Readings:
Sermon:
On a recent trip to Cairo, I brought home with me a papyrus icon of the Holy Family arriving in Egypt. It now hangs on our living room wall.
The thing which has intrigued me about the icon is that the Holy Family look sad. They are turned towards home, rather than towards Egypt.
It is a reminder to me of the challenge and uncomfortableness of being a refugee or an asylum seeker. The truth is that most would rather be in their own country, among their own people and in their own context.
In the Magi we see the representation of the nations coming to Christ. We see the importance of the whole world and its people to God.
Now, I’m sure you’re aware of the wide-ranging debate regarding where the Wisemen came from. As someone very interested in the Middle East. I’m always one to argue fairly strongly and without much evidence that they came from Yemen, Somalia, Iraq or Iran. Whilst others argue that they came from as far as India.
Wherever they came from, they teach us of God’s concern and welcome for the whole world. Something which at times we all fail to do.
We live in a time where there is toxic debate regarding the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees across the world, including in our own country. The truth is that compared to many countries in the world, such as Turkey and Pakistan, we take very few people.
Why is all this important and what does it have to do with Epiphany you might be thinking?
In the birth narrative of Christ, we see the nations come to him, but we also see the holy family displaced by powerful elites. Firstly, because of a census and secondly because of Herod trying to kill Christ, leading to them feeling to Egypt.
Recognition of human dignity and the fact that Jesus was a refugee must inform our opinion and care for asylum seekers and refugees. As Archbishop Justin recently said, ‘a hostile environment is an immoral environment’.
Each human, regardless of their status, wealth, or heritage, is valued by God. The beauty of the incantation is that Jesus comes and lives as one of the despised, one of the lowly and one of the feared.
Perhaps this is the very Epiphany we need from God. A wake-up call, a shakedown. The skin Jesus inhabited was the skin of the very people we often fail to love, cherish and respect.
This is an especially important Epiphany for the church in our time. Like Herod, the rich and powerful of our time want to blame all the ills of the world on the vulnerable.
We are living through a cost-of-living crisis. But despite what some say,
We are not poorer because of gay men escaping persecution in sub-Saharan Africa, or because of Iranian Christians fleeing Iran, or because of families running away from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
We are poorer and in a financial crisis because the rich and the powerful have not had their time of Epiphany. Because they have not recognised the prince of peace who inhabits, the daily experience of so many in our world.
The Christ child and the experiences of the Holy Family invite us all to a moment of Epiphany, to a moment of change and transformation.
God loves the whole and everything in it. Those with a home and those without a home. Those living in safety and those living in fear.
Amen.