Today we celebrate the feast of the
Epiphany. It’s an ancient feast, going back into the early centuries of the
Church, and it was the main celebration of Christmas at first, as it still is
in some parts of the world. It was especially popular once Christianity became
the imperial faith of Rome and then the faith of kings and emperors across
Europe in the Middle Ages. It’s easy to see why when you look at how the story
has been presented in paint, mosaic and stone over the years. The Magi were
pictured as exotic visitors from the East. Their feast was the ideal
opportunity for a bit of bling, for fine fabrics, rich colours, shiny gold and
silver and precious stones. They were much more appealing to royal courts than
a bunch of drab looking shepherds in homespun clothes.
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| Gentile di Fabriano. 1423 Adoration of the Magi. Uffizi Gallery, Florence http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/adoration-of-the-magi-by-gentile-da-fabriano/ |
Medieval kings were fond of staging
re-enactments of the Epiphany story as part of their court celebrations, and
you can guess who got to play the part of the Magi – they did! They weren't
letting anyone else hog the limelight and the best costumes. The story of the
Magi was used to legitimise their power and wealth. If they had been welcome at
the crib, so would any powerful, wealthy person. That’s true, of course, but
they didn't stop to ask whether it mattered how you came by your wealth and
power, or what you did with it. Medieval kings shoehorned themselves into the
picture, no matter how much they had to distort it in the process. That’s why
these Magi gradually became thought of as kings, despite the fact that
Matthew doesn't call them that at all, or even hint that they might have been.
The only king in Matthew’s story was the murderous king Herod, but no one who
valued their lives was going to point that out to a Medieval monarch.
But if these visitors weren’t
kings, who were they? There’s a lot of debate about that. In the ancient world,
a Magus – that’s the singular – could be any of a large range of people. Originally,
they seem to have been priests of the Zoroastrian faith, from Persia, but by
the time of Jesus, the word could be used for anyone who practiced what were
seen as magical arts – magic comes from Magi. Some Magi observed the natural
world – the stars and planets – looking for divine messages in them, and gave
birth unwittingly to what we now call science. Others were philosophers or
gurus, claiming some special secret knowledge which they would share with their
devotees. Some were no more than snake-oil salesmen, con artists, people
looking to exert power and gain wealth by trickery.
These visitors to the infant Christ
obviously had an interest in astronomy – they spotted the star - but we don’t
know much more about them than that. They were rich enough to afford costly
gifts, but it might be that the gold, frankincense and myrrh they brought was
all the wealth they had. They certainly weren't the kings that later history
turned them into, and they weren't even necessarily the “wise men” our modern
translations tend to call them. After all, going straight to the reigning king
to tell him that he had a rival in the shape of a vulnerable baby was hardly a
sensible move. So all we can really say is that these Magi were from far away,
Gentiles not Jews, and that they were seekers. They were people who knew that
there was more to know, people who knew that they needed something, and that
they needed it enough to trek a long distance and give gifts of great value to
find it. They didn’t know where they were going, or what they were going to do
when they got there, or what difference it would make; they just knew they had
to make the journey.
Their story is really a long way from
the gilded, shiny tale those Medieval monarchs wanted it to be. It’s a story of
confusion and terror, a story with a bloodbath at its end, as King Herod tries
to obliterate the competition for his throne. The Holy Family become refugees
in Egypt as a result.
The whole thing is, in short, a bit
of a mess.
And yet it proclaims that in the
midst of that mess, God is present. He’s present for people who don’t know what
they are doing or why they are doing it, for people who get it spectacularly
wrong. He’s present in the midst of bloodshed and grief, in the face of hatred
and jealousy. He’s present for those who don’t fit in, for those who come from
far away and feel like clueless outsiders. He’s present for those who live in
“thick darkness” as the prophet Isaiah put it in our first reading. He’s
present for people who are in a mess, people who have made a mess. And that, surely,
means he’s present for us, because somewhere in that messy list, we can all
find ourselves, if not now then at some point in our life. So this story is
very good news, not just for kings and emperors, but for everyone.
Mess has been a bit of a theme for
me this week. As you may know, on Wednesday morning I discovered that the church
hall had been broken into and vandalised. Broken crockery everywhere, broken
windows, and a plate of spaghetti hoops thrown at the kitchen wall. The
perpetrators had obviously had a field day, high on something or other. Fortunately,
a team of people swiftly rallied round and cleared up, and Martin got the
insurance claim underway and sorted out the glass repairs. Mercifully too, the
newly refurbished kitchen hadn't been damaged, apart from the aforementioned
spaghetti hoops. So it could have been worse. But it was no fun discovering this
scene of devastation on Wednesday morning, and of course, although the
insurance will cover the damage there’s the excess to pay and the nuisance of
sorting it all out.
It wasn't just the physical mess
that struck me as I surveyed the wreckage though. That was fairly easy to deal
with. It was the other mess which really saddened me, the mess of the lives of
those who had done it. What kind of state do you have to be in, how hopeless
and purposeless do you have to be to create such wanton destruction? What does the
future hold for you if you’re that far out of control, so disengaged from your
own community that you can trash a space that’s there for you too? How far awry
does your moral and emotional compass have to be for you to do things like this?
It’s easy for us to feel angry about
the damage done to the church hall, but I believe God wants us to be just as
angry about the damage that must have been done to the lives of his children to
turn them into mindless vandals who are capable of this. That doesn't mean the law should be soft on
them if they’re caught, but it matters that we understand that God is just as
much with them and for them as he is for us. He longs for them to see the
starlight that’ll lead them home to him, just as much as he longed for the Magi
to see it. He longs for them to find meaning and purpose for their lives, to
know they’re welcome, as the Magi were – you don’t have to break in if you know
you’re welcome!
This story of the Magi is for them,
but of course, it is also for the rest of us too. Most of us probably wouldn't
smash up other people’s property or throw plates of spaghetti hoops at the
wall, but we’re all capable of making a mess of life – our own and others,
deliberately or accidentally. We can vandalise people’s spirits by putting them
down, smashing their confidence, disregarding or condemning them. That can
cause damage that is far harder to put right. We can all find ourselves
stumbling about in the “thick darkness” Isaiah talked about, directionless,
lost, causing mayhem as we go. We all need that star to call us home.
The Magi weren't really the shining
heroes those Medieval kings wanted them to be. They were just people who knew
their need of God, and were desperate enough to make a messy, costly journey to
try to find him. When they did, it wasn't in the political and economic heart
of the nation – King Herod’s palace. It was at the heart of an ordinary family
who had an extraordinary willingness to welcome those God sent to them, whoever
they were and wherever they’d come from, even if it threw their own lives into
turmoil. That’s exactly how the adult Jesus behaved – this foreshadows his
adult life. He allowed his life to be messed up so that others could find the
love of God. The Magi go home, we’re
told, “by another road”. That’s not just a geographical detail; it is a
spiritual one too. They’ve been changed by the journey, and the welcome at the
journey’s end.
There’s an old Epiphany tradition in
which priests bless small pieces of chalk. The chalk is then taken home and used to write
a message above the doors of those who receive it. The message reads, rather
cryptically, 20 + C + M + B + 17. The 20 and the 17 are the year, of course.
The C,M and B are either Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar – traditional names
given to the magi in Western Christianity – or alternatively they stand for “Christus Mansionem Benedicat” – Christ
bless this house. Altogether it is a sign to anyone who sees it that this is a
house committed to giving a Christian welcome to those who are looking for it,
wandering Magi, the questioning and confused, and to Christ himself, who comes to us in
everyone we meet.
I have some chalk this year, which
I’ll bless later in the service. If you’d like to you are welcome to take a
piece home and to write that sign over your door. If you live somewhere you
can’t really chalk, I've made some little signs which you might be able to
fasten to the door, or put in a window instead.
Like those Medieval kings, we all
like a bit of bling in our lives, but in the end, the light of God’s love,
known in the love we give and receive, and in the welcome we extend to others,
is far brighter and more glorious than earthly gold, far sweeter than
frankincense, far better for healing than myrrh. May that light shine in our
hearts today.
Amen
The Blessing of the Chalk
Welcoming God, who led the Magi to
their true home in the heart of Christ by the light of a star, bless this chalk
today. May the signs of welcome we make with it be matched by the welcome we
give in our hearts; to the wandering and confused, to the lonely and the lost,
to those who seek for you, and those who do not know what they seek. May they
find you in us and may we find you in them. In the name of Christ. Amen
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