Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Epiphany Sunday
January 4, 2009
W. Gregory Pope
Series: The Attentive Life: Listening for God
ASTROLOGY, DREAMS,
AND OUR ATTENTIVENESS
TO GOD’S DIRECTION
Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12
How do we know what God wants us to do?
How do we discern God’s will in a particular situation?
Today is the first of four sermons on The Attentive Life - seeking to discern God’s presence in our lives and to listen for God’s voice.
Today I am not speaking about the larger issue of vocational calling. Jason will be speaking to that in a couple of weeks.
Today I am addressing the issue of God leading us through the day to day.
Our scripture lesson for this morning of the magi searching for the Christ child brings some interesting elements to the discussion of discerning God’s direction for our lives.
I want to extend the text under our consideration to include all of Matthew chapter two, because it informs our search for God’s leading in our lives.
The second chapter includes the magi being guiding to the Christ by the stars, and being warned along with Joseph through dreams about Herod’s true desire to kill the child.
So we have in this story a form of astrology and the avenue of dreams by which people are led.
Astrology
The magi or wise men as we sometimes call them were most likely astrologers. They are not evil sorcerers, but pious gentiles seeking the Christ.
Astrology is something people turn to in order to lessen the uncertainty of our world and the chaos of our lives. We need not demonize astrologers or those who turn to astrology for help. We all want to know what is going to happen and what our future holds. Is this guy the one for me? What should I do today? Is it written in the stars?
Well, what is happening here in this biblical story? If we read closely we will see that the Bible is not affirming the act of reading the stars in order to know the future. These magi are actually reading the signs of nature to discover what has already happened, where the Christ Child has been born.
And it’s important to note that the magi needed the help of scripture in order to determine the exact place of the birth. Reading the signs of nature was not enough. And who of all people helped lead them to the Christ? Herod. Sometimes guidance comes from the most unlikeliest of places.
So while nature can be a source of God’s revelation, we need something more than nature. We need the witness of God’s people through scripture, as well as an openness to what God can say through the most unlikely people and events. Just be very careful of reading everything as a sign from God. Sometimes things just happen.
Dreams
In addition to astrology we also find in this story an allusion to dreams as a way of listening to God.
Former Crescent Hiller and my seminary theology professor, Frank Tupper, has done some important work on the role of dreams in this particular passage. [1] He shows how every dream in Matthew presupposes human conversations. And these conversations provide information that help them understand the dreams they receive.
For example, if we go back to chapter one of Matthew where the story is told of Jesus’ conception, before Joseph’s first dream about Mary that she was carrying the Messiah, the dream did not appear out of nowhere. He and Mary had no doubt discussed her pregnancy and how she said it happened. In his dream, the angel only confirmed what Mary had said.
The second dream of Joseph being warned to flee from Herod to Egypt presupposes a conversation with the magi. Think about it: Did not the magi tell Joseph that they had come from Herod and that Herod wanted to know where the Child was so he could “come and worship”? Knowing Herod’s jealous reputation, Joseph knew he would try and kill Jesus. So his second dream was a confirmation of what he knew about Herod and what he had learned from the magi.
And then the dream of the magi warning them to go home by another way, isn’t it fair to suppose that Joseph told them of Herod’s reputation as a murderer who would do anything to protect his throne?
And then there was Joseph’s dream telling him it was safe to return home. Down in Egypt Joseph got word that Herod had died. It’s probably not surprising he heard the news. Egypt was famous as a place of refuge for refugees from Judah. The word would have traveled fast. Again the dream has its context in human conversation.
So he left Egypt with Mary and Jesus to return home. But on the way he had another dream. He had learned previously to his own dismay and fear that Herod’s worst son, Archelaeus, would be ruler over Judea. So another dream came in connection with that conversation instructing him not to stop in Judea but go on to Galilee to live. And so they did.
So you see, the dreams did not originate out of the blue. Just as most of our dreams do not originate out of the blue. They almost always have a connection to what is going on in our lives. Dreams are where our conscious and unconscious minds speak and where God’s Spirit can speak to our unguarded minds and hearts.
But just as we must be careful about reading signs of nature alone as God’s direction, so we must be careful about interpreting our dreams alone as God speaking. This story tells us we need more. We need to pay attention in our conversations with others and we need to listen for God’s voice through scripture.
How Do We Know God is Leading?
God can speak through anything and anyone. Our question is often: How do we know it is God speaking and leading? When there are “signs, signs, everywhere signs” in nature, in conversation, and in circumstance, how do we know the signs are from God and not coincidence? And when our dreams are connected to what is going on in our lives, can we trust them as hints from God?
1. I would say, first of all, there is always the need for prayerful discernment. It is during the times of searching for God’s direction that we discover the importance of the church, of a faith community, a gathering of wise friends and fellow pilgrims, that we can talk to and pray with and together seek to discern where God is leading.
Sometimes, as we are seeking the right thing to do, events and circumstances on our path seem to appear as a red light before us. At other times events and circumstances appear as a green light. Stop here, go there. Doors open, doors close. Sometimes it may be God opening and closing doors. Sometimes it may be the results of choices we’ve made or choices others have made. We do not fully understand, but we go on in trust. So we need discernment.
2. Sometimes it is a synchronicity of events that cause us to see God’s hand. When I think of our congregation and the Karen who are a part of us now - how we “just happened” to take a trip to Thailand in 2001 and 2004 and were diverted from one mission to another where we encountered the Karen people; and how in the summer of 2006 it “just happened” that Steve and Annette are being commissioned as CBF field personnel, and how after almost being sent to the other side of the world, they were assigned to stay here and work with refugees and immigrants; and how it “just happened” that a few months later almost 500 Karen refugees arrive in Louisville; and how it “just happened” that through a visitor to our church the Karen people found us!
When I tell that story I often preface it by saying, “I’ve got something to tell you that just might make you believe in God.” And people are often amazed when they hear about it. Sometimes events come together in such a way it is hard not to see God’s hand.
3. A third thing I would say is that the search for God’s direction requires the desire to follow God’s leading wherever it may take us.
Like the magi, our goal as disciples is the worship and adoration of Christ, which we do by following wherever he leads. Like the magi, we may be led to travel by another way. And we must be willing to follow God’s leading.
Thomas Merton revealed that he was often unsure about the journey, and could not see clearly the way ahead, and did not know for certain where the journey would end or even who he himself was. Listen to his prayer, or follow along with me as I read it from the cover of our bulletin.
O Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going,
I do not see the road ahead of me,
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and that fact that I think
I am following Your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe
that the desire to please You
does in fact please You.
And I hope I have that desire
in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything
apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
You will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust You always
though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear,
for You are ever with me,
and You will never leave me
to make my journey alone. [2]
When Merton wrote these words he had lived through seventeen years of monastic discipline and contemplative prayer as a Cistercian monk. It is encouraging to know that if a person such as Merton could be confused or insecure, there is little reason to blame ourselves for our own perplexity.
And I believe he is right: in the midst of our uncertainty, our desire to please God and the commitment not to do anything apart from that desire does in fact please God. And no matter how unsettling the journey may be at times, we are never alone. God will not permit us to be lost.
4. Finally, I would say that along with discernment and the synchronicity of events and the desire to please God in the search for God’s direction, there is the discipline required to pay attention to everything. Not read in to everything, but to pay attention to everything, great and small.
God calls and speaks in mysterious ways. We have to pay attention to our lives and let God lead one day at a time, one step at a time. Anne Lamott’s pastor shared with her congregation one Sunday how she receives direction from God in prayer. She said that when she prays for direction, one spot of illumination seems to always appear just beyond her feet, a circle of light into which she can step. [3]
That’s the life of faith, is it not? We’re never given the vision to see too far down the road. It’s always one step at a time. And the good news is that we don’t have to travel the road alone. There are others to help us along the way. And there is the presence of Emmanuel, God with us, to guide us on the journey.
I conclude with these beautiful words from Frederick Buechner. In his memoir Now and Then he writes: I discovered that if you really keep your eye peeled to it and your ears open, if you really pay attention to it, even a limited and limiting life can open up onto extraordinary vistas. Taking your children to school and kissing your spouse good-bye. Eating lunch with a friend. Trying to do a decent day’s work. Hearing the rain patter against the window. There is no event so commonplace but that God is present within it, always hidden, always leaving you room to recognize God or not, but all the more fascinating because of that, all the more compelling and haunting . . . [So] listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. [4]
And so I ask you: What has God been trying to say to you recently, or maybe for years, but you’ve never taken the time to really listen, or you’ve ignored what you know God has been trying to say? Would you listen now for God’s direction in the silence?
________________________
1. E. Frank Tupper, A Scandalous Providence, Mercer University Press, 1995 87-112
2. Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1958, 79
3. Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies, Pantheon, 1999, 84
4. Frederick Buechner, Now and Then, Harper & Row, 1983, pp. 92, 87
select sermon and respond as blog
feed back to Greg
return to Sermon Index
CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
We would like to hear from you.
Return to oldsite Home page
Return to newsite Home page