Coming from the East: or the Politics of Epiphany

Coming from the East

or ‘the Politics of Epiphany’

by Jody Stowell

Magi from theeast came to Jerusalem and asked, ‘Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.’

Another year has begun.

I wonder how you got here?

Where did you come from?

What has the journey been like that has brought you to the beginning again?

I invite you into a short imagining with me, where the patterns of our lives may learn from the pattern of other sojourners that have gone before us.

The patterns offered us in the stories we find in Scripture are, I think, part of the reason that I am a Jesus follower: shamelessly politically subversive and unremittingly demanding of courageous nobodies.They give me hope.They speak of all kinds of people: shepherds; kings; slaves; farmers; women, children.But one of the patterns which characterises their stories, no matter who they are, is that they are asked to recognise the One whose star is risen.They are invited to search for him. No matter where they come from.And they are called to worship him.No matter who their god is supposed to be.

In our current climate, there are many ‘rising stars’ to follow.We can sometimes con ourselves into thinking that, as those who follow Jesus, we are above the cult of celebrity.But we are just as seduced by the bright shining stars that seemingly come out of nowhere and command hundreds or thousands to their conferences.Who do you follow?Rob Bell?Tom Wright?Heidi Baker?Tim Keller?Bill Johnson?

I imagine the Magi had charted many stars too.It was, I suspect, rather part of their job description.What made this one different?They committed themselves to a long journey on the twinkle of a new star. A journey that they had to know would be arduous, but seemingly not one that they, initially, knew would be so politically riotous.As Stephen said, to turn up at Herod’s palace, asking for the new king, was tantamount to announcing a coup.

However, the political nuances of Epiphany do not start at Herod’s palace.

They begin at the choice made to follow a star.

The Magi did not know the extent of political subversion that they were being drawn into, but they would have known that travelling to a strange land would not be without its challenges.Strange lands were, after all...strange.Their journey was always to have political implications because of this concept of ‘sojourners in a strange land’.Epiphany is political firstly because the Magi were called from one place to another: because people who come from a different place will always threaten the status quo.

We know this.Any time you have found yourself in a new group of people – a new job, a new church – you sense that there is an unwritten rule that you are not to change anything.Keep things how they are.This is the qualification of welcome into whichever ‘strange land’ you find yourself in.We all do it.I do it.We all like continuity.And yet, we all know what it is to be the stranger too: when we can see the things that others no longer see.As strangers we can see the embedded assumptions that just really need to be unearthed and challenged.We can see the structures that are perpetuating the exclusion of the misfit and the illusion of normality.It is indeed a strange paradox that those who follow Jesus are both required to be ‘sojourners in a strange land’: those who are the misfit, those who are the stranger, and, at the same time, those who welcome the stranger and the misfit.It seems untenable: how can the stranger welcome other strangers into a place that isn’t even their place?

Perhaps the answer is in the welcome of the Magi: the foreigners who welcomed Jesus into his own world.

We are to be ‘sojourners in a strange land’, those who upset the status quo.It may be a very quiet upset.We may do this simply by being the stranger.In so being, we are a physically present reminder that there is a land where things are done a different way. Or it may be that we may find ourselves called to be the one that points out that...well...the emperor really isn’t wearing any clothes.

The Magi discovered that they were asked to do both. They chose to follow the star not knowing where it would take them: simply choosing to become sojourners in a strange land.But when they began to get an inkling of the level of political subversion they were involved in, they chose it again anyway. Their courage was tested. This One whose star they followed, who they searched for...would they worship him too?

The worship of Jesus was not simply a sentimental orientation of emotion, nor just an assent to the truth of his lordship from afar.The Magi’s act of worship involved an act of political dissent to a tyrannical ruler.The worship of Jesus always include acts of dissent that overturn unjust systems.

So, another year has begun.

I wonder how you got here?

Where did you come from?

What has the journey been like that has brought you to the beginning again?

As the stories of the Nativity and Epiphany begin to fade into that grey fuzzy area from which we leap into the New Year, take a moment to ask God for the courage this year, to go to the strange land he may be calling you to.

And remember....

...to follow the star is not solely a courageous step into the unknown.

It is a political act.