Category: Ordinary Time Year C

St Luke’s gospel has shepherds and no wise men; St Matthew’s gospel has wise men and no shepherds.

However, both the shepherds and the wise men are important to our story of the in-breaking of God into our world in the person of Jesus, the Word made flesh.

The shepherds were Jews, the wise men (or Magi) were non-Jews, or Gentiles.

The word epiphany means a manifestation or revelation. Literally, ‘a drawing back of the veil.’ Imagine sitting in a playhouse and waiting for the curtains to open,

On this day the veil is drawn back on a great mystery, namely, that Christ is the Saviour of all people.

Today is the feast of inclusivity.

This feast shows that election by God is not a privilege for some, rather a hope for all. It puts an end to every kind of exclusiveness.

And what does our Church do? Includes the wealthy (the Magi needed to be persons of some means which enabled them to travel), and excludes the poor – we have no Sunday dedicated to those who received the first manifestation, namely the shepherds.

In Jesus own mission he reached out to those excluded by the society in which he lived; the poor, the diseased, women and children.

He reached out to Samaritans, Canaanites, foreigners, and every manner of social outcast. He angered the Jewish leaders by telling them that the Kingdom of God was open to everyone. The news that the Gentiles would be accepted on equal terms as themselves caused shock and bewilderment to the Jewish leaders.

This great and wonderful truth was revealed in embryo when the Magi and the shepherds came to honour the Christ child.

Are all welcome, as equals, in our Church, irrespective of race, gender, age, sexual preference, ability or disability? If not, why not? Is the barrier not in them; rather, might it be in me?

I have chosen two illustrations for today.

El Greco’s painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds was painted in 1612.

The full painting includes group of angels hovering.

After spending some time with the painting, I made an amazing discovery. Notice the light shining around the naked infant Jesus. Now look at the posture of the adorers’ hands—it is like they are being warmed by the light (fire) of the Word made Flesh.

Gentile de Fabriano illustrated the three Magi. The work is lavish and detailed and was painted as an altarpiece in 1493.

A chocolate fish if you can spot the monkey! And another one when you spot the head of a lioness!

Towards the conclusion of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus is in discussion with the chief priests and elders, and they are questioning his authority. The discussion concludes with these words of Jesus, “Truly I tell you; the tax collectors and prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you, in accordance with God’s covenant plan, and you didn’t believe him – but the tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. But when you saw it, you didn’t think better of it afterwards and believe him. “ (Mtt. 21: 31-32)

I am conscious in my own life of how this season and experience of Advent and Christmas can feel like a ‘historical repeat’. I have celebrated many Advents and Christmases, and much has been/is a repeat of previous years.

Like the season of Easter, much time is taken with the preparation of liturgies.

These liturgies take place both in our Churches and at our homes.

In this rush pausing to stop, look, and listen can be overlooked.

At the centre of our Christmas celebration is the recalling that “Christmas declares the glory of the flesh”. This the wonderful opening line from the poem ‘Christmas and the Common Birth’ by the British poet Anne Ridler (1912 – 2001).

When I take time to stop, look, and listen, I realize that the reality of this truth, that ‘Christmas declares the glory of the flesh’, is strongly affirmed in the lexicon of Christian art.

The frequency with which the newborn Jesus is painted naked declares loudly that what we celebrate is indeed the ‘glory of the flesh’.

As we have declared for many, many years, “ Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto, ex Maria virgine; et homo factus est.”

“And [he] was incarnate by the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary; and was made man.”

This is evidenced most dramatically in the altarpiece by the Flemish painter Hugo van der Goes.

The painting, part of a triptych depicting the Adoration of the Shepherds forms part of the Portinari Altarpiece, c. 1476, has every person richly garmented except for? – you guessed right, “The Word made Flesh”. The artwork now hangs in the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence

 

Our Gospel for this Sunday begins with a question, “Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question (Lk. 26: 27 -28).

When the Sadducees posed their question about the status (in the next life) of the woman who was married in this life to seven brothers, they were only making fun of the belief in a next life.

No Rabbi had ever brought a ‘proof’ of it from the first five books of the Scriptures (the only ones that the Sadducees accepted).

But in Jesus they met, for the first time, a Rabbi who did!

Reading again from v. 37: “Moses himself showed it to be true…” (Moses was considered the author of the first five books).

If there are no questions, there are no real doors opening.

The German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), was walking along a street in Dresden one day, seeking answers to questions that bothered him.

Passing by a garden, he decided to sit down and look at the flowers.

The owner was suspicious and called the police.

A policeman arrived and asked him, ‘Who are you?’

Schopenhauer paused and said, ‘If you can help me find the answer to that question, I will be eternally grateful to you!’

The Austrian poet and novelist Rainer Maria Rilke ( 1875 – 1926) was being pestered by a young man who kept sending him copies of his (the young man’s) poems and asking Rilke whether he was good enough to pursue his poetry ideal.

In a letter to him, Rilke writes, “I would like to beg you, dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.

“Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them.

“And the point is to live everything.

“Live the questions now.

“Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”  ( from  Letter to a Young Poet )

Many of us seek the surety of the answer – an answer brings resolution, security, some interior calm, and of course, the ability to move on!

If there are no real questions, there are no real doors opening; try to ‘live the questions now, to love the questions’