Someone wrote, Wise Men came and honored him. Wise men still do. Tradition has it that those Wise Men were great kings, and yet, in obscure little Bethlehem they fell on their knees to worship the infant in Mary’s arms. In their wisdom, they knew the Higher Power when they saw him. And that’s how it is supposed to be with us. Faith gifts us with the ability to see Christ where Christ is to be found, and upon seeing him, something would be wrong with us if we were not awed and humbled and failed to recognize within ourselves the urge to do better, to be more loving, to honor the presence of God on earth.

Back in our North Dakota days when our children were all small, and outnumbered us, Sue and I, like any parents, had to deal with occasionally misbehaving kids, kids who could really get under your skin. On a bad day ending up in a miserable evening, little Heather, Sean, and Seth, passed the time picking on each other, whining to us how hard it was to pick up their toys, and in general being little devils. After failed attempts to reason with them, in frustration we angrily ordered them to bed, just to get some peace and quiet. Later, to check on them, we tip-toed quietly to their bedrooms, cracked open the door a bit, and in the dim light that fell on the beds, we saw our little ones sound asleep, now looking like little angels instead of little devils. I’ll bet many of you who’ve been parents have had just such experiences, too and know what I mean when I say that we then felt, "How could we have been so angry with them?" Waves of remorse and tenderness swept over us. In that holy moment, we were humbled and felt like something greater than us all was there. Could it have been that we glimpsed Christ in our children? Is that why at such moments parents like us often say a prayer for our kids and ask God to help us do better the next day?

Wise men came and honored him. Wise men still do. That’s what we’re doing here this morning. We’ve come to honor and worship Christ the Christ who is within us and among us. A core teaching of the Christian tradition is that the Church is a creation of the Holy Spirit, and is called the body of Christ. The church, plain, ordinary, sometimes misbehaving and aggravating, is the risen Jesus Christ, fleshed out on earth. St. Paul, who coined the phrase, the body of Christ, always seemed amazed at this. One time he wrote to his exasperating congregation at Corinth, "Don’t you realize that Jesus Christ is in you?" [2 Cor. 13:5] Paul was a wise man, seeing Christ’s potential even in the feuding and failings of the church.

Wise men came and honored him. Wise men still do. As we gather here, let us pray for faith’s clear vision, that we might not only believe that Christ is present in Holy Communion, but that Christ is actually present in us! The miracle of the Church is that when God the heavenly parent gazes upon us he sees not all our sin and shortcomings, but our beautiful nature in Christ. Like a parent gazing upon a rebellious child, finally sleeping the sleep of the innocent at the end of a bitter day God loves us. He will not do to us what his holy law requires. He will forgive us all, over and over, for the sake of Christ, who lives in us, whose body we are.

Of course, as a good old joke reminds us, that doesn’t provide an excuse for some kind of insane ego trip. Late one night at the insane asylum, an inmate shouted, "I am Jesus Christ!" Another one said, "How do you know?" The first inmate said, "God told me!" A voice from another room shouted, "I did not!"

No, we don’t want to be like that, yet often in its history that church as acted as though it were not merely the body of Christ in the world, but God Almighty itself. And then Christians really get most unChristlike and begin judging and condemning everyone who doesn’t measure up. We need to remember that the miracle of baptismal grace that makes us God’s children is meant to help us see others as God’s precious children, too.

The more we are able with the eyes of faith to see not only ourselves, but others as Christ, the more we will be a blessing to the communities in which we live and work. Late in Matthew’s gospel Jesus announced that he is to be found in the ones usually considered unimportant. Those hungry, thirsty, poorly clothed, strangers, sick, and in jail, among those, you will find Jesus. If we’re wise, we will seek and find him there.

To see difficult ones that way—as people in whom Christ is to found--and vow to do better to serve them is only real criterion of our faithfulness to the gospel. Thus, coming to church to worship and honor Christ is a warm up exercise for doing what Christ asks. On judgment day, the issue will not be whether we properly understood this or that church doctrine, or managed to look good in this world, but whether we paid attention to needs of the so-called "unimportant ones", all God’s precious children—for if we did, we truly honored him—him who honors us and all humanity by dying on the cross, despised and rejected by all.

Wise men came and honored him. Wise men still do. Let us pray to be wise. Amen.