Feast of the Epiphany - Homily 4

Homily 4 - 2008

In the way he tells his story, Matthew contrasts the Jerusalem scribes and the pagan Magi. The Jerusalem scribes had the right answers – they knew their Bible – but they showed no interest in searching for or responding to God’s break-through into our world.  The Magi from the East didn’t know the answers, but were very interested in searching for and responding to God’s presence in the world: falling on their knees, they did him homage… and offered him gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

There can be a danger in having the right answers. We can think we know all that needs to be known about God, and we can even look down on those who don’t.

But that is not what it is all about.  In fact, the Church insists that all our words about God are more unlike than like the reality of the Mystery that is God.  We know God best, not by words and definitions, but by relationship.  We come to know God as we allow ourselves to be transformed by God; as we allow God slowly to shape us according to God’s likeness.  In coming to know our changing selves, we come to know God better, too.

An adult who has remained faithful to love across the years, in the midst of beautiful ups and painful downs knows a lot more about love than a child of five, an adolescent, or even a couple fronting up to get married.  As we are changed by the grace of God, our personal experience serves to give richer, but always inadequate, content to the words we use about God.

In getting closer to God, what matter are our desire and our determination to seek God.  Where we start from is not important: the Magi were astrologers.  They thought that stars influenced and controlled people’s lives.  But, despite all that nonsense, they were men of desires; they were seekers; and they were prepared to pay the price of searching and to respond to what they found.  They found, and recognised, Christ.

The scribes, with all their book knowledge, not only failed to find and to recognise Christ, but by the end of the Gospel, they had conspired to execute him.  Did they have no desires, to start with? Or had their self-assurance and their determination to retain the status quo stifled what desires they might have had?

Whatever about the scribes, or the Magi, what matters for us is to learn to notice, and to uncover our deepest desires, to be seekers – always seekers – and ready always to be opened up, and to undergo God.

But it is good to be careful.  Matthew had the Magi travel in company.  They relied on each other for motivation, protection and discernment.  They accepted help, even from the barren Jerusalem scribes.  On our journey into the Mystery of God, we do well to seek the help, if possible, of wise and seasoned travellers; to journey in company – for mutual encouragement, and enlightened discernment, should we be overawed by our demons or wearied by the desert.