Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist of the Feast of the Epiphany 2024

In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that is, the Gentiles have become fellow-heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

In Government, in businesses, in the Church, there is a great deal of talk, policy-making, and no small amount of associated eye-rolling, concerning equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging. These cardinal virtues are rehearsed with great solemnity, often by those with high-priestly levels of authority, and echoed by legions of acolytes whose calling is to shame the rest of us; to explain to us, recalcitrant children, just how thoroughly bad and unreconstructed we are. Which makes those of us who are, on whole, rather sympathetic to the cause, bristle somewhat. As a friend once said, on a different topic; ‘I am thoroughly convinced about the need to change our lifestyles for the sake of the planet, but when the Church hierarchy starts going-on about it, I just want to go and deep-fry a dolphin’. Many of us may have similar responses to solemn, ‘woke’ pronouncements, in the Church or elsewhere, about equality, diversity, inclusion and belonging.

And if EDIB really drives you mad, then the Feast of the Epiphany may not come as terribly good news. The only comfort, the only reason to take a deep breath and keep listening, is that this comes from God, and not from any department of government or Church—no-one can claim to be better at it than anyone else; there can be no hand-wringing or pious posturing; no virtue-signalling. No-one is to be shamed, only invited in.

Let me try to explain.

These Magi—philosophers, astrologers, sorcerers, probably not ‘kings’ as such, but certainly kingly in the sense that they represent other peoples’—it is hard to pin down exactly what they were, which may be precisely why they have become so magnetic when it comes certain verses of prophecy and psalmody, and so attractive to those who want to demonstrate their own wisdom and piety (kings and other potentates, in particular).

Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn—wrote Isaiah, centuries before.

All kings shall fall before him, all nations shall do him service—sang the psalmist.

Importantly, these Magi are Gentiles, outsiders; they are not Jews. This is not ‘their’ king, to whom they bring gifts and kneel down in homage. There is a prophetic trope here—of God’s chosen people failing to recognise their God, and being put to shame by outsiders, who do recognise him. Isaiah pushes this trope still further:

The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people do not understand.

The prophet teases and provokes his own people with the suggestion that dumb animals do better than they do.

There’s another famous and discerning donkey we might remember; the one who did its best to prevent his master Balaam from cursing Israel, whom God had blessed, eventually even bursting into speech. It takes Balaam a while, but eventually, thanks to the donkey, he gets it. This is the prophet who predicts that: ‘a star shall come out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel’.

And, of course, Balaam is also a Gentile—a Gentile prophet who recognises the work of God in God’s people—prophesying the star that the Magi so eagerly followed. Outsiders recognise Christ, and worship him, in stark contrast to Herod and his advisors who fail to see the fulfilment, sense only a threat, and try to kill him.

It is unfortunate, to say the least, that the Church has too often used this prophet trope as a stick with which to beat its Jewish neighbours; as if we are the Gentile wise men and women who worship Christ, and they are Herod. This misses the point spectacularly—the point that outsiders might help God’s people (then and now) to see what God is doing; that they might bring a fresh pair of eyes, and, at a rather basic level, even evoke jealousy or a fear of missing out!

In the letter to the Romans, St Paul writes of his own people: ‘Have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.’

The challenge for the Church, like the challenge for God’s ancient people, is to acknowledge, to welcome, the insight of outsiders—to be made jealous by God, whose desire is that all should be saved.

What we cannot be is like the EDIB zealots (whom I have probably misrepresented), who think they have got it, they are the experts, the truly enlightened ones, and that everyone else just needs to be like them (us).

Today’s gospel encourages us to come to the cradle like those wise men; not as those who have a right to be there because of any genealogy or other merit, not because we ‘get it’ in some superior kind of way, but because we have been drawn by this light; invited, welcomed-in. To some degree, we should never cease to be outsiders, the receivers of God’s invitation; included and made equal around the crib. We should never forget that our belonging here is always as God’s guests, as those brought near; Gentiles as most if not all of us are.

The Magi bring gifts—gifts that speak eloquently of the child’s kingship, divinity, mortality—but the gift is all God’s—the gift in the manger, the gift of their inclusion; no amount of expenditure could buy them their place at his cradle. We too are here by God’s gift of inclusion; made equal with indigent shepherds, drawn from diverse nations, included with all kinds of outsiders, called to belong to the Church which is always an ‘ecclesia’, an assembly, a gathering-together. The Church is never static, or achieved, but always the dynamic act of God to make us one body in the Christ, who has appeared and who shines in our midst.

As we receive him in bread and wine, so may we be made radiant with his light, and be made jealous for the light of others; that all may be gathered, included as equals, to find our belonging in Christ, as fellow heirs, members of the same body, sharers in his eternal promises.