Homily for Sunday, 5 January 2020– The Epiphany of the Lord

Readings of the day: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

This homily was given at St. James and Our Lady of the Valley Churches, Vernon, BC, Canada.

This solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, that is, the “making known” of Jesus to the world brings us each year the Gospel account, unique to Matthew’s Gospel, of the visit to Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem of the wise men or magi. The story of the magi is familiar to us: Guided by a star, the magi journey from their home country to the east of Israel to Bethlehem. They bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

But what does this visit of the wise men to the scene of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem mean for us today? I am especially drawn to a homily by Pope Francis of a couple of years ago in which the pope points to three key actions of the magi that make these wise men from the East relatable to us; an example to us in our lives of faith in a special way. First, the wise men follow a star to the Nativity scene in Bethlehem; second, they set out from their home country; and, third, they bring gifts.

When the magi arrive in Jerusalem, they know already that a life-changing event, the birth of a child, has taken place. The magi ask: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we have observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” Is this not already a bit unusual that the magi would ask about a child “born king of the Jews” in the first place? For the most part, scholars consider Matthew’s description of the wise men as “from the East” to mean that they were neither Jewish nor Roman, but possibly Zoroastrians, a people who considered changes in the movements of the stars as signs of the divine.

The spirituality; the religion of these wise men centered on looking toward the heavens. But another strange detail, at least according to astronomers who study what the sky might have looked like at specific points in history, is that the star the wise men saw around the time of Jesus’ birth probably was not too bright a star, nothing far out of the ordinary. The magi may have had to have quite the discerning eye to detect as subtle a change in the night sky, this “star at its rising” that would guide them to Bethlehem, a village as near-ordinary as the star they saw; Bethlehem, the ordinary village God chose in which to enter our world as one like us.

The magi saw and followed this star. Yet how many of us have ever done exactly what these “wise men from the East” did; how many of us have ever simply looked up at the sky? During the day, our sun gives us just enough light and warmth to provide life on this planet. But even the sun is fairly ordinary insofar as stars go. As one who is not specialized in what to look for when I look at the night sky—I may be able to find a few major constellations—I doubt I would have the discerning eye that the wise men of Jesus’ time must have had. Sure, from my Boy Scout days I would be able to find Polaris, the North Star at the end of the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor, to point myself straight north. Lately the planet Venus has been near the brightest it ever appears to us, so it is especially easy to spot. We speak of full moons, blue moons, blood moons, and hunter’s moons, meteor showers at their most intense in August and November... If I am especially fascinated or looking for a specific star in the sky, I have an application on my phone called SkyTracker Lite.

But, in the days of the magi, there was no app for that. The wise men simply looked up. When have we looked up and, even if we have had no idea what to look for that might be out of the ordinary, simply been in awe? Have any of us ever peered into those almost fourteen billion light years of space and simply thought, “Wow! What kind of being—whom we call God—could create such magnificence”?

We, like the magi of Jesus’ time, look up and, if looking up gives us a sense of awe, then this awe sets us on a journey. Have we ever looked up and been in awe at the expanse of the universe and then, with eyes of faith, deepened our wonder at how the creator of all that expanse could, or would want to, be born into our world as one like us, and would want to show himself first to “wise men from the East” who simply began by following a star; by doing what they were used to doing, looking up to the heavens for signs of the divine; being in awe even at a subtle change in that sky?

From that first feeling of awe at looking up and seeing a star, the wise men set out from their home country. Why? Were these wise men not  perhaps wealthy, or at least comfortable with their way of life in their own country? What would cause them to set out for a land unknown to them? How were they able to encounter Herod in Jerusalem and then, on their return home, to heed the warning “in a dream not to return to Herod”? For Herod, in our Gospel, represents the exact opposite of the wise men. Herod greets the news of this child born in Bethlehem with fear that leads him to act with great evil. Herod, wealthy and comfortable, was unwilling to set out from his comfort zone, whereas the wise men were. And the wise men, upon arriving at the place of the Lord’s birth, “were overwhelmed with joy” at what must still have been to them a challenge to their comfort; to their old way of life.

Still, for the wise men to go beyond their comfort was their only way to utmost joy. The magi show us that the measure by which we are willing to set out from our comfort, from “this is the way we have always done it,” from our wealth if we have it, is the measure by which we will experience joy. It is the measure by which, in place of worldly comfort, wealth, and the way of life we know, our God is born among and within us. Our God lives among and within us in a way that, as I imagine it was for the wise men and certainly for the likes of Herod, was unnerving. But there can be no greater joy for us than this: God taking our human form and dwelling among us; God, beginning as a baby in Bethlehem, breaking down our comfort zones to take the place of greatest importance in our hearts, minds, and actions.

Yet if we are able to get so far as to look up and allow ourselves to be overtaken by awe, and then to let that awe impel us to set forth beyond our comfort, our wealth, our best-laid plans, or our existing way of life, still then, like the wise men, we are called to bring gifts.

The magi of Matthew’s Gospel brought three gifts to the newborn Jesus: Gold fit for a king; frankincense fit for God; and myrrh for the one who would die and rise to save us. What gifts will we bring to honour our king; to honour our Lord and God; to honour the one who has died and risen and will return at the end of time to save us; to bring us eternal life?

Might we begin by offering the gift of our worship, our presence in celebration here and now? We worship and we celebrate as the gifts God has already offered us, gifts of simple bread and wine, are changed and change us into the gift of Christ to our world. This urges us, then, to go forth from this celebration bearing intentional gifts of love and kindness especially toward the most abandoned, the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: People not yet born; people of an advanced age; people who have few or no loved ones to care for them; people who are sick in mind, body, or spirit; people who are dying; people who flee violence, poverty, and persecution in their homelands for the safety of our country, and so on.

The gifts of love and kindness we bear especially to people who cannot repay us show to the world that we are, like the “wise men from the East” of Jesus’ time, a people who looks up and out at God’s world, God’s universe, with awe; that this awe impels us to set forth from our comfort, our best-laid plans, our wealth, into the unknown and the challenging.

We bring gifts freely because we have been given a gift, God’s own Son. This gift we have received and hand on, freely and without charge, is the gift that alone will overwhelm our world with joy because ours is the gift—the Epiphany, the “making known” of God’s dwelling among and within us—that we celebrate here and that will lead us to eternal life.

Homily for Sunday, 7 January 2018– The Epiphany of the Lord

Readings of the day: Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

This homily was given at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Sherwood Park, AB, Canada.

What is the Epiphany, the feast we celebrate today? Growing up, the Epiphany always had the feel of the end of something. Practically, the Epiphany marked the end of the Christmas season. (In the Church, officially, Christmastime ends with the Baptism of the Lord, which we celebrate tomorrow). The Epiphany was the “best before date” of the Christmas tree. Decorations were taken down and put into storage for another year. Family and friends who had visited over Christmastime had gone home; back to work or school; back to their regular, everyday lives. The seemingly endless supply of turkey sandwiches made from Christmas and New Year leftovers had finally dwindled. Christmas carols would no longer be sung or played after the Epiphany. And, on the Epiphany, our three wise men figurines would at long last complete their exhausting journey across the living room to the Nativity scene… Of course, we might imagine, the real journey of the wise men, of which we hear in today’s Gospel and of which our Nativity scene figurines remind us, was truly exhausting, even if they did travel with joy to meet our Saviour!

Even in the Church, the Epiphany has the feel of an ending; a destination. In fact this, I would say, is the purpose of every Mass; every time we gather to worship in this place, not only the Epiphany. Like the wise men in Matthew’s Gospel, we bring gifts. We bring ourselves here to adore the Christ, our Lord; “to pay him homage.” And yet what if I were to say that, while the Epiphany, like every time we gather here to worship, is a kind of destination, it is also a beginning?

After all, what is an “epiphany”? “Epiphany” is originally a Greek word that means “showing forth” or “making known.” And so who is made known on the Epiphany? Of course, God is made known; Jesus Christ, God made human, is made known on his Epiphany.

Our readings today are clear that this celebration of the Epiphany is God’s Epiphany; God’s being “made known” to and in our world. St. Paul uses the language of making known word for word in his letter to the Ephesians from which we hear today. The message St. Paul proclaims, that of his “commission of” and ongoing encounter with “God’s grace,” is a message centered on an ongoing epiphany over time. Through St. Paul’s letters, our Gospels, our Bible— Old and New Testaments— God’s Epiphany has been made timeless. And God continues to be made known to us today.

God’s Epiphany, God’s making himself known to our world, began from the moment God breathed his spirit over the deep and said, “‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” God’s Epiphany continued through the Law of Moses and the prophets, the “revelation” to which St. Paul refers in his letter to the Ephesians. God has been made known to us in full as Jesus Christ, God’s Epiphany in human form. And God’s Epiphany, this process of eternity being made known to us in and over time, will be completed at the end of time when Jesus Christ returns in glory.

Is it not remarkable, though, that in all this process of epiphany, God does not make himself known as an obviously powerful ruler? In fact the only earthly ruler involved in this Epiphany event as Matthew presents it is the weak and fearful Herod. No, among the first people to experience this high point of God’s Epiphany, the birth of our Messiah, Jesus Christ, are magi from the East, probably astrologers, who looked to the stars for signs of the divine. They are outsiders; non-Jews from another land. They do not even belong to Jesus’ own people.

Yet God includes these magi among the first to witness his greatest Epiphany, the Lord and Saviour of the universe God created and blessed, the stars to which the magi looked. God meets these magi where they are. And from there God guides the magi to the Messiah by a star, the best way these magi knew to encounter God.

God guides the magi from the truth they know, the presence of God in the created universe, already a kind of epiphany or God’s “making known,” to a still greater Truth. The God of almost fourteen billion majestic light years (and counting) of visible universe now makes himself known to magi as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem!

God encounters these “wise men from the East,” searchers for God in the stars, and guides them by a star to where God is made known to the world as a human infant in a manger. God guides these magi from truth to Truth; from epiphany to Epiphany. The magi arrive with their “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” to adore the newborn Messiah. Matthew says that “when they saw that the star had stopped, the magi were overwhelmed with joy.” In their great joy, “having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod”— because true joy never denies the sin of the world that Herod represents, nor will the sin of the world ever extinguish our joy in God made known to us— the magi return “to their own country.”

It is at this point, where Matthew’s Gospel leaves off today, when the work of the magi is only beginning. Back in “their own country,” we might imagine, the magi will be entrusted with proclaiming the Epiphany, God of the heavens made known as a human infant in a manger, to their own people. And the same is true of us. Our work of Christmas; our work of being God’s Epiphany, of making God known in our world, begins ever-anew, here and now.

We are, in a sense, the magi of our time, whom God is leading from truth to Truth, to make God known in our world, to bring with us the gift of our presence; our worship; our joy; our works of justice and peace to pay homage to our Messiah. After this Eucharistic celebration, we will return to our homes. In the Church, we will return to Ordinary Time; to keeping time until Christ returns in glory. Our friends and extended family members may have returned to their homes, too. Decorations have been stored for another year. Christmas trees have been taken down. But we, like the magi, are not at the end but at the beginning of a journey, on the cusp of an epiphany, because we are God’s Epiphany to our world today.

How is this so? Howard Thurman, an African American theologian and civil rights leader in the United States in the 1960s, wrote a poem entitled, “When the Song of the Angels is Stilled” to remind us of how we are to make God known to our world by our striving for social justice. Our work for justice only begins with our Christmas and Epiphany celebrations, Thurman once said, “When the song of angels is stilled.”

A few days ago, a Sister of St. Joseph who taught a course on Catholic Social Teaching I took in seminary in Toronto shared an adaptation of Thurman’s poem, written by Michael Dougherty, co-chair of the Social Justice Committee at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Whitehorse. (Dougherty’s reflection is in the next-to-most-recent edition of the Prairie Messenger, for anybody who wants to find it and pray over it.) Dougherty writes:

When the carols have been stilled,

when the star-topped tree is taken down,

when family and friends are gone home,

when we are back to our schedules,

the work of Christmas begins:

To welcome the refugee,

to heal a broken planet,

to feed the hungry,

to build bridges of trust, not walls of fear,

to share our gifts,

to seek justice and peace for all people,

to bring his light to the world.

My sisters and brothers, these are ways in which we might be like the magi to our time; to our world. Our “work of Christmas”; our work of bringing God’s Epiphany to our “own country”; to our world, making the light of Christ, our God, known in our world and in our time, now begins.