Christian Dismissal
Introduction:
Epiphany is a Greek word
meaning “a manifestation.” In theology it refers to “a manifestation of divinity.” Historically, in the eastern
church, Epiphany was a rather broad idea embracing four specific events in the
life of the Lord: his birth, his baptism, the
adoration of him by the three Kings,
and the first of Jesus’ miracles at
the wedding feast of Cana. In
all of them there is a manifestation of divinity. For us of the western church
Epiphany was at first stressed as the manifestation of Christ to the
Gentiles in the person of the three Gentile Wise men (Magi) named by tradition
as Casper, Melchior, and Baltazar.
Later we began to stress Epiphany as the medieval feast of the Three
Kings. That’s basically what we think of today as Epiphany: the arrival of the
Three Kings from the East led by a star, and bringing gifts of gold,
frank-incense, and myrrh.
Epiphany, as the arrival of the Wise
Men, was always celebrated on the 6th
of January, and it used to have a
“privileged octave”. That means that we used to repeat the feast
of Epiphany for eight days straight, using the very same
Mass: the very same epistle and gospel,
the very same prayers. In this
new liturgical day, the feast has lost its octave. I suspect that that’s the
work of some liturgical purists in Rome, who weren’t profound enough to see
the feast of the Three Kings as much more than just a cute little
story. There are deep symbolic
religious meanings glowing all around:
in the star that leads the way,
in the profound gifts of gold,
frankincense, and myrrh, and in the elegant Gentile kings that are led to the
stable.
Listen, for example, to
the second reading: “I reveal to you a mystery, hidden from former generations
but now revealed to the holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles (that’s you and me) are coheir,
members of the same body, and copartners in God’s promises given by Christ Jesus” (Eph 3:5-6). That’s no cute
little story: Gentile kings being led to Jesus, the king of the Jews. That’s no cute story: the star of Bethlehem
telling the Jews to move over and make room for the Gentiles (that’s you
and me), just as that same Star, still shining in our sky, today tells all
Gentile Nazi’s and Neo-nazi and all anti-Semites to move over and make room for
the Jews.
In the old days the octave of Epiphany made us hold on to the Christmas season at
least till the 13th or 14th of January. It invited us to
linger in the glow of Christmas like the poinsettias. Now with the octave
gone, unfortunately we no longer linger in the glow of Christmas. Now Christmas is gone by the 26th of December; it’s out there
on the curb with the Christmas
tree. Gone also by the 26th
are all the Christmas carols. Now days we do most of our Christmasing before the 25th. In the old days we used to do all our
Christmasing after 25th. In the old days you never trimmed the
Christmas tree before 24th. Trimming the tree was the
solemn task of Christmas eve. Why don’t we find a balance? Less Christmasing before Christmas and more
of it after. One way to linger in the
glow of Christmas is to have the kids save some of their gifts for Epiphany. After all, that’s the
day Jesus received his Christmas gifts.
Since the feast of the Three Kings no longer
has an octave (making us linger in the glow of Christmas) it’s the feast day
itself that now brings the curtain down on the Christmas Drama, and dismisses
us to return tomorrow (Monday) to
”Ordinary Time” of the liturgical clock.
Christian life is dotted with dismissals. There is the weekly dismissal at mass: ”Ite!. Go, the mass is ended.” That’s more than just a permission to peal out of church and get home in time for the game. Then there is the dismissal of our baptism: “You have been baptized in Christ Jesus. Ite! Go, the baptism is ended.” That’s more than just a permission to leave church and get on with the baptismal party. The Christmas season too also has its dismissal with the feast of the Three Kings: “Ite! Go, the Christmas drama is ended.” And that too is more than just a notification of a return to “Ordinary Time.”
Ite! Dismissal.
Dismissal to what? To “business as usual,” as though nothing has really happened? No. Dismissal to the “unusual
business” of our baptism, of the mass, and
yes now, to the “unusual business” of Christmas. What in the world could that be?
When the ghost of
old Jacob Marley, dead seven years to the day,
appears to his business partner, old Ebenezer Scrooge, on Christmas Eve,
Ebenezer nervously compliments the ghost for being the shrewd business man
that he was in life. But the ghost, wringing his hands cries out,
"Business! Humanity was my business. The common welfare was my business;
charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence
were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water
in the comprehensive ocean of my business." Christian dismissal is not to “business as usual” as though nothing
really important has happened. It’s dismissal to “unusual business.” It’s
dismissal to make a difference on the highway of life. It’s dismissal to make a
difference through ”charity, mercy,
forbearance, and benevolence,”—that difference which the ghost had never made.
But there's no making a difference until one
has seen and heard something that makes a difference. Seeing and hearing something that makes a
difference is kind of theme in the New
Testament. "I tell you," Jesus says to his apostles, "many prophets and kings wanted to see and
hear what you do but they did not" (Lk 10:23-24). When that great
Advent figure, John the Baptist, was
imprisoned, and he was having second thoughts about Christ, he sent a delegation
to Jesus to ask whether he was the one to come or whether the people should
expect someone else. Jesus sent back
this reply: “God and report to John
what it is you are seeing and hearing: the eyes of the blind are opened, the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the poor have
the gospel preached to them” (Mt
11:1-6).
Seeing and hearing
something that makes a difference is a theme especially of the
Christmas season. The shepherds, energized by the events of that first
Christmas, returned to their fields and flocks "glorifying and praising
God for all that they had heard and seen" (Lk 2:20). They had
indeed seen something different: "an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes
and lying in a manger." And they had indeed heard something different:
whole choirs of angels "praising God and singing `Glory to God in the
highest'" (Lk 2:1- 14). After presenting profound
gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh,
the Three Kings also head for home, "praising God for all that they
had heard and seen." They
too had seen something different. They had seen a star, and not only a star but
a Superstar. And that made such a difference that they decided not to go back
to Jerusalem to report to Herod. Instead they quietly returned home by another route (Mt 2:12). <<In
fact there's a tradition that claims that what they saw and heard had made such
a difference that they never returned at all to their Eastern homes, and that
their skulls, in later days, were carried from Constantinople and Milan to
Cologne, Germany, where they are the
chief treasure of the Cologne Cathedral.>>
Not seeing and hearing a difference
Unfortunately old
Jacob Marley never saw the Superstar, and never made a difference on the
highway of life. Oh how he bewails the
fact! He moans to his old business partner, Scrooge: ”At this time of the rolling year, I suffer most. Why did I walk through the crowds of fellow-beings with
my eyes turned down, and never raised them to that blessed Star which led the
Wise Men to a poor abode? Were there no
poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?"
Recall that
“Mother of All Parables”: “The Good
Samaritan.” Once upon a time a man was on the highway going from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell in with robbers, who beat him to a pulp, robbed
him of his money, and left him half-dead. Along came a Jewish priest, saw him,
did not stop but passed by, leaving him
to die. Along came a Jewish levite, and
did likewise. But along came a Samaritan, saw the poor guy, stopped and pour
the oil of compassion into his wounds, then hoisted him on his beast of burden,
and hurried him off to the nearest inn, when he dug down deep into his pocket
and drew out a good sum of money for the innkeeper to take care of the man. --
Why did the one stop and the other two did not? Because the one,
somewhere along the way, had seen something that made a difference on the
highway of life, and the others did not.
“At this time of the rolling year" I
always recall another highway of life –
this one went not from Jerusalem to Jericho but from Milwaukee to Chicago. It
was New Year’s Day, 1984, about 11 A.M. I had just celebrated New Year’s Day mass in Milwaukee, and was on
my way to Chicago to celebrate mass with relatives and to eat a
good Italian pranzo. As I was speeding
along twenty-miles an hour
amidst the worst snow-storm of the season, my car left the highway and landed in a deep deep ditch but not
before hitting a sign post – the only
one for miles. I climbed up to the top amidst the howling
wind and the blinding snow. I stood there and stood there as car after car passed by and nobody stopped.
Then suddenly the words of the New Year’s Day gospel echoed in my mind: “And
the shepherds returned to their fields and flock praising God for all that they
had heard and seen.” And anger welled
up in my heart and I found myself crying out aloud to the snow and wind:
"Haven’t you seen and heard
anything this blessed season that makes a difference on the highway of life? Or
are you all back to “business as
usual?”
The only one to
stop that day was an Illinois State
Trooper. He added to my trauma by
threatening to throw me into jail for “speeding” in such weather conditions,
and by trying to extract a fifty-dollar from me. I believe he was basically
angry because he had to work that day, and couldn’t stay home and watch the
football games and the football stars. He had seen all the football stars over
and over again. But he had never seen
the Superstar that makes a difference on life’s highway between Jerusalem and
Jericho, between Milwaukee and Chicago.
There's a
Superstar out there somewhere, and all of us human beings are appointed by a
law within ourselves to go in search of it and to behold it. The Superstar divides us human beings into
two kinds. On the one hand, there are those of us who don't see it. Oh,
we might see all the "all-stars" of the season's rituals, but we haven’t seen a Superstar. Haven’t seen something that really makes a difference in
our lives. And it eventually gets written all over our faces; we look either exhausted or bored or, like that
state trooper, angered by life.
On the other hand,
there are those who do see a
Superstar. They do see something that's
really important and that really makes
a difference. And that too is written all over their faces. We saw it written
on the face of Dr. Martin Luther King who said he had been to the Mountain Top
and had caught a glimpse of the Other Side, and after that everything was
different. We saw it written on the face of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. There was a glow on her wrinkled countenance
that made you think she had seen a Superstar. But we’ve seen that glow not only
on the face of that very famous lady
but also upon the faces of many
ordinary people you and I personally know. They seem to be in possession of a Difference that makes all
the difference in the world.
<<That
Difference, seen and possessed, becomes a pearl of great price for them.
Sometimes it's a painful pearl, especially when it beckons them to march to the
tune of a different drummer (which status quo won't like), or when it charges
their conscience to make a costly difference on the highway of life. But
painful though that beckoning difference might be, it's immensely less painful
than indifference!>>
Scrooge finally heard and saw a difference.
Old Ebenezer
Scrooge had finally heard and seen that
made him finally make a difference on
the highway of life. As the curtain goes up on A Christmas Carol, old
Scrooge is grouching "Bah Humbug!" He's boiling people in their own
pudding. He's piercing their hearts with stakes of holly. But as the curtain is coming down, there’s
a new Scrooge on stage. He is
jumping up and down with joy in
his heart and tears in his eyes. And it is no longer "business as
usual." Instead, because of all that he had seen and heard through the
three kind Spirits of Christmas (past,
present, and future), he is singing now a new song. He is shouting out to the whole world a promise of
"unusual business": "I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try
to keep it all year round. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me."
(The "unusual business" of Christmas)
When the song of the angels is quieted,
when the Sar in the sky is gone,
when the Kings have returned to their homes,
when the shepherds are back with their flocks,
"business as usual" is over,
and the unusual business of Christmas begins:
to linger first in the glow of Christmas,
to make then the journey
that looks for Christ,
to offer profound gifts to the ones we love,
to move over and make room for each other.
To make a difference on the highway of life,
to stop for those wounded on the road to Jericho,
the uninsured sick,
the HIV Lepers,
the homeless sheltered in
stables,
the ageing poor who now have to turn down the heat,
in order to pay up the bills..
To give voice to the voiceless,
and to start up again the quieted song of the angels,
and with that heavenly host
to keep singing “all year round”
“Glory to God in the highest.”
Preface for Epiphany
We thank you for sending your son, Jesus.
but also as a light of revelation to the
Gentiles.
On the cross the power of darkness
did
not overcome him,
and on the third day
the Bright Son of Justice rose from the dead
and turned the night into day.
And when the day turns into night,
his Star still shines in our sky.