Have you ever wondered whether you are too sophisticated and too well-informed – too scientific to be a Christian?

I mean, the Bible is this compilation of faith writings from two to three thousand years ago. Perhaps we wonder if it has any relevance. And when we read some of these Bible stories, too often it seems like we are expected to do mental gymnastics, as if we have to dumb-down to believe.

For example: How many of us have really experienced angels, except for the ones hanging here from the screen.

And what about these Magi following a star, as if it were a global positioning system device telling their Cadillac camels where to turn?

And what about those stories of Jesus healing and walking on water?

And then there’s God! What are we talking about there?

Frequently when I meet with young couples getting married.

They affirm that they believe in God.

But not the way the Church & Bible say.

So they spend a far bit of time telling me about why they can’t really buy into a God on a throne in heaven creating the earth in six days – this God who always seems to have a furrowed brow and disapproving looks about the way we are and how we do things. And then I tell them I don’t believe in that kind of God either.

And if at tunes WE feel too smart for Christian faith, then the poor have even more reason to reject Christianity. Far too often still they hear that they have to wait out their misery till they die and then to expect a better next life as a reward for their suffering.

If that really were Christianity, then along with Marx (that’s Karl, not Groucho) I too would urge the poor and powerless to reject it "as the opiate of the people."

There are so many false and partial understandings of Christianity that simply disempower people, and much of that kind of inadequate Christian teaching needs to be jettisoned.

But what our scripture tells us is that this story of Jesus’ birth, the story of God coming among us – this story is one that can help

the poor and the wise can take to heart. It is not there to disable and disempower, but to strengthen and encourage both the poor and the wise for life in its fullness.

For the poor, the birth of Jesus in a stable is a sign that God shares their lot, identifies with their suffering, and revolts at their misery.

Far from pacifying the poor, the story of Jesus birth is a call to resistance and action for those who live in the misery of homelessness and poverty. God’s promise is that all God’s people can live abundantly now and always. And so the poor have every right to expect that they too are heirs of the earth’s wealth and inheritors of God’s very concrete and real promises.

Friends & companions of Jesus have a particular responsibility to ensure that this promise is fulfilled. Through the centuries, this has been no secret. The best of the Christian tradition has revealed people of faith putting themselves on the line to eradicate poverty, to bring justice for all, to foster greater sharing of the earth’s abundance in Jesus’ name.

So those poor, unwashed shepherds and that grubby stable scene are key players in God’s Good News story to all who are on the margins of life. They communicate hope for the poor because God is with them.

But what about those Magi – the wise men from Persia? It really is hard to credit the facts of their story? So, why were they included in Jesus’ birth story? What is the meaning of THEIR participation?

I think their role is particularly to speak to us when we think we are too smart to be people of faith. The "wise men from the east" – the Magi - represent the zenith of knowledge and wisdom. In their time they plumbed the mysteries and magic of the cosmos.

In our time we might think of wunderkinder like a Stephen Hawking? Or a Bill Gates or Roberta Bondar or an Ursula Franklin – the brightest and best of our thinking world.

We might also think of moral giants like Nelson Mandela or Rachel Carson or Rigoberta Menchu or Barbara Ward or even the Raging Grannies who sing their protest witness.

And if we were writing the Gospel story today, then we would have stunning people like them bowing before the holy child.

Not to humiliate them or to degrade them, but to witness to all who will listen that God’s truth goes well beyond our ken, well beyond our limited understanding, transcending our partial wisdom.

I’m not saying that all of these people do worship at the manger. But if we were writing the Gospel story today we would want to write them into the story to proclaim that not even the wisest or the smartest can fully take in the mysterious wisdom and truth of God.

That surely is the point of the Magi story. The birth of this child in Bethlehem – the coming of God into creation - is truth far beyond our comprehension and far beyond the wisdom of the wisest. Because it is the truth of God.

What a travesty then when people demand that we believe literally what the story tells. It is like insisting that Rembrandt’s picture of Jesus is actually a photograph of Jesus, rather than Rembrandt’s inspired perception and witness.

It is like demanding that you dismiss Kurelek’s "Gift of the Fishermen" drawing with the fishers visiting Jesus in the fishing hut as being a false witness, because it didn’t literally happen that way.

When people insist that we literally believe the Magi story, then they are requiring us to confine ourselves to a world far too small for the human spirit! [Cliff Elliott in Apples of God, p. 16)

There are 6 billion people and 6 billion ways in which the Holy Child Jesus can be welcomed and honored and worshipped as God’s revelation – God with us. And even then we would not have plumbed its full mystery.

An epiphany is a manifestation of the divine reality. In the story of the Magi we learn that the Christian community of the first century held firmly the conviction that all wisdom and all truth comes from God and truth is given to reveal the awesome wonder of God.

Our lives are given to us to marvel and rejoice in the mystery of God who exceeds by far our understanding, but who nonetheless gives us glimpses into the divine reality.

The story of the Magi is a caution to us not to presume too much about our intellect and knowledge, but to keep ourselves always open for God ongoing revelation in the midst of life.

May the Gospel become real for us and all. Glory to God in the highest. AMEN