The Elusive One
The Elusive One
The Magi would likely have been astrologers, “wise men” of their time from the nation of Persia (modern day Iran) and Zoroastrians, a more recently developed monotheistic religion. As the Persian empire swallowed up the Babylonian empire several centuries earlier, the Zoroastrians came into contact with Judaism through the exile community. These magi would likely have known at least something of this ancient monotheistic people.
These astrologers, discerning patterns in the night sky that symbolized a great King coming out of Israel, naturally assumed that this royal baby had been born in the Capital city of Jerusalem. But the Jews alone understood that kings are not demigods, and that Israel's greatest once and future Davidic king would come from his birthplace, humble Bethlehem. But to know that, you had to know all the prophets, even the “minor” ones like Micah, quoted in today’s Gospel. The Wise Men discerned patterns in the stars that that got them a long way toward the King of the Jews; but to actually find him they still had go through the Jews.
As it was two millennia ago, so it is still that there is no salvation without the Jews and the covenant that the one God made with them so long ago. In that Covenant, God promised that they would be God’s people to bring all the nations of the world to them. Their required response, also quoting Micah, was to be faithful; to love justice, to do mercy, and to walk humbly with their God. And down to this day, that remains their promise and required response toward all the peoples.
And yet, too many of the people who have at least claimed their God have projected their fears onto God’s people in murderous ways. I suspect that it is the fear of Borg-like assimilation, which all humans have tried, and sometimes succeeded, in doing to each other. Yet the people of Israel have endured. Their story has endured, while the stories of other families, who became tribes, then became nations, then were conquered and lost. Why should they be different? There must be some reason. How they have suffered for the nations’ fears of assimilation.
But they, and we, have no reason to fear assimilation. In this meeting of Israel and the nations is not assimilation, but adoption into a family story whose principal character is, as the late great Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann describes the God if Israel, “elusive.”
This elusive God is transcendent when we think we've got them in a box in our corner — I am that I am Moses, duh. This elusive God is inflexible in negotiation, except when they let us haggle — Sure Abraham, if you can find 50 hospitable men, 20, 10, five hospitable in Sodom and Gomorrah. Good luck to your cousin Lot finding even five. This elusive God can get exasperated when we think we're entitled to a hug — Excuse me Job but where were you when I created all this? — But then this elusive God is inexplicably gracious when we think we've burned every bridge — I will proclaim before you the name I AM, and the grace that I grant and the compassion that I show. This elusive God takes sides for reasons we can't understand. Why the cheater Jacob over the elder Esau? Why these particular slaves over Pharaoh? Why David, the “baby” of Jesse’s eight sons? This elusive God isn’t just for me or you but for everybody, even the people we think should be hurt. This elusive God takes as we are.
We worship the God revealed to us in the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, “who can't be negotiated with, has no interest to defend, and whose creative activity is therefore pure gratuity.” [Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams]
We spend so much and sometimes kill so many for the sake of posterity, from the Latin posteriatem, meaning “eternal future.” There is no eternal future in any of our national stories unless we let them be adopted and adapted by the one and only God who promised Abraham, “all nations on Earth will be blessed in you.” If we wish to be saved, you know through whom we all must go.
January 6th, 2026,
The Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ
The Rev. David Kendrick