Sermon: Fishing for People, with "Who Counts?" by Amy-Jill Levine (Mark 1:14-20), Jan 28, 2018

Two stories from Who Counts?: 100 Sheep, 10 Coins and 2 Sons, by Amy-Jill Levine, were shared with the children and the congregation before Sermon. For more information about the children's book: Click here. 

One Hundred Sheep

One hundred sheep! If just a single one were lost, who would notice?

Who counted sheep anyway? 

The man did.

The man had a lot of sheep, one hundred of them. 

He counted them every day. 

1, 2, 3, 4, … 10 

He kept counting: 

10, 20, 30, 40, … 100. 

It took time to count, a long time. 

One day the man counted: 

10, 20, 30, 40, … 91, 92, 93, 94, … 

96, 97, 98, 99.

Then he stopped. 

There were only ninety-nine!

He must have made a mistake; he had one hundred sheep, not ninety-nine. 

He counted again. 

Still there were only ninety-nine. 

One of his sheep was missing! 

He was responsible for ALL the sheep, all one hundred of them. 

Immediately the man went to look for the lost sheep. He walked and walked, but he saw nothing. He kept walking. He looked to the left. Nothing. 

He looked to the right. Nothing. He walked and he listened. Still nothing. Then he heard it: a bleating sound. 

• BAA

He ran toward the sound. And there she was – the lost sheep! 

He had found her. 

She was too tired to follow him home, so he lifted her on his shoulders and carried her. 

He was so happy to have all his sheep together that he invited everyone to celebrate. 

Some people said, “What’s so wonderful? It was only one sheep, You had ninety-nine others.” 

The man smiled. “One sheep makes a difference. Without her, something is missing. Now my flock is complete.” 

The next story: 

Ten Coins

Ten drachmas, ten silver coins. Every day the woman would count them. 

Then one day she counted: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 

She stopped. She couldn’t have made a mistake, but she counted again anyway. 

Still she counted only nine. One drachma was missing. She had lost one of her coins. 

The woman lit a lamp to see more clearly. She looked under chairs and in corners. No coin! 

She looked in cabinets and in wastebaskets. Still no drachma! She took a broom and swept the floor. There were crumbs and dust, but no coin! It was her fault. 

She had lost the coin, and now she must find it. She searched again with the light and the broom. 

Finally, she saw something shining and heard a ping. PING!

She looked down, and there it was – the missing coin! 

She held the coin in her hand for a few moments, and then she carefully placed it with the other drachmas. 

She was so happy to have all the coins that she invited the women in the town to celebrate. Some people said, “What is so important? It was only one coin.” The woman smiled. “Just one coin matters. Without it, something is missing. Now my coin collection is complete.”

Scripture: Mark 1:14-20 

Sermon: Fish for People 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” It’s a beautiful calling story of Jesus, easy to visualize. The sea of Galilee, the nets, the boats, the hired servants, the action of casting, mending, then following. We could almost participate in this story with our sense of sight, smell, sound, through imagination. 

When Jesus calls his first four disciples, he makes clear that the work they are going to do will not be fishing for fish, but fishing for people – building and nurturing a revolutionary community where fishing for people means feasting: feasting on the stories and feasting at the table as God’s family.  

I hope that the two stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin (we shared with our children as we began our worship) can help us to understand this calling story to be relevant to our time and our Immanuel community.  

Traditionally, evangelism has been understood as Christians going out into the world and finding sinners and delivering them to salvation through the grace of God and the cross of Jesus. Today’s Gospel story begins with Jesus’ message which echoes the warnings of his former teacher, John the Baptist: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” Given this urgency, new forms of living are required: we need to determine what is necessary and what is not. We need to find the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, on earth. It is truly a new message.

However, an even more authentic calling from Jesus comes after this important proclamation – “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” (Here, we don’t hear Jesus mention sin, repent, believe.)

What’s interesting to note is fish, sheep, coins do not sin. They are not about sinning and repenting. Do sheep sin? Do coins confess? They are not sinners. 

Amy-Jill Levine, the ingenious contemporary biblical scholar, renowned for bringing the Jewishness of Jesus into Christian interpretation and dialogue tells us: “Sheep eat, sleep, poop, produce wool, and give milk- but an awareness of sin or salvation is not part of ovine nature… Neither sheep nor coins have the capability to repent”. If any blame is to be assigned in the first two parables, then the shepherd and the woman are at fault, for they “lost”, respectively, the sheep and the coin. 

Levine adds, “Were the parables called ‘The Shepherd Who Lost his Sheep’ and ‘The Woman Who Lost Her Coin’, we might be closer to an earlier meaning.” Before the authors of the Gospels of Luke and Mark added their allegorical interpretations by dictating the meanings – “This parable means this, this parable means that,” the stories are open. If we take out the layers of interpretation given by Mark and Luke, in Jesus’ original story-telling, these stories may be about, literally, counting. Who counts? God counts. We count. The meaning we add - sin and forgiveness and reconciliation and deliverance is extra, is not part of the original parables. 

We can also understand fishing for people in the same light. I wonder if, by “fishing for people”, Jesus means going out and catching people and saving them from sin or a wrong path or a wrong faith. Or is it a call to search and find all who will find such joy at gathering at the table because they hunger for the goodness of God and Jesus’ good news for the poor? If we let go of the familiar, restricting lens of sin and salvation we can look more deeply at who we are and where we are in these stories. For example, how are we like the man who lost his sheep and the woman who lost her coin? When we find ourselves in the stories, we are prompted to ask other questions as well: Have we lost or missed something, or someone, and not paid attention? Is there someone, or something, we take for granted? 

What, or whom, have we forgotten to count? The blame of being lost does not fall on the sheep or coin. The story is about us, we who need to start searching, finding and rejoicing at the recovery of what and who is missing.  

Then, think about the joy of the shepherd and the woman – you can imagine them as God, of course. Here we get the great image of God as the woman searching for her lost coin, sweeping with a broom through the dust on the floor and even crouching down, cheek on the floor, to look under the bed with a light to find one, single, drachma. You can also imagine the shepherd and the woman as us – engaging in an exaggerated search, and when we find the missing sheep, or missing coin, we engage in an equally exaggerated sense of rejoicing, first by ourselves, and then with our friends and neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice together with me, because I have found my sheep, the lost one.’ ‘Rejoice with me, because I have found the drachma, the one I had lost.’ Really, the stories do sound more like how we become a community of the beloved, by counting, not by converting. 

These stories remind me of the conversation our elders shared at the last Council meeting in January. We engaged with one question we found in the book Fishing Tips: “Who matters most in your community?” Our Immanuel United Church congregation is healthy, loving and deep. 

I am so proud that we govern ourselves by the strong values of equity and sharing of power, operating with open conversations and in gratitude. If we do appreciate some key people, in the past or in the present, it is not because these people are matriarch or patriarch kind of people; we give them our respect and love because they are visionary. 

My mind was blown when one of our elders shared “Everyone being part of the circle means community. We don’t exist in our congregation just for ourselves. We are part of our call to be in the world as our mission statement states: ‘Be in the community’. Being part of our call – to be in the world, in the community – has to do with energy and time, but it is very important to ask how we think of ourselves as part of the broader space: trees and forests. Trees are part of the larger eco system in which we are a part. Trees have root system and they interact with each other. Trees open my understanding of our place in the world.”

This reflection led me to ask, “How are we green, in our use of resources – paper, water, cups - ?” We say, ‘What matters most is people’, but it is also true that it is not just people. What people bring – talents - what people give – gifts - what people use. Are trees, earth and wind truly our siblings in our faith? Are they in our consciousness of faith? That’s another aspect of counting – once you start, you see how many things there are to be counted; our recognition of the importance of things like trees and water supply to God’s world, to everyone. One more clean river – rejoice! One more stand of trees growing toward the sky – rejoice! 

How well do we do with welcoming newcomers? Name tags, announcements, greetings, tea, invitations, all matter. We need to draw our circle wide by welcoming curiosity. Who matters most in our community? How about children? We are an organization, and like any organism, we can survive and evolve only through passing essential genes to our offspring: our Christian teachings, visions, stories of faith. Embracing diversity in our neighbourhood and within us is also another way to ask who matters most. Who matters most in our community? Who are missing? What and who do we count or we don’t? 

Today’s Gospel story of calling the disciples to fish for people is a question and exploration in which we look for something unexpected, unfamiliar, surprising, challenging, uncertain and new to be out of our comfort zone. The meaning of fishing for people becomes more inclusive and challenging when we think of it as counting. What today’s stories teach us is that we are the people who are called to count: count to search for what and who is missing, count to celebrate becoming a whole people, count to challenge, count to comfort, count to love, count to feast with joy, with all members of God, to be complete as Gods’ family, at the Jesus’ table. 

Celebrating Linda Murray, Jan 20, 2018

Celebrating Linda Murray,

shared at the Celebration of Life of Linda Murray on Jan 20, 2018, at Neil Bardal Funeral Centre, Winnipeg,

by Rev. Ha Na Park, Immanuel United Church, Linda's home congregation

After one service last October, a woman came to me and looked at me and said, “My name is Linda Murray. I’ve been quiet, so you may not know me. I am a retired minister.” I was delighted to hear that because I really like to meet my colleagues in ordered ministry; I have great respect for senior ministers - not because of their age but because of their life-inspired wisdom. Linda said, “You will need to tell me what this means,” pointing to the logo on my Korean stole (which I’m wearing today). 

“It’s the logo of the P.R.O.K., the denomination where my husband came from,” I answered. She, then, asked me the details of the meaning of the logo - the colour, the circle. I couldn’t explain them very well, but that moment, we both knew that we had an affinity, and it would be great to have lunch together and get to know each other more. That’s what we did; that’s how our connection started to grow. Linda and I developed a strong mutual curiosity and appreciation about each other since then. 

Our first meeting at the nice restaurant in McNally Robinson helped me get to know Linda beyond her simple self-introduction as a retired minister. Her first question was about whether I had been feeling safe at Immanuel about giving my Sunday messages, “With both my strength and vulnerability, openly and freely.” 

She asked, “How did people respond?” 

I said, “I feel very safe and supported. In fact,” I continued, “After the difficult time of last Spring and through the summer, I transformed. Before, I was often not feeling safe. I was afraid of sharing my real thoughts, but I am not afraid any more. I went through a hard time, I tested myself, and I learned that there’s no real danger, as long as I am confident about myself and what I believe. I am only determined to speak and share about my truth, and even when I do, I see that I am still safe. Now I know my sense of safety is not determined by outside conditions. I am very happy about this change.” 

When I finished my reflection, I saw Linda in tears, in deep emotion – an amazing gift of openness, on her part. Then, it was her turn: she shared her deep truth about ministry. It was an amazing time. I looked at my new ministry in the reflection of Linda’s ministry. Linda looked at her past ministry in the reflection of my sharing. Through her sharing, I learned that Linda was a feminist. She experienced transformation when she went to a seminary in the US to study briefly and met a few radical feminists, and feminist theologians. Linda pioneered in women’s issues and LGBTQ ordination in the UCC in the 80’s and 90’s. 

She shared about those times when she felt unsafe because of her beliefs and actions, and about the questions she answered, the risks she took. When we checked our watches, more than three hours had passed over our simple lunch of French onion soup. Linda’s wisdom ignited my interest; she was the sort of person who would thoroughly engage another person through her endless passion, commitment and intelligence. 

The mutual ignition of curiosity continued. We became so excited to learn more about each other and our ministry at Immanuel. I am not going to share all the amazing words of encouragement I received from her, but what I most appreciated was when she said, “Your preaching makes me want to return to school and study the Bible afresh and anew.” 

When I met her again in December, at Wolseley, she said, “How did others respond to your last message? If I don’t understand queer theology, there’s not many (actually she said, “no one”) who can understand it in the congregation. I know what queer means but tell me more about what queer theology is about.”

That afternoon, to keep our meeting, Linda “pushed herself out the door.” as she was already ill and lacked energy that day. I saw her commitment and persistence, there, given to just one person in total faithfulness. Linda was strong and willing. We made some promises to each other about our journey of learning. Linda ordered some books I had encouraged her to read. She was a seeker of the best things in life: something we find in each other’s humanity - or even in the sparkle of the divine in one another. I will forever cherish the last note we exchanged at her bedside in the ICU. 

I silently grieved for the loss of Linda. When you have found such a sense of promise in relationships that foster spiritual growth and journeys of learning, it is painful to know that the journey, at least on earth, has ended. 

I still silently grieve and I know that this grief is a true indicator of how I was honoured and privileged to know Linda even it was for such a short time. The impact of Linda’s presence was, and is, something that will not be erased in our lifetimes. 

What I learned through the weeks after Christmas Eve, (that was when she was admitted to the hospital), was that though I may be the last person who received her amazing mentorship and friendship, I am far from being the only one. As soon as the news spread that Linda was sick, her friends, especially United Church female ministers, contacted me, asking how she was doing. Linda was a mentor, coach and passionate friend to so many people, teaching and sharing her wisdom, insight and compassion. 

As in the reading from Isaiah 40: 25-31, Linda embodied the power of love and compassion for the weak, as she was empowered by her God who gives strength to her. 

The Rev. Linda Murray: beloved, artist of life, good neighbour, feminist, passionate friend, aunt, sister, mentor, ministering to all who she cared for and loved, is now one with God and God’s wavelength of love which still evolves and is creating with the world, bound to God’s justice.

Gerry, I imagine that Heaven for Linda is like this, which she wrote in a letter she sent to her friends and family members last November: “At this point, Maui will always be there. One day we will be there with the turtles.” May Linda rest in peace and, in her own words, “Leap with joy” in our Creator’s eternal realm of love and brilliant life. 

Sermon: Follow Me (John 1:43-51), Jan 14, 2018

John 1:43-51

Introduction to the story: 

Today, we will listen to a ‘calling’ story. In the Gospel of John, chapter one, Jesus met two disciples of John the Baptist: an unnamed disciple and Andrew. These two were with their teacher at that time, John the Baptist, when he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” Jesus turns and sees the unnamed disciple and Andrew following him. Jesus asks them, “What are you looking for?” Andrew then goes out and calls Peter. On that day, the unnamed disciple, Andrew and Peter remain with Jesus.  The next day, Jesus travels to Galilee with them. This calling story continues in today’s Gospel: 

Message: Follow Me…

The Philip of today’s story, perhaps a fisherman in the town, was the fourth person who became Jesus’ disciple. In the earlier story, the unnamed disciple and Andrew were the first to find Jesus. In today’s story, Jesus found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” Then Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, “We have found the Messiah. He is Jesus, son of Joseph from Nazareth. Come and see!” Nathaniel responded, “Hah. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” 

Ding! (I ring a bell, signifying, ‘wrong’ or ‘Nah!’ or ‘the disciple got him wrong.’)

When Nathaniel came to Jesus, Jesus said, “I saw you under the fig tree.” We don’t know what happened, what Nathaniel was doing under the fig tree, or why Jesus’ words moved Nathaniel and changed his heart. The Bible doesn’t tell us why, but this story invites us to think about how we are called to be disciples, what it means to be called and live as Jesus’ disciple. This calling story is not just about the first disciples of Galilee, but about us! 

Two things are clear: first, it is an invitation! It is indeed a great invitation that happens throughout our lives, in which we catch glimpses of something more, something bigger than us. We find each other in faith and take the journey of learning- peace, justice, spiritual nourishment - not just alone, but together as a community. Second, faith is really a mysterious element of our lives. The ignition of faith, the true understanding of God’s love, often starts in the most unexpected ways, in the most unexpected times, and in the most unexpected people. 

Here’s one more aspect of discipleship. We may set up high standards or expectations about discipleship, thinking there’s an ideal way or best practice that dictates what it is like to truly follow Jesus in our lives. For example, there is St. Francis, the lover of Jesus and God’s natural world, or Mother Teresa and her lifelong dedication to the poor and the poor children in Calcutta. Or think of someone – we all have a ‘someone’ who inspires true admiration and respect for their faith-filled life. 

Today, I invite you to take a different look at what it means to follow Jesus. In fact, as all of the four Gospels tell us, Jesus’s first disciples were far from the St. Francis or Mother Teresa we know. They consistently, (not just ‘often’, it is safe to say, ‘always’) misunderstood Jesus, could not understand what Jesus meant in his teachings and his parables. They kept making mistakes; they made many blunders in their walk with Jesus. To illustrate, in today’s story, Nathaniel blurted out, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” He didn’t understand that Jesus’ divinity had nothing to do with his birthplace or origin. It wasn’t just Nathaniel; the disciples did not understand the parable of the Sower, and Jesus despaired of their understanding any of his short, illustrative stories. “And he said to them, “Do you not understand this parable? Then how will you understand all the parables?” 

It’s like this: If the disciples heard the parable of the yeast, in the 21st century, - “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and the yeast of Herod” - they would worry, asking each other, “Does he mean that we should prepare gluten-free bread for the communion this Sunday?” (Ding) 

Peter, Andrew, James, the beloved disciple, John, and many other disciples were seasoned fishermen. But they were afraid of being shipwrecked in a storm, even when Jesus was with them in the boat! (Ding) (Oh, well, yes, Jesus was sleeping.) 

Then later, they doubted Jesus’ awareness of his healing powers (Ding); Peter questioned Jesus’ mission (Ding), and Jesus responded by calling him, “Satan”, which is never a compliment. They sought to prevent parents and caregivers from bringing their children (Ding) despite his telling them to welcome children. Judas betrayed him (Ding); Peter, James, and John fell asleep when Jesus was in agony in Gethsemane. (Ding) Peter then denied him; and they all fled from the cross. (Ding) 

The point is not to be hard on the disciples, but to know discipleship is a long journey of learning - life-long. Plus, if we realize, “Oh, not again. I made a mistake,” or “I misunderstood the truth,” know that, perhaps, that may be a good sign that we’re doing discipleship right. We fail, we misunderstand, we make mistakes. However, we remember, realize, then turn our heart again; we change. The good news is, that’s what any disciple is supposed to do: Go back to Jesus’ program and teaching of peace, justice, crossing borders to establish unconditional love in our own lives and in the world. 

But still, a wonder remains: Why are we, and the first disciples, too, so often, so far from understanding and following Jesus? Why was it so hard for the disciples to ‘get’ the meaning of even the simplest parable Jesus told, like the Parable of the Sower? Like the Parable of the Yeast? They lived in the same historical time as Jesus, lived in the same culture as Jesus, spoke the same language as Jesus – how could they follow him, and yet not follow his words? 

Intellect may not be the problem here. We can answer the question of understanding from this perspective: 

They were looking for something within their comfort zone, like us. Prejudice, perception, expectation, hopes and fears all live in the comfort zone. If the teaching and mission don’t fit us, we resist. That resistance can create consistent misunderstandings on the disciples’ part.  The truest role of religion is to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable. Jesus requires that we do more than listen; Jesus asks us to think as well. 

Now, I am not making an unconditional assurance that mistakes, hurts, misunderstandings are fine. Instead, what I would like to share with you is the knowledge that failing is an essential part of the life-long learning of discipleship. If you have failed… (and you know that you failed) think this. Jesus’ program is designed so that you will fail to follow Jesus, you will fail to know who Jesus is, because our path is not to follow our own human wisdom - it is to follow the way of God’s love, peace, justice, healing, reconciliation, forgiveness, open to the mystery and the challenge of following what we can never fully comprehend. 

Faith challenges us to look into the hidden aspects of our own values, our lives. Faith brings to the surface unasked questions, and reveals the answers we have always known, but refuse to acknowledge. Jesus’ teaching is never limited to a single interpretation, a single moral, a single belief statement, the cheap comfort of “God will take care of it”, “Be nice” “All is right as long as we believe in Jesus.” We fail the teachings of Jesus if we only look for something within our comfort zone. If we have failed, and we know that have failed, we are closer to following the genius of Jesus’ teaching, which prompts us to see God’s world and ourselves, in a different way. 

Jesus calls to all his disciples, “Follow me.” We cannot dictate the path, but we have faith in the one that leads us on.

The Star... Moves (Epiphany Sermon, 2018), Jan 7

Epiphany sermon, 2018

The Star… Moves
Matthew 2:1-12
In the season of Epiphany, we reflect on the light of God that is manifested to different people in different places. Traditionally, we imagine that the love of God – reflected in the beautiful light of the Christmas star – is so big and so wonderful that it dissolves the boundaries between the insiders and the outsiders and ethnic and religious differences. The light is shown to the Magi and the shepherds. In Epiphany, we remember and we celebrate the revelation of the Christ child “To the gentiles”, meaning, ethnic outcasts or any who are not considered ‘insiders’ due to cultural origins, racial differences, faith and other identities.

In our era, light is plentiful; even at night we possess an abundance of light. The nights in Winnipeg are soberly lit, I would say, compared to larger cities like Seoul, where I come from, whose nights dazzle with glaring neon signs that stay ablaze until the break of dawn. 

I watched the 2018 New Year’s countdowns and fireworks in the world’s most famous cities such as London, Dubai, and New York, through YouTube. It’s fabulous. Think about the brilliance and the sound of those lights, rising so high in the night sky! (How about the last fireball over the Manitoban prairie? Those who watched it said it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen in their life time!)

In the old days, however, before the invention of gas lighting, when night fell, it was dark, very dark. We’ve learned how to domesticate the night with artificial lights – it’s easy to forget what a spectacle the blazing night sky of the first Christmas would have been.

Christmas and Epiphany are burnished with the imagery of light. These stories are filled with light, radiance, glory. We are told that the Magi were guided by the star to show them the way to the infant Jesus. The shepherds encountered not only the star but also, “The multitude of the heavenly host”, the firmament ablaze with God’s glory; which means that not just one single extraordinary star, but blazing starlight, in its complete brilliant array, met those who were watching over their flocks that night. Then an angel (a being of light) appeared and announced to the shepherds the good news that a Saviour, the Lord, had been born for them.

Imagine the contrast – the humble young shepherds finding the celestial lights of the midnight firmament greeting them, on top of the already astounding spectacle of an angel in a blaze of light. Imagine the size of this good news to the poor, the hungry, the peasant, the marginalized young on their occupied land, the shepherds. Remember, the first concern of the Messiah is to bring good news to the poor: the good news that would turn the world upside down and empower the powerless.

If what stands out for the shepherds is the spectacle of the light filling the night sky, the Magi’s star shows us another aspect of the good news of the birth of the Christ Child. Almost every year in the weeks before Christmas, stories appear in the media that seek to identify the star with some ancient natural phenomenon. The most common suggestions are a comet, a conjunction of planets, or a supernova. However, any attempt to identify the guiding star with a natural astronomical event is misguided; the star in Matthew’s Gospel does not simply shine in the sky; it moves. It not only leads the wise men westward to Jerusalem, it then turns and moves south to Bethlehem. There, “It stopped over the place where the child was.” This is no comet, conjunction of planets, or supernova. If it was, the star where the light came from would be fixed in its position in the sky, relative to the other stars. But it moves as if it doesn’t follow the laws of nature – the laws of physics that are at play in the entire cosmos. It’s inexplicable - it really means that we are not talking about astronomy or science. We are talking about a wonderful parable of God’s love and glory: the story that teaches us about following the star.

Have you ever wondered who the Magi really were? Traditionally, they were depicted as three wise men, (In fact, the Gospel of Matthew, the only Gospel which talks about the Magi’s visit, has no mention of how many people there really were.) The notion that there were three comes from the three gifts they bring: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. There is an oral tradition that they were kings from the Orient – which would have been the Middle East. Their ethnicities have been speculated upon: from Persia, Babylon, Arabia or the Syrian desert. Plus, they are illustrated in many pictures as two old white men and one younger man with darker skin, all with beards of different lengths – but the Bible reports none of these details; human imagination took over where the Bible left off.

Really, who are the Magi? Why did the first Christians choose to put the Magi in the first Christmas story? In other words, why do the Magi have to appear in the story of the first Christmas? This story is not history; it’s a parable. It’s a story to teach us and show what the good news is like.

Racially, the visitors are gentiles, coming from the “nations”, they are magicians, enchanters, diviners: their job is to interpret dreams and unusual/irregular signs in the night sky; interpret something bigger than an earth-bound event.

So, who are the Magi?

I believe that the Magi represent all who are drawn to the light. Jesus’ birth is the coming of light into the darkness. 

(Here, we don’t need to understand the dark as always being bad, sinful, dangerous, evil. Jesus’ light coming into the darkness can also mean coming into the life-nurturing dark of the mother’s womb, a necessary shelter and time for healing. Our soul and body need the unique gifts of both light and dark. )

These magi are those who interpret the dreams and the signs of the night sky – looking into the darkness to read the light that lives there. They deal with unusual signs, whose modern-day equivalents might be: diversity, voices from the margins, friendships at the margins, irregularity, variations, divergences, which Catherine Keller says in her book, Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming: “Behold the chaos of suffering that bursts from the margins. On ecology, economics, race, gender, sex … they all come flooding in. These others refuse to stay faceless. Their eyes form galaxies.”

The shepherds, the magi, the moving star, the galaxies of dreams and hopes tell us that the good news is like a miraculous star in motion. It’s not fixed somewhere in the distance, unrelated to us, unchanged and irrelevant to our changing times. The birthplace of Christ is not fixed in Palestine two thousand and some years ago. The star appears before us again and again and moves to another and another direction, toward the new birthplaces of Jesus. The star calls all of us who seek a sign of change, a sign of light, a sign of love, compassion and justice. We all take this journey to pay homage to Jesus, because we are drawn to the new light, the new hope. And so, for us, the star still moves, and we follow it onward, to find Jesus, again.