It is Matthew, not Luke, who tells the next part of the familiar cluster of stories associated with the birth of Jesus, and it presages something integral to the life of the Nazarene rabbi. Visitors, called in the Greek text magoi appear at the barn doors bearing gifts. . . . In our current usage, the term magoi might be best interpreted as "gurus," spiritual masters from the east. To update the tableau for today we might include a Muslim dervish, a Buddhist lama, a Hindu sunyasi and a Confucian sage, and maybe a Druid in the church school montage .  . They brought gifts — gold, frankincense, and myrrh — and then went home again. They did not stay. They did not become disciples of this child, nor was there any indication that they should.

Harvey Cox, When Jesus Came to Harvard