The Most Excellent Journey of the Magi
By this point in our relationship — yours and mine — I’ve probably long ceased to surprise you with my love for camels, and my absolute conviction of their profound theological symbolism. You’ll notice that our handsome humped friends have been on the move throughout Advent and now Christmastide, drawing nearer to the manger. There are even two more camels who have joined the caravan heading to Bethlehem — gifts from my friend Kathy Grieb, director of the Center for Anglican Communion Studies at Virginia Theological Seminary, just to help us all find the manger. Tomorrow — January 6 — is Epiphany, so our camels, and our magi, are at the threshold of the holy family’s sacred space, just reaching the manger.
I do love camels, with their improbable but uniquely appropriate construction and ungainly elegance. It’s today’s gospel from Matthew, describing the magi who came from the East following the star, that has prompted us over the millennia to think of camels. Luke’s gospel doesn’t mention camels at the manger. Matthew’s gospel doesn’t either, but we use our theological imaginations to look behind the text to find the camels hidden there. Camels are God’s own purpose-built sand cargo vehicles — uniquely suited to carry great burdens from exotic origins for long distances — over difficult terrain. For that reason, camels point to the magi, the focus and subject of today’s gospel.
Despite what we don’t know about the magi, we do know that they are super important. Matthew’s gospel tells us that the magi immediately capture the attention of everyone in Jerusalem — including and especially King Herod — as they show up, from only God knows where, asking about the king of the Jews. The magi are shrouded in the mystery of Matthew’s gospel’s spare detail. Who were they? Where did they come from? How many of them were there? Why did they come? What were they — Astrologers? Magicians? Royalty? Prophets? Were they Asian, African, Indo-European? Was their skin black, white, brown, pink, umber, or sepia? Did they follow any known faith? We don’t know any of these things. We don’t even know for sure that all of them — or even any of them — are men.
Who Are the Magi?
There’s a wonderful meme that goes around at Christmas on Facebook, about the wise women who show up at Jesus’ birth, bringing useful gifts. As the story goes, the wise women asked for directions (instead of following a star), and therefore arrived on time, helped deliver the baby, cleaned the stable, made a casserole and brought disposable diapers as gifts. As our family prepares for the birth of our granddaughter in Atlanta in early February, naturally, I’m focused on these practical things.
Tradition tells us that they were three kings, but we infer that number from the three named gifts — gold, frankincense and myrrh. Notice that the gospel actually says that the magi opened their treasure chests and gave Jesus gifts made of those three materials, so even the inference of three from the three named materials pulled from an unknown number of treasure chests “is not gospel,” as they say. We get to the magis’ royalty from the value of these extravagant gifts — only kings could afford them — and also from the way Herod immediately summons the magi to court, like they were old friends from King school or something. We actually know nothing about them but their name — magi. They could be any of us — or more aptly, any of us could be one of them: struggling — probably with the help of handsome, sturdy, sure-footed camels — long distances over rough terrain to join up with Jesus and show others the way.
I’ve known some magi in our time, and I’m sure you have too. I think especially today of one of my favorite professors at Yale Divinity School, Lamin Sanneh, who died unexpectedly— although with characteristically elegant and appropriate timing — on Epiphany in 2019, while I was living in Jerusalem. Professor Sanneh was descended from a long line of West African kings, and was raised Muslim in The Gambia but later converted to Roman Catholicism. His final book, Beyond Jihad, came out weeks before my class with him in the fall of 2017, and was the focal point of the course. Professor Sanneh pointed out the role that camels — the ships of the sand sea — played in transporting goods and ideas throughout the Sahara, shaping centers of learning, commerce, faith, and community. Through Professor Sanneh’s eyes, I saw that camels were humped, handsome, sure-footed, load-bearing metaphors for the distance and difficulty of our journey to faith, and the unique way each of us finds our own path as we walk along beside them. Lamin Sanneh, descended from West African kings, pointed the way to God.
Present Day Magi
President Jimmy Carter, gone on to God just last week, is a present day magi. President Carter’s deep faith guided his path as state senator and then governor of Georgia, 39th U.S. President, and afterward in easily the longest and most active post-presidential public service career in the nation’s history. In 1985, I had the enormous privilege of interviewing President Carter for the centennial history of King & Spalding, a then Atlanta-based law firm, now global, that gave rise to many of President Carter’s close advisors. President Carter could not have been more gracious to my young and incredibly inexperienced former self, even greeting me by name as I slipped in late to his guest lecture in my Law and Theology class after traversing the campus on foot after our interview to get there. I should’ve given you a ride over with the Secret Service, he grinned.
President Carter took his oath of office with his hand on a bible opened to Micah 6:8, and lived every day in accordance with its message: act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God, building houses for Habitat for Humanity, monitoring elections in new democracies, and striving for peace, justice and equity for all people. We all can be magi — visitors bearing gifts to other people’s homes — and we all can welcome guests, honoring the gifts they bring — even if the gift is just a different way of looking at the world.
Let’s renew a tradition of chalking our doorways, both at home and here at Emmanuel. You’ve done it before here in prior times — I can still see the chalk over the door. We’ll chalk in 20 + C + M + B + 25. That’s 2025, the digits of the new year, separated by crosses, and the letters C, M, and B. Some say CMB is for Christus Mansionem Benedicat meaning, Christ bless this home. My favorite tradition is that the initials C, M, and B stand for the traditional names of the magi — Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar. In any case, the chalk reminds us that Emmanuel is a home for the whole community — a home of refuge, love, and welcome, no matter where you’re from or where you are on your journey. We’ll chalk the door to the chapel at announcements, when we bless our January birthdays and anniversaries.
We’ll also bless the chalk we use, and the chalk we’ll take home to use on our own doors, as a blessing for our guests and a reminder to us when go out to share our blessings with others. The tradition of chalking the door reminds us of the Israelites marking their doors at the Passover. And in Deuteronomy, the Israelites are told to write God’s words on their hearts, their gates, and the doorposts of their houses, and to talk about them when they are at home. Many Jewish homes have a mezuzah, a small case affixed to the right outside doorpost that contains a scroll inscribed with the Deuteronomy passage. Both the mezuzah and the door chalking are signs to remind us of the opportunity the magi represent — to join up with God on our journeys, welcome travelers from afar, and show others the way. Amen