Feast of the Epiphany

Isaiah, 60:1-6,9
Ephesians, 3:1-12
Matthew, 2:1-12

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

The story of Balaam and his ass is one of the funniest in the Bible (Num 22:21-35). Balaam was a Mesopotamian magus, a wise man from the East, a diviner, just as the three wise men. Indeed, pious opinion through the ages has held Balaam to be the founder of the order that produced the magi of today's gospel. Balaam had reluctantly agreed to provide his services to Balak, the wicked King of Moab. He had saddled his ass and set out to meet King Balak.

On the way, the ass saw the angel of the Lord standing in the middle of the road with a drawn sword. To avoid the angel, the ass turned off the road into a field, but Balaam didn't see the angel right in front of his face so he struck the ass to turn back onto the road. A second time the angel appeared before Balaam and his ass as they were going down a narrow lane with walls on either side. To avoid the angel, the ass pushed her side against the wall and pressed Balaam's foot against the wall. Again, Balaam - blind to the presence of God - struck the ass. A third time, the angel of the Lord appeared in front of Balaam, and this time the path was too narrow to escape to the left or to the right. The ass lay down under Balaam. It's hard not to sympathize with Balaam's exasperation, his road rage. Balaam took his staff and beat the ass a third time.

The Bible says: Then the Lord opened the mouth of the ass, and she spoke to Balaam: 'What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?' [And now we see how prickly, arrogant, full-of-himself, and thin-skinned Balaam is.] Balaam said to his ass, 'Because you have made fun of me. I wish I had a sword to kill you.' [Balaam's ludicrous!] The ass responded calmly: 'Am I not your ass, upon which you have ridden all your life long to this day? Was I ever accustomed to do so to you?' And Balaam said, 'No.' Then the Lord opened Balaam's eyes and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with the drawn sword. Balaam fell on his face in deference to the angel. The angel spoke to him, "Why have you beat your ass? . . . The ass saw me, and turned aside these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, surely just now I would have killed you and let her live." It's a marvelous moment. It shows us the true extent of Balaam's powers as a magus. He can't see God's angel standing right in front of him, but his ass can! His ass is wiser, more perceptive to God, than he is.

However, Balaam, like the magi, the wise men mentioned by S. Matthew, is not a rube. The wise men of Mesopotamia were among the most sophisticated, refined, and intellectual in ancient Near Eastern civilisation. Their contemporary counterparts are not fortune tellers working out of trailers and giving tips to the National Enquirer. The magi are cultivated people, but they do not perceive God's presence before the shepherds do. The shepherds are rubes: simple and unpretentious. Unlike Balaam, the shepherds immediately saw the angels proclaiming the birth of Jesus, the Messiah: "Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, goodwill to man." The magi arrive at Bethlehem somewhat later.

Jesus did not come to give us good advice or to live an exemplary life. Human beings need more than that. Faith in God is not a matter of being clever; it is not a matter of knowing the right things, of attaining special knowledge; it does not come merely from human effort. It does require our hearts to be open to him, and that means being open to other people, being concerned for their well-being. It requires us to recognize our need for help, our need for life and love. We need strength to repent of our sins, to embrace life and love, to commit ourselves to God. Jesus came to give us that power.

The gift of Jesus is not primarily about knowledge, understanding, or enlightenment. Indeed, sophistication, cleverness, intellect can become tools we use for justifying poor behaviour and selfishness, for fooling ourselves that our set ways are principled and godly. When I look at the manger and consider the wise men and the shepherds, it impresses upon me the essential value of humility in loving God and in building a healthy relationship with God. We must never stop growing and must never become to fixed and rigid. That means that we always need to be open to new ideas and new, different people, to see things from different points of view. That's point number one: humility and openness have to be qualities we nurture if we want to experience the power of Jesus. Humility and openness have to be qualities we nurture if we want to see God. If we want to experience the Epiphany, we can't be full of ourselves.

The appearance of the Magi at the Jewish Messiah's birth is a scandal. The Old Testament holds magi - seers, diviners, magicians, astrologers - in little honour; it mostly condemns them and mocks their pomposity. And, of course, the magi are Gentiles. What are they doing with God's Christ? What are the impure doing with the pure? All of Christ's ministry is reaching out to bring in all people, to give all people hope and life and love. It's one of the strongest themes in the gospel.

Matthew shocks his readers in the first chapter of his gospel when he provides our Lord's genealogy. Again, we have scandal. In listing Jesus' predecessors, Matthew includes four women. On its own, this is startling, but much more so, each of these women has something foreign or scandalous about her: 1) Tamar played a prostitute to seduce her father-in-law, Judah; 2) Rahab was a prostitute; 3) Ruth was a Moabite; and, 4) Bathsheba was taken by King David after he had killed her husband, Uriah. ⁽¹⁾ So in the first two chapters of his gospel, Matthew shows us that Christ's mission is universal: men and women, Jew and Gentile, orthodox and heterodox, the righteous and sinners. S. Paul says, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ." (Gal 3:28) Every human being is of equal importance to one another in God's plan of salvation. God loves every person infinitely.

Human differences do not get in the way of God's love and grace. When a Canaanite woman went to Jesus and begged him to heal her daughter, Jesus said that he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. (Mt 15:24) But Jesus is moved by this foreigner's faith, and he heals her daughter. Just as Jesus attracts the foreign and pagan Magi to his crib, during his ministry he welcomes "Samaritan adulterers, immoral prostitutes, greasy tax collectors on the take, despised Roman soldiers, and ostracized lepers." ⁽²⁾ So point number two is: God's kingdom is broader and wider than we can imagine. Our commission is to invite all people, not just people like us, not just people we like - we must, like Jesus, invite all people to the Kingdom of God where we have unity and acceptance. That's what the Church is supposed to be, eagerly seeking out and welcoming all people.

We have begun another year together, a year full of potential and hope and expectation. We enter the year optimistically and cheerfully looking to the future, and mindful of the Magi who impress upon us the importance of keeping our hearts lowly and open to all people. For in Christ, there are no strangers; there are no outsiders.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

1. Scott Hoezee, art. in The Lectionary Commentary: The Gospels, ed. by Roger E. Van Harn, Eerdmans (2001), p. 7.

2. Ibid.