Epiphany -  The magi expose us

Sermon preached at St Mary's Church, Whitkirk, Leeds

7^th January 2007

Today, if we have managed to avoid this side of things so far, our celebrations of the birth of Jesus enter the dark side.  The entry on the scene of the magi (Matt 2:1-12) brings strange and exotic gifts from the East, but also storm clouds follow them.  Shortly after they have left their gifts, Mary and Joseph have to flee for their lives with the infant Jesus.  The magi, by calling on King Herod, have inadvertently stirred a hornets’ nest and he will be utterly ruthless in his response.

We don’t pick this up very well because our calendar puts things in an odd order and it doesn’t get a mention on Sundays.  On the fourth day of Christmas, 28^th December, we commemorate the slaughter of the innocents with Herod ordering the murder of all boys under two years old to try to wipe out what he sees as a threat and we see just how evil a response a despot desperate to cling to power will mete out.  The screams that follow cannot be hushed.  Mary and Joseph then escape to Egypt as refugees.  Today the Daily Mail might call them illegal asylum seekers, they would be reliant on charity and live constantly in fear of the 5am knock at the door.  The Bishop of Ripon and Leeds used his maiden speech in the House of Lords to spell out just what plight Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus would face if they chose to seek asylum in Britain today.  [A copy can be downloaded here.]

Today then, our calendar, somewhat out of sequence, gives us the arrival of the magi.  They lay gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  They bring their wealth and all that wealth represents.  Money opens up options that are closed when you don’t have it.  George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, described money as the currency of action.  It makes things happen and if we are generous with it we enable things to happen.  If we are tight, we prevent them.  And strangely the most generous are often those who don’t have much of it, possibly because they realise more sharply the consequences of not having it in ways those who are comfortable are cushioned from. 

The same goes for giving in church.  Proportionately the best givers are the poorer parishes.  The Church of England is actually kept poor by low levels of giving by the majority of people.   In Scandinavia they have a church tax and this translates into a currency of action in ways we can only dream of.  The Church of England is the most established church in Europe and yet receives the least from central government.  That said if the people locally followed the magi’s example and laid some of their gold before the infant Jesus, translated it into the currency of action, then there would be no shortage at all.  So the magi bring quite a sharp challenge and critique of our inward-looking society.

There is quite a bit of evidence now that this country is no where near as secular as a few vocal voices would have us think.  The sociologist Grace Davie tells us that the presence of the church in the community is highly valued and would be missed enormously if it was to disappear.  But this doesn’t go further to ask how it can be sustained.  The magi tell us how it can be sustained, but we ignore them because they travel on camels, the wrong kind of 4x4.  I think this is a major issue that has to be tackled.

The magi also brought frankincense.  That is the incense we are using this morning.  Incense has been used in worship, as a way of enhancing the sense of the mysterious, for millennia.  Psalm 141 (v 2) refers to our prayers rising like incense.  The book of Leviticus in the Old Testament gives instructions for burning incense as an offering in the Temple cult (Lev 16:12).   The incense symbolizes our worship, our recognition of the honour due to God, not just in holy places but in every moment of our lives.  In the Eastern tradition the people are censed as well as the icons as an expression of honour for the image of God contained in both.  If we claim that the Christ-child touches the building blocks of life, which I argued in my Christmas Midnight sermon, then to present him with incense is to also honour the foundation of our life which he shares and represents.  The challenge comes to live what we worship and so bowing down in adoration before the child requires us to join up the dots and ask how we honour everyone else.  The Rule of St Benedict, the foundation of most monastic rules, encourages the monks to greet all they meet as if they were Christ himself.  Now there is a challenge.

Finally, the magi bring myrrh.  The carol we will sing at the Offertory, when the Sunday School will bring the magi’s gifts forward and place them before the crib, links myrrh with the aromatic spices used to anoint Jesus’ body after his death.  It is thus a symbol of the passion to come.  Myrrh though is also like Lily the Pink’s medicinal compound and has great healing properties.  It is an antiseptic and brings relief from pain.  Matthew, who gives us the magi, has Jesus being offered wine mixed with myrrh on the cross to dull the pain (Matt 15:23), though he refuses it.

This speaks of the mystery that is life and death; the mystery of a world that contains affliction and healing.  With the myrrh we lay at Jesus feet our mortality, and both enormous questions and spurs of faith which that brings.  We lay these at his feet because there is something about him that takes these straight into the heart of God and in so doing our hope is born.

So the magi bring gifts that inspire and challenge.  They challenge us with gold, the currency of action; with incense, the honour of the divine among us and within us; with myrrh, our mortality and the hope in which that is held.  They also bring the darkness in their wake: their arrival exposes the purposes of the heart.  For some that is to take up the challenge, to worship and adore.  For some it is to lash out with unspeakable cruelty and violence.  For some it is receive the holy family with hospitality as they seek refuge.  Sadly for Britain, too often we fail to join up the dots and our adoration of one child does not translate to others seeking asylum in our midst.  The magi expose us.

© Ian Black 2007