Changed by the Holy

We know that the story of the magi is simply that – a story. But there are lessons to be learned in stories and so I invite us to enter into this story with the hope of learning something about ourselves, about life, about the Divine.

Very often preachers focus on the seeking of the magi, the lengths they will go to encounter the holy, the trust and faith they have to follow a star. But I’d like to focus on their leaving.

Pretend for a moment that you are one of the magi. It’s been a long haul to find the child. You’ve looked forward to this meeting for such a long time. You spent gobs of money, left behind responsibilities, had your fair share of doubts and concerns along the way. But it all panned out. You found the child and experienced a few indescribable moments of holiness.

Now you can’t help but dwell on what you felt as you knelt by the child… do you remember? What did you feel? Peace… love… vibrant energy… unknown depths… wisdom… an old soul…awe… grace… exhilaration… relief… completion… maybe some of all of these.

Something in you changed at that moment. You hadn’t considered that. In fact, you hadn’t thought much at all about what would come after you delivered your gifts to the new king. A new king – not of an earthly realm, but of your heart! How quickly that happened. How subtly, yet how profoundly you knew that something in you would never be the same. Forever changed by love and grace.

Suddenly leaving is harder than you thought. But you must get home. You feel an urgency to share your story, as unbelievable as it may sound. But, at the same time, the thought of leaving sits like a stone on your heart.

Packed and ready to leave come first light, you drift off to sleep only to wake suddenly with a terrifying insight. You can’t go back the way you came. You see it all so clearly now after spending some time in this land, hearing the people talk about Herod, his fierce loyalty to Rome, his harsh repression of any opposition, and his penchant for executing family members. No, Herod wouldn’t be honoring this child of peace, he would be executing him. You cannot go back the way you came, you must go home by another way.

It's a scary thought, because you don’t really know another way home. You won’t have a star to guide you, you won’t know what landmarks to look for, how safe it may be or if you have enough resources with you to make it. And now there is the added concern that Herod’s minions might be watching the roads for you. Underneath all that is a quiet trust that the Spirit that got you this far will certainly be with you as you journey home.

So... I can’t not talk about the news this week.

Renee Nicole Good was on her way home after dropping her six-year-old son at school when she encountered ICE agents in her own neighborhood. She was filming from her car and warning residents of their presence. She was protesting immoral actions by the United States government.

And an ICE agent shot her in the face two or three times at point-blank range, and then his associates refused to let a doctor on scene treat her as she died. According to reports, they wouldn’t even allow an ambulance on site. Paramedics had to carry her body out in their arms.

She was 37. A Christian. A mother. A poet. And a kind and caring neighbor. Officials from the government called her a “domestic terrorist.”

As Phillip Gulley wrote before Christmas, “there are some people who will do anything, who will abandon every principle, betray every trust, and violate every standard to win the King’s favor, but these wise men [and Renee Good] were not those people. No king, no emperor, no president has absolute power so long as people of character are willing to defy them.”

My wife and I had a conversation with my son, Jordan, and his wife, last week about the church today and why young people are leaving the church. And the answer seemed to be that people in the churches today say they’ve met Jesus and are following Jesus, but the first chance they get they run straight to Herod. Today’s Herod claims to want to worship Jesus, too, and so they fall in line and stand with him. But it’s a lie. Herod wants to kill Jesus. I wanted to argue more with them. They know Sacred Journeys isn’t like that, they know we aren’t like that. And intellectually we all know we aren’t the only ones. But it is so prevalent right now that it’s a hard argument to win. So many churches are bowing down to Herod when they should be going home by another way.

I guarantee you that each person here, at some point, has experienced, seen, felt, heard the divine (maybe even Jesus). You’ve had your heart strangely warmed, you’ve heard a voice, seen a vision, known a deep peace, felt a nudge, experienced a synchronicity, felt moved to tears. When we experience that moment and are spiritually receptive to it, it will change us. And once our mind is expanded, we can’t go back. We can try, but then it hurts us more because we KNOW we’re going against the core of our very selves.

Seems to me that Renee Good was like the magi, a person who somewhere, sometime had had an experience of Jesus, or the divine, and been changed so much so that she couldn’t stand by and do nothing when ICE agents invaded her neighborhood.

Once our mind is expanded, we see the Herods in this world so much more clearly. We see the sacredness of all creation – humanity, the earth, the animals, the universe. We see that violence is NEVER the answer and that every act of kindness, no matter how small, makes a difference.  We see that we must stand on the side of the downtrodden, oppressed and marginalized. We see that we matter and are worthy of love, respect, happiness and care. We are more aware of unhealthy situations and relationships.

Sometimes we just can’t go back the way we came, we must go home by another way. And often that means making it up as we go.

Thousands of people turned out for a vigil in Renee Good’s neighborhood the night she was murdered. They turned out to mourn, to protest, but also to witness to the light, to refuse to bow to Herod, and to take another way home.

Love & Light,

Kaye