The Christian new year began five weeks ago with the dawning of Advent, but I imagine that many of you this weekend are dreaming new dreams, making new goals, and hoping in new promises.  2011 is here and it is exciting!  The calendar is wide open, the Christmas credit card bill still has weeks to process, the fruit of new ministries are waiting to be planted, the sky is the limit.  Except, what are we to do with 2010?  How are we to remember this past year?  How do we archive what God has accomplished?  How do we record the times we failed to carry out God’s will?  If we forget our past we may be doomed to repeat our failures, yet if our hearts and minds remain in the past we will miss God’s calling today and in the future.  What are we to do with 2010?

                What are we to do with our text this morning?  Matthew’s story of Magi from the east is a curious inclusion.  Matthew is arguably the most “Jewish” of the four Gospels, so recording a story concerning men outside of Israel paying homage to this new heir to the throne is at best embarrassing and at worst blasphemous. 

                “In the time of King Herod,” our story begins, and this is a story we know well.  “In the time of King Herod,” signifies to us that time revolves around human achievement and earthly power.  Yes, we are living in the year of our Lord 2011, which is certainly hopeful, but we are also living in the month of January, a name derived from the Roman God Janus.  The Greatest Generation is passing the mantle to the Baby Boomers who are helping Generation X and Yers raise the OMG generation.  We are living in the post modern era, or is it the post-post modern era or is it the information age?  We know what it’s like to live “In the time of Herod.”

                Wise men from the east have followed a star in the heavens, and because it is “In the time of Herod,” they go to the palace to find him.  I’m not sure how wise these men were to announce to a sitting king that a new king of the Jews had been born, nevertheless, their announcement troubled Herod greatly.  He too wanted to find the child.  He called together the chief priests and scribes, and asked them where the child was born.  “Bethlehem,” they announce.  So, Herod calls the wise men together and asked them to find the child so that he could also pay him homage.  The men follow the star until it stopped over the place where the child was and there they knelt down and paid him homage, offering him gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

                These are awkward gifts to offer a child, but being on this side of Christmas, I’m sure that we have seen an awkward gift or two.  My favorite awkward gift I have received came from Chad, whom I mentored through the confirmation process many years ago in Baton Rouge.  During the confirmation brunch at University Methodist, the confirmands would give their mentor a gift to say thank you for sojourning with them through the history and doctrine of the faith.  I sat down at the brunch table and Chad handed me an old, beat up, red Igloo cooler adorned with classic rock radio station stickers.  Not knowing exactly what to do with it, I smiled and politely placed it on the floor beside my chair.  “No, Mr. Matt, you have to open it to see what’s inside,” Chad said with excitement.  I opened the Igloo and inside, packed in ice, was a quarter-used jar of Newman’s Own Spaghetti Sauce and a pack of dried shrimp.  I assumed that it was homemade spaghetti sauce, until his mother leaned over and said, “Do you know that Paul Newman actually makes this!?”  I was intrigued, confused and bewildered.  So, what am I to do with a quarter-used jar of Newman’s Own Spaghetti Sauce and a pack of dried shrimp?  “Thank you, Chad,” I said with a sincere smile. 

                What are we to do with awkward gifts, except to receive them?  What should the Christ child do with these awkward gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but to accept them, whether they be precious or not.  Not all gifts are good or precious or helpful, but they are gifts and we are called to receive them and make a place for them in the story of God.  Now, there are exceptions to this rule, but that is for another sermon, for you see, the true gift the Magi offer is not found in a treasure chest.  They first kneel and offer themselves to Christ.

                Understand the narrative that is unfolding, the picture that is being revealed.  These men from the east are not from Judea or Galilee, or even Samaria.  “Men from the East,” likely refers to men from Babylon, those who brought Judea into exile, and now these men are kneeling at Jesus’ feet.  What should Jesus do with such a gift?  “In the time of Herod,” you might imagine a future king of the Jews to reject their homage and vow to crush their empire in order to atone for Israel’s past suffering.  “In the time of Herod,” you might also imagine a future king to dismiss these men and their gifts as insignificant.  But Jesus is ushering in a new time.  Jesus accepts their praise and their gifts and by doing so, redeems and heals Israel’s past.  Israel’s exile is finally over at the feet of a toddler.

                What are we to do with the gifts that have been offered?  What are we to do with the gift which was 2010?  We celebrate the good.  We weep with those who mourn.  For those for whom this past year has been devastating, we carry and sit and lament and listen.  With shouts of Hallelujah and tears of sorrow and pain, we offer this past year at the feet of Christ so that we can embrace the new, unscripted reality before us.  After the wise men offered their gifts, they left for their own country by another road, and that is what Christ offers us, another road, another way, a way which leads to life, a way which is not defined by the time of Herod, but a time offered as a gift from an abundant and loving God who is mysteriously present with us at the table.  Stanley Hauerwas said it this way: 

That [the wise men] are able to see the worthiness of this [child] who alone can be worshiped was surely a gift from the Father.  The same gift gives hope to all, for through this child we have been called to participate in the alternative world signaled by his birth.  Moreover, like the wise men, it turns out that God has given us gifts of bread and wine to be offered so that the world may know that there is an alternative to Herod. 

Let us now gather around the table offering our bread and wine and hope and fear, so that God may redeem our gift with the presence and grace of Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Talitha Kum.  Little girl, get up.  This is one of the few phrases which remain in Jesus’ native tongue of Aramaic, as if saying these words in the original language hold power and truth and healing in and of themselves.  As with most of Jesus’ healings, these stories hold great power, the power to bring great faith, and the power to strip faith away.  There are those who have been healed of sickness or addiction or situations and they accurately recognize that it was the power of Christ which helped them on their journey.  And then there are those who sit at the bed side saying, “Talitha cum” over and over again, and that sweet, beautiful child does not get up.  I’ve heard it said that the Lord doesn’t give me more than I can handle.  I don’t think that’s true, at least, if Jairus believed that old adage, we wouldn’t have this story today.

Jesus returns from the land of the Gerasenes, and Jairus, a leader of the synagogue comes and falls down at Jesus’ feet saying, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”  So Jesus goes with him.  While on the way a large crowd gathered to see what was going to happen and while Jesus and Jairus are traveling, Jesus is interrupted.  A woman from the crowd, who had been ill for twelve years, who tried everything, and paid all kinds of healers to the point of poverty, reached up and touched his cloak and she was healed.  Jesus stopped and said, “Who touched me?”  One of the disciples said, “What do you mean, ‘Who touched you?’  Don’t you see this crowd?  How can you ask such a stupid question?”  But the woman came forward and told Jesus everything, and Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”  Jesus was on his way to heal, and he was interrupted in order to heal.

I was interrupted this week.  I had planned to preach this text in full, in keeping with our “Tales from the Crypt” theme, but I was interrupted this week.  As I was reading this story I couldn’t stop thinking of something completely different, and I can’t let it go.  I’ve always been taught in my preaching classes that when our mind strays to write it down and file it away for another day, but I can’t.

We have a bullying crisis on our hands.  It’s in our schools, in our offices, in our marriages.  What is God calling us to do as a community of faith?  There are several answers out there.  Some are better than others.  One answer is the Karate Kid.  If you’re being bullied, then go out, sand the floor, paint the fence, wax on/wax off and stick it to the bully at the end of the story.  It’s the “Rocky in the frozen tundra of Russia working out so that he can defeat Ivan Drago,” model of how to handle bullies.  Wars are born this way.  There’s another answer out there that several celebrities are posting on youtube, and I commend them for speaking out, saying, “Hang in there.  It gets better.”  It’s not bad advice.  In the church we often talk about hope for the future and that good will triumph over evil, but if I’m fifteen years old and I’m getting the tar kicked out of me at school, I’m not much concerned about the good life ten years from now.  I want to make it to homecoming.  If I’m in the office being bullied by a coworker, I don’t much care what the office will look like ten years from now, I want to make it to Friday.  The Lord doesn’t give you more than you can handle, just hang in there.  It will get better later.

This was not the case for Jairus.  Jesus tarried too long, and the young girl died.  People came from his house and said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”  Overhearing what they said, Jesus replied, “Do not fear, only believe.”  They came to the house and there was a loud commotion.  Jesus said, “Why do you make a commotion and weep?  The child is not dead, but sleeping?”  And they laughed at him.  He sent the crowd out of the room, almost as if to say, “You have lost your privilege in seeing the beauty of God.”

From where does the bully get his or her power?  The crowd.  Either the crowd is cheering them on, or they bully is secret so that no one might know.  The power of the bully rest in the affirmation of the crowd; the community.  How is it that when Jesus is traveling to Jairus’ house no one notices the woman who is pushing her way through to get to him?  When Jesus gets to Jairus’ house he tells the crowd to have hope, she is not dead, but sleeping and they laugh at him.  For those who have been bullied, this scene becomes personal experience.  That’s the problem with the Karate Kid model.  Now, there’s nothing wrong with having confidence and standing firm, being steadfast, but please hear me, the fundamental problem with us saying, “Go to the gym and give him what for,” is that we are saying to someone who has had everything taken away from them, “It’s up to you.  You are alone in this.”  There’s nothing wrong with saying that things are going to get better, but when we say that, we are saying, “It’s up to you to stick it through.”  This also doesn’t mean that we fight someone else’s battle for them.  It means that we are to endure WITH them.  The bully gets his or her power from the crowd; therefore it is up to us, as the body, to say no!

He goes to the girl, takes her by the hand and says, “Talitha cum, little girl, get up.”  And immediately the little girl got up and Jesus said to those around him, “Give her something to eat.”  He doesn’t say to her, “Go and make your own breakfast.”  He turns to those around her and says, “Give her something to eat.”  The bully bullies because he is starving and empty.  The bullied have had all their nourishment taken away.  Give them something to eat . . .