[Propertalk] Epiphany c 2013

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

This was finished a little bit ago, and I've just finished dinner. It'll 
be visited by the editor, no doubt 8 - )

Happy revelations!

Bob

EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY  THE EPIPHANY OF OUR LORD JESUS 
CHRIST TO THE NATIONS (c)
ISAIAH  60:1-6                         					 6th JANUARY, 2013
EPHESIANS 3:1-12			                            	 PSALM 72:1-7, 10-14
MATTHEW 2:1-12

	Peter, Paul and Mary – remember them?

	No, these are not the names of the Magi – as far as I know. But they 
could be. Listen to this:

	“Well now each man is a pilgrim,
	Yes, we all must make the journey
	And it seems that time is telling us to be all that we can
	To help lift up the fallen, we must sow the seeds of goodness
	The torch is passed among us now to light the way of man” 1
	
	That seems to turn things in a way I – and perhaps you – hadn’t thought 
of in terms of who the Magi were and what their role was in creation. 
They’re not simply spectators. They’re not simply one-time gift-givers. 
They’re active evangelists of what they had come to understand about the 
Love of God.

	There are so many traditions tied to this Feast that it’s kind of hard 
to set aside all the trappings and potential misinterpretations. Let’s 
look at a few of them.

	First, who said that the Magi were men?	Of course, we all know that 
women weren’t valued, other than as property. If some women were skilled 
at knitting, at baking, at keeping the house clean, and so on, so much 
the better. They’d be attractive commodities in the marriage market.

	But why, in his first letters to the Corinthians and to Timothy, did 
Paul have to go and say that women should be silent, shouldn’t take a 
role of leadership or authority in the church’s life? If the women of 
his time weren’t doing that, then there wouldn’t have been any need for 
that, whatever lay behind Paul’s comments. It would have been an 
automatic process. I’m inclined to think, therefore, that women did, 
indeed, assume roles that may have made some men pretty uncomfortable, 
but that didn’t preclude them from being among the intelligentsia, 
albeit one that was kept on a pretty short leash.

	So, first myth, perhaps there WAS a Miriam among the exotic visitors 
who sought Jesus as the incarnation of the Wisdom that was their focus 
in life.

	Second, who said that there were three?? Nothing in the biblical 
account makes that claim. Yes, three gifts are described, but they’re 
somewhat standard in terms of the sort of thing the most important 
person in the county would receive.

	I doubt if Mary had rushed down to the Bethlehem “Target” and 
registered Jesus’ birth, listing everything they needed for the 
foreseeable future. Any Magus or Maga wanting to bring something to 
acknowledge Jesus’ sovereignty and supremacy wouldn’t have been put off 
by the fact that the travelling companion from the next county had been 
to the same frankincense outlet and picked up a five-pound gift box.

	Anything which would limit the number of pilgrims, or of the gifts, is 
pure speculation, then.

	And, third, there’s the whole question of Bethlehem and of the time 
taken to make the journey and arrive to see Jesus. All the re-tellers of 
Jesus’ story took great pains to tie Him and His ancestry firmly into 
the Hebrew tradition. So they settled on Bethlehem – whose name means 
“House of Bread”, in itself a highly charged designation – and they 
introduced the idea of three years so that they could mention the Magi’s 
confrontation with Herod and the clash between earthly and spiritual 
politics and practice.

	Yet there’s significance to both place and time, significance used by 
the early Christian church to fix Jesus firmly within their own 
expectations based on Jewish prophecies. There’s significance tied in to 
all the associations that are brought to mind by what these traditions 
carry.

	There’s one major problem with all of these traditions, though. They 
may serve to limit, or try to limit, our understanding of God at work in 
human history. But nothing takes away from this account the fact that 
foreigners were drawn to seek truth, to seek meaning for their lives. 
They weren’t put off by the fact that they had to make a fairly 
stressful effort, without any guarantee of a successful conclusion as a 
reward.

	For the Magi, the journey itself was something to treasure.

	How often can we say that about our own lives? Every year we’re given 
fifty-two weeks, with fresh beginnings. We’re not told where we’ll be in 
twelve months’ time. But we ARE promised Jesus’ company as we visit with 
Him and as we take the message of God’s love with us wherever we go.

	Sometimes we get so hung up with the thought of reaching a certain 
point in life that we fail to notice the fun that we can have on the 
way. We walk down the same street, or drive on the same stretch of road, 
or we work with the same group of people, or we talk to the same folk on 
the phone every day. Yet, somehow, we fail to be surprised at how much 
we enjoy that person’s company, or appreciate the fact that the road 
remains relatively safe and open, and so on.

	However many travelled at God’s leading to find satisfaction for their 
curiosity and their longings, imagine the discussions these people might 
have had on their journey. Nothing is said about where the people 
originated, but it’s hardly likely that they were from the same city, 
never mind the same district within the city. They could share comments 
about the customs and their backgrounds which had led them to be curious 
about why they should travel.

	I can think of journeys I’ve made, especially on a train on which one 
can wander about without being frowned upon, and getting into good 
discussions about all sorts of things. I’ve been to concerts and sat in 
roughly the same place several times, and have come to know those who 
sit in the same area.

	Now there are some folk whom I’d probably not want to meet that often, 
but then there are others who are such fun to talk to, to share 
humourous anecdotes, that friendships can be made that affect so much of 
one’s life.

	As near as I can tell, that’s how God intends us to live. Life isn’t 
supposed to be some interminable strict Calvinistic forced march towards 
the point of discovering that, somehow, one didn’t make it on to the 
list that Peter may or may not flourish when the trumpet section in 
heaven begins to warm up. Life itself, as depicted by all the stories of 
Jesus, from birth all the way through death to resurrection and 
ascension, life itself is supposed to be filled with joy – joy at 
discovering all the small as well as big surprises. None of this is to 
be taken for granted.

	Of course, none of this denies the problems we face – the veiled threat 
that there might be a massacre of children all the way to Jesus’ 
execution. Yet, along the way, there are so many encounters of joy that 
God hopes we’ll have, and which God hopes that we’ll share with others. 
And here we can turn back to the Peter, Paul and Mary song.

	There can be a tendency, because of tradition, to imagine that the 
Magi’s journey is a once-in-history event. It’s not. Yes, these visitors 
had a role to play: to show that Jesus was born for everyone on earth, 
foreigners – even unbelievers, as well as the already faithful. But as 
we’re drawn into this journey we’re made aware of the fact that we too 
have a role to play. We too have a role to play. “We all must make the 
journey. And it seems that time is telling us to be all that we can: To 
help lift up the fallen, we must sow the seeds of goodness. The torch is 
passed among us now to light the way of man.”

	Neither Christmas Season nor Epiphany are to be seen as spectator 
sport, and this is where tradition can impede us. We’re invited to make 
an offering of ourselves; we’re invited to become travelling companions 
of Jesus as He makes His way throughout His life, just as He promises to 
accompany us. But we’re called to make sure that everyone else hears 
about the good news of Jesus’ continued Presence in our midst.

	I was struck by one of the editorials in last Monday’s “Albany 
Democrat-Herald”. The heading tells us all “It’s about respect”.  2

	“At the root of it all,” Steve Lundeberg wrote, “is a persistent strain 
of societal disrespect that’s evident , for example, in a tendency to 
dehumanize women through objectification.” What Mr. Lundeberg wrote 
about women – referring to sexual assaults in women in India, where an 
attack occurs every twenty-eight seconds, and in the U.S. where it’s 
only every two minutes – what Lundeberg wrote about women, though, 
applies to everyone.

	If we allow some traditions to stand unchallenged, we open ourselves to 
the possibility of turning down or reducing the potential of God’s call 
to us.

	It’s not just three guys in business suits who run things and are 
important, no matter how expensive the suits.
Any number of Magi, of both sexes, may have made their way to visit 
wherever Jesus was – and continue to do so. Nothing ever limited Jesus’ 
desire to help people discover the love of God. That’s why we should 
never allow anyone or anything to stereotype us. Nothing, not even 
tradition, should keep us from seeking what we perceive is wonderful and 
fulfilling. Certainly, risk-taking, setting out on strange journeys, 
shouldn’t deter us. As T.S. Eliot remarked in his “Preface to Transit of 
Venus”, “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out 
how far one can go.” 3

	Every last one of us is called to explore our relationship with God and 
with creation, in as orthodox or unorthodox a way as we wish. The point 
is, from the time of our baptism on we’ve been sent out on a journey to 
draw closer to the heart of God, AND to encourage as many as possible.

	Once again, Peter, Paul and Mary’s words reach out:

	“.. it seems that time is telling us to be all that we can
	To help lift up the fallen, we must sow the seeds of goodness

	As the chorus reminds us:

	“ … the (magi) spoke of peace on earth …
	In the whisper of a love that's born again
	In the weaving of your fingers
	In a promise that we made that never ends.”

	Epiphany – the word meaning “revelation” or “manifestation” of who God 
is – Epiphany reminds us that God is not content to sit to wait for us 
to discover love. God draws us all INTO that love, through you, through 
me. There’s no end to the ways of God. Nor, it seems, to the ways in 
which God calls us to comfort and support others.

NOTES:

1 	“The Magi (The Heart of a Man’s Palace)” – Lyrics by Peter, Paul and 
Mary

2	“It’s about respect” by Steve Lundeberg. Albany Democrat-Herald. 
Monday, December 31, 2012 
http://democratherald.com/news/opinion/editorial/editorial-it-s-about-respect/article_a6739d9e-55d4-11e2-919f-0019bb2963f4.html

3	T.S. Eliot    “Preface to Transit of Venus: Poems by Harry Crosby 
(1931)”  http://wist.info/eliot-t-s/167/



Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)