The Feast of the Epiphany

Star Struck!

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

Light is a central theme for the Christmas season. It is a wonderful image for God’s ability to change humankind. Light is God’s great gift to us. It transforms the world into a society of peace and justice if even for a short time. It brings joy in the midst of despair, and hope to a world that knows darkness all too well. The light of God blazes and draws others to it. As Christmas comes to a close, that sense of light’s transforming presence continues to be the focus as we celebrate the Epiphany. It is a reminder that God’s light is not just for us as Christians but also for the whole world. Jesus is the light of the world.

Does that knowledge open up new possibilities, new directions, new insights as we enter the New Year? Does it help us to communicate our hopes and dreams to others? That is what the birth of Christ communicated to the world; it is what we as Christians are still called to share.

The passage from Isaiah filtered through our Christian faith is a wonderful reminder to us of exactly that. The people of Israel had returned after a long exile. The Israel they came back to was a pale shadow of its former greatness. Isaiah reminds the people that God has not abandoned them. He reminds them that new blessings will transform the darkness into light. For Isaiah, Israel possessed such light that others could not help but be drawn to it. As Christians we know that the light has come. The glory of the Lord has risen upon the world. The light stands out distinctly in the darkness. It shines. It beckons. It draws.

That surely is the point of the story of the visitation of the magi. They followed the light of a particular star through the dark nights and at the end of their long journey, they met Christ. They knelt before the child, offering rare gifts, gifts full of meaning and hope. But the drama of the story does not stop there, for it has a dark side.

The journey of the magi is interrupted. They are looking for a child who has been born as a king, and so they find themselves in Jerusalem seeking out King Herod, the King of the Jews. Actually Herod, the King of the Jews, was not a Jew at all. He was Idumean. They had been conquered by the Jews, forced to convert to Judaism but then treated as second-class citizens. Herod had no love for the Jews. Furthermore, he was a ruthless leader, even by the standards of his own day. To say that he found the visit of the magi disturbing is an understatement. He had real reason to be concerned. A king born of David’s lineage would have more religious support than Herod could have dreamed of.

He calls the chief priests and scribes together and asks them where the king is to be born. “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they tell him. He asks the magi to bring him word when they have found the child.

The magi, warned by God in a dream, return another way to their own country. And Herod, not to be outdone, has all of the children under two put to death. But the child Jesus and his family, also warned by God in a dream, flee to Egypt, returning only when Herod dies.

On so many levels, it is a story that provides an amazing statement about Jesus’ ministry and the Christian faith. It breaks the pattern of the past. God is God, not only to the people of Israel, but to the Gentiles as well. The Epiphany is a wonderful celebration of inclusivity. We who stand in Israel’s tradition are to kneel alongside the magi in acknowledgment that the divine meets us here. It is a celebration of who Christ is. It links Jesus to Israel’s past and to the world’s hopes. It becomes a story, not of a baby in a manger, but of a Saviour who will die on the cross to save humankind.

How does the story speak to us? Where do we fit into it? For in a real way, it is a universal story. There are few details, yet storytellers throughout the ages have added to the lore. That is because there is deep truth at the heart of the story. It is the story of the people of Bethlehem, both past and present. It is the story of the children for whom Rachel weeps, of refugees who must flee from the security of their homes, and of rulers who are anxious and fearful of change. It is the story of people like most of us who are simply willing and able to offer ourselves and our gifts.

What does it mean to us that Christ is the light of the world? What does it mean in practical terms? How do we live it out in our daily lives? How do we become beacons of light that draw others to Christ? Don’t we all know such people? I think of a family whose three children I baptised many years ago. They were a loving and caring family, community minded and very active in the church. They decided to have another child. She was born with Downs Syndrome. Someone remarked to me that they could not understand how God could allow that to happen to such a wonderful family. I couldn’t help but think that God knew exactly what family to give that special child to. She has grown up loved and nurtured in that home. She has received total acceptance from her parents and her siblings. She has lived up to her full potential. What’s more, she has brought great joy into their lives.

Think in your own life of those who have brought you the light of faith. If you are like me there are many faces that come to mind. My grandmother’s face smiling with pure joy as she sang “All Through the Night” in Welsh, her voice beautiful and clear even in her eighties! A beloved teacher opening yet another bottle of Lily of the Valley cologne and making me feel as if it was the bestnChristmas gift ever! A Sunday School teacher who is still, after all these years, my good friend and mentor! A parish priest who recognized my call to ordination!

The Christmas season is coming to an end. The excitement is over. All that remains is the aftermath. But it should not be a time of depression, apathy, or inactivity in the church. Something so significant happened on that first Christmas. A light so bright that it cannot be extinguished entered the world. A connection was made between God and us that changed all of history.

Those connections continue to be made through us. We carry the light of Christ out into the darkness of our world. As we enter this New Year, we reflect on the changes that we wish to make in our lives. It is a time to make resolutions that we will try to keep throughout the year. Let us think about the gifts we bring to Jesus. What loving actions can we offer to help spread God’s realm? What can we do to help transform our own lives and the lives of those we touch? Let your loving actions be a part of your prayers for them and for everyone in need.

Jesus comes to us as a little baby, drawing us closer to God. As the wise men bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, so we bring our gifts of love to God. And in so doing we reach out into a needy world with the light of Christ, a light that transforms all of creation.

The Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year B

What a Friend We Have in Jesus!

Readings: Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

We live in a time and place in which cultures and peoples mix more than at any other time in history. There was an article in the Toronto Star this week reporting on a recent study of multiculturalism. Thousands of people were interviewed. What the researchers found was that skin colour, not religion or income was the biggest barrier to making immigrants feel as if they belonged in Canada. The darker the skin, the greater the alienation!

"We were surprised that religion didn't have more effect," said lead author Jeffrey Reitz. However, on two levels the statistics did not surprise me. First of all religion no longer has the credence of society. It no longer has the importance and sway over society that it once had. Secondly, society has its own ways of dealing with multiculturalism apart from any government or societal policies that could possibly be put into effect. Sometimes the response of society is to create closed communities that keep one’s way of living intact by excluding those who are different. Or we may create exclusive communities that are beyond the means of people who are not “like us”. We may ghettoize into communities as we did with our aboriginal peoples by segregating them on reserves. Or we may force people to change and become more like us. Many immigrants gave up their language and culture in order to become Canadian.

But the Christian faith gives us a third option, that of inclusion! Open the doors and welcome people in! However, inclusion runs risks. That is obvious from the reading from Acts. When you allow God to work through you, you lose control over who belongs and who does not. The passage follows Peter’s vision about clean and unclean foods that he had been commanded to eat. He did not understand the vision until he was invited to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile. He was speaking to the household when the Holy Spirit came over them. Just as on the day of Pentecost, they began to praise God in ways that the Christian church had assumed were exclusively theirs. The believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the Spirit of God should be given, not just to them, but to the Gentiles as well.

They moved into action. “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people?” Peter asks. It becomes a time of renewal for the whole community as they welcome the newly baptized into their table fellowship.

The risks are obvious also from John’s letter. He is writing to a community deeply divided by a theological dispute. Many had left the community over the difference in opinion. Some had questioned the humanity of Jesus, saying that Jesus could not possibly have been born human; neither could he have died as a human. Schism threatened the existence of the community. John asked them not to seek revenge or to be bitter, but to love. “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God,” he said to them. It is an inclusive statement that we so often glibly turn around. It calls us to love all of God’s children, not simply those we consider to be God’s children.

The risks of inclusivity are real. You might have to accept people whom you deem unworthy of the name of Christian. You might have to worship side by side with people of a different colour, race, economic status or sexual orientation. You might have to accept that we are all made in God’s image. You might have to struggle with the issues that face the Christian Church in the twenty-first century.

If the passages from Acts and the letter of John point out the risks, the gospel surely lives out our call to be an inclusive and open community of faith. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” Jesus says to the disciples. He reminds them of the great love that he has for them. He reminds them that our love is a reflection of the love God has for us. It is not simply religious sentimentality; it is our call as Christians. The loving attitude we see in Christ is a reflection of the will of God just as our loving attitude is meant to reflect the love of Christ in whose image we are made. It links love and obedience. It makes our love of God and others intentional.

But then as always Jesus goes much further! “I do not call you servants any longer. You are my friends,” he says to them. It is a tremendous affirmation of who we are. Why should we have been chosen into intimate relationship with Jesus? Do you have a long list of reasons? I certainly do not. Yet we have been chosen! It is a friendship based not on our deserving, not on our merit, but on our acceptance of God’s love.

Friendship is such an amazing thing. This week I experienced the amazing grace that friendship can be when it opens us up to the love of God. I am on call at Credit Valley Hospital this week. I received a call from a family to come in to a woman in palliative care who was close to death. The call came from her son, but when I arrived at the entrance to the hospital I was greeted by a half a dozen women who were waiting for me to arrive. They introduced themselves as her friends. They began to tell me about their friend who was dying. They all had a story of what she had meant to them in their lives, about meeting her for the first time, about how she had been there for them, how she had encouraged them, how her faith and joy had constantly lifted their spirits. As they spoke about her, I knew that this was a person I would have dearly loved to have known. They took me to her room and introduced me to her son and daughter in law. They too had stories of the transformative love that their mother had instilled in them. They wanted to be there with her as a community as she journeyed from life to death.

I said some prayers and read from Scripture. Then I offered a blessing. A sense of real peace and love came into the room. It was a time of grace in the midst of suffering.

How do we create a community in which there is understanding and love in a life-giving, self-giving way? To create such a community would surely be risky on so many levels. It begins with responding to Jesus as friend. In doing so we would on some level “lay down our life for our friends”. It is unlikely that it would be the ultimate sacrifice. Yet we are called to ‘put our lives on the line for one another’. We are called to put others before ourselves. We are called to love in a life-giving way. It means being generous with other people, not just by providing bread but also by sharing the deeper gift of oneself. In the Eucharist we share the bread and the one cup with each other as a sign that in our daily lives we strive to share our bread, our blessings, and ourselves with others. It is in the doing that Eucharist becomes honest and effective.

Laying down our lives for one another may mean sacrificing time, thought, worry, concern, caring, sensitivity. It will result in abhorrence for the ways of the world, for the killing and alienation of the violent society in which we live. In the light of Christ’s Eucharistic sharing such things become even more abhorrent. Christ’s gift revealed in the Eucharist enables us to understand the unique value of human life and then respond.

How do we respond to Jesus? Do we respond as friend and brother? For we are blessed to have such a friend! Amen