Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Today's text

Matthew 2:1-2

After Jesus had been born at Bethlehem in Judea during the reign of King Herod, suddenly some wise men came to Jerusalem from the east asking, “Where is the infant king of the Jews? We saw his star as it rose and have come to do him homage.”

Prayer

You come, wise men, to see the child, to hold him, to do homage. And what do you imagine that will do for you? What insight or illumination do you suppose will be yours?

Or do you expect nothing, seeking only to give your gifts and perform due deference to one whose kingship you likely will not live to see … and question?

No, you expect something. We all do. We expect to receive when we give. This is not selfish. It reflects our mutual neediness and dependence. I give and long for a smile, for mutual joy, for affirmation of the relationship that binds me with the one who receives.

A gift given in care and affection returns to us, or so we hope. And when it does, the world assumes an order where we know our place, a place of belonging.

And you, O wise men, what did you receive? You come to one you call ‘king,’ seeking to know and belong to this one, so far greater than you--and there to find your place. And to return home: knowing yourselves and the place for the first time.

This I seek, in this new year, to bear the gift of my life again and again to this Jesus, there to know myself and my place in the love that shines from the Holy Child through the corridors of all history.

Take me no where, my Lord, and grant me no success that would lead from this.

Pr. David L. Miller