Getting to Know You

Text: Ephesians 3:1-12
Other texts: Matthew 2:1-12

Herod wanted to know. He was ignorant. He knew a little something. He wanted to know more. Herod knew what he had heard through rumor, gossip, and from mysterious travelers. What little Herod knew made him afraid. Herod was a frightened man. Anyone who rules through coercion, through violence, is an frightened man. Anyone who rules by making people afraid—and that is how Herod ruled—anyone who rules like that lives in fear. Someday, something will be happen. Herod heard from the mysterious travelers, the magi, that maybe his replacement had just been born. You have to be pretty jumpy to worry about babies who were just born who might possibly someday replace you, but it seems that Herod was pretty jumpy.

The wise men were not super reliable. We call them wise and we call them kings, but really they were not the sort of people anyone in Herod’s time or Herod’s position would normally have respected. Neither kings nor necessarily wise, they were magi, which is the root word for magician, which is what they mostly were. They would not have been honored, being one step up, at best, from charlatans. They claimed supernatural powers. They were held in esteem then about as much as television psychics are today.

But Herod was super-vigilant, and he paid attention to the news that these flaky magi brought. And he gathered his own wise counselors and priests and scholars, who told him a little more about what he wanted to know. But they didn’t tell him enough to find Jesus, fortunately. Providentially, you would have to say. Through providence, Herod’s hunger for knowledge was not satisfied.

Herod wanted to know. He wanted to know so that he could keep his power. That’s one of the big reasons people do want to know things. To be powerful, to get power, to keep power, to protect power. Knowledge is power. That is why we have state secrets. Secrets are powerful. But God in this case knew how to keep a secret.

Today is Epiphany. Epiphany of our Lord, to be more formal, to distinguish it from just plain old epiphanies. The word epiphany means to reveal, or to make manifest, and its roots mean to shine up. As if there were something buried in the ground but which suddenly emits a ray of light, shining up into the sky. Like in the movies when the archeologists digging in the ruins uncover the mysterious source of energy they have been searching for, and a light shines up like a geyser. Epiphany does not mean “turn on the light.” It means “see the light.” Like the hymn, “I saw the light.” See the light which was already there, but perhaps hidden. Or perhaps you were not looking in the right place. Or for the right thing.

Epiphany is an (often sudden) revelation. An understanding.

Paul wanted to know, too. He already knew a lot. But he wanted to know more. Paul wanted to know more about God. And Paul wanted to know God more. God knows how to keep a secret, but fortunately God knows how to reveal one, too.

There is a strong consensus among scholars that Ephesians, from which we just heard, was not written by the Apostle Paul. They think this for a lots of different reasons. But generally it is like the way you could tell whether a letter from your significant other or parent or good friend was authentic. The style, the words used, the ideas or content of the letter—nothing is quite the same as the letters that most people agree Paul himself wrote. It just doesn’t sound like Paul.

This passage in particular is full of ideas and words not used elsewhere by Paul. Even so, I think whoever wrote this letter had a good sense of Paul’s hunger to know God.

When you fall in love with someone, you want to know everything about them. If you are falling in love with someone, and they with you, you are willing, eager, to spend time learning about them, discovering them, being surprised by what you find out, being amazed by them.

Paul is in love with God. And the story of Paul told through the epistles is a love story. In it, we see Paul’s excitement at learning about God through God’s call to him and as revealed in Jesus. Paul is amazed by God. And Paul is amazed at what God reveals. The passage in these verses are an explosion of revelation.

“ … you have already heard of the commission of God's grace that was given me for you, and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, [… you will be able] to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ. In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.”

Three things excite Paul about his relationship with God. First, that God would be such a person of grace as to send Jesus to this world to heal the whole world. Second, that God would be so open as to let Paul in particular and humans in general see what God is like inside, because Jesus is God’s insides. What Jesus does, God does. Jesus tells the truth about God in the way Jesus is and what Jesus does. And the third thing that excites Paul is that God has chosen him, Paul, to get the message out.

We all share, more or less, Paul’s hunger to know God. Your presence here is evidence of that. Not all of us—but some, for sure—were knocked off our feet by God the way Paul was. Not all of us were called so energetically to serve God. But some have been, and some will be yet. Our relationship with God is like the relationship between two courting friends getting acquainted, or two people falling in love.

As in all developing relationships, there are ups and downs. Sometimes things go great. Sometimes it seems we feel like were have to break up. We experience little epiphanies. God is revealed to us. We allow more parts of ourselves to be revealed to God; we bring more to God. We learn, as we do with someone with whom we are falling in love, that there are things we can say to God without driving God away. Even though they might be embarrassing and awkward. Even though we have never told these things to anyone else. We long to know, but we also long to be known.

We want to know. Sometimes we want to know like Herod, so that we feel more powerful, more in control. We want to know what God wants exactly, what we can do to make God favor us, what we have to do to stay out of God’s wrath, what we might do to cajole God and get what we want.

But sometimes we are like Paul. Head over heals in love with God. Being powerless but being eager. Letting our relationship with God unfold, looking forward to our future together. Being grateful and amazed.