SERMON Rev. Dr. James McTyre
2025-01-05 Matthew 02 01-12
My favorite stuffy BBC history host is Philomena Cunk.
She's not actually a real person.
She's a character played by a comedian who does straight-faced interviews with real professors and scientists, asking them idiotic questions as calmly as only a British person could.
You can find her on YouTube. Also has a new special on Netflix.
Lightens the mood of 2025.
In an episode pulled from the headlines of today's scripture, Philomena goes to Buckingham Palace to interview the Chaplain to the Queen (now, the King), the Rev. Canon Ann Easter.
And yes, Ann Easter is the Reverend's real name, and yes she is indeed a Canon.
Canon is another title for a Priest in the Church of England.
If only the Presbyterian Church had Canons.
At least stun guns. To keep meetings decent and orderly.
Long story short -- and I must add, never believe anyone who says, "Long story short."
Especially a preacher.
By the time someone says, "Long Story Short," it's always way too late.
So, I'll use the kids' social media abbreviation, LSS.
LSS, then, Philomena looks directly at the Very Reverend Canon Ann in her robe and vestments and asks,
"So, how many three wise men were there?"
To her credit, Canon Ann answers with a very calm, "Who knows?"
She points out that only one Gospel -- Matthew -- even mentions wise men and that the number three is simply a very good number.
Philomena follows up asking, "So there could have been fifteen three wise men?"
To which Canon Ann replies in British form, "Quite possibly, yes."
Matthew doesn't specify a number of wise men, but he does say there were three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
So since we men can't handle more than one Christmas gift, three makes sense.
Some churches say there were twelve wise men, one for each of the twelve days of Christmas,
just like in that other carol where the True Love is obviously making up for mistakes.
This morning, we had the Evergreen Men's Ensemble.
We had six men singing We Three Kings.
So, in our church we have at least two Three Wise Men, perhaps more.
Church math is an inexact science.
Ask any minister, "How many members does your church have?"
You mean "on the rolls," "in the pews," or "contributing to the budget"?
Church math's a bit like voter rolls in Georgia.
It all depends on which Apostle you're asking and how many fingers he counts with.
Now. Where was I? Oh yes.
Three Wise Men. L-S-L -- Long Story Longer...
If you Google "Three Wise Men in the Bible," you'll see that some people DO call them Wise Men.
Others say they were Three KINGS, as in the song.
They're also called Magi.
Sometimes, astrologers.
In Tennessee we know they were firemen.
Because, the Bible says, they came from "afar."
(That's Presbyterian Humor.)
Wise men deserve to be identified as such as quickly as possible.
We need names.
OK. L-S-G-L -- Long Story Getting Longer -- but there's good reason.
30 years ago, for Christmas, the Presbyterian Women of Evergreen Presbyterian Church gave to Me, and Kristen, a super-nice Fontanini Nativity Scene.
Made in Bagni di Lucca, Italy.
Made from hand painted polymer.
So not only is it expertly crafted, it's also child-proof.
I don't THINK the ladies were encouraging us to have children, but the foresight eventually paid off.
We put the Nativity set out every Christmas and remember y'all.
Something you might not have known is that if you turn the kings over, their names are printed on their bottoms.
The bottom of the stands, I mean.
There's Melchior, Balthasar, and Gaspar.
How did those crafty Italians know the names and how did they know which one was which?
Well, L-S-G-Even-Ls.
Turns out, none of these names are in the Bible and none were the names of any kings within camel-riding and star-following distance.
Like all smart Americans, I did my own extensive Internet research.
The names of the Three Wise Men, or Magi, are believed to come from an Armenian infancy gospel written around 500 AD.
Melchior: From the Armenian name Melkon.
Balthasar: from the Armenian name Baldassar.
And Gaspar, from the Armenian name... Gaspar.
They didn't even try to make him sound like a foreigner.
The name Gaspar derives from the biblical Hebrew word, "gizzard," which is probably why there are so few Gaspars today.
After a few centuries of Nativity sets, songs, and church plays with children in bathrobes, the names stuck.
All of this takes me the long way back to Canon Ann Easter's answer.
"Who knows?"
Who knows?
If you start pulling the threads of scripture, you can take just about any short story and make it much longer.
With imagination, and a song, and even some ridiculous questions, the Bible becomes a fertile hunting ground for pretty much any wild idea you're shooting for.
It happens a lot.
We can get so caught up arguing about how many three wise men there were,
or whether this one's Melchior, Balthassar, or Gizzard,
or what their occupations were, or which brought what gift, that we forget all about the Baby Jesus.
And that, in my opinion, is what happens to Christmas way more often than not.
We get in arguments over how the decorations are to be hung, fights about menus and oven temperatures, brand-names and charging cables --
We get so distracted by short stories grown way too long that we miss the whole point of Jesus.
Jesus is the ultimate long story short, intended to be brief, to the point, and with a heartfelt "Amen."
It's a BABY for goodness' sake.
The Baby Jesus is God's sign that love made alive will be the salvation of us all.
And thank God for this simple, priceless gift.
Thank God at Christmas.
Thank God in the new year.
And thank God every day for this unending, uncontrolling, undefined, and simply understandable love.
--
Not long after leaving Alabama for Tennessee, one Christmas we had some friends over.
They had a little boy about five years old.
He comes into the living room and sees our Fontanini Nativity set I mentioned.
His face just lights up. He says, "Oh wow! We have that game, too!"
His mother explained that not only did he play games, like, Hide the Baby Jesus, but also that other toys made special guest manger appearances.
Toys definitely not in the Bible.
Dinosaurs. Race cars.
Mary, did you know who was going to show up the night you gave birth?
You had no idea.
A lot of us minister-types, who want everything to be just as it says in the Bible -- a lot of us take exception to certain Christmas songs.
The one that really gets our goat is, "The Little Drummer Boy."
The Little Drummer Boy is definitely an add-on.
No, he's not in the Bible.
But it's a sweet song.
It speaks to little kids.
It gives them a place at the manger.
Still, you have to wonder, is a kid banging on a drum the best gift for a newborn?
Maybe he could have been a Little Harpist Boy?
It's kind of like the Armenian kings' names: you work with what's at hand.
A little boy, or a little girl, might not be able to play softly and tenderly, but they can get a spoon and bang on a pot.
Or do a dance.
Or bring a dinosaur.
Matthew, in his telling of the gospel story, had the wise men bring gifts.
Matthew wasn't going for accuracy.
Or even practicality.
If you're visiting a mother with a newborn, you bring sensible things.
Blankies. Huggies.
Matthew has his impractical wise men bring gifts.
But the gifts are really to help us.
Matthew has them bring things to help tell the story of Jesus, to help tell the story of his whole life.
Gold.
Jesus is going to be -- Jesus IS the king.
That's what made King Herod so paranoid that he sent the wise men as spies.
Gold stands for kingship, earthly kingship.
You brought the king your very best, your most valuable offerings.
Frankincense.
Frankincense it's a very strong incense.
Used lavishly in religious rites.
Used by the priests who performed the rituals that brought the people closer to God (and vice versa).
It symbolizes Jesus' as Priest, as the one who would bring the people closer to God (and vice versa).
Myrrh.
Myrrh was another kind of incense, even stronger than frankincense.
Myrrh was worth more than its weight in gold.
Myrrh was for life's end.
Myrrh was used in embalming, and was burned at funerals.
Myrrh is Matthew giving us a foreshadowing of Jesus's earthly death, and how significant it's going to be.
The gifts don't belong in a newborn's nursery.
Any more than a little drummer boy.
That's because the gifts the wise men brought weren't supposed to be practical.
Matthew picks them and hands them to the wise men because he wants wise hearers of his Gospel to hear the story of Jesus's WHOLE life, not just his birth.
The wise men and their gifts are hints.
They're clues.
They're peeks under the blanket to see the baby as more than just one more of the countless babies born that night.
The kings and their gifts ARE out-of-place in this story.
As out-of-place as a drummer boy, or even a dinosaur.
Who are the wise men?
What are their names?
How many were there?
Who knows?
They aren't the point.
The point is the Baby Jesus.
The point is the Baby Jesus.
It's really that simple.
A long story, made short.
Love, made an infant.
---
The church celebrates the holy day of Epiphany.
Epiphany comes after the 12 days of Christmas.
Technically, today IS the 12th day of Christmas.
The wise men don't arrive until the THIRTEENTH day, tomorrow.
Tomorrow is officially Epiphany day.
Technically, we're a day early.
We beat the three kings.
Which makes us even wiser than the wise.
But are we right?
Are we absolutely, positively sure we're getting the numbers right?
And the dates right?
And the names right?
Did we mess up and leave out a couple of three wise men?
Who knows?
A big part of being serious about Jesus is being un-serious about ourselves.
To be serious about God, you have to laugh at little at yourself.
When you think about all the infinite number of ways you can be wrong, the odds that you're getting ANYTHING seriously right have to be pretty slim.
When you think about the Creator of the Universe taking the form of a newborn baby, in a stable, surrounded by the wise, the kingly, the lowly, the shepherd-y.
And, oh yes, an angel choir.
The whole scene defies reason.
Love does that.
Love defies all sense of reason.
Because reason isn't the point.
Love is. The point.
Who knows how many wise men or wise women showed up to see the Baby Jesus?
The bigger question is: how many loving men, how many loving women, how many loving drummer boys and drummer girls --
how many LOVING people show up to show off the love that sent Jesus to earth in the first place?
How many show up today? Tomorrow?
You can get the story right.
But you can also get the story loving.
You can tell the story in your life by being loving.
You can relive your Epiphany of Jesus's love today, and tomorrow, and any day.
Just show up to share the birth of love.
And the birth of a baby.
And the birth of whatever epiphany that brings to you.
2025-01-05 Matthew 02 01-12
My favorite stuffy BBC history host is Philomena Cunk.
She's not actually a real person.
She's a character played by a comedian who does straight-faced interviews with real professors and scientists, asking them idiotic questions as calmly as only a British person could.
You can find her on YouTube. Also has a new special on Netflix.
Lightens the mood of 2025.
In an episode pulled from the headlines of today's scripture, Philomena goes to Buckingham Palace to interview the Chaplain to the Queen (now, the King), the Rev. Canon Ann Easter.
And yes, Ann Easter is the Reverend's real name, and yes she is indeed a Canon.
Canon is another title for a Priest in the Church of England.
If only the Presbyterian Church had Canons.
At least stun guns. To keep meetings decent and orderly.
Long story short -- and I must add, never believe anyone who says, "Long story short."
Especially a preacher.
By the time someone says, "Long Story Short," it's always way too late.
So, I'll use the kids' social media abbreviation, LSS.
LSS, then, Philomena looks directly at the Very Reverend Canon Ann in her robe and vestments and asks,
"So, how many three wise men were there?"
To her credit, Canon Ann answers with a very calm, "Who knows?"
She points out that only one Gospel -- Matthew -- even mentions wise men and that the number three is simply a very good number.
Philomena follows up asking, "So there could have been fifteen three wise men?"
To which Canon Ann replies in British form, "Quite possibly, yes."
Matthew doesn't specify a number of wise men, but he does say there were three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
So since we men can't handle more than one Christmas gift, three makes sense.
Some churches say there were twelve wise men, one for each of the twelve days of Christmas,
just like in that other carol where the True Love is obviously making up for mistakes.
This morning, we had the Evergreen Men's Ensemble.
We had six men singing We Three Kings.
So, in our church we have at least two Three Wise Men, perhaps more.
Church math is an inexact science.
Ask any minister, "How many members does your church have?"
You mean "on the rolls," "in the pews," or "contributing to the budget"?
Church math's a bit like voter rolls in Georgia.
It all depends on which Apostle you're asking and how many fingers he counts with.
Now. Where was I? Oh yes.
Three Wise Men. L-S-L -- Long Story Longer...
If you Google "Three Wise Men in the Bible," you'll see that some people DO call them Wise Men.
Others say they were Three KINGS, as in the song.
They're also called Magi.
Sometimes, astrologers.
In Tennessee we know they were firemen.
Because, the Bible says, they came from "afar."
(That's Presbyterian Humor.)
Wise men deserve to be identified as such as quickly as possible.
We need names.
OK. L-S-G-L -- Long Story Getting Longer -- but there's good reason.
30 years ago, for Christmas, the Presbyterian Women of Evergreen Presbyterian Church gave to Me, and Kristen, a super-nice Fontanini Nativity Scene.
Made in Bagni di Lucca, Italy.
Made from hand painted polymer.
So not only is it expertly crafted, it's also child-proof.
I don't THINK the ladies were encouraging us to have children, but the foresight eventually paid off.
We put the Nativity set out every Christmas and remember y'all.
Something you might not have known is that if you turn the kings over, their names are printed on their bottoms.
The bottom of the stands, I mean.
There's Melchior, Balthasar, and Gaspar.
How did those crafty Italians know the names and how did they know which one was which?
Well, L-S-G-Even-Ls.
Turns out, none of these names are in the Bible and none were the names of any kings within camel-riding and star-following distance.
Like all smart Americans, I did my own extensive Internet research.
The names of the Three Wise Men, or Magi, are believed to come from an Armenian infancy gospel written around 500 AD.
Melchior: From the Armenian name Melkon.
Balthasar: from the Armenian name Baldassar.
And Gaspar, from the Armenian name... Gaspar.
They didn't even try to make him sound like a foreigner.
The name Gaspar derives from the biblical Hebrew word, "gizzard," which is probably why there are so few Gaspars today.
After a few centuries of Nativity sets, songs, and church plays with children in bathrobes, the names stuck.
All of this takes me the long way back to Canon Ann Easter's answer.
"Who knows?"
Who knows?
If you start pulling the threads of scripture, you can take just about any short story and make it much longer.
With imagination, and a song, and even some ridiculous questions, the Bible becomes a fertile hunting ground for pretty much any wild idea you're shooting for.
It happens a lot.
We can get so caught up arguing about how many three wise men there were,
or whether this one's Melchior, Balthassar, or Gizzard,
or what their occupations were, or which brought what gift, that we forget all about the Baby Jesus.
And that, in my opinion, is what happens to Christmas way more often than not.
We get in arguments over how the decorations are to be hung, fights about menus and oven temperatures, brand-names and charging cables --
We get so distracted by short stories grown way too long that we miss the whole point of Jesus.
Jesus is the ultimate long story short, intended to be brief, to the point, and with a heartfelt "Amen."
It's a BABY for goodness' sake.
The Baby Jesus is God's sign that love made alive will be the salvation of us all.
And thank God for this simple, priceless gift.
Thank God at Christmas.
Thank God in the new year.
And thank God every day for this unending, uncontrolling, undefined, and simply understandable love.
--
Not long after leaving Alabama for Tennessee, one Christmas we had some friends over.
They had a little boy about five years old.
He comes into the living room and sees our Fontanini Nativity set I mentioned.
His face just lights up. He says, "Oh wow! We have that game, too!"
His mother explained that not only did he play games, like, Hide the Baby Jesus, but also that other toys made special guest manger appearances.
Toys definitely not in the Bible.
Dinosaurs. Race cars.
Mary, did you know who was going to show up the night you gave birth?
You had no idea.
A lot of us minister-types, who want everything to be just as it says in the Bible -- a lot of us take exception to certain Christmas songs.
The one that really gets our goat is, "The Little Drummer Boy."
The Little Drummer Boy is definitely an add-on.
No, he's not in the Bible.
But it's a sweet song.
It speaks to little kids.
It gives them a place at the manger.
Still, you have to wonder, is a kid banging on a drum the best gift for a newborn?
Maybe he could have been a Little Harpist Boy?
It's kind of like the Armenian kings' names: you work with what's at hand.
A little boy, or a little girl, might not be able to play softly and tenderly, but they can get a spoon and bang on a pot.
Or do a dance.
Or bring a dinosaur.
Matthew, in his telling of the gospel story, had the wise men bring gifts.
Matthew wasn't going for accuracy.
Or even practicality.
If you're visiting a mother with a newborn, you bring sensible things.
Blankies. Huggies.
Matthew has his impractical wise men bring gifts.
But the gifts are really to help us.
Matthew has them bring things to help tell the story of Jesus, to help tell the story of his whole life.
Gold.
Jesus is going to be -- Jesus IS the king.
That's what made King Herod so paranoid that he sent the wise men as spies.
Gold stands for kingship, earthly kingship.
You brought the king your very best, your most valuable offerings.
Frankincense.
Frankincense it's a very strong incense.
Used lavishly in religious rites.
Used by the priests who performed the rituals that brought the people closer to God (and vice versa).
It symbolizes Jesus' as Priest, as the one who would bring the people closer to God (and vice versa).
Myrrh.
Myrrh was another kind of incense, even stronger than frankincense.
Myrrh was worth more than its weight in gold.
Myrrh was for life's end.
Myrrh was used in embalming, and was burned at funerals.
Myrrh is Matthew giving us a foreshadowing of Jesus's earthly death, and how significant it's going to be.
The gifts don't belong in a newborn's nursery.
Any more than a little drummer boy.
That's because the gifts the wise men brought weren't supposed to be practical.
Matthew picks them and hands them to the wise men because he wants wise hearers of his Gospel to hear the story of Jesus's WHOLE life, not just his birth.
The wise men and their gifts are hints.
They're clues.
They're peeks under the blanket to see the baby as more than just one more of the countless babies born that night.
The kings and their gifts ARE out-of-place in this story.
As out-of-place as a drummer boy, or even a dinosaur.
Who are the wise men?
What are their names?
How many were there?
Who knows?
They aren't the point.
The point is the Baby Jesus.
The point is the Baby Jesus.
It's really that simple.
A long story, made short.
Love, made an infant.
---
The church celebrates the holy day of Epiphany.
Epiphany comes after the 12 days of Christmas.
Technically, today IS the 12th day of Christmas.
The wise men don't arrive until the THIRTEENTH day, tomorrow.
Tomorrow is officially Epiphany day.
Technically, we're a day early.
We beat the three kings.
Which makes us even wiser than the wise.
But are we right?
Are we absolutely, positively sure we're getting the numbers right?
And the dates right?
And the names right?
Did we mess up and leave out a couple of three wise men?
Who knows?
A big part of being serious about Jesus is being un-serious about ourselves.
To be serious about God, you have to laugh at little at yourself.
When you think about all the infinite number of ways you can be wrong, the odds that you're getting ANYTHING seriously right have to be pretty slim.
When you think about the Creator of the Universe taking the form of a newborn baby, in a stable, surrounded by the wise, the kingly, the lowly, the shepherd-y.
And, oh yes, an angel choir.
The whole scene defies reason.
Love does that.
Love defies all sense of reason.
Because reason isn't the point.
Love is. The point.
Who knows how many wise men or wise women showed up to see the Baby Jesus?
The bigger question is: how many loving men, how many loving women, how many loving drummer boys and drummer girls --
how many LOVING people show up to show off the love that sent Jesus to earth in the first place?
How many show up today? Tomorrow?
You can get the story right.
But you can also get the story loving.
You can tell the story in your life by being loving.
You can relive your Epiphany of Jesus's love today, and tomorrow, and any day.
Just show up to share the birth of love.
And the birth of a baby.
And the birth of whatever epiphany that brings to you.
