Epiphany:

Born to Change the World

How unlike are the gospel of Luke and the gospel of Matthew in telling the story of Jesus’s birth! This may frustrate historians, but the different perspectives guide us toward a fuller understanding of what this good news will require of us.

The Church reads Luke’s version on Christmas: as soon as Mary gives birth and swaddles her son, angels appear, praising God and drawing the shepherds to the place he was born. The first people to hear the good news of his birth are the lowest and least among us that Jesus has come to save.

Not so in Matthew, whose gospel the Church reads on Epiphany. Mary isn’t even mentioned until ten verses after Matthew’s terse introduction “when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.” There are no welcoming angels, no gathering of the lowly who long to hear the good news. Instead, the first people we hear about are the scheming King Herod and the magi from the far east. For Matthew, the story of Jesus’s life opens on a world stage, a stage that is set for change. From the very beginning, Matthew tells us that power will shift, things will be different under the rule of the newborn King of the Jews.

The Jewish community that first heard Matthew’s gospel might have expected the role that Herod would play. When King Herod’s attempt to destroy Jesus was frustrated, he ordered the massacre of the holy innocents, the death of “all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under.” Herod is easy to recognize as the ruthless resistance of earthly power to God’s reign.

But the magi were probably a surprise to Matthew’s original audience. Outsiders, not God’s chosen people, they are the first to recognize in the star’s rising that the heavens and all that lies beneath them have changed in this moment. Foreigners from the far east are the first to let this knowledge guide their path. Then when the magi find Jesus, they bow down in worship and offer their treasure to the service of his reign.

The gifts that the magi bring are carefully chosen, loaded with symbolic meaning. Their myrrh, used to anoint the dead, foreshadows Jesus’s conflict with the powers of his day and the death that he will suffer for us all. Their other gifts—gold, for wealth and the power it brings; frankincense, for worship—suggest that the magi will hold nothing back. They offer everything they have to bring about God’s reign.

Thus Matthew’s ‘infancy narrative’, his story of Jesus’s birth, makes clear from the outset that Jesus was born to change the world. Matthew’s magi invite us—for we too are outsiders to the world where Jesus was born—to give everything we have to that transformation.

That’s the reason that Matthew tells the story of the magi—in fact, it’s the reason for his whole gospel. Matthew is not just giving his audience the historical facts, he is asking his audience—which now includes us—to consider how what happened so long ago can change our actions today.

We shouldn’t be surprised, then, that the story presents us with challenges. One obstacle to becoming like the magi that comes to mind is the persistent American temptation to rely on ourselves, on our own wits and ways of doing things. While Matthew tells us that the magi were overjoyed at seeing the star, our dominant culture can make us less than thrilled at where the star leads. Rather than offer all of our treasure, it’s all too easy to be like Herod. Resistant to the loss of our own power and plans, we can lose sight of the common good, refuse to commit ourselves to something other than ourselves.

Our culture of self-reliance often goes hand-in-hand with a tendency to see faith as a private affair, as a personal relationship with God. We often fall to the temptation to put our faith on a high shelf in the back of a closet, instead of letting it permeate all the communities that we belong to: our families, our professional networks, our civic and economic relationships. Why does this happen? Sometimes we are just too timid or shy, but sometimes we feel that ‘going public’ with our faith will lead to ridicule or rejection. The magi were willing to travel across distances and cultures to put their treasure to the service of God’s reign. Re-telling their story is a repeated invitation to follow in their footsteps, holding nothing—not wealth or power or worship—back from our commitment to the reign of God.

Against our tendencies to ‘go it alone’ and to privatize our faith, Pope Francis frequently speaks of thinking and acting in terms of community, as he did in his encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti. Pope Francis calls this alternative way of living ‘social friendship.’ Everything about this way of life leads to the same destination that the magi arrived at—which should be no surprise. Pope Francis follows the same star as the magi, the one that leads to changing the world. To accomplish this, Pope Francis urges us to build consensus inside and outside of our immediate circles. He encourages us to create a collective memory and shared truth as the essential foundations for the justice and mercy that characterize the reign of God—that same reign that the magi offered their treasure to.

When the magi left Jesus, Matthew tells us, “they departed for their country by another way.” The magi themselves were the first to be changed by their encounter with the infant king. Without a star to lead them; they had to figure out the way home for themselves. Matthew does not tell us how they did that, he only hints that they travelled together. Nor, in fact, does Matthew actually say how many magi there were. Popular imagination has transformed them into three wise men, corresponding to the three gifts they bring. But why not imagine ourselves as part of their company? Then we will know that we, like the magi, do not travel alone. We have each other as we chart a new path forward in faith through whatever lies ahead as we change our world.