Houses of Worship

Isaiah 60:1-6, Matthew 2:1-12

January 4, 2009

Rochelle A. Stackhouse

The first place they worshipped was out in the open, perhaps on a hillside somewhere in Persia, the night they first saw the star. A sky full of light, the way we can only see it now if we go far from a city, full of light and quiet, where suddenly a brighter, lighter-in-every-way star flew over them and called. The first time they worshipped it was with wonder and confusion, and they left that time of worship committed to following the one who called them wherever they were called.

In the middle of nowhere in southeastern Turkey, in the village of Ha, they say that the second time the Magi worshipped was around a fire, when the twelve magi who started the journey prayed for wisdom to know who among them had the strength to complete it. Three were chosen that night, and the others spent the next weeks in constant prayer for them, waiting in the village.

The three chosen Magi thought that the third time they would worship would be in a great palace or Temple in Jerusalem, but when they got there, they discovered that fine buildings and jeweled priests do not always a place of worship make. So they traveled on, and found their next place of worship. A house, on a side street in a small village called Bethlehem. The room barely contained them all, the mother and child and these three visitors with their gifts. No chairs were there to seat them, no fine food and wine was brought. None were needed. They worshipped there, kneeling, we are told, and giving gifts to honor the one they believed would change everything, who had already changed them.

The next time they worshipped, or so the story is told in the village of Ha, they had rejoined their 9 companions. Around a fire, they told their story, and as the flames arose, their prayers summoned a vision of Jesus grown into a teacher and healer, then crucified and risen. They leapt to their feet, the story goes, and built there a crude stone altar on which they laid not gold or silver, but the promise that they would spend their lives serving the God who would come to earth out of such love, being themselves bearers of the light of the star, of the Christ. Around that altar, before they returned to Persia, they built a small room, about the size of the one in Bethlehem.

I have worshipped in many wondrous places in this world. I’ve been in cathedrals in France and England and El Salvador, and in fine churches in Boston, Washington and New York where the clergy have rich vestments and the choirs are magnificent. I’ve been in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, both beautiful and full of the spirits of the pilgrims of centuries who have worshipped there. I’ve worshipped in churches large and small all over the United States, where the music and décor and worship style were as varied as the amazing people of this amazing and diverse nation. In every place, I have encountered the Spirit of God in some way, in every place there has been at least a glimmer of the light of that star those Magi saw, the light of the one who was born on Christmas.

I have also worshipped in that little room with the crude stone altar that the Syrian Orthodox monks of Ha say was built by the Magi. There is nothing in the room except for the altar, three large rough-hewn stones that look like smaller versions of the stones of Stonehenge. In its simplicity, our small group felt again the power of that Magi-vision. We felt again how important it was for us to bear the light of the star, the light of the Christ, with us as we went to do the work to which worship called us in the world. We absorbed anew the truth that we ourselves were houses of worship, carrying with us the Spirit of God, as proclaimed in our baptisms, being the bodies of Christ for the world.

Sometimes it helps to get out of your usual place of worship, out of your comfort zone, in order to experience anew what a house of worship is. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with the place we usually worship, not at all. Jesus himself worshipped for many years in the synagogue at Nazareth, we are told, being nurtured there for his worshipful work in the world. But sometimes we are given the opportunity to shake things up a little bit, and to discover that the Word became flesh and did not build a building among us, but rather, as the Greek words of the first chapter of John say, the Word became flesh and “pitched a tent” among us. For God is always on the move.

The Magi, who never met the adult Jesus, carried with them from Bethlehem, maybe from Ha, a vision of healing and hope, of light and life and peace. Those of us who have been baptized in the name of the one they met as a child carry within us more than a vision. We carry a presence wherever we go. That’s what we proclaim when we eat and drink at this table, that the body of Christ joins with our bodies, and our worship therefore continues in our lives in the world. Here in the Sterling Room, or back in the Sanctuary when it is newly beautified to the glory of God, or next Sunday for the Confirmands and Geoff and I in a camp living room in northern Connecticut, or wherever you go, remember that the light of the star, the light of Christ, dwells in you, and that all you do remembering Christ anywhere is worship. Remember the Magi, and commit yourself today as they did to following the one who calls you, wherever you are called. Amen.