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Saint Matthew 2: 1-12
Dignity NYC
08 January 2006
Galileo Galilei, George the Chozebite, Dominica the Abbess, Abo the Martyr, Isidor the Presbyter together with 72 other Martyrs of Derpt in Estonia
Yesterday was Christmas according to the Julian Calendar, and in ancient times, Christmas and Epiphany were celebrated together, Epiphany being the older of the two celebrations. Theophany, in the Christian East, is the celebration of the revelation of God, here on earth, and involves the recollection of Christmas, the arrival of the Magi, along with the Baptism of the Lord, and the Wedding at Cana ~ all of them constituting some aspect of that revelation of Christ’s coming into the world among us.
“When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, there came Magi from the East … And they entered the house and saw the infant boy with Mary his mother, and they threw themselves down and worshipped him; and they opened their treasures and offered to him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.”
At Epiphany we celebrate the manifestation of Christ to the Gentile people, a story about insiders and outsiders, inclusion and radical hospitality. At the heart of this manifestation are the Wise Men from the East, who managed to read and respond to a great sign in the heavens. Wise men ~ more to the point, they were astrologers, necromancers, fortunetellers ~ the scientists of the day, who were, according to Jewish law, serious sinners of the worst kind. Rather like today’s scientists who believe in evolution, over against the ‘intelligent design’ fundamentalists. They were outsiders and sinners.
They were visionaries, astrologers, poets … open to the possibility of God breaking in on our reality, and who were willing to see the signs in the heavens that others, it seems, did not see. They were able to believe in the possibility of the impossible. This is the only time we encounter them in scripture, but a sense of their importance and significance persists.
We’re not sure how many there were, though because there were three gifts, we assume that there were three of them. There may have been six, or even nine. The Ethiopians know them as Karsudan, Hor, and Basanater, while the Syriac Christians call them Larvandad, Hormisdas, and Gushnasaph. In the west, we know them as Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. They came, having read the signs of the times and realized that something new and revolutionary was about to happen.
Did they really exist? You might care to know that around the year 1270, Marco Polo found their tomb, and their incorrupt bodies, in the city of Saba, south of Teheran, in Persia. He wrote “In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three Magi set out and in this city they are buried, in three very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is a square building, beautifully kept. The bodies are still entire, with hair and beard remaining." (Book iii).
Peculiarly, though, a couple of centuries earlier, the Empress Helena (Constantine’s mother) said that she found their bones during her famous visit to Palestine. The Benedictine historian, John of Hildesheim, in 1164, explains “Queen Helen...began to think greatly of the bodies of these three kings, and she arrayed herself, and accompanied by many attendants, went into the Land of Ind...after she had found the bodies of Melchior, Balthazar, and Casper, Queen Helen put them into one chest and ornamented it with great riches, and she brought them into Constantinople...and laid them in a church that is called Saint Sophia." From there they were moved to Milan, and later to Cologne, where they remain. So, tonight we remember them and we celebrate their arrival and their gifts of hospitality and welcome.
When Christ was born, it had been a long time, it seems, since God had taken any notice of Israel the beloved. (Malachi, the last Hebrew prophet, was born around the year 538 BC in Babylon.) Turning the pages in the Bible, it’s only two or three pages from the Hebrew Scriptures to the Gospels, but that two or three pages amounts to more than 400 years of silence, during which, among other many things, the nation was taken over by the Romans. One had to wonder if God no longer listened to their prayers, if they had lost God’s love.
That God would choose to manifest to the people of Israel with the help and the voices of these outsiders, then, is important, for it reminds us that nobody has a monopoly on truth or on God, that we need the outsiders, and that God makes use of outsiders as bearers of truth.
For their part, they were entering into unknown, even hostile territory in coming from Persia to the land of the Israelites, knowing well that they would have to depend on the hospitality of these people simply to survive. But they came because one exceptional star pointed them to this child, and they had confidence that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob might break in and overtake their reality, our reality.
God seems to like the outsiders. On Christmas, we recalled how the angels’ first announcement of the birth of the Messiah, the Savior, was to shepherds ~ these unwashed, illiterate, ignorant guys knew virtually nothing of the Law except that it existed.
That they were illiterate and ignorant was considered to be their fault, and so they were, in effect, sinners from birth, sinners of the worst kind. Barely tolerated by society, they were outsiders and beneath contempt. And yet it was these outcasts who were selected to hear the angelic message, and it was these outcasts who were the first to make their way to the stable to welcome the Messiah, to show hospitality.
In this connection, we are called to show hospitality to undocumented immigrants, homeless, bicycle messengers, and all those beloved of God who live as exiles and outcasts.
So often, it’s through the outcasts and outsiders that significant changes are made in the world. Last Sunday, on New Year’s Day, channel 13 broadcast the 1971 film version of Fiddler on the Roof. The year was 1905: change was in the air, and so was revolution. Tevye could read the signs of the times, all right, and tried his best to respond, but he didn’t always have the agility to respond effectively. In the end, you recall, Tevye and his family set out to go to New York. On arriving in America, especially with their old world customs and traditions, they would still be the strangers in a strange land, but they knew, somehow, that they would also have some measure of freedom, respect, and peace. These outcasts, and all the outcasts of all the waves of immigrants, have been able to read the signs of the times, and have changed the political, social, and economic landscape of this city, and the nation.
What are the signs for us today, though? What enables us to recognize the Lord breaking into our world and our lives? What challenges us to open our eyes and respond to the signs of the times, like the ancient astrologers? (not so much signs in the heavens as signs in our world, sanctified by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ and the continued presence of the Holy Spirit …)
There are, to be sure, many disappointments, but there are also some wonderful, positive signs in these troubled times. There are things happening in strange, surprising ways among the outsiders in our culture, that point to a kind of energy, a sense that God is at work.
• The growing recognition of LGBT weddings and holy unions across the globe, despite active and strident opposition by the Roman pope as well as the Patriarch of Moscow
• The growing resistance among people of faith to the Vatican’s anti-gay rhetoric
• The growing support in congress to enable queer people to serve honorably in the Armed Forces without fear
• The creation of a small interfaith network of clergy and parishes, here in New York City, to address the needs of homeless queer youths
• The action of the Synod of Athens to begin ordaining women to the Diaconate in the Orthodox Church
• The very public consecrations of women on the Danube two years ago, and the ordinations of women on the Saint Lawrence last year ~ all very much in the apostolic succession and in the Catholic tradition
• And closer to home, this week, the election of Christine Quinn as speaker of the New York City Council.
• The appearance, to critical and popular acclaim, of the film Brokeback Mountain.
Epiphany challenges us and encourages us as outsiders to continue to witness to the “signs of the times,” for it is we who can read them when the dominant culture of “insiders” fails in its blindness. Epiphany celebrates the magnificence of God manifesting and revealing in Christ to every one of us, and in every one of us, and perhaps especially in and among the outsiders. It celebrates the reading of the signs of the times, and it celebrates the eventual reconciliation of all of creation in God.
At Christmas we heard again the message that “the people living in darkness have seen a great light.” This evening we continue the theme of the triumph of light over darkness, and of the revelation of God’s glory in our world, where, as Isaiah says “Darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the people.” Isaiah gives a sense of the unspeakable joy that God’s reality is finally breaking in on the world. We have a brilliant picture of all the nations, all the outcasts and outsiders, streaming into Jerusalem, now radiant with the unity of all people and the presence of God.
A few verses later he provides a glimpse of that reality that God has prepared: “Violence shall no more be heard in your land, nor destruction within your borders … the Lord shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your mourning shall be ended .. all of your righteous people shall inherit the land for ever .. the smallest one shall become thousands, and the least one a strong nation; I, the Lord, will hasten it in its time.” (60: 18-21)
Paul, similarly, talks of “the mystery unknown in former ages.” This is the same wonderful news of inclusion, that walls of separation would be torn down, and the Gentiles were now included along with the Jewish people, in God’s plan for the world.
We LGBT people of faith often know that we are bearers of light, and at the same time outsiders and strangers in a strange land. We’re called to reach out over and over again, to other strangers, and to those who persecute us, to offer them the truth of our humanity and experience and faith. We may feel, like Tevye, that we’ve made far too many accommodations already, and that one more will break us. But just as Tevye set out with his family to go to America, and just as the Magi set out to go into the land of Israel, so are we called to move into the unknown, confident that God will always be with us.
This story of the wise men is always relevant and pertinent. Now, as we enter the new year, let us celebrate that God has a preference for the poor, the disempowered, the foreigners, and the outsiders; and that God manifests to us and in us unceasingly. Let us always be attentive, and ready to see what God would have us see, and to do what God would have us do, in order, as Paul said, “that Christ may dwell in us by faith, and in our hearts by love … so that we may know the love of Christ which surpasses all knowledge.”
We, and many others, are like the Magi, like the foreigners and poets, visionaries and lunatics among us. We’re called to welcome them, and one another. Let us never lose sight of the star, the sparkle we seem to see in the people around us, and in the seemingly insignificant things we experience in life. Let us never lose confidence in our vision and imagination, and in the conviction that life is always more profound than we realize, a precious gift filled with precious gifts.
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