Feast of the Epiphany - Homily 1

Homily 1 - 2007

A strange story, today’s, in lots of ways. Of course, Matthew didn’t make it up for itself, but to make a series of theological points - hoping to tease, or to inform, his readers before he tackled the story of Jesus’ public life, that culminated in his death, and that mysterious ending that they called resurrection.

A strange story – a band of mistaken men (as though stars determine reality!) searching, wanting, incomplete – unsatisfied, restless, needing to move. 

Isn’t everyone? except perhaps those few who despair, and perhaps even they may yearn more than most.

What do advertisements touch into, if not our vulnerability, our weakness, our emptiness and our longings? They touch into longings, that may even be good in themselves, but are hardly the deepest.

The philosophers and theologians say that our deepest longing is for happiness. Thanks. But what does happiness consist in?

The Magi saw the Christ-child. They were filled with joy. Is that what they wanted? why they took that interminable journey? Joy is not bad. But then they went back home. Were they still restless?

When Buddhists think of happiness they speak of enlightenment; freedom from all desire, yet oneness with all that is.

Mystics speak of union with God, with infinite, unknowable love.  They speak of a union of love, received and returned - involving, as with the Buddhists, the recognition that nothing else satisfies - so not seeking or desiring anything else but yearning for the infinite.

The Magi saw the infant Christ. Would another child have done?

You can answer that better than I. When you hold a powerless, innocent child and gaze into its eyes, you can touch into mystery. Perhaps the child’s eyes hold up a mirror to yourself. Perhaps you see, experience yourself as mystery – the possibility, the responsibility of unconditional love. But you can’t hold it forever. It satisfies profoundly, then stirs a deeper longing.

The chief priests and scribes in Jerusalem had all the answers. They knew their faith. They knew their Scriptures – but, unlike the Magi, they had no questions,

As we start another year, as we begin once more to thread our way each Sunday through the Gospel of Luke, will it be the familiar one more time - nothing new, nothing stirring - like the Scriptures apparently were for the chief priests and scribes? We’ve been that way before – sadly. Or, does something stir, a longing that longs to be noticed. This year might Christ help us in our quest?

Perhaps the story of the Magi is not such a harmless story after all. It can invite us to follow our star, to connect with our deepest longing planted in our hearts by our creating God.