“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1-2)
My son expressed some astonishment to me a few days back, saying “there was nobody in church last Sunday!” That wasn’t literally true, of course, but I did tell him that, it being the first Sunday after Christmas, we had expected a relatively low turnout. My son then surprised me by reporting that a certain parishioner (who will remain nameless) had said to him “yeah, that’s why I didn’t come – I knew no one would be there!”
It occurred to me at that point that perhaps low expectations were contributing to the problem we have on these Sundays that follow in the wake of Christmas. Perhaps if people like myself showed a little more enthusiasm, encouraging everybody –“Don’t miss the first Sunday after Christmas! Everybody will be there!” – perhaps we would have more robust services?
I doubt it. No, I think, on the contrary, that these first couple of Sundays after Christmas might be deliberately designed to weed out the holiday well-wishers and prune back our numbers so that just the really serious religious people are left! Certainly the Bible readings that the Lectionary allocates to the after-Christmas period suggest that. They are serious readings.
No sooner have the shepherds returned to their flocks and angels gone back into Heaven than we, the Christian community, are encouraged to turn our attention to the ‘murder of the innocents’ and the ‘stoning of Stephen’, and then on the Sunday we remember when Jesus was circumcised and then presented at the temple.
These are serious topics for serious religious people. Nobody writes happy carols about these events. No – these are topics that engender serious reflection amongst serious people! And then, just as we were starting to take ourselves all very seriously, we are joined by the three wise men! It’ the ecclesiastical equivalent of having Krusty the Clown burst in on your funeral – ‘Hey, Hey, Hey kids!’
Who are these mysterious and colourful figures who make their appearance every year at this time? They find their way into every Nativity scene, even though the Church does its best to hold them back until twelve days after Christmas?
We celebrated their presence amongst us very graphically a few weeks ago in Holy Trinity via three very exotically dressed children who appeared in the closing scene of our Christmas pageant, processing down the aisle to the front of the church, dutifully bearing their gifts for the baby Jesus. But who really were these wise men? What do we know of them, and what were they doing at the house of Jesus?
In truth, the New Testament doesn’t tell us much about the three wise men. Indeed, we aren’t told that there were three of them, we don’t know that they were very wise, and we can’t even be sure that they were men. In fact, ‘wise men’ seems to be a mistranslation of the Greek word ‘magi’, which is normally translated as ‘magician’.
I don’t know when or why Biblical translators started substituting the term ‘wise men’ for the more obvious translation of the word ‘magi’, but perhaps they were trying to avoid the unsettling conclusions that the normal translation leads us to – most especially perhaps the idea that Jesus’ strange visitors were Iranians!
Since the 6th century B.C. the term ‘magi’ has been associated with the Zoroastrianism of Persia, so if these people were ‘magi’ they were almost certainly Persian! I don’t know how many of you have ever visited Israel. I have, and I can tell you that you’ll see a lot of tourists in Israel, especially at this time of year, and those visitors come from all sorts of countries from all around the world, but not from Iran!
Indeed, I don’t know if they’d let you into Israel if you were carrying an Iranian passport, and if you did get in, I don’t know whether the Iranian authorities would let you back into Iran once they saw the Israeli stamp in your passport!
Now I appreciate that the political situation then was a little different to what it is now. Even so, don’t assume that back then Iranian (or Persian) people would have just have blended in alongside everyone else in the Ancient Near East. The Persians have always been a very distinctive people.
In case you didn’t know, the nation of Persia only took on the name ‘Iran’ in 1935 when the then Shah insisted on the change of name. The word ‘Iran’ comes from the same root as our word ‘Aryan’. Hence ‘Iran’ means ‘land of the Aryan people’ or even ‘land of the white people’. And keep in mind that the Shah made this change during the early years of the chancellorship of Adolf Hitler in Germany!
I mean for this to act as no more than a reminder that the Persian people have always been a distinct people in the Levantine world. Persians are not Jews and they are not Arabs and there is no mistaking the difference.
And there would have been no mistaking of the difference when it came to these characters who were not simply foreigners but exotic foreign courtiers, whose magic consisted fundamentally in that most controversial science – astrology, which is why I always give myself permission at this time of year (and even consider it my religious duty) to read my stars!
I purchased the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday for this exact purpose. I was not disappointed. It took me a while to find the ‘stars’ section but I eventually found ‘Your start with Lilith’ directly under the comics (which probably suggests how the editors of the Herald regard Lilith’s contributions).
Lilith says “after its prolonged internal scrutiny in Scorpio, Saturn’s move to Sagittarius brings exciting new learning opportunities.” She’s obviously painting with broad brush-strokes in that introductory statement but she gets more specific when she comes to my specific star sign:
“Aquarius – as Venus and Mercury join Mars in Aquarius, you’re this week’s sweetheart: affectionate, cheeky, resourceful and witty. Also stubborn, argumentative and rebellious. So keep in mind that while knowledge is knowing what to say, wisdom is knowing when to say it – and how.”
Hmm … It’s not obvious how being stubborn, argumentative and rebellious contributes to me being this week’s sweetheart but I’m not complaining!
Mind you, if my late father were still alive and if he knew that I was reading my stars, he probably would be complaining, for he was no fan of astrology in any of its forms, and indeed he brought me up to avoid that section of the newspaper entirely, even if it meant foregoing the comics!
And I must confess that my dad’s antipathy towards all things astrological, rather than my more relaxed attitude, is in greater accord with Biblical tradition, for neither the Old nor New Testaments really display any sympathy towards star-gazing.
“Those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons predict what shall befall you. Behold, they are like stubble,” says the Lord (according to Isaiah the prophet). “The fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame.” (Isaiah 47:13‑14)
Likewise Jeremiah: “Thus says the LORD: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are false.” (10:2‑3)
I know that most of you, like me, are open to insights offered us by people coming from religious traditions different to our own. This attitude is not obvious in the Hebrew Bible, least of all when it comes to religions like Zoroastrianism! Indeed, with regards to all things magical and astrological, both our Old and New Testaments are in full agreement that this is a religious tradition with no credibility whatsoever!
The New Testament book of the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ mentions two magi – Elymas the false prophet (in Acts 13) and Simon Magus (in Acts 8) – the magician who tries to buy the Holy Spirit for money. Both receive short shrift from the Apostles.
These magi are not respected as members of an alternative faith, nonetheless worthy of consideration for the contribution they make to the broader religious landscape. Their spirituality is not affirmed as an authentic expression of godly intuition. From a Biblical point of view, these magi are members of an idolatrous pagan religion that is entirely incompatible with the worship of the God of Grace!
Consulting your horoscope is not a part of Biblical religion! It might be all very cute and harmless for the most part (though I suspect it could get rather expensive if you consult any of the pay-per-minute phone-based clairvoyants or their online colleagues). Either way, be assured that from a Biblical point of view, astrologers are never to be recognised mouth-pieces of the one true God.
From a Biblical point of view, these people are not to be counted amongst those who worship the God who made the Heavens and the earth. They do not seek for God in the right way. Their predictions are not to be relied upon or even listened to. These magi are superstitious pagan idolaters who are strangers to the Biblical truth and not remotely part of the people of God, and yet … when we look around the Nativity scene … there they are, and when we ask them how they got here they tell us that they saw it in the stars!
‘Who invited them?’ – that’s the question. And the obvious answer is ‘God did’, which all is rather concerning!
These strange foreigners with their pale skin and their bizarre clothes and their odd accents and their strange pagan beliefs – surely they would have felt more comfortable somewhere else! And surely Joseph, being a discerning type of guy, should have questioned these strange men at some length before allowing them to join the family inside the house!
One of the most gratifying things I hear from people who join our community for worship is when they say “I’ve been coming here for a month now and nobody yet has grilled me about what I believe!”
It seems very Biblical to me not to ask. Can you imagine Joseph at the door of his house saying “I know you guys have come a long way but before I let you join us inside I need to ask you a few simple questions about your attitude to the Torah.”
I know when our youngest, Fran, was born, we had Sheikh Mansour’s wife, Marzi, and a small group of Muslim women come to our house and pray over the baby, and I know that any number of Christian people would have objected to that. Again, can we imagine Joseph saying to the magi, “OK. The gifts are great, but no praying please, and no reading the baby’s horoscope!”
In truth, no matter how you envisage the scene of the Epiphany, it has all the hallmarks of a sitcom. Can you imagine Mary trying to explain to the neighbors what had been going on in their house that day? What do you say when a neighbor asks “Ah … did I happen to see you entertaining a group of Persian magicians in your back yard last night?”
The whole scene is bizarre, as Epiphany is surely the most bizarre celebration of the Christian year, and one that surely gives us a foretaste of the bizarre nature of the church that has its roots in these events, formed by a God who surely has a bizarre sense of humor!
So I’ve decided to worry less about the low numbers in church this time of year – getting worked up over all those people that aren’t here – and I’m going to focus instead on all the odd people that are here (myself included)!
For we are an odd bunch – a strange mixture of people of various races and backgrounds and colours, with a strange mixture of beliefs, ranging from the conservatively orthodox to the ‘I’m not quite sure what I believe any more’ end of the faith spectrum. We represent both the seriously religious and those who are struggling and confused, and yet God has invited all of us to be the church together!
And so we gather around the manger – the die-hard Evangelical Christian taking her stand alongside the heavily bearded Zoroastrian astrologer, with all the rest of us nestled somewhere in between. And it can all get a little disconcerting when we look at some of those standing alongside us, and yet it all starts to make wonderful sense when we focus instead on Jesus.
And so we join hands and we pray and we sing – a beautiful cacophony of praise! Happy Epiphany!
First preached by Father Dave Smith at Holy Trinity Dulwich Hill, on Sunday the 4th of January, 2014.
Rev. David B. Smith
Parish priest, community worker, martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of four. www.FatherDave.org
