Moonwalking Grace

Matthew 2:1-12

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, magi from the east came to Jerusalem, asking, “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.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him, and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it has been written by the prophet:

‘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.’”

Then Herod secretly called for the magi and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. Then 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.” When 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. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On 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. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.

Sermon

In London, there are a million ways to get around. There are rail networks, busses, taxis, trams, river services, and on and on. If you’re not happy with any of those options, and you don’t want to drive your own car, there’s yet another option: ride a bike. Like New York City, there are bike rentals all over, and it’s not uncommon to see cyclists riding around.

In 2012, though, the government noticed a problem: cyclists were getting hit far too often. They decided to try and fix the problem in part by running television ads.

One of their most famous ads begins with an announcer saying, “This is an awareness test.” The scene opens with eight basketball players, half in white jerseys, half in black ones. The announcer asks, “how many passes does the team in white make?” A second later, a chaotic scene unfolds. People are ducking under others, the basketball is being passed up and down, left and right, while the black jerseys weave in and out passing their own ball.

After a short amount of time, the announcer pauses. “The answer is thirteen.”

“But… did you see the moonwalking bear?”

The video rewinds, and sure enough, there in the middle of this scene—dab-smack in the middle of the scene—a man in a head-to-toe bear costume was moonwalking. It wasn’t discrete… it was right before your eyes.

So the scene cuts to a final title card. “It’s easy to miss something you’re not looking for. Look out for cyclists.”

In our finitude as human beings, we can be incredibly perceptive. We can tune into nuances and subtleties, or watch complex processes play out. And yet, even in our perceptivity, we can miss what’s in front of our noses.

If we enter into the biblical text, watching today’s scene unfold, we realize that this same limitation is playing out. If we were first-century audiences, we might be flabbergasted at who is missing the very point.

Take the chief priests and scribes for example. These magi show up, asking where the Messiah is, they give the right answer, and yet, even after saying the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, they fail to realize that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem. It’s absolutely gobsmacking — these educated, upper-crust, religiously-devout people are missing the flashing red lights and alarm bells. The Messiah was born! You know where he is. You know more than anybody else, and yet you’re the last to realize it. Irony doesn’t begin to describe it.

These chief priests and scribes have studied and memorized the road map given to them in the Hebrew scriptures. They know where to turn left and right, where to exit the highway, and how much gas they’ll need. But they miss it. And this is what intensifies the irony even more: the people who actually find their way to Jesus didn’t have much to go on.

These magi are from a far-off land. Their name hints at their true origins: these magi are practitioners of magic. They are Gentiles in every sense. And even still, they seem to take breadcrumbs strung throughout the universe, those little hints of Jesus in the stars, and follow them one after another like Hansel and Gretel. They don’t have a road map or step-by-step directions — if they did, they would be in Bethlehem, not Jerusalem. Unlike the scribes and chief priests, these magi are searching for the moonwalking bear, not the fine details of basketball.

What we see is that so often, the grace of God is right under our noses, but we’re too distracted to notice it. Sometimes God is moonwalking in the dead-center of our lives, and we miss it trying to count the number of basketball passes.

So we might want to be careful when we put the chief priests and scribes in our crosshairs; we might be taking aim at ourselves, too.

“What we see is that so often, the grace of God is right under our noses, but we’re too distracted to notice it. Sometimes God is moonwalking in the dead-center of our lives, and we miss it trying to count the number of basketball passes.”

In our adult formation class two weeks ago, we talked about hope in the middle of a hectic holiday season. There’s a sense that we can’t wait for Christmas to be over, because then all the expectations and financial burdens and exhaustion will be in our rearview mirror. As we’ve been planning young adult events, the biggest obstacle isn’t finding adults in their 20s — the obstacle is finding any time in our overstuffed schedules.

After we identified these stressors of the season, we then asked the question: “What’s the core hope that’s under these stressors?” One of those core hopes was our hope in a world characterized by rest. You know… a world where we can have long walks on Saturday morning with loved ones. Or a world where we have time to do nothing together. Or letting go of expectations for one another, and instead resting in a sense of acceptance and wholeness. 

I think that is some of the grace that’s right in front of our noses, but we might not recognize it.

God calls us to rest and renewal, and yet, we overschedule ourselves. We try to do everything and maximize our Christmas season. We place expectations on ourselves, or what it means to be a parent, or grandparent, or pastor, and in doing so, we miss the baby Jesus who is being born in our very midst.

The hard part of faith isn’t scrounging up grace — the hard part is recognizing grace when it’s right in front of our faces. The hard part is recognizing and accepting and receiving grace when it’s moonwalking across our lives.

God reminds us, day after day after day, scripture after scripture after scripture: everything is grace. God is surrounding us with love and grace and the presence of the Spirit in every single moment.

“The hard part of faith isn’t scrounging up grace — the hard part is recognizing grace when it’s right in front of our faces. The hard part is recognizing and accepting and receiving grace when it’s moonwalking across our lives.”

The best part is that we don’t have to check off a checklist, or sell everything we have, or meet some sort of spiritual measuring stick. All we have to do is pay attention.

When we set aside time to contemplate in silence, or reflect on our week, or read the scripture slowly, we start catching glimpses of grace. It’s in personal and corporate contemplation that we stop paying attention to the distractions, and start paying attention to the surprising movements and dances of our lives. And when we enter into solitude and silence—just like when we leave bustling cities and enter into the darkness of the night—we start seeing stars light up the universe. We start perceiving those stars pointing the way to grace, giving us breadcrumbs of hope and love and companionship, directing our hearts and minds to acknowledge that everything is grace.