O God of our epiphanies, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.

Today we are observing the Feast of the Epiphany, the beginning of our churchy season of celebrating manifestations, realizations, indications, and expressions of the Holy One in our midst. We start with the story of the magi.  If you’re new to Emmanuel Church, or you’re visiting, buckle up, because the way we engage Holy Scripture here can be a bumpy ride. Here’s what I mean. The word magi (or magoi in Greek) never meant wise, and never meant exclusively men. The word refers to Persian astrologers or sorcerers or magicians, a word that comes from the term magoi.  Furthermore, there’s no mention of how many there were. They brought three gifts, but there’s no telling how many of them it took to pool their resources to offer gold, frankincense and myrrh. Why not think of them as many who included women?

It’s possible that early hearers of Matthew’s Gospel regarded magi as foolish or even evil.[1] It’s possible the audience was surprised, or even scandalized that the people like magi recognized the child Jesus as worthy of the extravagant gifts they brought. (Think magicians from Atlantic City, New Jersey.) Clearly Herod is the villain in this story, and not the suspicious Persians. The Gospel of Matthew isn’t at all concerned with details of Jesus’ birth – it just simply states that a child was born to Mary and Joseph named the child Jesus. Matthew’s story goes that the magi found the child (not an infant) with his mother in a house (not a stable) in Bethlehem. After receiving the gifts from the magi, Joseph was warned in a dream to flee to Egypt to protect his family. According to Matthew, the holy family became political refugees until after Herod the Great’s death.

This is a story that repeats over and over in our holy scripture and in our history since then: tyrants and victims. These are powerful stories of domination, greed, violence, fear, withdrawal or exile, but there is a story that is even more powerful and enduring: “the story of peace, and the hero is love.” That’s a line from a new children’s book, written by theologians Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins.  It’s illustrated like a book for young children, but, like any good children’s book, it’s a powerful story for adults. It’s called, Cory and the Seventh Story.[2]

Cory is the name of a young raccoon who lives in a village, along a stream, near a forest. Cory and Cory’s best friend, Owl, encounter Fox and Badger fighting over something shiny.  Badger is a bully who takes whatever he wants from others. Resentment grows among the other animals in the village, and they overthrow Badger, but once in power, they also use violence to get what they want.  Some animals decide to run away and build a new village behind a big wall, but they soon find that although they’ve run away, they’ve brought their old stories of violence with them and they began acting them out. Back in the old village, some of the animals have decided that those without fur or feathers are going to be banished, and everyone starts wearing the same grey coats to cover up their differences. Things go from bad to worse when Badger and Fox reconcile in order to make a shiny object factory that destroys the environment and makes everyone poorer because of how many shiny objects they purchase.

One day a wise horse comes into the old village and shares her observations in poetry.  Here’s what she recites to the villagers:

“Six old stories, wherever I go, the same six stories are running the show:

The story of power to dominate, the story of striking back with fury and hate,

The story of running to find a safe place,

Or pointing at others to shame and disgrace,

Or being stuck in self-pity for the pain we’ve been through,

Or of me having more shiny objects than you.

These same six old stories steal freedom and laughter,

So nobody lives happily ever after. But…

There’s a new Seventh Story to live by, my friends,

A new Seventh Story without “us against them” –

Of working for fairness in all that we do,

Of refusing to strike back when others strike you

Of facing our problems and not running to hide,

Of not letting differences make us divide,

Of turning our pain into compassion for others,

Of each not wanting more than another[3]

The new Seventh Story that I’m speaking of

Is the story of peace, and the hero is love.

Most of the animals in the village loved this seventh story, that is, except for Badger, Fox, Weasel and Skunk.  They growled and snarled and ran the wise horse out of town, but as she walked away, “in her gentle but strong voice, she said: ‘drive the poet away, but this story will stay. Long after I’m gone, the story lives on.’”

“Nobody knows for sure what happened to [the wise] horse after that…Since that day, Badger and Fox have been getting richer and richer, selling shiny objects.  The sky is getting smoky and the stream is getting murky because of the shiny object factory. Old Skunk still says terrible things about neighbors without fur or feather. Many feel life is very, very unfair. But …the Seventh Story is still alive in many hearts…late in the day as the sun is setting, you can find more and more animals walking out of the Old Village to the stream to talk with Cory and Owl about the Seventh Story.  Fox even joins them sometimes. They leave their shiny objects home. They take off their baggy gray coats and let their beautiful differences show. They recite the horse’s poem and they all bring food and share a meal. …Cory says “We can all choose to be a part of a healing story: the story of love. This story can set us free. This story can lead to a happy ending for everyone….Then Cory, so full of love, looks each one in the eye and asks three simple questions.  “Which stories are you living by lately? How are they working out for you? How can we live the Seventh Story together?”

The Seventh Story is open-hearted, reconciling, respectful. It is a story of peace and the hero is love. It’s a true story, just like the other six stories are true; just like the story of Herod and the magi and the other stories in Matthew’s Gospel are true.  I don’t know if they actually happened, but just because it didn’t happen doesn’t mean it is not true.

I wonder, with Cory, which stories we are living by lately, and how they are working out for us? In my role at Emmanuel, when I listen to your stories, I more often hear stories of fear and withdrawal and exile than I hear confessions of domination, or greed or violence, but I’m not naïve enough to think that those stories don’t exist too.  I know they do, because they all exist within my own experience – I have acted out each of those stories at one point or another in my life.

How can we live the Seventh Story together, because I don’t actually believe that any of us can live it alone.  How can we continue to encourage one another? How can we help one another notice and experience the manifestations, realizations, indications and expressions of the Holy One in our midst? And I don’t mean luck finding a parking place in the Back Bay.  I mean those moments when we notice something so beautiful that it takes our breath away and we tell or show someone else. I mean those moments when an experience moves us to open our treasure chests, our hearts and our minds[4] and give thanks in ways that are deeply meaningful.  This Epiphany, let us follow the lead of the magi, pool our resources to offer the gifts of our hearts and minds, live the Seventh Story together, so that this Epiphany, we too will go home by another road.

1. David Bentley Hart, The New Testament (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), p. 2. and Aaron M. Gale, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012) p. 5.
2. Brian McLaren and Gareth Higgins, Cory & the Seventh Story (2018), see www.seventhstory.com
3. I edited this line to remove the binary gender construct.
4. I learned that in Qur’anic Arabic, one word means both heart and intellect – they are not separate ideas.