God Did and Does Speak Outside of Scripture

Epiphany Lessons for Year C

“For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”

In recognition of the Epiphany star, we will say Prayer C at the Great Thanksgiving.  I’ve heard the grumbles about Prayer C, and I’ve been known to contribute to that grumbling from time to time.  Over the years the prayer has become affectionately known as the Star Wars prayer which isn’t that surprising because Prayer C was first introduced in the 1970s around the same time that George Lucas began the movie franchise that is still alive and well today. 

You might also be interested to learn that Prayer C was written shortly after the first moon landing.  Therefore, it is no wonder that there is talk of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets, and this fragile earth, our island home.  There is something humbling about remembering that we are just a small dot in the vast expanse of interstellar space.

I was humbled last night as I went to get my trash can from the end of the driveway when I was struck by the night sky.  The stars seemed to be brighter than usual and there seemed to be more stars than usual.  It has been observed that on the clearest of nights the human eye can see about 2,000 stars.  While this may seem like a large number, it is believed that there are anywhere from 100 billion to 400 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. 

So even on the clearest of nights, we can only observe a fraction of what is really out there.  Even more, scientists say that there are more galaxies in the universe than there are grains of sand on planet earth.  We are indeed small in the grand scheme of things even smaller than we think or can even imagine.  We are indeed inhabitants on this fragile earth, our island home.  We are small, perhaps, even smaller than the smallest of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. 

This is all quite overwhelming if we think about it too long.  To imagine our smallness can burst our little bubbles about how important we think we are and how we think things should be.  To imagine our smallness might call us to remember that there is so much out there that we just don’t know.  Ultimately, our smallness might even call us to search for something more.    

In this evening’s lesson, we learn about wise men who are seeking something more.  These wise men are from the East and have no connection to the Jewish tradition but they come seeking the new born king of the Jews.  Scripture says, they observed his star at is rising and have come to pay him homage. 

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Israel spoke to these foreign wise men through a star.  God spoke to the very people who worship false gods and dumb idols.  As a friend said, God spoke to these men from the East using a spiritual language they could understand.  Ultimately, God saw it fit to use outsiders to be main players in God’s story of salvation. 

These wise men, these pagans, these people who are outside of the field of vision of the Hebrew story are a part of God’s salvation story.  Talk about bursting a bubble.  Wasn’t God’s plan for salvation supposed to be told through the people of Israel?  And now God is using pagan worshipers to point to the wonders of God’s love.      

I have to wonder if God wasn’t somehow saying to the Israelites, “I’m not just the God of the 12 tribes of Israel.  I am the God of all creation, the creation that I lovingly made and it is my desire to redeem not only the people of Israel but the entire creation.  And if I see it is necessary, then I will make my desires known through anybody I chose.”  God isn’t quite as domesticated as we like to sometimes believe.

In so many ways, the Feast of the Epiphany burst our little bubbles about who God is and how God works through creation to redeem the world.  Over the last 150 years, a fundamentalist culture has made waves in the story of Christian America.  Among other things, this culture has made scripture the only and final word of God’s revelation.

While I strongly affirm that scripture to be the Word of God and to contain all things necessary to salvation as the prayer book prescribes, I do find much danger to limiting God’s Word to only the literal words of scripture.  This fundamentalist take on scripture implies that God only speaks to those who read the Bible.  This position also implies that God stopped speaking 1900 years ago when John of Patmos wrote the last words of the Book of Revelation.

Ultimately, I, along with a lot of others, believe that this fundamentalist wave of Christianity has severely malnourished Christians in America and crippled our witness to the eternal truth of our living God.  Too many have reduced scripture to a formula on how to live a moral life and how to get into heaven.  Scripture is not simply a guide book but contains the living story of how God is saving all of his people from sin and death.

On this Feast of the Epiphany, I want to remind you that the same God who spoke to the wise men through a star is speaking to those outside of our Christian tradition.  We as Christians do not have a monopoly on God’s Word.  Instead, we are stewards of God’s Word.  And as stewards of God’s Word it is a part of our job to observe and notice how the God we know in scripture is working outside of our small little bubbles.

In a culture that has grown tired of the Christian rhetoric, maybe our number one job shouldn’t always be trying to win people to Christ.  Maybe our number one job today as Christians is to see how the star of Christ is guiding the person who doesn’t go to Church.  Maybe our number one job today as Christians is to notice how those who are outsiders are pointing to the love of God.  Maybe it is our job to tell these people how we see the love of Christ through their lives and thank them.    

I invite you to pray about what you might do if you see God using someone outside the Church’s bubble to point to the good news of Christ as made known through scripture.  How might you approach this person?  What might you discover if you get to know this person and their deepest desires, their deepest fears?  Where might you two go if you go on a journey?  Where might the star of Christ lead you?

I hope and pray that you will discover that you need each other.  I hope and pray you see how God is including the entire human family in the story of salvation.  I hope and pray that you see how the individual stories of our seemingly small and insignificant lives amount to a story that far outshines anything we could even imagine or dream about. 

Above all, I hope and pray that you discover more and more how the eternal truth of God’s love that is manifest in the hearts of all people through Christ can light up even the darkest of nights.  Amen.