Epiphany B - January 7, 2024
Epiphany B
January 7, 2024
Journey of the Magi
T. S. Eliot
1888 –
1965
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins,
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
At the celebration of Epiphany, I find myself seeking out the words of the poet T.S. Eliot in his poem The journey of the Magi. In his poem Eliot tells about the difficult journey of the Magi in the voice of one who was there. The narrator comments on the weather, cold, and the rugged places where they slept and how eventually they decided to journey at night getting little sleep. When they finally find the manger the narrator comments on the scene, wondering if he was seeing birth or death. This is how the poem ends:
All this was a long time ago, I remember,And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
The mystery of Christmas is that we celebrate a birth because of a death. We celebrate the birth of the Christ because he was born to die for you and for me. The Christ is our God who put aside divinity to be with us and to experience all we experience, even death. Our God has come for all people when Matthew and Luke set out to tell the story of Christ they had the first witnesses be the poorest of poor, Shepherds and the Gentiles, the magi.
I have an old sculpture if a child asleep on a cross. The manger is connected to the cross. Without the cross we would not have the manger. The mystery of Christmas is about a love that is willing to suffer and die.
A few weeks ago we came to worship the new born King in a full church. Many came out of habit to hear the voice of the angels. They haven’t returned to afore the Christ child with the magi. Like the narrator in Eliot’s poem we return:
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
We go forth, like the magi, to share what we have seen and like the magi of old we wonder at the miracle of Christmas. We seek for the meaning of the birth, death and resurrection. We take a journey begun at the stable in Bethlehem.
St. John Lateran is the cathedral of Rome. The church was built on land belonging to the Lateran family, thus the name St. John Lateran. Connected to the church is the baptistry, a large building used for baptisms. This is the oldest baptistry in Rome. The building dates to the days of Emperor Constantine and includes image of the battle of Milvin Bridge (312) when Constantine had a vision of the cross and later declared Christianity the official religion of the empire. In our first reading on this feast, we hear of the water flowing in the temple. Water is used in the sacrament of baptism. The baptistry at John Lateran is the oldest of its kind and speaks to us of the sacrament. Water speaks of the two elements of the sacrament of baptism, death and life. Those who are baptized die to their old way of life and participate in the resurrection of our Lord as they experience new life in this sacrament. In the waters of baptism, we are cleansed from the stain of original sin, and we are initiated into the body of Christ. The initiation into the body of Christ is the reason we baptize at the weekend liturgy. The person is being brought in as a member of the body of Christ, and the body of Christ gathers on the weekends at Mass. In the early church there were adults who were baptized. They would spend a period journeying with a sponsor and learning about the faith and at the Easter Vigil the bishop would come (in the early days there were no priests, just bishops), the community would gather, and the bishop would perform the rites of initiation, baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. The OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) recaptures this practice of the early church. Over the years it has become common to baptize infants. Canon Law, the law of the church, considers a child of 6 years to be an adult and thus is invited to enter the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. Baptism is the first and most important sacrament. Each time we enter a church we bless ourselves with holy water to recall our baptism. In so many of our sacraments the church takes simple things and uses them to speak about aspects of our faith. Water has become a sign of the death of Christ and a sign of his resurrection. We use oil, a simple element, for anointing and healing in the sacrament of Baptism. The lit candle speaks of the light of Christ brought to the person in the sacrament and finally the cross is made on the mouth and ears of the person for hearing and speaking the word of God. Other sacraments use simple things to speak about a greater reality. We use bread and wine in the Mass; a simple gold ring is exchanged to speak about the love of God that unites a man and wife. Today we celebrate the dedication of an important space in our world church. The Church of St. John Lateran and its baptistry have allowed many to touch into the love our God for many years. We are thankful for this holy place.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Language scholars who have studied the origins of the word mammon in Hebrew and Aramaic have found clear association with words meaning wealth, riches, money, profit and possessions. But there is also evidence that one of the root words for mammon also means “that in which one trusts.” On all of our US currency — each coin and paper bill — is a simple (and, I suspect, often overlooked) phrase: “In God we trust.” This phrase was added during the Cold War to distinguish our currency, and nation, from that of the atheist Soviet Union. On each of our denominations of currency, both coins and paper bills, we have this simple reminder in whom we should be placing our trust in — God — and not what we should be placing it in: the fruit of our human activity, especially money. It is a poignant reminder to us today in light of the Gospel passage we hear and our current experience. This reminder begs us to ask two questions of ourselves and collectively as a country and society: Do we trust in God first? Always, everywhere, in everything? Or do we place our trust first in small-“g” god, or gods of human origin? In answering those questions, we might ask ourselves, what do our actions say about whether we place our trust first in God, or in humans? Where are we spending our time and treasure? This past month has brought us yet more tragic and traumatic reminders of our society’s misplaced trust. The recent spate of wounding and taking of innocent lives through gun violence in service of an ideology of retribution is just the most recent in a continuing human saga of such behavior, behavior that places trust in leading with human action to resolve differences, over our openness and trust in allowing God to lead us to a conversion of heart and to reconciliation. There is more that could be said about the responsible use of wealth in service to God. About detachment from ‘goods’ of this world — goods that God gives us out of love to draw us closer and more deeply into love with God, that we might revere God and God’s creation, but not take those goods in place of God. But in light of our continuing tragedies and the lack of reverence for human life, created by God in the image and likeness of God, of which they are clear evidence, the most important response we can offer is what St. Paul exhorts us to in his letter to Timothy, when he writes: First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone, for kings and for all in authority, that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life in all devotion and dignity. This is good and pleasing to God our savior, who wills everyone to be saved and to come to knowledge of the truth. And so we will pray to God, as St Paul asks. Pray collectively for those who have suffered violence in all forms against humanity. We will pray collectively for those wounded, those who have lost their lives and their families. And then perhaps most difficult of all, we will pray for those who perpetrated this violence, and all who are tempted to perpetrate violence against humanity. We should be challenged in our prayers to pray for people we don’t want to pray for. We may find the heart that is converted is our own. In all these prayers we place our trust first and foremost in God, who desires to save us, and who “proves his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). In this is our act of Faith. In this is our act of Hope.
