Feast of the Epiphany

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.

Homily 2 - 2010

Luke and Matthew have quite different agendas in their delightful reconstructions of Jesus’ infancy.

Luke chose to highlight a God present in a feed-box cradle, born to a homeless couple, who was good news to a group of shepherds (a job that put them at the bottom of the social scale), mothered by a woman who rejoiced that God pulled down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly.

Matthew’s agenda was quite different – not contradictory, perhaps, even, complementary, as we can see from today’s Gospel. The Gospel presented us with a group of men, Magi, a professional group in their country – astrologers. There are three things about them that interest me; and which, I think, are surprisingly relevant to us today.

The first thing: They somehow saw that the birth of Jesus had more than a nationalistic resonance – not just a Jewish thing. It was significant for them, too. God is the God interested in all peoples, all nations. Remember that wonderful photo of planet earth, taken from space by the first astronauts. It helped us get the sense that our world is a global village. But this is better than that. If God is God for all peoples, we are more than a global village - we are a global family, with family connections and responsibilities to everyone in our world.

The second thing about these men from the East that interests me is what it was that got them moving. They were alert to their natural world, the world of their own professional expertise, the world of the night skies and the stars. They heard the call of God mediated through the natural events they observed – and they responded. They didn’t bother whether the rest of the world got moving; they didn’t bother even that the ones who should have been concerned weren’t concerned – the chief priests and their advisors. They responded.

The third thing that interests me is that, when they found the object of their search – God born into the fabric of our world – they shared what wealth they had, their gold, frankincense and myrrh – not all that useful, perhaps, to Mary and Joseph, but meaningful to them – the expression of their income.

Friday was New Year’s Day, and, as has been the custom for the last 43 years, a wise man shared his convictions with the world. Pope Benedict gave his annual statement for the World Day of Peace. He titled it: If you want to cultivate peace, protect creation. This wise man has a profound sense of our world as a global village, even as global family under God.

[Like Luke, as well as Matthew, he is very aware that God is particularly concerned with those on the edge, those who are at the bottom of the pile, the victims of the self-interest of the wealthier and the more powerful.]

Back to the wise men of Matthew’s Gospel. Like them, Pope Benedict is profoundly alert to our natural world; and he hears the call of God mediated through what is happening in our natural world. He asks: Can we remain indifferent before the problems associated with such realities as climate change, desertification, the deterioration and loss of productivity of vast agricultural areas, the pollution of rivers and aquifers, the loss of biodiversity, the increase of natural catastrophes…? Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of “environmental refugees”, people who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to forsake it – and often their possessions as well – in order to face the dangers and uncertainties of forced displacement?

Like the wise men, he invites us to share the world’s wealth, to move beyond self-interest, and to be open to share what we have, even though it costs. He repeats this refrain a few times: Our present crises … call for a lifestyle marked by sobriety and solidarity, with new rules and forms of engagement… And again: Technologically advanced societies must be prepared to encourage more sober lifestyles, while reducing their energy consumption and improving its efficiency… And again: There is a need .. to move beyond a purely consumerist mentality..

I’ll wind up with a final quotation from Benedict: I would advocate the adoption of a model of development based on the centrality of the human person, on the promotion and sharing of the common good, on responsibility, on a realisation of our need for a changed life-style, and on prudence, the virtue which tells us what needs to be done today in view of what might happen tomorrow.

Matthew might be surprised at how relevant his story has remained.

We move now into Eucharist. The reconciling God comes among us once more – God’s energy of love drawing us into ever deeper solidarity – with everyone. In the Eucharistic Prayer we shall pray: Grant that we, who are nourished by Christ’s body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.

Homily 3 - 2016

The wise men … At least that is how they were regarded in their own country. I wonder if they saw themselves that way. They did not have all the answers, but they were convinced enough that the star was special. They got together their wealth, loaded up their camels and headed West, following their star. They saw the child, left their gifts; but they went home, back to their own country, as Matthew told his story, “by a different way”. I wonder if it was more than the way home that was different, if they were different. Having seen the child, I wonder if they were no longer so sure whether they were all that wise, as wise as others thought them, as wise as they might once have thought themselves.

We are dealing with a story, of course, that Matthew was telling with another purpose in mind. Yet the Spirit of God can use a story, or life, or the combination of both, to start us wondering.

They went looking for an infant king. They found a poor child, with poor parents, in a poor residence. And yet there was the unexplainable star. Former certainties were undermined. They were different men as they made their different way home. All they really had now were questions. I wonder if that is how Christmas should leave us. If we do not move on into 2016 along a different road, perhaps we have missed the point of Christmas. We might be more like the chief priests and scribes whom Matthew referred to there in Jerusalem – thinking we know the answers but unwilling to face the questions. Might we even have our sense of God quite wrong? or partly wrong?

As we approach a New Year, we can spend a lot of time asking God… asking God to change things, to pull a few strings, to arrange things the way we would like them to be. The Gospels seem to encourage us to. They even tell us that our prayers will be answered. But the message we hear will largely depend on what we think God is like, on how we relate to God. Interestingly, the Gospels usually add that we ask in the name of Jesus; or they promise that God will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. What does asking in the name of Jesus involve? I think that it means approaching God with a similar mind-set to that of Jesus, working from the kind of relationship that existed between Jesus, a grown adult, and his Father, an adult God. The Lord’s Prayer provides an excellent illustration.

As we look at our world with all its problems, we are easily tempted to ask God to intervene. Nothing much has changed over the last two thousand years in that regard. The world had it problems then, too. God’s answer was to come among people, at first as a helpless, powerless, infant, but who slowly grew in wisdom and age and grace to become an adult, who showed us an alternative way to face the world’s problems and challenged us really to repent, to convert, to think differently, to take a different way home.

God is still in our world, immersed in reality, whatever and however it is. God does not need reminders from us; God is infinitely more sensitive to our world and concerned about it than we ever could be. We need to learn to discern the presence of God already in the mess. We need to tune in to what God is asking of us. We need to allow God to empower us to face our world and its problems. And the power that he is yearning to share with us is the power of love.

Once again at Christmas we have met the child in the manger. Have we learnt its message? I wonder how we might return to our familiar world by that different way? how we might help each other find that way?

Homily 4 - 2019

Matthew gives his story of the “wise men” [astrologers from some unidentified country to the East] pride of place in his introductory segment to the public life of Jesus. Though he adds a number of details of his own, basically his aim was to give flesh to the enthusiastic message contained in the Book of Isaiah [as we heard in today’s First Reading], though he did so in his own typically restrained way:"Arise, shine out, Jerusalem, for your light has come … though night still covers the earth and darkness the peoples … Above you the Lord now rises.. The nations come to your light … everyone in Sheba will come, bringing gold and incense and singing the praise of the Lord”.

Though he could have drawn on any number of suitable passages from a variety of prophets, Matthew chose this one for his formal introduction to the significance of Jesus precisely because of its universalist vision. Consistently, he would conclude his Gospel with a similar theme. Then he would have the recently crucified but now risen Jesus appearing to his disciples on a mountain in Galilee, and urging them, “Go and make disciples of all the nations … I am with you always.”

Today, with the Feast of Epiphany, we celebrate the fact that Jesus’ message is meant for the whole world.

Yet, hostility has pretty well always defined how the world’s nations have related to one another. The study of history is little more than the study of successive wars. Now we have reached a stage in the world’s evolutionary march across time when a single person, by pushing a button, can destroy the whole world, everyone. We have reached the stage when Jesus’ message has never been so necessary. Is anyone listening?

Jesus insisted that God loves this world. If that is the case, then is God powerless? It is a good question, and merits pondering. If Jesus was God’s response to the world’s need, was/is Jesus powerless? The Feast of Christmas gives flesh to that question. Is anyone as powerless as a newly-born infant? Consistently, did anyone look more powerless than a lonely man hanging twisted, tortured and dehumanised on a cross?

Confusion comes from our understanding of the word “power”. Power, too often, is seen as the power to coerce, and rides roughshod over freedom and human dignity and individuality, and genuine love. It is a miserable sense of power, and deceptive. God has nothing to do with it.

Yet we also use the word “power” to describe the opposite of coercion. Power gives and nurtures life. It enables growth, and encourages freedom. It respects human dignity and uniqueness. We see it in the power of truth to convince, of beauty and joy to attract, of personal integrity to teach, of love to create and empower, of simplicity and transparency to reassure, and of poverty to celebrate it all. This is as close as we get to describing God’s power. It has nothing to do with coercion. To be effective it calls for free and willing cooperation – and consequently it takes time.

Since he was truly human, when Jesus was crucified, he died. He lived only thirty or so years. And history has continued to unroll, two thousand years of it. He left the Church to carry on his message and ministry. That’s us. The Second Vatican Council spoke beautifully of the Church and its relationship to human cultures: “Established by Christ as a fellowship of life, charity and truth [or, better, a vital, loving, faith-filled community], it is also used by him as an instrument for the redemption of all and is sent forth into the whole world as the light of the world and the salt of the earth”. Inevitably the Church is composed of persons like ourselves who, at the same time, belong to human cultures. Sadly, instead of influencing culture, culture too often influences the Church. But the more we grow to be that vital, loving, faith-filled community, the more effective ely we become Christ's instrument for the redemption of the world.

Homily 5 2022

Beginning a little before Christmas Eve and finishing up today, ten days later, we Catholics have covered in our daily Liturgy celebrations the Infancy Narratives of both Luke’s and Matthew’s Gospels, and the opening prologue in John’s Gospel – rich fare indeed!

I want this morning to reflect briefly on a comment that recurred twice in Luke’s Gospel – a comment about Mary, Jesus’ mother, a key player, if ever there was one, in the mystery of the Word of God, the eternal Christ, becoming human, or even more concretely, “flesh”. You will know the comment: “As for Mary, she treasured these things, and pondered them in her heart.” I warm to that observation because for me, it seems to sum up the key to the uniqueness of Mary.

Mary apparently let her life experiences touch her. She took them seriously, “treasuring them” even. And especially, “she pondered them in her heart”. The significant fact there is that she pondered life in her heart, not in her head. She may have done that, too, of course. But the two processes are quite different. With our minds we can think about God, analysing, clarifying, comparing, etc. With our hearts we relate.

We can adore God; we can praise God; we can question God. These are head experiences. They tend to put God up on a pedestal, to differentiate us from God, perhaps even to “keep our distance” – as Moses was told to do at the Burning Bush incident: “Take off your shoes. The ground on which you stand is holy ground”.

On the other hand, we can longingly search for the presence of God in our experiences. We can sit quietly with God, saying nothing; we can let God simply gaze lovingly at us; and we can seek to gaze back at God. We can let God love us; even forgive us. And allow ourselves and God to enjoy it. These are heart exercises. They draw us more closely together, God and us. With our hearts, we can seek to relate, person to person, to God, to draw closer.

Perhaps, we need to approach God with both our head and our heart. But in time, we come to realise that our heads are not too reliable: God is, after all, beyond the capacity of our puny human comprehension. Yet we find that our hearts can continue to relate to the mysterious mystery we know as God, that the mystery is no handicap. As two people grow in love, they come to know each other, the real other, less and less in a certain sense. They recognise there is always more to discover, to depth, than they first expected. But that nourishes their love, rather than lessening it.

As you look at yourself and God, as you look at your prayer, would you say you pray more with your head or with your heart?

Luke said of Mary that “she pondered … in her heart”. I wonder if that was why Luke also had the archangel Gabriel say to Mary, “Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” I suspect it had very much to do with it.

Homily 6 - 2024

Matthew constructed a quite different picture of Jesus’ infancy experiences from that created by his contemporary Gospel writer Luke. Though both were interested in alerting their readers to the important underlying themes of the public life of Jesus, their sense of what those important fundamental themes were were as different as were the backgrounds of Matthew and Luke themselves. Matthew evaluated Jesus through the eyes of a devout convert from Judaism; Luke saw Jesus through the eyes of non-Jewish, formerly pagan, converts to the growing Christian Church.

Today we have Matthew’s story of the Visit of the Magi to the new parents, Mary and Joseph, and their child Jesus, living in Bethlehem. What can we make of it?

To the ordinary Jew of the time, Magi were somewhat exotic intellectuals from a powerful pagan kingdom to their North-East, present-day Iran/Persia. They had the reputation of being excellent astronomers and cosmologists, and many of them were priests of the local religion. Not much happened in the night skies without their noticing it and making some sense of it. Matthew presented his readers with a small group of these men travelling from their homeland to pay homage to the infant king of the Jews. They had seen a star rising in the eastern skies, and conjectured that it marked nothing less than the birth of a child, a king, whose impact would prove to have a truly cosmic significance.

(It is interesting how a third evangelist, John, in the opening chapter of his Gospel, would write of the Word of God, Son of the Father, the One through whom the whole cosmos came into being, taking flesh, becoming human, as Jesus.) Both evangelists were adamant in insisting that the mission of the human Jesus, the one whom both were sure had called them to be disciples, was of world-shaking importance, destined to affect profoundly both Jews and pagans alike — recognisable by both people of faith, like the Jews, and people, like the Magi, whose starting point was the natural world and whose approach was illuminated by way of reason.

Matthew’s story continued. The Magis’ hope was that they would be able personally to do homage to the new-born king. They weren’t interested in the least in giving homage to King Herod, nor to any of his sons, though they accepted his political power as king and were open to ask his help. Herod, in turn, sought the aid of the Jewish religious elite — the chief priests and the the legal professionals, the scribes, who, in turn, were able to give him the information he, and the Magi, were seeking.

The information delighted the pagan Magi, but served only to deeply disturb, and even throw the political and religious power brokers into a panic.

The Magi resumed their quest, more eager than ever. The star cooperated with them to the end. They entered the house where the child was, and not only did they do him homage, but at the sight of him they suddenly fell to their knees. They felt in their knees what they had not expected — nothing less than the overwhelming impact of divine mystery.

I wonder if that is how Matthew hoped we, his readers, would react every time that we read a passage from his Gospel. Would that be up to him or up to us?