Facing East

Posted on Tue Jan 05 2010

Mel Williams

FACING EAST

Matthew 2:1-12

A homily by Mel Williams

Watts Street Baptist Church

January 3, 2010 (Epiphany Sunday)

 

The wise men came to Jesus, guided by a star in the east.  Today our Choir sings the hymn “People, Look East.”  In the Christmas and Epiphany seasons, we are looking east.

 

We are now at the beginning of a new year and a new decade.  How do we get our bearings now?  How do we get oriented—re-oriented—to this new chapter in our life? 

 

We look east.  Why all these references to the east?  This church is located just a block from the east campus of Duke. Have you noticed that the people who designed this sanctuary have us facing east every Sunday?  The front door of the church faces west, but our seats face east.  It appears that there was intentionality in the planning.

 

Let’s think about it.  “Facing east” means looking toward the source of light.  It’s natural to us if we’re standing in darkness, our eyes will move wherever we see a glimmer of light.  As our planet Earth turns around the sun, our eyes instinctively turn toward the light.  We watch for the sunrise.  Some years ago I traveled with my long-time backpacker group to Acadia National Park in Maine, and we rose early in the morning to go atop a mountain where we gathered silently with a hundred other people, waiting for the sun to rise—in the east.

 

We speak often, even without awareness, of the east.  The Buddha was sitting under a tree, facing east, when he saw the morning star and experienced enlightenment.  In Native American spirituality east is the direction of new beginnings.  And much of the renewal of spiritual life is now coming not from the West but from the East.

 

At Epiphany we are celebrating light, God’s light that shines in every darkness.  Today we heard our Choir sing “Star of the east, the horizon adorning, guide where our infant redeemer is laid.”  The wise men are facing east, following the star in the east.

 

The Bible has many references to the east, journeying eastward.  In the book of Genesis is the story of God providing a garden in the east, in Eden.  The Israelites, when they left Egypt to search for the Promised Land headed east across the Red Sea.  The prophet Jonah, frustrated with God’s graciousness to the people of Ninevah, goes toward the east to sit and complain—and there he receives a crucial lesson, an epiphany, about God’s compassion.

 

When we turn east, we move toward a re-orientation.  Today the word “orient” may remind us of the carol, “We three kings of Orient are.”  This week I looked up the word Orient, capital O.  It refers to the countries of Asia, east of the Mediterranean.  We turn east to get Orient-ed.

 

Skip ahead to Jesus’ resurrection.  What do we call the day of resurrection?  East-er.  That word is not in the Bible; it comes from the goddess Eastre, the goddess of fertility—and the rising sun.

 

It is from the east that we get our orientation, our direction, our warmth, our light, our energy.  The east is where new things begin.  Throughout Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, we, like the wise men, have followed the light of the eastern star. That means:  We no longer walk in darkness, because the light has arrived.  God is no longer off in the distance.  God is right here with us—Emmanuel, Jesus, is with us.  He is called “the morning star, the dayspring, the light of the world.”  From the lens of faith, we have been given a defining moment, a spiritual turning point, a re-orientation.

 

This point is clearly and decisively given to us when Jesus says, thirty years after his birth, “The Kingdom is within you.”  God is as near to us as the morning.

 

I’ve recently found an Irish song that captures this crucial importance of the morning light.  It’s a folk song, written for someone who was going through a discouraging time in her life.

 

          Oh, my Joanie, don’t you know that the stars are swinging slow

          And the seas are rolling easy as they did so long ago.

          If I had a thing to give you, I’d tell you one more time

          That the world is always turning toward the morning.

 

People, look east.  Our faith gives us clear instructions:  Arise, shine, your light has come.  Today we have come here, facing east, to commune with the one who is our morning star, our source of light and energy and newness.

 

But first we have to turn from our business-as-usual routines—old patterns, old habits.  Ginger Pyron, who has provided many of the insights for this homily, mentions that our lives tend to follow a script, over and over, tracing a recurring pattern, like a figure eight, around this loop and that loop and on and on.  The only way to change that dull pattern is to stop and face the east, the place of new beginnings and new energy.

 

Then we are offered courage to follow a new path.  But first we have to exit our worn-out loops of fear, anxiety, lethargy, and dullness—until we see that the east is here.  We only have to turn and follow the light and let it lead us to the morning, the new day.

 

If we are crazy enough and faithful enough to follow the star, we may discover that we are being called—led—to carry the light out of here and into east Durham, where poverty and need is great—or to Walltown, to El Salvador, or Russia, or to some folks on east Urban Avenue, or on the eastern end of the street where you live.

 

It’s Epiphany!  Look to the light, look east, and get ready.  Where is the light leading you in this new year?

 

 

This homily owes much to the sermon, “People, Look East,” by Ginger Pyron, Oakhurst Baptist Church, Decatur, GA.

 

 

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