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Feast of the Epiphany

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)

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Christmas

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

 

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4th Sunday of Advent

The three Rs are three basic skills taught in schools: Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic.

The three Rs are also a simple mnemonic to assist with the care of our planet:  Reduce! Reuse! Recycle.

The Three Rs also are guiding principles for more ethical use of animals in product testing and scientific research. The 3Rs are: Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement.

Our Gospel this Sunday is the all too familiar story of the Visitation. (Lk. 1:39 – 44)

Before anything else it is a story of human encounter.

It too has three Rs, and these three Rs maybe helpful as we approach this Christmas season which, invariably, is a season of human encounter.

The three Rs include to Receive, to Recognise and to Reciprocate.

Elizabeth receives Mary, while recognising who she is, in a rich and joyful way. The encounter triggers a prayer in Mary, “My soul glorifies the Lord my spirit rejoices in God my saviour” (not in the reading).

Both women are full of joy, in Luke’s narrative. They receive each other, they recognise each other, and they reciprocate.

The encounter is joyful, affirming and refreshing.

This Christmas season may we Receive, may we Recognise, and may we Reciprocate.

The illustration is titled, The Visitation – Mary and Elizabeth meet, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN

(The source of the illustration is from Cameroon, a country in central Africa.  What I like most about the painting is the smile on each of the faces.)

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3rd Sunday of Advent

In South Africa, in the face of racial injustice, and segregation known as apartheid people of faith began to pray together and, as a sign of their hope that one day the evil of apartheid would be overcome, they lit candles and placed them in their windows so that their neighbours, the government, and the whole world would see their belief. And their government did see. They passed a law making it illegal, a politically subversive act, to light a candle and put it in your window. It was seen as a crime, as serious as owning and flaunting a gun. The irony of this wasn’t missed by the children. At the height of the struggle against apartheid, the children of Soweto had a joke: “Our government,” they said, “is afraid of lit candles!”

It had reason to be. Eventually those burning candles, and the prayer and hope behind them, changed the wind in South Africa. Morally shamed by its own people, the government conceded that apartheid was wrong and dismantled it without a war, defeated by hope, brought down by lit candles backed by prayer. Hope had changed the wind.

During the season of Advent, Christians are asked to light candles as a sign of hope. Unfortunately, this practice, ritualized in the lighting of the candles in the advent wreath, has in recent years been seen too much simply as piety (not that piety doesn’t have its own virtues, especially the virtue of nurturing hope inside our children). But lighting a candle in hope is not just a pious, religious act; it’s a political act, a subversive one, and a prophetic one, as dangerous as brandishing a firearm.

To light an advent candle is to say, in the face of all that suggests the contrary, that God is still alive, still Lord of this world, and, because of that, “all will be well, and all will be well, and every manner of being will be well,” irrespective of the evening news.

Quiz time – what are the names given to each of the four Advent candles?