” In a similar way, the gospel stories teach us that the wealth and power that Jerusalem symbolizes is not the answer.

The answer is found elsewhere. And it is the magi of today, the wise men and women, who know where to look for it.