Second Sunday after Christmas Day
January 4, 2026                                                                          

   Jeremiah 31:7-14;  Psalm 84; Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a; Matthew 2:1-12                          

January 4, 2026                                                                                   

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“By Another Road: When Obedience Requires Distance from Power”

The Rev. Kathleen Murray, Rector                                                             

Historic Beckford Parish, Mount Jackson & Woodstock                              

On this Second Sunday after Christmas, we find ourselves in the Gospel according to Matthew. It is a Christmas story without shepherds, without angels singing in the fields, without a manger softened by animals and straw. Matthew gives us something else entirely: a story shaped by unease, by unsettling questions, by power that feels threatened, and by truth that arrives from the outside.

At the center of the story are the Magi, strangers from the East. Outsiders. Foreigners. They are learned, maybe they were astronomers or scholars, but they certainly have been paying attention. They notice something in the heavens that others have missed, and they are compelled to follow it. They do not come with certainty, only with a question: Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?[1] And with that question, the calm surface of power begins to crack.

It is worth noticing how risky that question is. They ask it in public. They ask it of a ruler who has everything to lose if the answer is true. The Magi are not naïve. They know how power protects itself. And still, they ask.

In Matthew’s telling, faith does not begin with safety. It begins with an uneasy question.

Matthew tells us that when King Herod heard this, he was frightened and all Jerusalem with him.[2] When those at the center of power are afraid, others feel it too.

Herod responds as frightened rulers often do. He gathers information. He consults experts. He requests that religious authorities locate the threat. He seems to do things that would be regarded as prudent and responsible for a leader. Nothing he does yet looks violent. He claims he only wants to pay homage. And in all of it, he dominates.

But we know better. We recognize this pattern because we live with it. Nations often act from fear or a desire for power. Those actions are usually framed in terms of instability, influence, and control. Matthew presses a deeper question: when fear becomes the primary organizing principle of power, who bears the real cost of power?

It’s rarely those making decisions. It is almost always ordinary people whose lives become leverage in someone else’s strategy. For example, people woke up on January 1 to find their health insurance suddenly unaffordable; not because they failed, not because they chose poorly, but because power systems shifted around them. And once again, the burden, the harm, fell far from the rooms where those decisions were made.

Herod, for his part, masks fear as piety. “Go and search diligently for the child,”[3] he tells the Magi, “and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”[4] Matthew does not yet tell us that Herod intends violence. But the danger is present. Because fear has learned to speak the language of devotion, and manipulation has learned how to sound faithful.

This is the world Matthew describes. Herod gathers the chief priests and scribes. He asks them what the scriptures say. And they answer correctly. They know the text. They can cite the prophet. They can locate Bethlehem on the map.[5]

The chief priests’ and scribes’ guilt is not ignorance; it is refusal to acknowledge what Herod was really trying to do. They provide information intended to cause harm and then step back, as if neutrality will absolve them. They choose power over truth. They do not go with the Magi. They do not follow the star. They remain where they are, close to the palace, lending religious credibility to violence. They shall be able to claim they never lifted a hand. Their sin is collaboration, evil enabled. They know exactly where hope is being born and they choose to collaborate instead. The religious leaders are complicit.

And then Matthew turns our attention back to the Magi.

They see the star stop. They are overwhelmed with joy. They enter the house. They kneel. They offer gifts—gold, frankincense, myrrh—not because they understand everything about this child, but because they recognize enough to respond with reverence. These outsiders see what insiders have missed.

And then comes the most important line in the passage. After they have paid homage, after they have done what they came to do, Matthew tells us that they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod. And they leave for their own country by another road.[6]

That is the resistance in this story. The Magi do not expose Herod. They do not argue with him. They do not correct him. They simply do not cooperate. They deny him the information he wants. They accept the cost of taking a longer, less predictable road home because obedience now requires distance from power.

Isn’t that what faith is about? Taking the less predictable road. In Matthew’s account, this is what faith looks like: discernment, courage, and the willingness to change course.

This is where the Collect for today speaks with unexpected clarity. We pray to the God who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature. In this story, dignity is restored not through domination or control, but through moral agency. Through the refusal to become a tool for someone else’s fear. Through listening carefully for God’s warning and trusting it enough to act.

Matthew does not give us a triumphant ending. He gives us a choice. A warning. A road that diverges. The Magi do not save the world. They do not dismantle Herod’s power. They simply refuse to cooperate. And that refusal is enough, for now, to protect life.

When the pageantry of Christmas fades, the danger does not disappear. The world remains what it is. And this is where Howard Thurman’s words stop being poetic and start being demanding:

When the song of the angels is stilled ,
when the star in the sky is gone,
when the kings and princes are home,
when the shepherds are back with their flock,
the work of Christmas begins.

The work of Christmas begins

To find the lost.
To heal the broken.
To feed the hungry.
To release the prisoner.
To rebuild the nations.
To bring peace.[7]

This is what “another road” looks like in practice. It is the refusal to become a tool for fear. It is choosing love when compliance would be easier. It is stepping away from power when staying would cost someone else their life or dignity.

And this is where the Collect of the Day circles back, not to sentiment, but to a life and work shaped by love rather than fear. The Collect does not ask us to admire Jesus. It asks us to share his life. To live as people whose dignity has been restored not through domination, but through love. To refuse fear as our guide. To protect life when it is fragile. It asks us to be courageous like the Magi.

Amen.

[1] Matthew 2:2, New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (“NRSVUE”)

[2] Cf. Matthew 2:3, NRSVUE

[3] Matthew 3:8, NRSVUE

[4] Ibid.

[5] Cf. Matthew 3:5-6, NRSVUE

[6] Cf. Matthew 3:12, NRSVUE

[7] Howard Thurman, “The Work of Christmas,” in The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations (Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, 1985).