1In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, 2asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star in the east and have come to pay him homage.” 3When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, 4and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:
Matthew 2:1-12
6‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel.’ ”
7Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” 9When they had heard the king, they set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen in the east, until it stopped over the place where the child was. 10When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. 11On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 12And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
My sermon from Epiphany Sunday of Christmas (January 5, 2025) on Matthew 2:1-12.
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The late John Lewis, who served 17 consecutive terms in the US House of Representatives and helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, often used the phrase “good trouble” to describe his philosophy as a civil rights leader. “Good trouble” was, for him, a way of paying attention and doing something when the wider community wasn’t acting right, just, or fair. As a believer in non-violent but direct acts of protest, this “good trouble” led him to be arrested at least 45 times as well as beaten while trying to ride the bus, order a meal, buy a movie ticket, and register to vote. “Good trouble” is a very memorable phrase that sticks with you but when I went to find when it was first used, my google-fu wasn’t up to the task. So I turned to the next best thing I had: the 3 volume graphic novel entitled March. March is an artistic autobiographical portrayal of Rep. Lewis’ life from growing up as a faithful five year old preaching to the chickens he raised on his family farm through Bloody Sunday at the bridge in Selma and the signing of the civil rights act in 1965. I assumed if there was one book that could point to the start of good trouble, this would be it. But the first person to use the word “trouble” in the comic book wasn’t Rep. Lewis himself. It was, instead, his parents who told him to “stay out of trouble” when he started going to school. Their advice to their son who was a bit of a dreamer, regularly asked questions, and whose empathy included the chickens his family would often eat for Sunday dinner – is something most of us have offered to our own kids or heard from our own parents and guardians. But the “trouble” they had in mind wasn’t about getting into fights or not doing their homework. They were worried Rep. Lewis might say something when he noticed that the white kids had better books, better schools, and better playgrounds to play in. Rep. Lewis never considered himself the best student but his education opened him to wonder what the world could – and should – be. When he graduated high school, he left Alabama to study at the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. Rep. Lewis was planning to become a preacher yet his time in seminary invited him to question the trouble he – and his friends – were experiencing because of the color of their skin. We have a habit, I think, of imaging trouble as primarily a bad thing. Trouble is what we get into when we go against our parents, our neighbors, or our friends. We often carry ourselves through life worried about the trouble we might run into. And when we cause trouble, being held accountable for it is something we do our best to avoid. Trouble is also, though, a word we use to set ourselves apart from others – often claiming that a troubled mind, a troubled neighborhood, a troubled school, or a troubled kid deserve everything that happens to them. But trouble isn’t always simply an unholy thing since our God, as we see in our reading today from the gospel according to Matthew, often has the habit of troubling our lives and our world with love.
January 6th is the official end of the Christmas season and a celebration in the church that we’ve moved to today. It’s known as Epiphany when we recognize how God’s movement in the world was manifested for everyone. The magi, who were sort of like a philosopher, scientist, astrologer, and mystic all rolled into one, were the kind of people who observed the stars as a way to pay attention to the divine. While they were busy looking up, they noticed some kind of astrological event that they assumed announced the birth of someone special. With this star troubling the sky as they knew it to be, the magi dropped everything to see where this new thing would take them. After crossing the contested border between their home and the Roman Empire, the magi headed to the place they expected a special newborn king to be. But when they arrived at the palace of King Herod to offer homage – this physical display of reverence reserved only for royalty and for gods – their presence troubled the king who didn’t know Jesus had already been born. King Herod had a habit of using violence even against his own family to maintain his grip on power and was a little freaked out that someone he didn’t know was already attracting attention from outsiders who had money, status, and power. And while our translation likes to describe Herod as “frightened,” another possible translation of that word is “troubled.” He was troubled to discover the status quo he worked so hard to maintain was being undone by things he couldn’t even see. And so after listening to his advisors and to those outsiders who had announced what God had done, Herod caused all kinds of trouble for others while trying to remove this child from his world.
Now when trouble comes, it has a way of causing pain and suffering in the lives of others. But trouble can be so much more. A troubled Herod reacted with violence as a way to maintain his status quo, acting as if his story was the only story that mattered in his world. Yet the baby he went looking for would, in later years, use trouble as a way to bring life rather than destroy it. In the words of Rev. Meda Stamper, when “Jesus, troubled when he [saw] Mary of Bethany weeping, raise[d] her brother Lazarus from the dead. Jesus, troubled when he realize[d] he [would] soon die, embrace[d] the hour for the glory of God. Jesus, troubled that one of his own [was] about to betray him, comfort[ed] his friends and promises them infinite joy to come, and the presence of the Spirit to guide them.” Jesus, when troubled by the limits we try to place on God, always chooses to trouble us out of what we expect and into something more. And this is, I think, the kind of God we truly need. We need a God willing to trouble our selfishness, our sorrow, and our pain into something more. We need a God who troubles the trouble we cause in the lives of those around us. What we need is a God who does what our God chooses to do – claiming a manger rather than a fluffy bed in a place as their first bed so that we won’t be the only trouble makers in the world God loves. The trouble God causes, though, is “good trouble” since it lets dignity, hope, and love be at the heart of who we get to be. Knowing exactly what “good trouble” actually looks like, though, can be hard since it’s not always easy to even believe in the ways we unfairly trouble our own lives and the lives of others. But I wonder if we can let the magi and Jesus show us what good trouble is truly all about. We can, with God’s help, pay attention to what God is up to by keeping ourselves open to the possibility that our story isn’t the only story that matters. We can show up, ask questions, and accept that the limits of our own experiences and our imaginations will not be the limit for our God. The good trouble of God will trouble what we imagine is holy and right in the world and since it invites us to notice the ways we refuse to let God’s light shine in our hearts and in our lives. Yet this “good trouble” will also carry us through all the trouble we live through. We don’t always know the full extent of the trouble we create, the trouble we cause, or the trouble we blindly do because we can’t imagine life as being anything other than what it is. But the God who troubled the chaos at the beginning of creation and called it good and the God who troubled the waters at your baptism to claim you as God’s own – will not let your troubles limit the love God has for you. The God who led the magi is the same God who chooses to be with you. And it’s this God who went through the trouble of the Cross – and into beyond – who promises to replace the troubles of our lives with the good trouble of peace, hope, and forgiveness today – and forever.
Amen.