Sermon, with some adaptation from Bruce Prewer 

Rev. Judith Perry

 

And Nations shall come to your light, 

and kings to the brightness of your rising. Isaiah 60:3 

 

They saw the child with Mary his mother, 

and they fell down and worshipped him.  Matthew 2:11 

 

One of the earliest depictions of the wise men (slide) 

Let’s consider those early Christians. They fostered an entirely new worldview. It was revolutionary.  

They claimed that the coming of Christ Jesus was for everybody, everywhere, for all time. 

 This story in Matthew of the Astrologers who came from somewhere in the east was very important to these early Christians as it showed the universality of Christ’s realm.  

 It looks at first to be a minor incident in a backwater of the Roman Empire, but it has cosmic relevance, a revelation, an epiphany.   

 The early Christians had the audacity to believe that this Messiah, or Christ in Greek, was God, and this god broke down the barriers of race and social distinctions.  

 He was the sole god rather than all the other gods of the various religious cults.  

 This really was impudent. Here we have this man called Jesus , Joshua in his own tongue, who was a prophet and only had a very brief activity in a far corner of the Roman Empire. 

 They were proclaiming that he was the saviour and Lord of all. 

 This pathetic cult mocked both the cultured Greeks and Romans. But these Christians just kept it up no matter how much they were mocked, imprisoned, or even executed. 

 They talked about an epiphany. This is a Greek word meaning the unveiling of God to humans. It means a revelatory event. 

 Sometimes those first Christians expressed their glorious, audacious, epiphany gospel with plain words like St Paul used: “We have seen the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ”.  

 Those who had copies of Matthew’s gospel told the story of the wise men coming to visit an infant king. This revealed Christ as the divine Saviour of the world. 

 They also looked back on the words in the Book of Isaiah who wrote: Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising........... And they shall bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. 

 

Today the scenery has changed. Most of the old religions of the Mediterranean region have disappeared.  

 Some have reappeared in fresh form. New religions the Mormons, and the Bahia, have emerged to stand beside the old like Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. 

 But what are we to make of all this today. I think that in the 11 apartments of my floor, only myself and the Africans at the other end of the hall would identify as Christian. Most of the others are Moslem or Hindu if anything. 

 Yet we are here today making the same proclamation. That is somewhat audacious of us , too. 

How does this message, the gospel of good news, stand up in today’s Halifax? 

 We are now a multi-religious nation. Perhaps our grandparents would not even recognize it.  

 I grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood, that we understood, but all the others were outside our realm of understanding. Even some of the Evangelical “Christian” options now seem disturbingly fascist. 

 There are now many options on the market. We have become used to mosques and temples. Some are even converted churches.  

 These days there is considerable pressure on Christianity to drop its impudent claims about Jesus Christ as Saviour of the world.  

 We are expected to stop proclaiming that in Christ Jesus God has done something unique for all humanity. 

 So, here’s the dilemma. 

 Much of this pressure comes from folk of considerable education and goodwill. We are told that the community can no longer tolerate a religion that makes exclusive claims about its founder.  

 Such claims are divisive. Our world, they tell us, is weary of all bigotry, divisions and religious conflicts. 

 Christianity is advised to file down its sharp edges, confess itself as just another religious mythology, and see its Messiah as just one religious teacher alongside many others. 

 In the United Church there is now a less evangelistic emphasis as opposed to our Methodist heritage. We are urged to get with the times. 

There is a plea for a less evangelistic emphasis.  

 The trend is that the best thing we can do for the world, is to stop beating our own drum and get together with other religions to play a common tune and look towards a synthesis of religion. 

 Another view is that others don’t mind us existing, along with other faiths. These like the idea of plurality.  

 We are asked to accept the relativity of all religions, and go about our business quietly, being there for those who like our brand. As we close our churches, one after the other. 

 Well, what do we make of this? 

 Of course, we agree to the call for increased religious tolerance. Let’s agree to the end of patronising arrogance, which never has been an authentic part of the gospel of Christ Jesus. 

Let’s make every effort to really listen to other religions, seeking the good in them rather than the nastiness which sometimes comes to the surface.  

We would not want Moslems or Hindus to judge Christianity by extremists like some MAGA evangelicals, so why should we judge them by their extremists? 

Let us look for the highest, not the lowest. 

Maybe God does have some particular words to speak to us from other religions.  

 Maybe we would benefit from allowing Islam to challenge us with their sense of the awesome, holy oneness of God.  

 Maybe we should let the Hindus remind us that God is literally to be found everywhere in creation.  

Maybe we should heed the warnings from the Buddhist about the danger of bondage to desire.  

 Maybe we should allow the first nations recall us to the truth that existence is spiritual and the good things of earth and meant for sharing.  

 Maybe we should hear the Jews more readily when ty insist that it is an ethical God who reigns in human history. 

 We are called to understand other religions, but we are called be true to our faith, to neither undersell Christianity nor presume to soften the sharp edges.  

 God has spoken a unique word to us in Christ Jesus, and it is our solemn privilege to share that word. Jesus Christ truly is our joy and salvation.  

 Otherwise, why would be here singing these hymns, reading the scriptures and saying these prayers? 

 How often have you heard this myth which says: “Actually, all religion e same at heart? “All religions are on about the same thing. Different styles, same message.” 

 But that is simply not the Chrisian faith that we profess. We may be concerned with similar questions, but we do not give the same answers. 

 That makes our message a different one from other religions.   We are called to be faithful to our source and expression of answers.  

 We are to witnesses to Christ to the end of the world. 

 Our answers draw heavily on the Jewish heritage, yet which are then uniquely shaped by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.  

 Our task is to be faithful to the Epiphany that happened in Christ Jesus.  It cannot be watered down and still be the Christan faith.  

Rejoice to be a Christian, one of those to whom the light of God’s Presence in Jesus has been revealed.   

The early Christians told their story of the wise men coming from far nations to worship the infant Christ, with joyful impudence.   

Halifax and Barrington Street still need us to carry on with that impudence of the early apostles: Christ Jesus has a universal relevance.  

 It needs to be said clearly and lived wholeheartedly: 

 And Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.