Gaspar's Journey

Posted @ Dec. 15 2011 12:18PM by Susan - arts-ent

Not a real king, not very wise, not religious. Dismayed by injustice and suffering, he still embarked on the journey with hope, taking along what gifts he could offer.

by The Rev. Kathleen Patton

The legend called us kings, but we were really just rich. We had enough wealth to enjoy leisure, to study, to learn of other lands and to pay careful attention to the natural world. The legend called us magi – wise ones. Well, that might apply to Balthazar and Melchior, but me — I’m just, shall we say, curious.

Bored and restless

I used to have a passion for work, but after I built up my business so that it was running itself, and my sons were well trained, and I was making more money that I could spend, it all became a bore to me. Everything, in fact, seemed boring. My town, my family, my whole life. I lost interest in it all. I felt useless, and restless. I began to spend my days wandering in the bazaar, listening for news from beyond the walls of my city.
I met Balthazar and Melchior in the tea house. They were poring over charts and arguing passionately. When my curiosity became obvious, they invited me into their conversation. It was way over my head – literally. They were talking about the stars.

The stars: orderly and mysterious

Balthazar is in love with the sky. He has devoted a lifetime of study to plotting and studying the stars. A spice merchant, he has traveled widely, collecting many books and learning from master astronomers. He uses them to navigate, so that his interest is practical, but it goes far beyond that. He is obsessed with their wildness, their order, their beauty and their mystery.
Melchior sees something else entirely in the stars. He’s a little crazy, I think. Some sort of mystic. He studies religions, collects holy books wherever he goes on his travels. He speaks half a dozen languages, and reads even more. From all this study of religion, he has come to believe that all things are connected by some magical web. He thinks that even human beings and stars are connected, so that our stories are reflected in the sky, and he is always trying to crack the code, so that he can read the meaning of the heavens.

Something new rising in the West

This day Melchior was trying to demonstrate a pattern he had discovered. He was excited to show Balthazar an omen in the stars, a sign that a new and auspicious kingdom was to arise in the West. Strangest of all, this new kingdom was to emerge from the pitiful little state of Palestine, the land of Israel, of all places.
Balthazar insisted there was nothing new in the sky, but Melchior could not be persuaded. He was sure he had at last found the key to the meaning of the heavens. It was a crazy argument, but not boring. Before I knew it, I had proposed a foolish expedition to Jerusalem, to that distant backwater of the Roman Empire, to test Melchior’s theory.
Not that I believed a word of it, even of the little I understood. Nor do I have any use for kings and kingdoms. Our king has done me no good. He just collects more and more of my income for taxes. But I was hungry for a real adventure. I thought if I could see other lands in the company of such wise men, I might find the joy in life again.
But I was quickly disappointed. I had no idea how tedious and difficult such travel can be. Try as I might to learn from my companions, my mind quickly glazed over every time they tried to explain their charts or their philosophies.

Injustice and poverty

Far from being stimulating, most of our travel was exhausting, and our encounters with the many peoples we met along the way filled me with confusion and sadness. I had never seen poverty so closely, so vividly. In the countryside I saw so many people barely able to survive on their lands for the tribute and taxes required of them by their lords and kings. I saw families unable to harvest their crops because the fathers and sons were forced into the king’s armies, or killed outright in the king’s wars. And for those who resisted, or even complained, brutal punishment was their reward. My small regard for kings and kingdoms was turned to contempt. I had no interest in meeting a new king.
I asked Melchior, the philosopher, the mystic, “If we are all connected, as you say, why do some of us become wealthy while others barely survive? Why do the powerful use their might to do such great harm?” If he had an answer, it was not one I could grasp.
When we got to Jerusalem, Herod was a perfect example. So greedy, so vain, so transparent in his hunger for power and control. His silly religious scribes talked about a Messiah – some son of David who was going to take over and deal with the Romans – who was to be born in David’s city of Bethlehem. I could tell the idea of a Messiah made old Herod nervous, though he pretended he was interested. He claimed to want to find the prince himself, so he could “worship.” I could see through that. But since Melchior was eager to return to Jerusalem to study with the scholars, Balthazar promised to bring news on our way home.

A new regime?

On the journey to Bethlehem my spirits were at their lowest. By now Balthazar had been infected with Melchior’s weird enthusiasm. He had come to hope that all the clues in the sky and in the Jewish scriptures added up to an important birth, a powerful new king, the advent of a new regime to rival or even end the Roman Empire.
I didn’t see the point in that. Bigger empires, bigger taxes, bigger wars. So? And even when a comet appeared in the sky over Bethlehem, I felt no great joy following a star that led to another so-called king.
But I was surprised. The star led us to the home of a humble carpenter. And his wife, the mother, amazed me. She welcomed us into her shack like royalty, as surprised and full of wonder at our arrival as Melchior had been by the star above us. She plied us with questions about their little son. They claimed to have received messages from angels, and strange dreams. They were in a state of shock, and joy, all at once. It was as though they had suddenly found themselves at the very center of Melchior’s great invisible web, as though heaven and earth had been joined in their simple home.
She had the grace and peace of one who has given herself over to something much larger than herself. I recognized in her something I hungered for. I asked her, “How can this baby be a king? What good is it to build empires and make war, to cause so much suffering? How can that be God’s plan?”

Not “that kind” of king

She shook her head. “Not that kind of king, Gaspar,” she said. “A king of hearts; a prince of peace; one who lifts up the lowly and brings down the proud; one who unites us in love and humility.”
“But Mary,” I said, “he’s only one, and even if he is good, even if he is great, he will die.”
“Yes, he will die,” she answered sadly. “I don’t know how it is, but his death is part of it, part of the healing, part of why his kingdom will be so different.” Then she asked me, “Can you hope in a king like that, Gaspar?”
“I don’t believe in much, my lady,” I stammered. “I’m not at all good at believing.”

Choosing to hope

“Yes, I see,” she said. “But I did not ask you to believe. Some of us find it easy and natural to believe. I suppose I always have. Others, like you, must choose to hope. And if you choose to hope, that will take you far, as far on this journey as you need to go.”
When we parted she took my hand, and blessed me. She said, “I have a feeling that you are almost in the kingdom already, Gaspar, though the king is yet a baby. You have come so very close to it, with your compassion and hunger for justice and peace. Maybe the kingdom has been born in you. Your journey is well begun. Keep choosing hope, and God will bless you.”
So you, dear reader — if you follow this king — where has your journey brought you? Are you like Mary, easily believing, easily offering your heart? Or are you one who must choose each day to hope, to continue the journey?
As long as I’ve traveled this road, the kingdom’s sweetness calls me forward, and I go on choosing the path. Though I’ve never seen the king since that day in Bethlehem, I choose to follow him, and I do think that Mary is right, that the kingdom has grown inside me, though I am still restless.
I am no king, and I am not very wise. But I gave my gift that day to the little king, and I will give what gift I have for his kingdom, as long as I have power to do it.

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Kathleen Patton is Rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Longview. This piece was first published in CRR in Jan 2007.