If you listen to country music, you probably know a song by Montgomery Gentry called, "Back When I Knew It All." It’s about getting older and wiser after sowing one’s wild oats. Some of the lyrics go like this.

At the ripe old age of nineteen
I bought a short bed pick up chicks machine
Life ran on beer and gasoline...
Was a big time spender with that plastic money
Back when I knew it all

Back when the world was flat and
Mama and daddy didn’t have a clue
That was back
Back when a pitcher of beer and a
couple shots made me bulletproof
Back when god was a name I used in vain
To get a point across when I got ticked off
Lord I’m learning so much more than back when I knew it all
I found out credit cards don’t mean you’re rich
And beer and gasoline don’t mix...
A Sunday sermon can turn life around
Man I can’t believe all the answers I’ve found
Since, back when I knew it all

In 2008, a lot of us learned that we didn’t know as much as we thought we did. We learned that the bottom can fall out from under us in ways we never imagined. Excellent employees and successful businesspeople learned even their income wasn’t secure, and economists who thought they knew it all, learned that they didn’t.

In 2008, lots of us learned that we didn’t know as much as we thought we did. Family and friends who we thought would always be around, became sick or died, and life was more fragile than we realized. Relationships we thought were wonderful showed a painful underbelly. A future we never questioned became unclear. Or the God we thought we had figured out, turned out not to be who God really is.

On this first Sunday in 2009, I suggest we take some advice for the coming year from the Magi. These wise men, as we often call them, were probably astrologers who saw something in the sky so unusual they took it to mean that a new king had been born. They found him, gave him their gifts, and went home by a different way than they had arrived.

Here are five lessons we can learn from them in the new year.

1. The Magi were open to receiving a sign and paid attention when it happened. For them, it was a star. For you, it may be a comment someone makes, a song, a sermon, a book, an insight that seems to come from the blue. Like the Magi, be open to God’s sending you a message, and pay attention when it comes.

2. When the Magi realized that the star was important, they didn’t just sit around and talk about it. They didn’t just muse on its meaning. They did something about it. They packed up their camels. Maybe when they told people they’d seen a sign in the heavens and needed to follow it, people laughed at them, and told them they were crazy. Maybe other people said, "Go for it, or you’ll never know." When God gives you a sign or an insight, or tugs at your heart, pack up your camel and follow the star. It might take a long time to get there, but you’ll never reach Bethlehem if you don’t start the journey.

3. Unlike the joke that says if the Wise Men had been women, they would have asked for directions and brought useful gifts such as casseroles and diapers, the Magi really did ask for help. They used the information they had to go as far as they could on their own, which was to Herod’s palace. They told what they were seeking, and although the priests didn’t have a specific answer for them, they were able to guide them in the right direction. So, the third lesson is: Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Even the Wise Men did it when they were looking for Jesus.

4. The Magi recognized what God wanted them to find, even when it was in an unexpected place and wrapped in unexpected circumstances. By the time the Magi arrived, Mary and Joseph would have moved into a house, but it still would have been humble, with dirt floors and scant furniture. The King of the Jews born here? To parents such as these? Certainly the Magi expected a king to live in wealthier surroundings. Here’s how we know these Magi were truly wise: when what they were seeking was in a different package than what they expected, they still trusted that it was he, gave thanks, and gave their gifts.

The lesson for us is this: Maybe your life was headed one direction, and it took a radical change of course. It’s not where you thought you’d meet Jesus, but like the Magi, let yourself recognize him in the unexpected package, and then follow him. Or maybe you always pictured yourself one way, and God is showing you a different perspective. Give thanks, give your gifts to Jesus in the unexpected face where you’ve met him, and follow where he leads.

Here are the Magi’s lessons for us, once again:

5. Here’s number 5. After they found what they were looking for, the Magi stayed open to new wisdom and guidance. They paid attention to a dream in the night warninged them not to go back to Herod, but to go home a different way than they’d come. After they found Jesus, they remained open to new insights, followed them, and went to additional, unexpected places.

When we meet Jesus, our journey doesn’t stop, either. We realize that we’ve "learned a lot since back when we knew it all." God comes to us over and over, with new insight, and takes us to unexpected places, both inside ourselves, in our relationship with Jesus, and in our relationship to others and the world. When we meet Jesus, he changes us. We are welcomed and loved, challenged and convicted, set free and called into obedience.

After meeting Jesus, we take a different road than the one by which we arrived in Bethlehem. On this Epiphany Sunday, when we have followed his light and seen his grace, Jesus gives us his dream, calling us into "the work of Christmas" that was his life and shall be ours.

Amen.