Sermon notes – Epiphany

One of my guilty pleasures is Facebook community groups. So for the uninitiated, these are groups that you can join on Facebook and people share what’s going on in your community. And they are a gift that just keeps on giving.

It’s best not to take them too seriously, approach them with a great deal of humour, and not only do you know what’s going on but you can read the local gossip and watch people get very wound up about not much at all. Each group shows what the local community is really like.

Warsop group, where I was a curate, they talked a lot about the ducks, they really like ducks, and also trees, they had an obsession with what trees were blowing over and which the council were chopping down. And we knew when there problems with trees in the churchyard without even opening the curtains.

The Stockton group (my last parish) talks about missing people, there’s a lot about why the helicopter is out, and quite a few people moaning about anti-social behaviour. It’s all a bit bleak to be honest, not as many laughs in this one as some of the others.

The local group where my daughter lives has a lot of posts about her cats, she’s proud that they’re Facebook famous. Those cats are quite the adventurers and she has to keep an eye on it so she knows where they’ve wandered off to.

Barking group, my now local group, is mainly talk about housing issues. Or people wanting a jump-start on their cars.

But, my favourite post was in the South Petherton Facebook community group. South Petherton if you don’t know, is quite an affluent area with a mainly mature and well-educated population, it’s where my father-in-law lives, but even so this group does not disappoint. No missing people here but instead lots of discussions about when the shop was open, who is parked where and why, and when the lunch club will start again.

However, the one post that is my favourite was about a strange sighting in the sky. Someone had seen a line of lights travelling across the sky and was asking whether anyone else knew what it was. Are they stars, or light pollution from something, or a UFO, they’re really pretty.

Not an unreasonable question you would think. It’s mildly interesting, they’ve seen something unusual. But the majority of responses to this questions were, wait for it… “I don’t know, I haven’t seen it, I’m inside”.

Today we celebrate epiphany. We celebrate the wise men, the astrologers, seeing a new star and deciding to pack up their stuff and go and investigate what was happening. In this day and age there’s no way, unless you’re a South Petherton resident and refuse to look outside, there would be an extra star in the sky without everyone across the world knowing about it. But this is now and what we celebrate happened a long time ago.

It’s a story we know well, we celebrate every year and there is a danger that we can think we’ve learned everything we know about it and just switch off.

So today I invite you to place yourself in that story for just a moment, look around out at what’s happening, see what you notice, look for the new. You’re in Bethlehem. A baby has been born in the most incredible circumstances. Angels sang at the birth. Shepherds turned up to visit, they went away excited and told people that this baby was special. It was a night like no other, but now what? It’s about two years later, Mary and Joseph are still there, we assume that Joseph’s family are living locally as he came from Bethlehem originally. And, as far as we’re told, life is just continuing as usual. It’s not a miracle a day kind of life, it’s just day-to-day living.

And I guess that’s how it has to be. There is an assumption that miraculous events will change everything. Once you’ve seen one you will live in that state if wonder forever. They may and probably will change the course of your life, although interestingly that’s not guaranteed, and I sometimes meet people who have experienced the most amazing miracles and it hasn’t changed him at all. But even if it does, at the end of the day, you still need to cook dinner, have a shower, go to the toilet and all the usual stuff. The mundane, the normality of life always goes on.

That’s where we are today. So, as you place yourself there, what can you see? What can you hear? What are the people around you doing?

And then…the strange visitors turn up.

They have seen a star. They know something amazing has happened, that this star indicates a new king. They have packed up what they owned and travelled a long distance to investigate.

I wonder how Mary and Joseph and all the residents of Bethlehem feel when they turn up?

Whilst the shepherds had been poor and generally considered a bit dodgy, they were local. People knew them, they will have spoken the same language, they were the same culture just not very well thought of.

The magi are the complete opposite. We know they are wealthy, the gifts they bring are expensive. They are foreigners from a different land. They dress differently, they look different, they speak different languages.

Pictures on Christmas cards depict them as quiet, majestic, serene and mysterious. But that is artistic licence to show they are opposite to the culture they were visiting. How do you imagine them? There could easily have been lots of them, not just three, why wouldn’t they have brought their friends and family and colleagues on this journey, there may have been women as well as men. They might have been quiet and serene but they may also have been noisy and excitable, shouting to each other as they finally find what they have been seeking.

The point being, that Matthew is making in his gospel, is that the shepherds and the magi, for different reasons, are both unexpected people to recognise who Jesus is. And those unexpected people, came, saw, recognised and worshipped Jesus when others just carried on as usual. 

I asked you to place yourself in the story, where did you put yourself? Are you Mary or Joseph with strange people turning up at your home? Are you one of the magi arriving in Bethlehem and seeing how everyone is looking at you, wondering where you’re supposed to be? Or did you place yourself as a resident of Bethlehem, watching from a distance as you continue with life?

The danger is, we no longer see and feel amazed by the miracle of the incarnation, living out our faith has become normal life. We become the residents of Bethlehem; we know about it but everyday living has dulled our sense of wonder.

So in the next few minutes I invite you to take the time to do just that. Think again and wonder at Jesus being born, God becoming human, living amongst.

Take a moment in the silence to stop, recognise, wonder and worship.