Feast of the Epiphany - Homily 7

Homily 7 – 2011 

The only people mentioned in Matthew’s story of Jesus’ infancy, (apart from Jesus himself, his father Joseph and his mother Mary), were the wise men from the East, and Herod and the group of chief priests and scribes.

The stark contrast between these two latter groups was deliberate.  The men from the East were seekers, men prepared to give treasures away and to pay homage to another.  They were gentiles – outsiders.  How different they were from the insiders! - Herod was no seeker; he was a controller, prepared even to kill to maintain control.  - The Jewish chief priests and scribes were not seekers, either.  They had the answers, but no questions, no thirst.  The possibility of change perturbed them (as Matthew noted).

What might the Gospel be saying to us as we listen this morning? Our answer may depend on whether we class ourselves as insiders or outsiders.  It seems to be pretty human to categorise people as insiders or outsiders – as ‘on our side’, or against us.  We like to think that God is on our side.  We might like, even more, to think that God will get those others who are not on our side.

That certainly seems to be the way that little children see God… … though, as they grow into adolescence, they feel also at home with the God who rewards and punishes – who rewards the deserving and punishes the undeserving.  From what I’ve heard, reward and punishment are the ground rules in obedience school for dogs, and horses.  And rewards and punishments do help in socializing children and adolescents.  But they don’t belong in God’s repertoire.  What we are or do does not change God’s attitude to us.  God loves everyone – without our even trying.  

St Paul’s message in today’s Second Reading reinforces the message that Matthew wished to convey with his story of the Gentile Magi.  As Paul put it: Outsider pagans now share the same inheritance as insider Jews, the same promise has been made to them.  The persons that Jews most disliked, the persons they most despised, God reached out to them as much as God reached out to Jews.

Fair enough for the Jews.  What about us? The people we most dislike, the people we most discount, God loves them as much as God loves us. … the people who couldn’t care less about God; the people who couldn’t care less about morality.  God loves them as much as God loves us who try so hard.  There is no problem with God.  Jesus made the same point a little more poetically: God makes the sun rise on bad as well as good; the rain fall on honest and dishonest alike.

This can be a bit worrying.  If God loves us no more than them, why bother? The answer to that is simply: It takes two to tango! Eternity is not about ice-cream for the good and eternal fire for the bad.  Eternity is about relationship or isolation… … about whether, on the one hand, we trust the God who loves and surrender to the embrace of God; or whether, on the other hand, we hold back from trusting, hold back from loving, and choose, instead, our own little self-absorbed world, and live in isolation, for eternity, relating to no one but ourselves.

The gentile wise men were seekers.  Herod and the religious establishment were not.  Self-satisfied, with God comfortably under their thumb, they remained locked in their own narrow, controlled, sterile little worlds.

Perhaps, a challenge of today’s feast is this: Can we take the punt to trust God’s love? It means letting go not only of our vices, but also of our virtues – counting on nothing, relying on nothing, beyond the infinite, undiscriminating, always available, uniquely fulfilling love of God.  We won’t go to the dogs.  Anything but.  Try it and see.

That’s my New Year’s wish for me, and for you.