January 3, 2016

Susan Adams

The Epiphany     Isaiah 60:1-6     Matthew 2:1-12

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Last week I was watching the Christmas episode of 'Call the Midwife'.

Did any of you see it? If you did you might remember the old nun who left the convent to make her way to her childhood home hoping to die there. As the episode unfolded she made some comment about Christmas being a time when it was right to 'go home', or to 'be at home'. After all, in the Bible story about the events that have become known as 'Christmas', Joseph takes his pregnant wife to his home in Bethlehem where their child is born in the warmth of a stable – probably the ground floor of the family home midst his extended family. There is something that feels good about being midst family at Christmas, especially if there are children. Something good about being 'at home', with the eldest and the youngest all together if at all possible.

On Christmas Day here at St Matthews we spoke of the delight we have in babies – the gift they are to their parents. We spoke too of the incipient gifts babies have within their infant selves, gifts that only become manifest as they grow toward adulthood and, if they are fortunate, have loving parents and grandparents and other role models to help them develop their gifts and see possibilities for their adult lives.

Jesus was just such a baby: loved, cherished, raised with care to follow his father Joseph's footsteps into the carpenter's shop. But all that comes later in the story of Jesus.

Today we are focussed on the legend of the wise men – who are variously magi, kings, or astrologers – who stopped in their travels to see the infant Jesus. No mention is made by Matthew of how many men there were, but according to familiar carols, we usually think there were three because there were three gifts mentioned: gold, frankincense and myrrh. Biblical scholars tell us there is no historicity to the story but that doesn't matter – there are truths to be found within it, history or not!

We might well wonder why 'Matthew' wrote this story in his telling of the gospel. What is this curious interlude - that is only reported in 'Matthew's' gospel – between the birth of Jesus that we celebrated with such delight last week, and the story of the massacre of the children ordered by the powerful and paranoid King Herod that ends this chapter. And, from which Joseph and his little family had to escape quickly.

It is almost impossible today, to hear the story of the visit to the baby by the 'wise travellers', with their warning to Mary and Joseph to escape, to leave home with their child if the baby was to have any chance of a life, without, on the one hand, thinking about the refugee families that are leaving Syria in their thousands seeking safety and a life for their children and, on the other hand, thinking about the 250,000 children in our own land who live below the poverty line with little security or hope of a fulfilled life.

Both of these groups are impacted by the priorities and fears of people in powerful positions whether those people are kings, as in Jesus' situation, or dictators, prime ministers or government ministers, heads of big businesses or of academies they have power to impact lives. Whenever the wellbeing of children and their future fails to register on the planning radar when goals and priorities are determined then we should be afraid. Indeed there is a darkness over the world; a 'thick darkness over the people' to quote Isaiah. Today we might say there is a darkness in the hearts and minds of those who could offer hope and life to the vulnerable.

I love the imagery of light that abounds in the readings today; the contrast between the 'thick darkness' Isaiah speaks of, and the star and light that draws the wise travellers. There is a curious juxtaposition between the darkness of the fear that King Herod responds too with an order to kill all the male children, those boys who could grow to be potential challengers to his political aspirations, and the wise travellers from the East, from Iran perhaps, who see the light of the future in a newborn baby in a stable and stop by to see what they can learn from this child.

There have been many sermons preached reflecting on the particular gifts – gold, frankincense and myrrh – but I like to think these were the most generous items the men had in their saddle-bags to give to the family. So they left gold, with Mary and Joseph to help fund their way out of Bethlehem – to bribe the soldiers perhaps, and the medicinal myrrh and frankincense to use as required – perhaps to keep at bay the postnatal dangers Mary must have been worried about after giving birth in a stable!

The writer of the gospel, who scholars tell us was not Matthew, writing about AD 70, 40 years after Jesus death and after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, is locating Jesus within the major strands of Jewish history in order to convince his Jewish hearers that Jesus truly is their messiah: their anointed one, the one whose 'way', whose teaching, will lead to a greater peace than they have yet found. This story of the visit of wise men from the East, is part of his not so gentle persuasion to take note, to come out of the darkness of fear and see the light. Not that anything will be miraculously changed, the temple will still have been destroyed, bereaved parents will still be bereaved, poor will still be poor, women will still be of lesser importance but, with the confidence of a new and hopeful vision, the courage of knowing things can different and that they can be part of making it different, these horrors can be named and spoken of and, actions can be taken to change the situation.

It seems to me important to go back to the story in the Bethlehem stable at this point, to connect our contemporary journey to the one that Joseph and Mary were catapulted into by Herod's fear that his power was under threat. Our future, the future of our children and the future of our planet, is compromised by the fear of today's power holders. They fear that the ways of global financial control and political organisation, they are expert in manipulating, will change – that they will lose power. But change it must and their fear must be overcome by the determination of those who have seen the light of a different way.

Isaiah invites us to 'arise and shine for our light has come ... [to] lift up our eyes and look around ... you shall see and be radiant...' (Is 60:1-6). Indeed we must lift our eyes, to shine a light into the places of fear and darkness, to look into the light and speak out what we see and to open our hearts and demand compassion.

The story of the adult Jesus is about actions such as these; this is the 'way' that the writer of Matthew' gospel is inviting his hearers into.

This – to use church language – is the 'glory of God':

people who are wise and brave enough to speak out what they see and to proclaim an alternative vision of love and peace that holds hope for the children of the world.

But where did it begin for the homeless refugee Jesus? Today we know the importance of 'home': knowing the geographic location and culture of the place we were born. But more than this, 'home' is a knowing, deep within ourselves, the security and confidence that people who love us and care about us, gives to us. The unconditional love of parents and others who nurture us, and the encouragement and hopefulness that knowing we have a future, provides us with a sense of being 'at home' wherever we are. Being 'at home' provides us with a sense of shared responsibility for the care and wellbeing of self and of others .

All Children need these things, all adults need to know these things too so they can speak out when our world goes awry.

We might ask ourselves:

• What the gifts are we ourselves are prepared to offer to enable the children of our nation to know they are 'home'; to grow with love into a hope-filled future?

• What gifts will we have the courage to ask our world leaders to offer so homeless children can sleep securely and grow into a peace-filled future.

• What are the gifts we hold within ourselves that we need to bring into the light and nurture so 'our hearts will thrill and rejoice?'