We were camping out under the stars, my father and his three sons. The clear Sierra Nevada night played host to a plethora of planets and constellations painted on the dark sky. Silently we laid on our backs staring up into the heavens. "Boys", my father suddenly broke the sacred silence. "Boys", he said again to make sure we were really listening. "In all my years, I've never met an arrogant astronomer." Silence again as we pondered what we assumed was this profundity. Years later and very slowly, I've begun to grasp the power of that pronouncement from my childhood. Even this past week, it came back to me while reading a short news item in the paper. "A quarter century after its launch, Pioneer 10 is still helping astronomers explore the universe. But the little spacecraft is slowly fading from radio contact and will be beyond the reach of even the most sensitive antenna by next Christmas. The spacecraft is now more than 6 billion miles from Earth. It is streaking away at a speed of more than a half-million miles a day."

6 billion miles! It is beyond our comprehension to be sure but a vivid testament to our planetary insignificance. Imagine all that the little spacecraft has seen in the last twenty-five years as it streaked through the cosmos. No wonder my Old Man had never met an arrogant astronomer.

In my religious tradition this is a holy day, a feast day when we commemorate the arrival of ancient astronomers from the East who paid homage to the baby Jesus. They are terribly intriguing characters for Biblical scholars. We know virtually nothing about them. The Bible never tells us that they were kings despite what the familiar song proclaims. Nor does it give them names or suggest that they made it to Bethlehem just behind the shepherds or that there were even three of them. None of that. About the only thing we can deduce is that these men probably came from Persia...that is, of course, Iran...and that they all soon returned to Iran although the Bible suggests that they did so "by another way".

An interesting turn of phrase, that.

Is it possible, I wonder over this story that eagerly invites wondering, if such a phrase points to a truth that most Christians would just as soon avoid. Is it possible that these students of the stars returned to their homes changed by their encounter with another religious tradition? Changed but not converted?

No evidence exists that "the guys" became the first Christian missionaries to Persia. No tradition talks of wise men returning from Bethlehem turning pagans into Presbyterians. The point that I am pondering is a serious one. Although these fellows may have had a terrific time in their travels and returned with a new perspective to add to their wisdom, I suspect they still returned to their astronomical occupations.

What I am wondering is if this treasured story isn't teaching us that there is much to learn from other religious perspectives. There is a vast source of spiritual wisdom that can be shared amongst all of us who travel by differing ways.

I'll never forget the great wisdom I shared in while attending a class, over twenty years ago, taught through the Jewish Theological Seminary. Here was a perspective on the truth that I had never really seen. I was humbled by my foolish presumption that my own religious perspective provided all the answers. Suddenly I became aware that other traditions, other seekers of the truth, could provide opportunities of wisdom as well.

If you have ever done much reading in the Buddhist tradition, you quickly discover why we have little difficulty describing the wise men as coming from the East. How foolish of us to have ignored the great value such a religious perspective can offer. Over and over the examples abound of other ways of searching for truth, of looking for God. I believe that this feast day some of us celebrate today is a call to be cautious in our dismissal of different traditions, of other ways.

Over the years, I've remembered my Dad's remark on that long ago starry night. I don't know if he intended his pronouncement to send me on a theological quest, but it did.