Haphazardly by starlight

 Epiphany 2024: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12, Matthew 2:1-12

+ Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

This was the moment when Before turned into After.

So begins U. A. Fanthrope’s poem BC:AD.  She writes:

And this was the moment

When a few farm workers and three

Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazard by starlight straight

Into the kingdom of heaven.

It’s not uncommon for our journey of life and faith to feel haphazard: moments of triumph and tears, clarity and confusion. 

It’s rare for us to walk by actual starlight.

How often do you gaze upwards, seeking those sparks of light? Hard for us in north London. Easier in remote areas, on the coast, beyond the streetlights.

Then we see shimmering lights travelling billions of years to meet our gaze; stars which have illuminated the firmament for all who have been and will be born. The plough, Ursa major, Orion and the North Star - the still point for those who’ve navigated the earth and its seas. 

Image here

Today we remember those who observed a star... followed it and were overwhelmed with joy when it stopped. 

They walked haphazard by starlight: from the east, via Jerusalem, to Bethlehem, returning by a different road.  

They walked haphazard…straight into the kingdom of heaven: an experience of enlightenment, a new perspective, a striking revelation. This was an epiphany.

An epiphany rooted in their observations, deepened by the journey. A new reality, a shift in understanding, a fulfilled hope and a leap of faith. 

Their epiphany had come by means of a single star. A pinprick of light guiding them through the darkness and revealing something greater than their fears. 

It was a mystery made manifest. 

On their knees, in joyful adoration, their minds embraced the quiet, unfailing love of God; a love older than the stars, a love which holds the universe together, in a mother’s arms. 

The Lord who made the Pleiades and Orion, brings darkness into morning and draws day into night. Now, beyond the rhythms of the day, the nations have become aware of a bright new dawn. 

A dawn that sees the world as it is, with the darkness and danger that covers it; but sees that the Lord will arise.

An epiphany that is alert to the fear, threats and warnings swirling around Herod and those who cling to power, the thick darkness that broods over the peoples; but trusts that the Lord’s glory will appear. 

That child is the one of the Father’s heart begotten who comes to the world in its radiance, possibility, darkness and fear and embraces it, loves it; who will go to the depths of alienation to save it. 

In Epiphany we hear echoes of Easter: the sorrows, the joys and God’s ‘yes’ to the world; and the space we’re given to respond to such a mystery.

In Katherine Rundell’s book Impossible Creatures she presents us with such echoes of such a ‘yes’ through the lens of the children Mal and Christopher - and the magnificent, mythical world they journey through.

Image a still from Bloomsbury promotional video here

They see the erosion and darkness but press on in their quest to bring hope and restore beauty. There is friendship, courage, duty, laughter and grief: there is, says Mal, a ‘dark stretched upon dark… such purposeless sorrow’ but also ‘wonder on wonder… kindness large and wild enough to transform you’. 

At one decisive and climatic moment, there is a shout and a great ball of light in the darkness. Christopher hears it, saying: ‘it might have been fear, but it sounded, as he stood watching, exactly like triumph - like joy - like love’. 

Today’s gospel also names the fear but makes more space for the joy and for love. 

It takes us to the moment when Before turned into After.

Look around, says Isaiah, as peoples as numerous as the stars are gathered together; there is radiance and rejoicing, praises are proclaimed. 

Look around, says Paul, Gentiles are now fellow heirs, members of the same body, sharers in the promises of Christ; the riches of such grace are boundless.

A hidden mystery has been made known by revelation: the radiance of God in a child brighter than any star.

This is the strength of a glimmer of hope. We too:

walk haphazard by starlight straight

Into the kingdom of heaven. 

We are invited to notice it, to pay attention to it, to receive it; we are to be that starlight as we walk in the world with boldness and confidence. 

The biblical scholar and poet, Walter Bruggemann, loved the local church in service of the kingdom, puts it like this:

On Epiphany day,

we are still the people walking.

We are still the people in the dark,

and the darkness looms large around us, 

beset as we are by fear,

anxiety 

brutality,

violence,

loss -

A dozen alienations that we cannot manage.

We are - we could be - people of your light.

So we pray for the light of your glorious presence

as we wait for your appearing;

we pray for the light of your wondrous grace

as we exhaust our coping capacity;

we pray for your gift of newness that

will override our weariness;

we pray that we may see and know and hear and trust

in your good rule.

That we may have energy, courage and freedom to enact

your rule through the demands of this day.

We submit our day to you and to your 

rule, with deep joy and high hope. Amen.

© Julie Gittoes

Walking by starlight

 Epiphany transferred: Isaiah 60:1-6, Ephesians 3:1-12 and Matthew 2:1-12

The James Webb infrared telescope has been described as a $10 billion gift to the world. It sees the sky at wavelengths of light that are beyond what our eyes can discern. 

Nasa’s senior project scientist was thrilled and relieved after years of hard work.

A machine showing us our place in the Universe; thousands of galaxies in a grain of sand. Images of a ‘stellar nursery’ and a ‘cosmic dance’. 

Human beings have long to scale the heights of heaven or plumb the depths of space - arts and science set on a celestial quest. The desire to know the source of life,  to see beyond where darkness and light are both alike, to know what gives our earthly stardust breath,  to measure the pulse of the very heart of God.  

Image from James Webb telescope

Today we travel towards our epiphany - the revealing of a mystery and a manifestation of love. 

This is the moment when,  U. A. Fanthrope puts it in her poem BC-AD, 

‘... three

Members of an obscure Persian sect

Walked haphazardly by starlight straight 

Into the kingdom of heaven.’

The love that flung stars into space, causing energy to pulse and atoms to form and life to be breathed into dust was made flesh and dwelt amongst us; perhaps no wonder then that cosmic signs singalled this birth.

Those who contemplated the skies not only followed a star but looked beyond it. They observed and inquired; they searched diligently and found. Then, they were overwhelmed with joy before a child, dependent on parental care and protection. 

There they knelt. There they offered gifts. 

They searched for the love that made us, and found that love with us.

Their worship and adoration left us a sign of who this child was and how he would gather nations to Godself. 

Gold: the marker of authority and kingship, yes; but found with and among us. The one who purifies a people as his own.

Frankincense: the one whom we worship and love beyond all things; opening our hearts in worship and service.

Myrrh: the king of our hearts who loves us to the end, to the grave and beyond; who brings healing to the nations, a new creation.

A mystery has been made known. 

The radiance of which Isaiah spoke breaks in that we might proclaim the praise of the Lord.  For we, with our different races, cultures and languages can seek and rejoice as we are made members of the same body, shares of the same body, as Paul puts it.

He continues saying that this wisdom, rich in variety, is now made known to rulers and authorities. 

The star-gazing wise men encounter one who is used by Rome to maintain order in an occupied land. Herod, like many rulers, rules with the assumption that all things are determined by power. He is fearful and fragile, crafty and yet intrigued; he operates through violence. 

The magi  move beyond him and walk haphazardly, as the poem puts it, into the kingdom of heaven.  For Jesus is the one who embodies God’s very self as a tiny child, as as an adult demonstrates God’s ways with the world.

Adoration of the Magi

Herod is defeated by such a person, movement and kingdom; by those who, in the words of the ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, ‘refuse to believe that violence will determine the meaning of history’. 

This story begins to shape the time we live in too. 

The magi take a different road home for the kingdom of heaven - God’s loving ways reshaping our lives - is a journey. In sleep, their imaginations have already begun to form around a more peaceable way. Their dream reveals to them that the safety and well-being of children, of the most vulnerable, cannot be left to the Herods of this world. 

We need to name that and seek alternatives, different routes for human flourishing, shaped by dreams that counter violence. Hauerwas continues: ‘God has given us gifts of bread and wine to be offered so that the world may know that there is an alternative to Herod’. 

Fed by the body body that we are to become, how can we be part of that alternative?

Perhaps in part, by doing our job; by doing what is entrusted to us - in work, at home, at school, in communities. Allowing our curiosity to be stirred, connections to be made, being attentive to where we find ourselves and acting out of what is possible or purposeful. 

And into that we bring the gift of our whole selves; and we pray that we will find the words and actions to reflect the radiance we see; that as we look around, we will be people who gather together rather than fragment, build up rather than tear down; seek the flourishing of others rather than their survival. As scientists and artists, pragmatists and dreamers, little by little a stellar - heavenly - kingdom will come. We join that cosmic dance.

May we who walk by starlight act with boldness and confidence through faith in God that the world might know a more radiant dawn. For God's love is worldly in focus, cosmic in scope.

© Julie Gittoes 2023

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

Looking beyond the stars

This is the text of a sermon preached on Epiphany at Guildford Cathedral exploring revelation and incarnation; worship and joy; our ongoing journey of faith. The texts were Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12.

When they saw that that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.

Later this month, you’ll have the opportunity to become an amateur star gazer for the evening.  The external lighting will be turned off as Cathedral becomes home to a pop up observatory. Volunteers from our local astronomical society will be on hand to help you use telescopes to explore the night sky.

For a moment, the wonder, curiosity and expertise of the magi might be ours. The depth of space, of time, of light… it is the same sky that they observed.

They watched and calculated and scrutinised not for one night, but for a lifetime. They notice some thing new. A brighter light. A comet, a supernova or a conjunction of the planets?

This cosmic sign revealed to them the birth of the one who is the morning star: the splendour of light eternal and sun of righteousness; the love that said ‘let there be light’ is the love birthed in a stable; the love that is all in all, rest in a mother's arms, turning a house into hallowed ground.

The light has come - our light has come - in the midst of darkness: the darkness of the shadow of death, the darkness covering the earth, the thick darkness over the peoples.

This light dawns in the midst of political crisis and the brutal reality of human violence. Jesus’ birth takes place in time. In the time of King Herod. In the time of occupation, empire, threat and displacement; in the time when ruling by fear reveals fragility and creates instability.

It is in a world such as this that Herod finds himself acting as a catalyst. Those who’ve been guided by hope need help. In their desire to worship a new born king,  magi come to a palace, to the place we think power resides. In his desire to retain control of his own kingship, Herod consults experts and points the mysterious strangers beyond the stars to a a place. To a place where the child was.

When they saw that that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.

Stefan Lochner, Adoration of the Magi, c. 1440, Cathedral, Cologne

This light dawns in the midst of political crisis and the brutal reality of human violence. Jesus’ birth in time, is the still point in a transforms the world for all time. In our time, with its violence, instability and displacement of people; in our time, God continues to reveal to us his patient and loving response to our impatience and fear.

And it looks like a child with his mother. This is God with us. In the midst of us.

And we pay him homage: this child calls forth joy, yes; but as God’s very self, this child causes us to kneel and to worship.

And treasure-chests are opened.

Gold is offered a sign of Jesus’ kingship, yes; but also placing all of our resources as the disposal of a different kingdom; a setting aside of our desire to control and embracing instead love.

Frankincense is offered as a sign of Jesus’ divinity, yes; an act of putting first the call to prayer and worship; a placing at the heart of our lives the deep attentiveness to God.

Myrrh is offered as a sign of Jesus’ reconciling the world, yes; and this healing means confronting pain, sorrow and despair; here, we glimpse cross, death and resurrection.

The light has come. It shines in darkness. The darkness does not overcome it.

The wise men’s journey continues on another road:  they go, resisting fear and abuse of power; they return, witnesses to love, light and glory.

The Christ child’s journey continues on another road: he goes with Mary and Joseph, and seeks refuge in another land;  he will return, to set us free, revealing God’s love, light and glory.

King Herod’s journey continues on yet another road: his fear turns to fury, fury to violence; his violence becomes lamentation and death.

And yet, love wins.  Still the light shines. In our world.

It is not overcome. It reveals truth to us. We have to decide.

When they saw that that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.

We need to take heart from the diligence and joy of the wise; but perhaps we need to embrace their courage too.   For their quest throws up the deepest questions of identity: of who we are, who this child is and how we are to live in the world.

Day by day, we pray that the Holy Spirit might kindle in us the desire to seek and to find; to worship and to rejoice. In the light of the Christ child, not only do we see but we become radiant; our hearts over flow.  In the light of the Christ child, we experience something of God’s grace. The outworking of that grace is challenging; our imaginations our stretched, we live differently embodying God's wisdom in whatever we're doing this time tomorrow.


Such grace is, in the words of Rowan Williams, ‘the mysterious capacity to look in the face the destructive effects of human ignorance’. In saying this, he was reflecting on Shakespeare’s improvisation on the revelation which we celebrate this Epiphany; it’s a reflection on grace in Twelfth Night.

In a play which hovers between comedy and tragedy, we see the a journey of attentiveness and courage; an emotional journey of learning to make acquaintance with storms in order to love.



Shakespeare places us in the tumult of a ship wreck - drawing us into the lives of a rescued twin and a lost brother. He confronts us with the chaos of misrule, the delusion of self love, the cruelty of mockery; intoxicating passions and suffocating grief are played out in a whirlwind of mistaken identities.

The person who knowingly puts on a disguise, is the one person who effectively navigates the complex pathways of love. Viola’s is a love that serves and attends to the other; it is a love which is vulnerable and resilient; a love which is rooted in the assurance of faith and hope; a love which is neither defensive nor manipulative, but utterly authentic. Her maturity brings life, healing; it enables other to let go of their delusions and to interact more truthfully.

The resulting epiphany is of restored relationship as Sebastian looks on his disguised sister and says: Of charity, what kin are you to me? 
What countryman? What name? What parentage?

The revelation we glimpse today answers those same questions too: the mystery of Christ which has been revealed is about our kinship. Because he is God with us - living, dying and rising for us - we are children of God. As Paul puts it, we, the Gentiles, have become fellow-heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

If we are to seek wisdom like the magi and to love like Viola, we do so by entering into a drama which reveals our identity as members of Christ’s body.

The drama we enact today, names the shipwrecks and storms of our human condition: in the Eucharist, our fears, frustrations and desires, our griefs, betrayals and hopes are expressed.

The drama we enact today, names the patient and generous love of God which continues to reach out to us: in the Eucharist, we touch and taste and see grace that does not look away, light that continues to shine, hope that dispels fear and love that increases our capacity to love.

When they saw that that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.

Our journey continues on another road: step by step, may the Spirit equip us to witness with boldness to the love of God, revealed in Jesus Christ.

Julie Gittoes © 2017