Well, today is the first Sunday of 2026, and it kind of feels like I always start out the first Sunday of a new year by talking about New Year's resolutions. And there's a good reason for that. According to the Pew Research Center, about one out of every three Americans makes a New Year's resolution each year. So that means if you look at the person who is sitting to your left and the person who is sitting to your right, that one of you probably made some sort of resolution.
So I like to talk about these resolutions to start the new year because a lot of people make them. But while I'm busy talking about the different kinds of resolutions that we tend to make, things like trying to exercise more or eat healthier, things like trying to spend less time scrolling on your phone and maybe reading a little bit more, or things like trying to save up a little bit of money or spend a little less money this year, I don't always take the time to talk about something else important that happens the first Sunday of a new year. You see, the first Sunday of the new year isn't just a chance for us to take a step back and take stock of our lives and to think about how we want our lives to be different this time next year. Now, the first Sunday of a new year is also the beginning of an important season in the life of the church, and that's the season of epiphany.
So what is epiphany? Well, when most of us hear that word, we think about someone who is having or has had an epiphany. So we think about someone who's having a sudden realization, a light bulb moment, a time where something just clicks, and they're able to see or understand something in a new way or a way they never have before. And that's kind of what the season of epiphany is for the church.
In the season of epiphany, we have the chance to have a deeper revelation, a deeper realization about who God is, because epiphany always comes after Christmas. At Christmas, we are reminded every year that God became human when Jesus was born. But in epiphany, we remember that Jesus doesn't save that baby in a manger. No, he grows up, and his life, his time on this earth, shows us the very nature of God, who God is and what matters most to God.
That's why Jesus refers to himself in the Gospel of John as the light of the world. So the season of epiphany is a time when the light of Jesus shines to help us better see and better understand who God is. So this year, instead of starting out the new year by talking about New Year's resolution, I thought we'd start out by rediscovering the season of epiphany together. And there's no better way to start the season than by taking a closer look at the story that churches all across the world look at the first Sunday of the new year every year, and have been for as long as there has been a season of epiphany.
And that's about 1,600 years the church has been celebrating the season of epiphany, in case you were wondering. But this story that churches around the world will be looking at today is found in Matthew chapter 2. So if you've got a Bible post by your Bible app on your phone, I'd encourage you to open it to Matthew chapter 2. And as you're finding it, let me just remind you that the book of Matthew is one of four biographies of Jesus that we have in the New Testament.
You've got Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And if you're wanting to learn more about who Jesus is and what Jesus reveals to us about who God is, there's no better place to look than in one of these biographies of Jesus. So today we're going to take a closer look at a story from the book of Matthew. And in the book of Matthew, you can read about Jesus' birth and his baptism.
You can read about Jesus' ministry and the miracles that he performed. You can read about Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection. But today we're going to be taking a closer look at a story that happens not too long after Jesus is born. Let's take a look at Matthew chapter 2 together.
We're going to start reading in verse 1. Here's what Matthew writes. So after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, in the territory of Judea, during the rule of King Herod, Magi came from the east to Jerusalem. They asked, where is the newborn king of the Jews?
We've seen his star in the east, and we've come to honor him. So obviously, today we're going to be talking about the story of the wise men. And I think that pretty well all of us feel like we've got a pretty good grasp on the story of the wise men because we've been putting out their little figurines on our nativity sets for our entire lives. So when we think about the wise men, we think about them wearing their fancy robes and having their shiny crowns on their heads and carrying their boxes that are filled with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
And we think about them sitting inside of the stable, beside the shepherds, with their sheep, and right next to the manger that Jesus is fast asleep in. So most of us can't really picture. Imagine putting out a nativity scene that doesn't have the wise men in it. But even though we can't imagine putting out a nativity scene that the wise men aren't in, they don't really belong there.
And there's a few different reasons why the wise men don't belong in our nativity scenes. And the first reason why the wise men don't belong in our nativity scenes is because the wise men don't show up in the story when Jesus is still wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. No, Matthew tells us that they come and they arrive at the house that Jesus is staying in. So basically every biblical scholar out there will tell you that the wise men don't arrive in the story until Jesus is at least a toddler.
And that's the reason why many of us have learned that the wise men don't belong in our nativity sets. But there's actually a bigger and a more important reason why the wise men don't belong in the story. But it's something that we usually miss. You see, for the first people that Matthew was writing this book for, the first people who have read or heard the story, when they heard the story of the wise men, their initial thoughts wouldn't have been about the chronology of the story.
They wouldn't have been wondering if the wise men showed up at the same time the shepherds were over to visit with Jesus. No, when Matthew's first audience heard the story about the wise men coming to visit Jesus, their initial reaction would have been to ask, what are those people doing in this story? Because even though most of us couldn't imagine a nativity scene without the wise men in it, for Matthew's original audience, the wise men would have been about the last people that they ever would have expected to show up on Jesus' doorsteps. And that's because the wise men weren't just wise men.
They weren't just a bunch of smart people who wanted to come and visit Jesus. No. The wise men were actually part of a priestly class from ancient Persia, known as the Magi. And even though the Magi were priests, they didn't practice the same religion as the people of Israel.
So the Magi had their own scriptures. They had their own spiritual practices. They had their own way of believing how the divine works in our world. And they actually did things that the people of Israel were expressly forbidden to do in the Law of Moses.
Like the thing that the wise men were best known for, aside from visiting Jesus after he was born. Aside from visiting Jesus after he was born, the thing the wise men were best known for was their practice of astrology. Which means that they studied the sky because they believed that what was happening in the skies, they charted out the stars and paths of the planets, thought that what was happening in the skies would show us what would happen on this earth. And all of that may be kind of interesting to us, but it would have been a really big problem for Matthew's original audience.
Because when they heard the story of the wise men, they weren't thinking about these exotic travelers who came from far off places. No, they were thinking about Israel's history with the place the Magi came from, the Persian Empire. They were remembering the fact that the Persian Empire once ruled over the people of Israel. Because Persia had control over Israel for about 200 years.
And even though the Persian Empire was nowhere near as harsh as some of the other empires that came before and after them, they were still a foreign power. They still worshipped different gods. They behaved in different ways. They understood the world differently than the people of Israel did.
So when Matthew's original audience heard him telling the story about the Magi coming to visit Jesus, they would have immediately thought about Israel's long and complicated history with the place the Magi came from. They would have remembered that time when their ancestors were ruled over by the Persians, and when they were surrounded by their foreign gods. So if you were a first century Jewish listener who heard this story, where Matthew tells us that the first people who come to visit Jesus are these astronomers, astrologers from Persia, your first thought would have been, that's a cool story. Or, hey, I know what we need to do.
We should carve out some little figurines of these guys and create a whole biorama about Jesus' birthday. No, your first thought would have been, what are those people doing in this story? Because they don't belong here. The Magi, they're not rabbis.
The Magi aren't priests who are serving in the temple in Jerusalem. The Magi aren't Jewish religious scholars. The Magi aren't even Jew-ish. The Magi are foreign priests who worship a different god and who do things that the people of Israel are not allowed to do at all.
So Magi are outsiders. And they're not just outsiders in the sense that they come from a place that is far away from Israel and that they have to travel for months, if not years, traversing field and fountain, moor and mountain, following on their star to meet Jesus. Now, the Magi are outsiders ethnically. They're outsiders religiously.
They're outsiders geographically. They're outsiders in just about any way that someone could be an outsider in the story. But even though the Magi were outsiders, God still chose them. Even though the Magi were outsiders, God still chose them.
In the book of Matthew, the Magi are the very first people who come and visit Jesus after Jesus is born. And that's not all. Not only are the Magi the first people who come and visit Jesus after Jesus is born, they're the first people in the book of Matthew who recognize who Jesus is. And they're the first people who bow down and worship Jesus.
You heard me right. The first people in the book of Matthew who worship Jesus are foreign priests who worship a different God than the people of Israel worship. That's not just a surprising revelation to have when you listen to the story. That's flat out scandalous.
But it's also not the end of the story. So let's take another look at Matthew chapter 2 and let's see what else happens in the story next. This time we're going to start reading in Matthew chapter 2 verse 3 where Matthew writes this. Matthew writes, So in these verses we're introduced to King Herod, to the chief priests, to the legal experts.
And we see how they react when they hear that there is a newborn king of the Jews. And I know that we talked a little bit about Herod last month during our Christmas series. But let me just remind you about who Herod and the chief priests and legal experts are. So King Herod is the king of the Jews.
The chief priests would have been the Jewish religious leaders who were serving in the temple in Israel. And the legal experts would have been people who devoted their entire lives to studying the law of Moses and the prophets. So King Herod, the chief priests, and the religious experts, the legal experts, they would have been the ultimate insiders in the story. These should have been Herod and the chief priests and the legal experts.
They should have been the first people who showed up when they found out that there was a newborn king of the Jews. Because they had been waiting their entire lives for the Messiah to come. They knew the prophecies about the Messiah. That's why when the Magi asked where the newborn king of the Jews is supposed to be born, the chief priests and the religious leaders, they don't hesitate to tell them they're supposed to be found in Bethlehem.
Because they had those verses in Micah chapter 5 that we just read committed to memory. But even though King Herod, even though the chief priests, even though the religious leaders, the legal experts, would have known all of the prophecies about the Messiah, they weren't the ones who saw the star. Even though King Herod and the chief priests and the legal experts would have only been about six miles away from Bethlehem when Jesus was born, they weren't the ones who were invited to make the journey to visit Jesus first. So this story shows us that the insiders were left out while the outsiders were welcomed in.
The story of the Wiseman shows us that the insiders are left out while the outsiders are the ones who were welcomed in. And remember what I told you at the beginning of the sermon. At the beginning of the sermon, I told you that we are now in a season called Epiphany. A time where the very nature of who God is and what matters to God is revealed to us through the life of Jesus, who is God-made human.
This is the first story in the book of Matthew that takes place after Jesus is born. The very first story, after Jesus is born, reveals to us how God feels about people we consider to be outsiders. But even though we've been telling this story for 2,000 years, we still haven't got the message. You see, right now, all across America, there is a growing movement that is happening in churches all across our country that is absolutely obsessed with who is in and who is out when it comes to the kingdom of God.
And even though this is a growing movement in America right now, it's actually been around for a very long time. Harry Ambrose Fosdick actually once said about this growing movement a century ago, he called it the most dangerous rival of Christian principles on earth. And when you listen to people who are part of this movement, you're going to hear them talk about things like protecting our faith, defending our church, saving our nation from the people they consider to be outsiders. So for people who are part of this movement, they see outsiders as threats to our faith.
Instead of seeing outsiders the way that God sees them, it's people that God welcomed into his story and invited to be the first to meet Jesus. And it's not even hard to look at this group but to realize who the people are that they consider to be outsiders. I've heard pastors who are part of this movement who have called undocumented immigrants in our country things like evildoers and swarms of locusts. There's one prominent pastor who's part of this movement who's even appeared on national news who has said that a woman's only purpose is to stay home and to have babies.
And there are far too many people who are part of this movement who have called for violence against and even the murder of members of the LGBTQ plus community. And like I said, this isn't just a fringe movement that's happening in a few churches here or there. This is a movement that is happening in churches all across the country right now. So I want to make something as abundantly clear to you as I possibly can right now, so make sure you're listening to me.
Anytime that we treat anyone like they are less than human, we are wrong. Period. Anytime that we treat anyone like they are less than human, we are wrong. Because the people that folks who are part of this growing movement inside the church in America right now treat like they are less than human because of their race, because of their nationality, because of their gender, because of their sexuality, all of those people are still children of God.
All of those people are still created by God. Jesus came for all of those people the same way that Jesus came for the Magi, the same way that Jesus came for Herod and the chief priests and the legal experts, the same way that Jesus came for us. And this isn't just something that is revealed to us in the story of the Magi. This is something that is revealed to us over and over again when we read Scripture.
Just stop and think about it for just a second. Let's talk about Israel's greatest king. Israel's greatest king is King David. But who was David before he became king of Israel?
Was David an insider before he became the king of Israel? Was he part of the royal lineage? Was he an important or from a prominent and rich, wealthy family or anything along those lines? David was a shepherd before he became the king of Israel.
Or what about David's great-grandmother? You remember who David's great-grandmother is? David's great-grandmother is Ruth. There's a whole book about her in the Bible.
And Ruth was a Moabite, which means that she was not from Israel. She was part of a different people from a different nation that the people of Israel hated. Yet God chose her to be King David's great-grandmother. And she's one of five women who appear in Jesus' genealogy in the book of Matthew.
What about Moses? Moses, of course, famously led the people of Israel out of their slavery in Egypt. But Moses was also a murderer who once had to flee from Egypt for his life. Or what about the Samaritan woman that Jesus meets and ministers to when she's sitting by a well in the middle of the day?
That Samaritan woman had been married five times before Jesus met her. And she was currently living with someone that was not her husband. Or what about the people that Jesus called to be his first disciples? Did Jesus call the insiders to be his disciples?
Were his disciples, priests, legal experts, religious scholars? No. They were fishermen, tax collectors, and even a zealot. We see this over and over again when we pay attention as we're reading the Bible.
Because this is who God is. This is what God does. Because there are no outsiders in God's kingdom. There are no outsiders in God's kingdom.
But we in the church keep treating people like they're outsiders. Even though God has shown us that's not the way that God feels about people. And this means that if we, as the church, and we as individuals, are really going to follow Jesus, we're going to have to change. We're going to have to stop drawing our little circles and telling some people that they are in and other people that they're out.
Because that's not what God does. That's not who God is. And if we are going to follow Jesus, we can't do those things either. But it starts by asking ourselves some hard questions.
And being honest with ourselves about the answers to those questions. So that's what I want to challenge you to do this week as we enter into this new year. I want you to ask yourself some hard questions. And I want you to be honest with yourself about your answers to those questions.
So the first question I want you to ask yourself this week is who do you consider to be an outsider? Who do you consider to be an outsider? Someone who is out of bounds. Somebody who is beyond God's ability to love and value.
Second question I want you to ask yourself is why do you think that that person or those people should be left out? And the third question I want you to ask yourself is what are you going to do about it? Who do you consider to be outsiders? Why do you think they should be left out?
And what are you going to do about it? Don't stop there. Because just knowing these things isn't enough. Agreeing with me that there are no outsiders in God's kingdom isn't enough.
We have to do something about it. We have to be willing to examine ourselves. To be honest with ourselves about where our prejudices lie. And to be willing to come to God.
And ask God to change us. So that we stop seeing other people as outsiders. We start seeing them as children of God. That God welcomes into his story.
Because there are no outsiders in God's kingdom. So we need to stop creating them in ours. Let's pray together. God as we come to you in this time of prayer.
You know that there are churches all across our country right now. Who are solely focused on who's in and who's out when it comes to your kingdom. There are people who want to keep drawing the circles about who it is that you welcome into your story. But God we see not only in the story of the wise men.
But in so many other stories. That there is no circle. That you are willing to welcome anyone into your story. So God help us to be willing to do the same thing.
Let's stop writing people off because of their race. Because of their nationality. Because of their gender. Because of their sexuality.
Because of whatever other categories we want to throw upon people. Because all of these people are your children. All of these people are created in your image. And Jesus came for all of us.
So God help us to do a better job. Of looking beyond who's on the inside and who's on the outside. Because in your kingdom there are no outsiders. So we shouldn't treat people like they're outsiders in our world either.
We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.