Imagine the scene: It is a quiet street in a well-to-do community in a country somewhere east of Palestine. Every house has a well-manicured lawn, children are playing in their yards, each house has a two camel garage. One evening after work, one of the royal star gazers (good work if you can get it) comes bursting through the door, flings down his briefcase and with great excitement starts telling about his day at the office. Something about a new star ("mm-hmm, that's nice"), something about a new king ("mm-hmm, that's nice"), something about needing to get expensive gifts ("mm-hmm, that's nice"), something about a long, dangerous journey to a foreign land ("You're going where?").
It does stretch the imagination that the wise men would make such a journey just because they saw a star. How many other special stars had they seen that didn't provoke such a response? How many other astral oddities had they observed that didn't cause them to pack up their belongings and take a road trip? Probably a lot. And yet, this was different; this particular star changed everything. The new star that hung in the western horizon must have been pretty amazing. For it jolted a group of stargazers in the east out of their work-a-day lives, and set an unbelievable series of events into motion. The magi, the wise men, who saw the star simply had to go to Bethlehem and see for themselves.
I'm sure they had a hard time explaining this to others-not so much what the star meant (that was their job), but why they had to make such a difficult and dangerous journey, across field and fountain, moor and mountain. (The song makes it sound like they had to trek across northern England rather than the desert of western Iraq and eastern Jordan!) But for these stargazers of old, this epiphany, this revealing of God, this special star changed everything in the here and now. This was not a case of a star that would change everything; rather this star did change everything. For them, the world would never be the same; their lives would never be the same. Even though they hadn't yet seen the baby, they left their everyday lives and set out on a new path. And even when they saw the baby (a poor peasant baby sleeping in a feedbox), hardly the proper setting for a great king, their excitement only grew. Even though they never saw this king in all of his glory, even though they hadn't seen him ascend to his rightful throne, they knew that everything had changed and they changed their lives accordingly. Upon seeing the star, the wise men started to live "as if;" they started to live as if the promise of the star were already true; they started to live as if everything they knew would happen had already happened. This is why the wise men made the journey to Bethlehem-the world was now different (at least for them) and they had to live in a new way. Forevermore, they would live as if. They would live as if all the promises contained in that star and in that baby were already true.
This is tough to explain to people who don't see what you have seen; this is nearly impossible to share with people who haven't experienced what you have experienced. Living "as if" only finally makes sense when you have such a compelling, vivid vision of the future that you are willing to buck all of the trends, that you are willing to ignore all of the conventional wisdom and go ahead and live like you know you are supposed to do. And this is what the wise men did when they left their comfortable positions in the palace in the east and made their trip to Bethlehem-they lived as if.
Greg Freeman, the Post-Dispatch columnist who died this past week, was a person who lived his life "as if." Freeman had many significant commitments in his life, but none more important and deeply held than improving race relations. In this era of closet segregationists, of code words, and the use of racial language intended to divide rather than bring together, it is easy to assume that race relations in America are at a permanent standstill. "We've done race relations" many declare, and it's time to move on to something else. Or the more cynical profess that this is an intractable problem and we are wasting our time trying to build bridges across a vast cultural divide. But somewhere, (was it from his experience growing up? was it from his faith? was it from his marriage? was it from a trusted mentor? was it from an unmeasurable combination of factors?), Greg Freeman caught a vision of how this community and every community could, in the words of Dr. King "live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'" And once Freeman caught that vision, he lived his life as if. He lived his life as if that promise, that possibility, that vision were actually true-here and now. In the face weariness and despair, he tirelessly called this community to account, he held up another way to live, he offered hope and possibility where so many of us could see only intransigence. This is what it means to live as if.
And on this Epiphany, at the beginning of this new year, that is what our faith calls us to do as well. To live as if. To live as if all of God's promises are true-here and now-that there is neither Jew nor Greek, free nor slave, male nor female. That sin and death are no longer the final word in the world. That the peacemakers are blessed and that their work will one day bear the fruit that we so desperately long for. That the wolf shall lie down with the lamb.
Living as if means that we will set out on journeys that other people think are ridiculous or impossible. It even means that we will set out on journeys that we think are ridiculous or impossible. We will not only talk about putting broken lives back together, we will work to put broken lives back together. We will not only talk about the need for safe and secure housing for the homeless, we will build safe and secure housing for the homeless. We will not only talk about God's radical welcome that includes all of God's children, we will extend that welcome to people who have been traditionally excluded even from the church. The prophet Isaiah, twenty-five hundred years ago, said, "Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you." Your light has come, the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. These are not promises to fulfilled someday; these are promises that are being fulfilled even now-and so we can live as if - not as the world lives, but as God would have us live.
When we live as if-as if God's promises have been fully realized, we no longer look at what we accomplish, but at what we attempt. For faithfulness is not measured in accomplishments, but in things tried. For when we are living as if, we will try things that a purely pragmatic mind would never attempt; we will try things that are based on God's promises rather than previous experiences. We will be bold in our witness and our living because our light has come and the glory of the Lord is upon us - even now!