The tree had never dreamt to kill;
that stuff, it thought, was for the birds,
although it knew it, too, had grown
rich on the sinew and marrow left
at its feet by the hawks and the owls.
Still, if anyone had thought to ask,
it would have preferred to be used for caskets,
helping to shoulder the burden of grief,
than pressed into the service of death;
knowing full well, as it did, that its roots
were once one with the tree of life.
Simeon, having left the temple, put his affairs in order, ate a hearty if bittersweet supper, and went to bed. He was surprised, waking early the next morning, to find the feather of a dove clinging to his pillow.
At first, he thought that it must have come home on his clothes, which led to the other reason for his surprise: Simeon had not expected to wake up that morning at all. He had, after all, completed all that was required of him, had blessed the child and its parents, had prophesied weal and woe, sung his swansong. It was almost embarrassing to awaken to the sunlight striping his bed, the sounds of the marketplace, louder and more cacophonous than ever, and the soft, white dove’s feather.
The feather. Now, Simeon began to remember.
Simeon, a man full of the Spirit of God, had been told by that same Spirit that he would live to see the face of God. What more could a man want? Yet who could see God and live?
But when he held the child, Simeon also saw something else. He saw, so clearly that he almost dropped the child, swords flashing. He heard the cries of infants and the screams of their mothers. He shook his head; it was as though he could hear them still. When he held the child, he saw a cloud draped over the holy city like a mourning cloth. Even when he looked into the eyes of the young mother before him, still he saw such scenes reflected in the infinite wells of her pupils.
They seemed so vulnerable, this young and fragile family, to carry the salvation of the world in their weary arms.
As he remembered, Simeon’s hands were moving absent-mindedly, and now he noticed how they were playing with the sunbeam, turning this way and that, cupping and reflecting its light, as yesterday he had wanted to inhale the essence of the child, keep the lightness of his little body as a talisman, his aroma as armour against the horrors of the world.
But Simeon was filled with the Spirit, and it whispered within his soul, this is not a symbol, Simeon, but a sign. This is God fleshed out, love embodied, for there is none greater.
Understanding at last, Simeon rose like one still sleeping, walking through a dream, unstoppable. Opening the door, he stepped out onto the point of a soldier’s sword. Falling into the void of fear and hope, the wide, wild eyes of the young mother cradling her child beside him, he murmured, Run.
Crumpled into the space her flight left behind him, he saw more feathers falling, wondered briefly, what now? before he saw across the way Anna, opening the cages of the turtle doves, loosening the leashes of the sheep and the cattle, running them out under the feet and over the heads of Herod’s army.
As though she were right beside him, he heard her speak in the voice of his mother, a whisper within his brain and his marrow, who could see God and not live like it?
Featured image: Simeon the God-Receiver (Old Believers, 19th c, priv.coll), public domain, via wikimedia commons
Widowed, but not alone,
shrouded in the living stone
of temple prayers woven
as a garment of grace
haunting the holy place,
sanctified and sanctifying
the very air with praise.
She would not follow them
to Egypt, return with them
to Nazareth, re-enter
the river Jordan, yet
her voice runs down
like the rivers of life still
from the sanctuary.
Featured image: Presentation of Christ in the aTemple, from the Melisende Psalter, C12th British Library, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (detail)
O God, take up this day,
cradle it like the newborn thing that it is,
turn it this way and see the pink sunrise,
the bruise of clouds, the barely-lit night
which to you is as bright as the day,
though I can hardly see your hand
before my face;
lift it to your Word
and hear the mourning dove,
the morning alarm, the siren; discern
whether it be a threat or a prayer. Speak –
no, sing to it a lullaby in a minor key,
turn its pain into melody.
Our times are in your hands, O God,
and we cannot handle them without you.
filled with the power of the Spirit,
the prophet
found the place where it was written:
good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and recovery of sight to the blind,
The Spirit of the Lord
has
let the oppressed go free
– as was his custom,
and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country.
Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
Today’s #preparingforSundaywithpoetry uses not my own words (what words do I own, anyway?), but only those found in Sundays’ Gospel. What is left – if most of the words of the prophet, that Jesus sought and found and read aloud, are omitted – those words are pasted below. The title is not found in this week’s Gospel but throughout our salvation history – God’s history of mercy upon us – and echoes from the pulpit occupied by Bp Mariann Budde earlier this week.
Jesus,
returned to Galilee.
He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.
When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day,
He stood up to read, and the scroll of
Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and:
“is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring.
He
sent me to proclaim
to
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, “
Luke 4:14-21
Until its surface tension breaks
upon the steward’s tongue –
dissipating sweetness,
sweat of vineyard labourers,
honey of the sun-ripened harvest –
it is neither water nor wine;
until the jars are filled to overflowing,
until a drop is spilled,
staining the ground with promise;
until the sides run with condensation
like an ever-flowing stream;
it is neither water nor wine
until the hour is come;
yet every hour is thine.
The Feast of the Epiphany at Trinity Cathedral, Cleveland. This sermon has some passages in common with, but is not the same as, the sermon preached the previous day at the Church of the Epiphany.
The story of the magi told by Matthew is intriguing in its choice of detail. There is no background to the visitors given, no hint of numbers or nationality, despite subsequent legend. Yet their consultation with Herod merits a specific and pertinent prophecy, and launches a whole other story, other journeys of migration, flight, and grief. The story that should conclude with angels singing the music of the heavens in harmony with the star ends instead with a warning: this, too, is part of our understanding of the incarnation of our God: that God understands all too well the dangers inherent in being human, vulnerable to one another.
There is an ancient tale of the journey of the Magi that builds a mountain of myths out of the mysterious story from Matthew. It is called The Revelation of the Magi (and I’m indebted here to the translation of it and notes on it of Brent Landau).[i] The Revelation of the Magi tells the story of a legendary people descended from Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, living in the land of Shir, on the easternmost edge of the world. For generations, these Magi had passed on the prophecy of God’s incarnation. Now, the time had come to pass and the generation of people now in worship finally saw the Star that would bear witness to the birth of God on earth.
Each of the Magi saw within the Star an image, an icon of Christ, some in one phase or another of his earthly life, and others as he is in eternity. For Christ had – has – the ability to appear to each as they have need or desire to see him; although Herod, in this legend, did not have the heart to see the Son of God within the Star of Bethlehem. Hence the warning to return by another road.
There are dangers, of course, in claiming each to see Jesus according to our own vision, our individual revelation. The temptation to dissect the stories of Jesus, to see his life through incarnation and eternity not as a single prism with many facets, but as a set of disparate and discrete revelations, can lead us down some dangerous roads, to divide us from one another instead of bringing us together to marvel at the humility, the vulnerability, the immense and all-consuming love of God, to become like us.
I have been wondering how long it takes for history to heal. August 6th was the Feast of the Transfiguration for millennia before it became the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima; January 6th the Feast of the Epiphany and now synonymous, in this country, with a very different set of political events. How long does history take to heal? The atrocities of Herod would take more than the lifetime of creation to set aside.
We enter this new year, and this new season after Christmas, with some trepidation, don’t we? We are haunted by the shadows of the past, concerned for the present, warned by the violence that greeted the new year in New Orleans and Nevada and far beyond; our hopes and fears for the future year clash and mingle in the air like smoke.
And yet this is the Feast-day, the celebration of the Epiphany, the manifestation of God’s incarnation to the nations, to us. The bright promise that God is with us, even us.
In the legend of the Magi of Shir, the Star-Jesus not only led the Magi but helped them on their way, sustained them in the wilderness, both coming to and going from Bethlehem. Rugged mountains and rushing rivers became no obstacle to them. Wild beasts and poisonous serpents were no threat to them. Food and drink were provided to them, and they had no need of sun nor moon for light nor for guidance, with the star to illumine and guide them; with Jesus beside, above, and before them. Returning to the land of Shir and to their people, they shared the holy food and drink given them by the Star-Jesus, and told them (in Landau’s translation),
“… Everyone who wishes, receive without doubt, with a whole heart and true faith, and eat from these provisions, which have come with us. And be deemed worthy, and you, too, join in his blessing, which accompanies us and is with us forever” …and, the story tells us, those who ate shared in the visions of Christ.
The backdrop of the glorious Epiphany story of treasures and kings and starlight and wonder is a constant reminder of the shadows around its edges: the roads will be rough, and full of obstacles. The very earth will overflow sometimes; the journey will be arduous. Violence will erupt out of the envy of human hearts, from petty political leaders like Herod, like Pontius Pilate. People will be displaced, haunted and hunted from their homes. Food will be scarce in the wilderness. This is not new. This is, too, the world in which the Magi lived, outside of the myth. Isn’t that why they wrote it that way?
But if the Gospel of Matthew begins with danger and dreams and risk and the precariousness of being human, if that is the world into which the infant Jesus is born, it is still good news. It ends not at the cross but in resurrection; it is our hope.
Outside of the myth, the protection and providence we enjoy from Christ’s presence with us is mostly less miraculous than the stilling of storms and the levelling of mountains, the taming of bears and lions. But it is real. The nativity of Jesus as a vulnerable and helpless infant, the instinct to worship his humility, his humanity, this is how we are drawn together, to love one another, to serve one another, to protect and provide for one another, each made in the same image of God expressed in that manger.
And he is with us, every step of the way, every step taken in the name of Love, every piece of bread broken and shared in the name of the living Christ.
The lesson, the legacy of the Epiphany is the living hope that the incarnation of God among us can bring the most exalted and wise and wealthy and worthy to their knees: that Love is what will heal history, and our present, and our future; and that Love is with us, remains with us, Emmanuel, bright shining as the noonday star, and within our reach.
Amen.
[i] Summary and quotes derived from Revelation of the Magi: the lost tale of the wise men’s journey to Bethlehem, by Brent Landau (HarperCollins E-books, 2010), accessed via Kindle
This was my final sermon as Rector of the Church of the Epiphany, a parish I have served with gratitude for twelve years, a people formed by and for the light and love of Christ. And yes, we did sing This Little Light of Mine as our sending hymn.
Having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. I have been thinking a lot, it may not surprise you to learn, about that other road; those called to the manger to give witness to the birth of Christ the saviour, now being sent another way.
I don’t know where it was that they found one another to travel together to Jerusalem and thence to Bethlehem. I do not know at what point on the journey home they said their goodbyes and parted ways, each to his own country. I imagine it was not easy to let go of such a fellowship forged in the fire of the star and the cold light of Herod’s treachery, and the gentle light of the stable full of the love of God. But at some point they divided their camel train and took the gospel home, each according to his own language, country, and call.
You can see where I am going here. Nothing was lost. Nothing abandoned. Nothing diminished of what they had shared. They could not go back unchanged, unaffected by the stable light and the star’s insistent brightness and the soft glow of love that attended the infant and his mother. And they would always share that bond of knowledge of the love of God revealed there. Nothing could take away from that marvelous, miraculous journey, nor the moment of meeting Jesus. They simply travelled different roads home.
Now this version of events obviously makes some assumptions that build clouds of imagination out of the tight text of Matthew. It borrows from legends spun out over centuries of kings from continents and subcontinents converging on the holy land in search of a savior who would bring the world together.
There is another ancient version of events that builds its own mountain of myths. It is called The Revelation of the Magi,[i] and it tells the story of a people descended from Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve, living in the land of Shir, on the easternmost edge of the world. For generations, the story goes, these Magi had passed on the prophecy of God’s incarnation and set aside treasure to bring as an offering. Now, the time had come to pass and the people in worship saw the star that would bear witness to the birth of God on earth.
It was not only three of the Magi, but a whole community, and each saw within the star an image, an icon of Christ, some in one phase or another of his earthly life, and others as he is in eternity. For Christ had – has – the ability to appear to each as they have need or desire to see him. We have seen him here, in community: life, in death, in life eternal; although Herod, of course, did not notice the Son of God within the Star of Bethlehem.
In this legend, this Star-Jesus not only led the Magi but fed them on their way, sustained them in the wilderness, both coming to and going from Bethlehem. Returning to the land of Shir and to their people, they shared the holy food and drink given them by the Star-Jesus, and told them (and here I quote from the translation provided by Brent Landau),
“… his great power and his revelations will indeed stay with you, because he is also here in truth, as he spoke to us, and we believe that his light is not removed from our encampment. Indeed, again, he is in the entire world, for he is the light that is all-sufficient and all-enlightening by his perfect love. Everyone who wishes, receive without doubt, with a whole heart and true faith, and eat from these provisions, which have come with us. And be deemed worthy, and you, too, join in his blessing, which accompanies us and is with us forever.”
Doesn’t that sound familiar? It sounds to me like a Holy Communion.
The legends and myths of the kings and the Magi, drawn from faithful, imaginative engagement with the biblical text, resonate with us as a church as we draw together to seek the same saving grace: God with us, Emmanuel; a holy Communion in Christ. The legends reflect our life together as a church, as people, whose paths converge and cross and diverge on the journey toward Christ. We will mark one such departure this morning. After twelve years together, we will remain always united in our experience of God in Christ and in this gathering at the manger and the table and the cross; and yet we will leave by different roads. I will still love you and serve you as I can, but I will no longer be your rector. And you, you will still be the Church of the Epiphany, called and commissioned to shine as Christ’s light in the world, radiant with the revelation of the love of God that is for everyone; a whole community, called together and blessed to be a blessing for the world around you. I have seen, over the years, the gifts that you bring, the way that you shine, and the way that you love one another. And so you are, so you have been, and so you will be. And you will meet up with others on the same journey toward Bethlehem, and travel together for the time that God has given you on the same road, and Jesus will sustain you.
If the legends of the three kings emphasize our journey to find Christ, the Revelation of the Magi is concerned with Jesus’ journey to find us. He came to a whole community and showed them who he is, who he was, who he will be; and they bore witness to him, and shared with one another the light and the joy of his coming. When the Magi marvelled that Jesus could be in the Star, and on their mountain, and becoming born in Bethlehem, all at once, he told them (again, in the translation of Landau),
“I am everywhere, and there is no land in which I am not. I am also where you departed from me, for I am greater than the sun, and there is no place in the world that is deprived of it, even though it is a single entity; yet if it departs from the world, all its inhabitants sit in darkness. How much more I, who am the Lord of the sun, … my light and word … more abundant … than the sun.”
“His great power and his revelations will indeed stay with you.” There is nowhere that Jesus is not, and no one for whom Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, and his star, his light shines upon and within and among us, all of us, wherever we are, wherever we go, forever, and undimmed.
[i] Summary and quotes derived from Revelation of the Magi: the lost tale of the wise men’s journey to Bethlehem, by Brent Landau (HarperCollins E-books, 2010), accessed via Kindle
More Jesus, less judgement
More Magnificat, less might makes right
More mercy, less Schadenfreude
More love, less envy
More transformation, less conformation
More inspiration, less trepidation
More Jesus, less me
More Jesus
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was the cry of a newborn infant, swaddled in cloth and laid in a feeding trough. …
Christmas. It’s a time of tradition. We all know what to expect, from the decorations to the dinner table. We know which family member will fall asleep on the sofa in the afternoon. We know who will be leading the Christmas carols. We all have our traditions.
But when families change, when life is altered by natural disaster or the unnatural disasters of war, as it still is in Bethlehem tonight; even when someone marries into a new family, or there’s a new child, or the person who always hosts dinner moves away, or is lost to us, then our traditions are disrupted. Nothing is as we expected it to be. We have to shift and make way for something new, whether we would like to or not.
For Mary and Joseph, everything was new and unexpected. Of course, they didn’t have Christmas traditions, but even so. It can’t have been what Mary imagined the birth of her first child would be like. Instead of being in her own home, surrounded by her mother, maybe Elizabeth, for sure the familiar local midwives, comforted by those who knew this road, who had been this way before; instead she was on the long and difficult road to Bethlehem, scrabbling for room somewhere, anywhere, to give birth to a child announced by angels, sharing this most intimate moment of her life so far with Joseph, her husband, but a man with whom she’d never yet got naked, and a stable full of animals for company.
Into this confusion, into this new and unexpected turn of events, into this strange new world and way of being, Jesus is born. Jesus is born and all heaven is let loose with singing and angels and bright stars, and a baby lying in a manger full of animal food.
There is a profound gift in the chaos of Christmas, the reminder that nothing in this world is fixed, nothing final, nothing as enduring as love. Our traditions come and go with the supply chain and the growing children and the eldering generations and the grief that weaves its way through any life. New music is written, old ornaments break, they don’t make the same sweets they used to. The priest moves on. Things change.
And every Christmas, we are drawn back to the stable, back to the makeshift maternity bed of straw, back to the strangeness of a baby born to a virgin mother, the love of God made manifest, incarnate, taking flesh, taking form, giving voice with his cry to the song of God for the world, the song of creation, peace over the earth. Everything is strange and new there, too; and as old and enduring as eternity.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was the cry of a newborn infant, swaddled in cloth and laid in a feeding trough. The Word caught on the tears of his astonished and exhausted mother, drawing from her milk and love. The Word filled the mind of Joseph such that he could think of nothing, nothing but the child, and his love for him. The Word startled the sheep, and the shepherds followed them in wonder toward the light coming from the cave in which he was stabled. The Word ululated with the angels, as it had since before time began, and will after all time is ended. As the world continues to turn and spin and pivot and dance, and we with it, whirling with the fates and the weather, the Word remains, year after year the same: Emmanuel. God is with us.
May the good news of angels disturb you.
May the bright star of Bethlehem disrupt your dreams.
May the strangeness of this season of our Saviour’s birth comfort you with the familiar knowledge that God is with us: Emmanuel.
Amen.
over the water 
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