INTRODUCTION WRITTEN BY MARLAYNA:
Today I am going to recite a story written by Edward Hays entitled “The Gift of the Magi.” It is a fictional account based on verse 12 of today’s scripture reading that tells us that the 3 wisemen or kings went home by another, “different” road. Hays’ story is a deep reflection on what going home by another, “different” road could have meant to the wisemen, and, by extension, could mean in our lives today.
I often tell or recite stories instead of preaching traditional sermons because our faith is based in story-telling. Jesus’ primary means of “preaching” was telling stories. Stories engage both our intellect and our emotions. They stick with us and work on us during the week. It is my hope that this story by Hays can move us to a deeper understanding and more faithful response to our Scripture reading. May the Spirit speak through these words.
“The Gift of the Magi” written by Edward Hays
Once upon a time three kings from the East made a star guided journey, carrying with them three gifts. Their gifts are perhaps the most famous in all history: gold, myrrh, and frankincense. After they had presented them to the mysterious infant king lying in the stable where the star had led them, they returned home by a different route. As the three kings traveled homeward, each carried a souvenir of his star-journey carefully hidden from the others.
When they stopped the first night on their way home, their attendants pitched the silk pavilions and made camp. As the crescent moon appeared in the west, they finished their supper and retired. Even the camel drivers were asleep and all was silent. King Balthasar, however sat alone in his tent, in the glow of a brass lamp, reflecting on the gift of gold he had given the God-King in Bethlehem. He smiled at himself for the need he had felt to take something, a small token of remembrance, from that insignificant stable where the infant lay.
By the light of the lamp he opened a golden case and removed a single piece of yellow straw, saying aloud, “I came on this quest to seek a king, a real king, because I did not feel kingly. I have always doubted myself, my royalty. What makes me different from my camel drivers? Do I not also have the same needs for food and drink, for love and physical comfort as they? How is a king different, after all, from a carpenter or any commoner?”
He replaced the straw in its precious case and continued, “Back in Bethlehem, the father of that child was only a common peasant, a simple village craftsman; yet he was more regal than any king I have ever seen. And the child’s mother—was she not queenly in her simple dignity? What, I asked myself, is the source of this inner nobility that can change peasants into royalty?”
King Balthasar walked to the entrance of his tent, looking up at the night sky crowded with stars. “I saw the answer to my questions in the eyes of that infant. True nobility comes from an anointing of the heart, not of the head!” Quietly the king returned to his bed, and as he retired he thought to himself, “I am returning home by a different route and as a far different king. I rode to Bethlehem on my camel, high above the faceless sea of commoners, slaves and beggars, wondering about my kingship. I return home understanding that my camel drivers and every woman, man and child I saw along the way are royal persons deserving of my respect and honor. Indeed, that star was an omen of a new age. It has raised the curtain of history, not upon a revolution of slaves and servants overthrowing thrones; this is an evolution, as slaves and servants become equal to kings and queens!” As Balthasar blew out his oil lamp, he sighed, “Such an age of equality is almost beyond imagination.”
The three kings traveled on the next day, and the next night the three silk pavilions were raised and the camels bedded down as the noises of the caravan quieted. Everyone had retired, and the last embers of the campfire glowed orange in the darkness. King Melchior stood outside his pavilion, holding an oblong ivory box encrusted with rare jewels.
Looking upward, King Melchior spoke, as if to the sky. “I followed one of your wondrous lights, hoping to find the answer to the most ancient of all riddles the puzzle of life and death. My gift of myrrh was sign of my inner quest. Myrrh is the ointment used for burial, and gifts tell a great deal about the giver. Ah, yes, even kings die, no matter how great or powerful they are. Somewhere in this world, I thought, there must be a magic charm, a secret to escape death.”
He opened the ivory box, removing a single yellow straw. “I was ashamed,” he mused, “to tell the other two that I wanted to take a keepsake from that stable.” For a long time he stood silent, looking at the straw he held. “I remember once reading a passage from one of their prophets of long ago; his name was Isaiah, as I recall. He promised a king to these people, and when he comes ‘he will destroy death forever…and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes…’”
King Melchior held the hollow straw up to his eye, pointing it toward the most brilliant star in the night sky. “Death, I now see, is like this straw—merely a passageway from one life to another. And we slip through as easily as my breath passes through this straw.” The wise man held the straw up to his mouth, and, indeed, his breath passed through it.
On the third night, when they had made camp, after everyone else was asleep, King Caspar took his leather saddlebag from inside his tent and opened a side pouch. He removed a silver flask inscribed with intricate hieroglyphics. Standing at the entrance to his tent, he opened the flask, reverently placed it on the sand, and knelt before it. He made a profound bow and, after a few moments of silent adoration, he straightened but remained kneeling. Looking at the stars, he spoke: “I confess to you, I also took a souvenir from that stable. I came on this star-led adventure because I needed to find a God to believe in. My gift of incense, a traditional offering to the holy, was a telltale sign of my search for belief. Oh, I believed in some sort of impersonal divinity, but I could put no form or reason to it.”
In the stillness, the silk cloth of the pavilion rustled softly. “I, the great Caspar,” he spoke mockingly, “was the agnostic king. I came seeking a religious experience, some divine revelation. And my disappointment must have been the greatest as we entered that livestock stable. I was the last of the three to approach the infant to adore him. How un-godlike it was—the shabby stable, an infant lying in a bed of straw in a makeshift crib, his two peasant parents beside him. There were no heavenly lights, no divine thunder rumbled around us, no angelic music filled the stable. And my gift of incense in its silver chest seemed humorously out of place.”
“I remember it as if it were this very night. How slowly I came forward to kneel before the infant! It seemed cruel to refuse to do so, an embarrassment to my two fellow kings, so I simply pretended adoration. Then that tiny baby looked at me. Everything and everyone there was suddenly bathed in light. There was a brilliance in those small eyes greater than the star we had followed. That stable had become more awesome than any great temple I had ever visited; everything, even the straw on the floor was aflame with glory. That’s why I picked you up,” he said, removing a single piece of yellow straw from the flask in front of him.
Leaving the entrance to his tent, Caspar climbed to the top of a silent sand dune, and, looking up into the starry night, he raised his fragile straw to the heavens. “That child has come to end all religion and to make temples needless,” he said. “Religion, ironically often separates life from God. This child, I know, will someday bring together life and religion as one. Common and ordinary life will become sacred. There will be no need for temples.” His arm swept outward to encompass the entire night sky. He dropped the straw. “This will be the Great Temple!”
Out of the shadows stepped Balthasar and Melchior, and the three stood without speaking, surrounded by the silence of the stars. Finally, King Balthasar said, “Each of us is going home by a different way. Noble companions, we have ridden three days now from Bethlehem. Did we find what we were looking for? If so, how has our view of life changed?” For a long time the three kings stood silent. Then they began to speak, each in turn.
“I, Balthasar, have seen the beginning of a new age, the end of a time when only a select few are given reverence, treated as gods come to earth. I have seen the end to kings and queens as the anointed ones, for now every person will be seen as royal, unique and possessed of great dignity.”
“I, Melchior, have seen the death of death. Now I see only life in countless forms of transformation.”
“And I, Caspar, what have I seen? I have seen God, and now I see God everywhere!”
Rev. Dr. Marlayna Schmidt
Franklin Federated Church
Franklin, MA
(“Preached” previously by Rev. Marlayna on Epiphany Sunday in 2007 in Annisquam; 2012 in York; 2017 in Manchester, NH; 2018 in Manchester, MA.)