Look up at the stars!

A sermon for Epiphany 2021 (feast transferred): Isaiah 60:1-6 and Matthew 2:1-12

Jupiter and Saturn

The late Professor Stephen Hawkins once said:  “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.”

Look up at the stars: perhaps we miss that in north London; perhaps we only remember when we’re away from the functional glare of street lights. 

Maybe we peered at the night sky hoping to see the rare conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter; an unusual light, shining a little brighter.

Perhaps it's an innate human instinct to look up: and the longer we stare the more we see and the smaller we feel; with awe and expectation we try to make sense of the cosmos. 

In the beginning, the Spirit moved over a formless void; and lights were set in the dome of the heavens; the sun and moon and stars.

“Be curious” said Hawkins. In the midst of trying to make sense, he continued “however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at… It matters that you don't just give up.”

Image unknown

The magi in today’s Gospel were experts in heavenly realms; they were certainly curious. 

As astronomers, they were disciplined in the science of mapping the stars and planets; alert to different constellations; noticing changes in alignment; asking the kind of questions Professor Hawkins did.

Perhaps, like us, they looked upon a similar conjunction to the one seen last month. 

And as they looked, they saw not personal fate; but a sign of cosmic hope. 

Jupiter and Saturn blazing bright; a light had come causing them to arise.

A sign of royalty: the glory of the Lord rising upon them.

Years before, Abraham had been promised that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars; Isaiah foretold that nations would be drawn to this light; kings, to this bright, new dawn.

A still from T. S. Eliot reading Journey of the Magi

And the journey begins: in words from a sermon by Lancelot Andrews, taken up by T. S. Eliot, we’re drawn into their steps [text of The Journey of the Magi here]:

‘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.

There are camels too: not the multitude of which Isaiah spoke, but perhaps sore-footed; with camel men cursing and grumbling as the poem goes.

And did these star-gazers, at times, regret their journey, as Eliot supposes? Longing perhaps for the precision of their science over against the seeming folly of this journey?

Did they miss the the summer places as night-fires went out? Did they avoid those cities hostile and the towns unfriendly and instead travel all night, sleeping in snatches?

Herod and the Magi

This star of wonder had made them curious; they’d wondered about the universe; they could not give up.

These nameless pilgrims seek a royal birth; they go to a palace to pay homage. 

They find a named king seeking to cling to power; his palace a place of fear, deceit and brooding violence.

Amidst the pieces of silver and empty wine skins, Eliot simply says: 

But there was no information, and so we continued.

They continued to a smaller town; a more marginal place; a town that was satisfactory. 

Brian Whelan: 

Their curiosity and expertise, their determination and endurance had led them this far.

Their arrival looks back to Abraham and Isaiah - to promise and prophecy. All nations shall come to the light - God’s blessing of Israel becomes hope of healing for the nations. 

The bring gold and frankincense, yes; gifts marking this child our as a king; as the Lord worthy of worship. 

Yet they also offered at his feet the gift of myrrh; foreshadowing burial.

This is unexpected. As Eliot’s magi puts it: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death?

There was evidence of birth, for sure; and yet the poetic star-gazer continues: 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.

This birth is hard for Jesus will face opposition; a sword will pierce his mother’s heart.

This child who is Emmanuel - God with us - will not cultivate fear and deceit. Instead he is with us where the pain and grief is. 

This birth prefigures his life: in fulfilment of the law and prophets; in love that heals and sets free; that binds up broken-hearts and breaks down divisions.

Here is the King of the Jew; the hope of the nations. 

Not a king who rules through fear, oppression and violence; but the Lord who brings reconciliation through justice and compassion.

He dies with us; and we die with him.

He lives; that we might live.

Gislebertus: The Dream of the Magi, Autun Cathedral

The magi sleep and dream.

They are warned about Herod’s intentions.

They return, but not to him; they return home by another road.

They returned to their palaces and kingdoms, their maps of the cosmos.

Yet, as Eliot puts it, they were: no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation.

They no longer clutched their gods.

For they had worshipped the beauty of holiness.

They had knelt and adored.

They’d set down burdens and sorrows alongside their costly treasures.

There they’d found comfort and prayerfulness.

Truth took on this strange beauty of birth and death.

Love enfleshed in tenderness. 

And now: curiosity had been met with joy.

Their ease unsettled in the face of this glory.

The old dispensation giving way to a new world.

A world where we too are called to carve out space that is less polarised.

We are to look up at the stars and to look into the face of Christ.

We are to dream: to dream that we will find another road where a commitment to being with and living for overcomes the fearful ‘I’. 

A world that may be more compassionate and just.

© Julie Gittoes 2021

After Christmas

A sermon preached on Sunday 29th December. This goes to the heart of Christmas - the messiness of the world; it's violence and misused power; and yet God is with us in this place. How can our lives walk another way - a way of peace? The texts were: Isaiah 63:7-9, Hebrews 2:10-18 and Matthew 2:13-23

Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night and went to Egypt.

The great of violence and destruction is real: the holy family flee.

As the priest-poet Malcolm Guite puts it:

We think of him as safe beneath the steeple,

Or cosy in a crib beside the font,

But he is with a million displaced people

On the long road of weariness and want.

For even as we sing our final carol

His family is up and on that road,

Fleeing the wrath of someone else’s quarrel,

Glancing behind and shouldering their load.

We live in a murky, brutal and wounded world.  It is into such a world as this that the Christ-child is born.

It is a world where children are held at borders, separated from parents; where families fleeing war and violence risk crossing the Mediterranean Sea in the hope of safety; where refugee camps become the only home a child knows; where human trafficking is still a reality; where the fear and power of tyrants and insurgents bring cruelty and destruction.  

The nativity scene at the Claremont United Methodist Church in Claremont, Calif.Credit...

David Swanson/EPA, via Shutterstock

A world where fathers get up and take the children and their mothers by night. 

Today, we’re confronted with the horror of Herod's fury; it reminds us of the way in which insecurity and power can envelop our lives.  The whole of Bethlehem was caught up in the implications of an infant's threat to stability.  

Herod snatched away his people's future in the destruction of children.  The catastrophic consequences of desire to cling to power is repeated in the lives of men and women in our own generation.  

As Malcolm’s sonnet continues:

Whilst Herod rages still from his dark tower

Christ clings to Mary, fingers tightly curled,

The lambs are slaughtered by the men of power,

And death squads spread their curse across the world.

But every Herod dies, and comes alone

To stand before the Lamb upon the throne.

What Herod did is appalling: wickedly massacring children to protect his own power.

This is the world that Jesus came to save.

The Christmas message is that God so loved the world that he sent us his Son.

It is a hopeful because there is no where where God is not; our humanity is glorified.  

It is disruptive because divine vulnerability shifts the balance of power in a fearful and war-torn world.  

The birth of the Christ-child is just the beginning.

The hope and joy of wise men contrast with Herod's fear and rage.  Their gifts reveal who this child is: our king and our God; the suffering servant who lays down his life for love of the world.  

Their journey continues along another road; they're witnesses to peace in vulnerability, power in weakness. Joseph must take his family along another road.  

They must flee and seek protection.

Herod searches and destroys; he is infuriated and kills.

There is wailing and lamentation. 

We feel silenced and helpless; we lament and cry out.  

The writer of the Hebrews reminds us that the one through whom all things exist shares our flesh and blood.

Jesus becomes like us and suffered with us; bleeding like us and dying with us us; so that through death he might destroy its power and set us free.

In Jesus, God reaches out to us - to all who suffer - in vulnerability. 

God continues to reach out to mothers crying out, to communities whose future is disrupted by the loss of children.  

God reaches out in Jesus Christ to bear the weight of pain and violence on the cross.

God reaches out in the resurrection to demonstrate that human wrath does not extinguish love.

God reaches out in the power of the Spirit to call us to live in the light of that hope. 

Trusting in Jesus, God with us, is not an escape from world; nor is it an attempt to conquer it in our own strength.  Rather, in him we seek the transformation of all that is by acts of compassion and justice which resist abuses of power.

The Gospel makes manifest the power of love in birth and death and in risen life; in a human family, in a complex world, in the midst of agony and grief.  

Such love shifts our horizons away from control and manipulation.  The change of heart wrought by God's reconciling love disrupts our tribalism; it seeks a kingdom of justice and equity which challenges the human tendency to control or oppress.

The promise of Isaiah - of mercy and the abundance of steadfast love - if fulfilled in God with us.

K. Latimore - Refugees, La Sagrada Familia

Mercy and the abundance of love is revealed in the speechless dependency of an infant; revealed alongside all who flee for safety, we see strength in weakness.

In time, Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.

We are to pray that our lives will frustrate the evil designs of others; that we might be agents of hope and reconciliation.  Hope that is rooted in a love that liberates, transforms and forgives. 

The promise and challenge of that is held in our Eucharist. Here God continues to give himself to us in the ordinary stuff of bread and wine; a sign of abundance and hope in a broken and fragile world.  Here we find assurance forgiveness, faithful love and renewed hope; here we learn to walk another way, the way of peace.

Jesus doesn't merely show us love or validate our human expressions of love.  Rather he demonstrates redemptive power of love.  Only he can forgive us, recall us, draw us into abundant life; he enables us to be agents of resistance, compassion and reconciliation.  

Let us pray [from S. Shakespeare, Prayers for an Inclusive Church]:

Weeping God

whose heart is pierced 

by the cry of the innocent:

receive into your arms

the waste of our violent;

confront the powers of fear

by the confidence of love;

and help us stand with all creatures

who bear the weights of cruelty and greed;

through Jesus Christ, Rachel’s child. Amen.

© Julie Gittoes 2019

The child is the key to it all

This post is based on the text of a sermon written for Evensong on the Second Sunday of Advent. The texts  were 1 Kings 18:17-39 and John 1:19-28, stories of the prophet Elijah and John the Baptist. In the event, the sermon was pulled - because of concern about the overall length of the service and a very cold building (we now have some temporary heating!). However, having seen Fantastic Beasts there were themes I wanted to ponder further - so this piece is longer than the original sermon.

It begins with a case of magical creatures: a case which was opened ‘just a smidgen’.

It begins with an interesting man, a Mr Scamander: a man kicked out of Hogwarts. 

It begins in 1920s New York: a city in the grip of political campaigning.

It begins with an opening sequence of a collapsing building: a population looks for answers.

On a wet and chilly Saturday evening a few weeks ago, stepping into J K Rowling’s wizarding world was an enchanting escape. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them fizzes with energy and humour; exotic and imaginary creatures delight us; there’s a quirky romance, unlikely alliances and Eddie Redmayne excels as the quietly donnish magizoologist. 

But, in tune with the very best fairytales, there is an altogether darker subtext. This reimagined world is in the grip of fear, suspicion and destruction. We see a dark whirlwind of energy smash its way through buildings; it tears up roads, overturns vehicles and leaves chaos in its wake. 

In the realm of cinematic fantasy this is force is called an Obscurus. It’s a narrative device within an imagined universe. The quest is on to 'find the child' so that 'we will all be free'; the child is key to it all. Ultimately, order is restored when the baddies are unmasked and good triumphs. 

And yet, given J K Rowling’s interest in human identity and the use or misuse of power, this film operates at a deeper level.  

There are themes which we must take seriously; themes which our readings also reflect. And as we pay attention to that, we are drawn more deeply into the stuff of God. To be drawn more deeply into God is to understand more fully our humanity - confronting our mortality and embracing hope.

As charming as Fantastic Beasts is, as a film it is a chilling reminder of how swiftly fear can distort our relationships; it can shut out the voices we do not wish to hear; it labels as ‘other’ those who are not like us. In the film we see how that operates at a city level - fragmenting society as people respond to alternative rallying cries. But cinema is reflected the lived reality of our social lives.

Fear - and the abuse of power - also operates at an interpersonal level. In the film, Credence cannot be who he is or fulfil his potential. Instead he is subjected to manipulation, control and actual harm - both physical and spiritual. J K Rowling uses the device of the Obscurus to make visible the impact of abuse: violence is internalised and distress is expressed externally.

We don’t live in a realm of wizardry; there are no magical beasts to distract us from human sorrow. We live in a realm of human agency within which we are to protect the vulnerable from abuse - in homes, workplaces and institutions. We are to be as light in darkness because this is also a realm of divine agency.

Our world is infused by God’s creative and generous love which meets us in the depths of despair.  The voices of prophets cry out against abuse of power and spiritual manipulation. And as Advent edges towards Christmas, we see in Jesus Christ God’s response to all that dehumanises. 

In him, heaven touches earth: not as a romantic idyll but in confronting the violence of which human beings are capable and defusing it.  It is in the cries of a speechless infant that power is confronted. To look on him - to face Christ - is to be disturbed and challenged; it is to be provoked to name bad ideologies. More than that, we must also set out a compelling vision for transformation. We do that not by ‘magic’ but in power of the Spirit which calls us to be reconnected at a deeper level

Let’s take one example of a response to fragmentation: The Bishop of Burnley, Philip North wrote powerfully in the Church Times about the narratives we listen to within our national life. When metropolitan elites are pitted against the voices of the disenfranchised, we all lose. How then does a church speak positively about national identity - about the values we aspire to embody - whilst also being generous in our hospitality? 

There is an urgent task ahead of us - deepening our understanding of what it is to be a citizen, building trust and strengthening community.  In the words of Archbishop Justin ‘we need a narrative that speaks to the world of bright hope and not mere optimism - let alone simple self-interest’. 

We might not have seats in the House of Lords, but we do have the opportunity to act in solidarity with others - regardless of their class, gender, ability, ethnicity or economic worth. 

This is a claim about the God-given dignity of every human being. It’s a claim that demands action in response to the increasing numbers sleeping on our streets; it’s a claim that ought to shape our daily interactions.  Elijah and John the Baptist literally and figuratively point us in the right direction. 

Elijah faced an urgent challenge in terms of the stability of national life: that is the faithfulness of a people to their God; and the well-being of individuals. King Ahab regards him as troublesome. Why? Because he points out the the King that he has abandoned the ways of God. Rather than walking in the ways of the God of Israel, he now followed the Baals. 

He had neglected the commandments of God:  commandments which spoke of love of God and love of neighbour. Such loving was not an abstract philosophy; faithfulness to God was revealed in acts of mercy and wise judgement; in compassion for the widow and foreigner.  

Why might a King forsake the Lord and sit lightly to commandments? Ahab’s wife Jezabel gets much of the blame. Their marriage secured a political alliance; but she was ruthless and manipulative. Her worship of Baal - a god of rain and fertility - might have seemed like an attractive option to a people under threat from other nations. It might have appeared a far less demanding ethical code; perhaps much more suited to the pursuit of one’s own desires. 

Luca Giordano

 The Sacrifice of Elijah Against the Prophets of Baal

Elijah throws down the gauntlet: he sets out the conditions for a competitive religious drama. On the one hand there were elaborate preparations; endless cries to Baal; physical injury to participants. It reads like a corporate act of will which is met by ridicule on the part of Elijah. It’s a noisy charade which is met by silence. There is no answer; no response.

On the other hand, we see a simple declaration of dependence on God. Elijah speaks of God’s faithfulness; he hopes for the restoration of dignity and purpose; he longs for a people to turn back to God’s ways. It’s not flashy; it’s not trying to force God’s hand. It is a longing for God’s presence to be acknowledged. And as in the burning bush, flames of fire serve as a mysterious sign of the divine presence.  

It’s not a fantastical story about the supernatural; it’s actually a story about us. 

It’s about the ways in which we so often seek fulfilment in the transitory; it’s about how we affirm our identity in seeking to control others. It’s about how we want a short cut, because walking in God’s ways is hard. 

But… there’s still that whisper which catches our attention. The honest human cry which is met with the divine assurance of our dignity.

John the Baptist, like Elijah, put God first.  He didn’t keep that to himself. He cried out. He cried out to people to do the same. He poured water on the heads of those who came to him - or, as is more likely, he plunged them into gushing waters of the Jordan.  Such a sign of bubbling new life was accompanied by the demanding call to repent. 

He echoed Elijah in calling them back to God. Turn around. Turn away from all that is selfish, destructive and toxic. Turn around. Turn towards the God who brings mercy. 

The people of Israel were waiting for a prophet to liberate them from occupation - for someone to save them from the Romans as they’d been freed from the Egyptians and so many others. They’d endured abused and subjection. They longed for their dignity - and their identity - to be restored. 

Given John’s vision and stature, it’s no wonder the authorities trekked to the wilderness to see for themselves. Could he be the Messiah? They were expecting perhaps a warrior, one who’d bring unity and victory.  Might John be the one who’d restore them to fulfil their calling as chosen ones; blessed to be a blessing to all.

The Preaching of St. John the Baptist by Pieter Bruegel the Elder 

John is brusk in his denials: I am not. I am not the Messiah. I am not Elijah. I am not one of the prophets.

John is enigmatic in his responses: I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness; make straight the way of the Lord.

His mission is to create a sense of expectation for the coming of the Messiah.

His calling is to prepare hearts and minds to receive him.

He is faithful to God and invites others to rekindle their commitment.

He is alert to the nearness of God and invites us to respond wholeheartedly.

John tells a story which is honest about our human condition: about our capacity to seek our own glory; to manipulate others; to impose our own agendas; to the dark violence of abuse. 

John tells a story which is honest about God; about a love that breaks down barriers of fear, anger and resentment. 

In due course John will declare: ‘Behold, it is he!’  But first, he calls us to prayerful repentance. 

There is no magic; but there is mercy.

There is darkness; but it does not overcome the light.

The child is key: the Christ child sets us all free.

Today, we pray O Rex Gentium: 

O King of the nations and their desire,

the cornerstone making both one:

Come and save the human race,

which you fashioned from clay.

© Julie Gittoes 2016