Let's Not Cut and Paste the Gospel! (Sunday 6.A)

Thomas Jefferson was a remarkable man. He was a Founding Father of the United States of America, the main author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third U.S. President.

It’s likely that Jefferson wrote some of the most famous words in the English language: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

And yet according to Wikipedia, Jefferson “owned hundreds of slaves and freed only a few of them.”

Another interesting thing about Jefferson was that he produced his own version of the New Testament.  In the days when “cut and paste” really meant cutting and pasting, he sliced up a Bible and glued the texts he wanted to keep into a book. He got rid of all the miracles, signs and anything that showed Jesus to be divine. (You can take a look at it here.)

The inconsistency between Jefferson’s professed opposition to slavery and his personal life is hard to figure. But his do-it-yourself Scriptures are very easy to understand. Even if most of us wouldn’t actually take an X-Acto knife to our Bibles, we’re tempted to edit it all the time.

Some of us have already cut-and-pasted the Word of God by ignoring teachings that make us uncomfortable or with which we disagree. And almost all of us take Jesus more seriously on some points than on others.

Today, the Church gives us a long version and a short version of the Gospel. I was very tempted to choose the short version, and not just because I’m still fighting the flu. The short version avoids some tough words of Jesus, words that might upset some folks.

It would be comforting to follow the example of Thomas Jefferson and edit the Scriptures. But it’s surely not what we want to do—because the Gospels aren’t mere words on a page, but an encounter with Christ in his living word. We can't “edit” that encounter to suit ourselves.

Years ago I read a book that said “The Scriptures offer no other basis for conversion than the personal magnetism of the Master.” It sounded good but something seemed missing. Then I realized that the magnetism is the magnetism of a teacher, a teacher like none other, a teacher who said outrageous things, who made outrageous demands, who asks us not merely to be attracted to him but to follow him even to the cross.

People in every generation failed at following Jesus.  Sin’s been with us from the start.  But many folks today redefine discipleship to suit their needs or convictions. Instead of acknowledging that we’ve been unable to meet the demands of Jesus, due to weaknesses that he understands well, we shout that the Church is out of step, or the Church is unfeeling, or the Church is oppressive.

A lot of the disagreement we have in the Church today is not so much about doctrine as about discipleship.  The wisdom of the world has caught our attention, and we fail to see that God's wisdom is not one choice among many, but a gift of truth that leads to freedom and peace.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us at least four challenging moral teachings, depending how you count them. He tells us that anger and insults can be mortal sin. He tells us that we can sin gravely just by lustful thought. He abolishes the Jewish teaching on divorce by forbidding remarriage. And he calls Christians to a new standard of integrity when making promises.

I could give a homily on any of these, but most of us already know what these teachings are. My point today is more general: we are called to accept fully the authority of the Word of God in our lives.

This, of course, is not literalism or fundamentalism—otherwise we would be one-eyed and one-handed Christians after hearing what our Lord said in the Gospel today!

At the other extreme, someone might say “Well, since Jesus wasn’t serious about chopping off our hands, then maybe he didn’t mean what he said about divorce, either.”

Yet one of the graces we have as Catholics is the authoritative interpretation of Scripture by the Church. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church has reflected on the words of Christ since he spoke them, and there are many places—the Catechism of the Catholic Church being one—where we can find that wisdom.

In computer terms, we may need Google to help us understand what pleases God, but we cannot cut-and-paste to please ourselves.

Jesus understood that we would sometimes fail to live according to what he taught, and he showed clearly on the cross and elsewhere that he is merciful. But if we want to be his disciples, we need to start by taking him at his word, not by doubting our duty to obey his commands.

Funeral Homily for Dr. Declan Lawlor, February 7, 2014

The presence in the church this morning of so many members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulcher of Jerusalem is impossible to ignore. Although Declan was a man of many parts, his involvement and leadership role with this ancient Order was an important one.

At its beginnings more than nine centuries ago, the aim of the Order was to protect the shrines of the Holy Land and the pilgrims who visited them. Today it fosters the Christian life of its members, promotes the faith in the Holy Land, and helps to protect the Holy Places.

The male members of the Order are known as Knights, which struck me forcibly as I began to prepare this homily—because the title Knight differs greatly from similar honours. A King has a Kingdom to rule, a Prince a Principality, a Duke a Duchy—but a Knight has only a Lord to serve.

In the Middle Ages, such service demanded obedience and loyalty, even at the risk of life and limb.

But before loyalty could be sworn it was often tested. The first reading today speaks of those who “will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; like gold in the furnace he tried them.” (Wis. 3:5-6)

That Declan was tested by his illness is beyond doubt; that he was found worthy amidst it equally so, accepting with patience one setback after another, and faithfully coming to Mass each Sunday until it became literally impossible.

And once the Knight of old had proven himself, he did not then become a free-lancer—even that term springs from the medieval world. Sir Walter Scott used “freelance” to describe a mercenary: It didn’t mean his lance was available for free but that the warrior was not sworn to any particular Lord.

The true medieval knight placed himself at the service of only one Lord. A Knight could swear “fealty” to many different overlords, but gave “homage” to a single Lord, as he could not commit his military service to more than one. Such life and death commitments demanded obedience to the call.

Compare this ideal with what we heard a few moments ago in the second reading, from St Paul:

We do not live to ourselves,
and we do not die to ourselves.
If we live, we live to the Lord,
and if we die, we die to the Lord;
so then, whether we live or whether we die,
we are the Lord's. (Rom 13:7-8)

That’s what chivalry looks like in the court of the King of Kings. Declan neither lived nor died to himself; for in another of his letters, St. Paul states flatly “you are not your own.” (1 Cor. 6:19)

This debt of loyalty, this willingness to serve, this sense that we are not our own—because we have been ransomed at a very high price, much like a captured warrior—is easy to paint with the colours of Knighthood and the ideals of chivalry. But that’s only because these were originally Christian ideals and a Christian code.

The fact is, everything I have said in connection with a knight can be said of any baptised person. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism—and we are sworn to honour and defend it by our very baptismal vows, which are themselves promises of obedience.

St. Ignatius of Loyola reminds us in his Spiritual Exercises that this means we should strive for a holy indifference. The Jesuit founder wrote “as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life.”

“The same holds for all other things. Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created.” (n. 23)

And what is that end for which we were created, the ultimate purpose of life? The Gospel for this funeral Mass (Mt. 25: 31-46) supplies an answer: we were created to inherit the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. The words of Jesus reveal clearly the sovereignty of God, the King of Kings, who will call the whole world to account. Jesus will return to reward the just, those who have lived the lives for which God made them.

In many aspects of his life, Declan lived according to the summary of Christian charity we heard in the Gospel: in his healing profession as a dentist, as a father and grandfather, and not least in his work to provide support and relief to our suffering brothers and sisters in the Holy Land.

And we can make a final reference to the ancient code of chivalry: as I have already said, many aspects of it were inspired by Gospel teaching. The medieval Knight was sworn to come to the aid of the helpless and the vulnerable, and in modern society there are none more so than the unborn, whom Declan defended by his commitment to the pro-life cause.

Listening to the words of Jesus, we can have confidence that our brother will stand before the King of Kings with all the confidence of a Knight who fulfilled his sworn duties faithfully and well.

To conclude, I might note the Equestrian order has admitted women as full members for almost 150 years. Denise did battle with Declan not like the noble Ladies of old, left behind at home, but at his side throughout his life and illness, sharing his wounds and his worries.

No less than Declan did, she now must make the ancient motto of the Order her own daily prayer: Deus lo vult—God wills it.

We pray for you Denise, and for Tanya, Declan, Jill and the grandchildren, that your acceptance of this painful loss will bring you the peace that only God can give.

Let Your Light Shine (Sunday 5A)

Russia has already won a gold medal at the Sochi Olympics—for the opening ceremony.

I hadn’t turned on a television since the day Father Xavier left for India, but completely by accident I caught the Sochi spectacle from start to finish.

As I watched, I felt sorry for South Korea, the next country to host the winter Olympics: it will be next to impossible to top this show.

At the same time, I felt a bit sorry for the Church. We believe Jesus is the Light of the World, but we have no fireworks. The most magnificent liturgy in St. Peter’s Basilica doesn’t hold a candle, literally, to the Sochi pageant.

I felt sorry for the parish. Today’s Gospel tells us that each of us is also the light of the world, called to let our light—Christ’s light—shine for all the world to see. But we don’t even have a decent AV system, much less lasers and lights. It took more than twenty years to put a spotlight on our rooftop cross, thanks to a generous parishioner.

And I felt a bit sorry for myself. St. Paul, the great Apostle and teacher of the faith, says he came to preach in Corinth with fear and trembling, and without “plausible words of wisdom.” Where does that leave me, struggling to preach this morning?

Is it possible to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ in an effective way in a world that’s seen everything? How can a two-thousand year-old message be proclaimed with none of the things that I saw on TV Friday night?

I’m happy to say that a careful look at all three readings today gives us powerful answers to those questions.

First, the Gospel does have a supply of fireworks. Each believing Christian is a light ready to burst into the night sky of our darkened world. You are the light of the world, Jesus says—not as a compliment but as a mission. He tells us “let your light shine” so that others will see our good works and give glory to God.

As the final triumphant notes died out in Sochi, do you think there was massive conversion of TV-watchers, all wanting to become Russians? Even that brilliant glorification of Russian history and culture is most unlikely to have created a flood of applications for citizenship in the Russian Federation.

On the other hand, Jesus tells us, people will give glory to God if they see his light shining in us, particularly by the good things we do.

Sometimes you must feel that Christ the Redeemer Parish or the Archdiocese of Vancouver is one big second collection. Can’t we just worship God and leave our cheque books at home?

Yet the connection between charity and faith is unbreakable. Long before Jesus told us to let the world see the good works that our faith inspires, the prophet Isaiah told the people of Israel that their light “would break forth like the dawn” if they fed the hungry and clothed the poor.

Like fireworks, their light would rise in the darkness and brighten the shadows.

Some of us have the gift of answering questions about the faith, of engaging in good and respectful arguments that can change the minds and hearts of non-practicing Catholics or unbelievers. And some of us don’t. But Paul reminds everyone that Jesus Christ—indeed, the suffering Christ—is the starting point for all evangelization.

You don’t need to be a great debater to share the Gospel; sometimes it’s even a handicap. What you do need is to be salty—to show that the life of faith isn’t bland. What you need to be is bright—letting your face shine when you talk about the Lord or his Church.

Years ago I talked to a Catholic businessman in New York who decided to go to weekday Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. When the kiss of peace came, there was no-one in the pew beside him, so he turned around and found himself shaking hands with his boss! Neither knew the other was Catholic.

That shouldn’t happen. I’m pleased to say I kept in touch with that man, and there’s certainly no-one in his office today who doesn’t know him to be a man of faith.

And, of course, people called to be light to the world must let their light shine in the darkest places: places of poverty, disaster, and persecution. This we have done and are doing in our parish, even to the point where it can feel like a burden.

Yet each time our volunteers make a sandwich for the needy, each time we support another of those second collections, each time we show care and concern for the sick, each time we rally around someone in any kind of trouble, people have the chance to see our good works—and to give glory to our Father in heaven.

A Thousand Thousand Points of Light (Presentation of the Lord)

Many of our parishioners are turning their attention south of the border today as our neighbours in Seattle set their hopes on the Super Bowl. I’m not paying much attention myself, since I hardly know the difference between a quarterback and a flashback.

But I did have the U.S. on my mind as I prepared my homily, because today’s Feast of the Presentation brought to mind the inauguration speech of President George H. Bush in 1988. In that speech, President Bush used the phrase “a thousand points of light,” comparing community organizations to stars spread throughout the country, doing good.

It turns out that the words come from the great Christian writer C. S. Lewis. In The Magician's Nephew, wrote: "One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out."

Today’s Gospel doesn’t talk about a thousand points of light, but only one: Jesus Christ, who is the light of the nations (cf. Lk 2:32).  Elsewhere, St. John’s Gospel tell us he is the light of the world (Jn 8:12; 9:5), the light of life (cf. Jn 8:12), the light that shines in the darkness (Jn 1:5), the true light that enlightens everyone (Jn 1:9).

Today is a good day to pause and ask ourselves whether knowing the light of Christ makes a difference or whether it’s just a beautiful religious image: because the question has been on the table since the First Sunday of Advent. On that first day of our liturgical year, the prophet Isaiah urged us “let us walk in the light of the Lord!” We also read St. Paul’s words “let us lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.”

And of course Christmas challenged us further. At Midnight Mass we heard that “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light” (Is 9:2) and we were reminded in the Gospel for the Mass during the day that the Word made flesh is “the light of the human race” (Jn 1:4).

Two months after the start of Advent and five weeks after Christmas, let's take stock. Is there still some darkness in our lives that’s waiting for the light to overpower it (cf. Jn 1:5)? Are we walking by the Word of God, allowing it guide our decisions like a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, as the psalm says (Ps 119:105)?

Often we think that we need to overcome the areas of darkness in our lives. That’s a bit like trying to get rid of the darkness in a room by vacuuming it. There’s only one way to remove darkness, and that’s by admitting the light.

We let the light shine in our hearts first by the sacraments. Confession turns the lights on in even the deepest shadows, while receiving the Eucharist fills us with the divine Presence. Prayer—especially prayer with Scripture—also banishes the night, because the power of the Word of God exposes to the light everything that’s hidden in our heart (cf. Heb 4:12-13).

But what’s true for us as individuals is also true for the whole world. In today’s Gospel, the elderly prophet Simeon proclaims Jesus as “a light for revelation to the Gentiles”: in other words, a light for all nations, not only Israel—a light for everyone.

In his first audience of 2012, Pope Benedict underlined that this light shines on all humanity. “Christ’s coming,” he said, “dispels the shadows of the world.”

But here we’re confronted by a big question. How does this happen? How does the light shine on every person?

Our Pope Emeritus answered this by challenging individual Catholics not only to be transformed by Christ’s gift of light but to share it with the world. He invited  the whole Church, and each one of us, to become more aware of the mission and the responsibility we have to bring the new light of the Gospel to the world.

And that’s why today’s feast made me think of a thousand points of light. At Easter, we sing “Christ our light!” as we raise high the paschal candle. A single flame is shared passed through the pews until the whole church glows with light.

Before I talk about the wonder of this, I should mention that I spoke in a homily at the school Mass about how poorly I did in math and science. Afterwards, a parent said “I wish you wouldn’t do that!” When I asked why, she said “because you can be sure that the next time I tell my son to buckle down to his math homework he’ll say, ‘but look how well Monsignor managed without it’”!

So cover the children’s ears for a moment. I’m still so poor at science that one small flame increasing to a blaze is almost a miracle to me! But even if you do understand the physics, it’s a wonderful symbol of how Christians work to banish darkness in the world.

As we share the good news one-on-one, the flame spreads. We become points of light—not a thousand, but a thousand thousand (whatever that is, I told you I was no good at math). The true light that enlightens each person will spread from heart to heart.

The physics of flame may confuse me, but nothing could be simpler. First we make sure that the light burns brightly within us, and then by personal, gentle and dedicated evangelization we offer that light to others.

The Kingdom Makes Repentance Attractive (Sunday 3.A)

Dale Carnegie published the self-help book How to Win Friends and to Influence People almost eighty years ago. And about sixty years ago there was a book called How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying that became a Broadway musical and a movie.

Imagine if Jesus asked those authors for some advice. Would he have started his ministry by saying “Repent”? It’s a fair bet the modern experts would have come up with a better opening line. After all, nobody wants to repent.

Or is that too quick a conclusion? Let’s look more closely at what Jesus said; perhaps repentance is more attractive than we might think.

And let’s also look at what happened when he said it: hardworking fishermen walked away from the security of their nets and followed him. Something clicked when they heard Christ’s call to repentance.

Jesus did not, of course, tell people to repent, period. He gave them a reason: “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Books and books have been written about what he meant when he spoke of the kingdom of heaven or the kingdom of God, but let’s think about what Peter and Andrew and James and John heard.

They heard a promise. Oppressors were the only earthly kings they knew about. The kingdom of heaven must have opened up the possibility of something wonderful—they could become subjects of a sovereign who was “out of this world,” to use the slang an earlier time.

And they saw Someone. They saw in the face of Jesus that heaven was a lot nearer than they had thought. There was a light shining there that excited these four fishermen. The kingdom of heaven was near because Jesus was near. Words alone couldn’t have captivated them so thoroughly.

When was the last time any of us thought about the kingdom of God? I heard about a bishop who was questioning a confirmation class about the kingdom of God, and the answers were so hopeless he gave up and asked, “Well, what did Jesus say about marriage?” This time he got a quick answer from one child who said “forgive them, for they know not what they do”!

We’d do better on the marriage question, I’m sure, but most of us have a pretty thin idea of the kingdom. And yet all the scripture scholars agree that “Jesus gives the kingdom of God the first place in his preaching.”* Obviously, this is something we need to understand.

It’s clear that the kingdom of heaven is not just another way of speaking about heaven, since Jesus says in Matthew’s Gospel “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.” There is something immediate about the kingdom, even if it’s clear that there’s a future dimension as well.

As Pope Francis wrote in his letter on The Joy of the Gospel, “Let us believe the Gospel when it tells us that the kingdom of God is already present in this world and is growing, here and there, and in different ways: like the small seed which grows into a great tree (cf. Mt 13:31-32), like the measure of leaven that makes the dough rise (cf. Mt 13:33) and like the good seed that grows amid the weeds (cf. Mt 13, 24-30) and can always pleasantly surprise us.”

What the kingdom means is a profound mystery revealed only by Jesus, who makes it known step by step or piece by piece through his miracles, his parables, and his own life and death.

When Christians speak about “mystery,” they don’t mean a secret or a puzzle that has to be solved. But we do mean something that’s not obvious to everyone; in his preaching he distinguished those capable of understanding his teaching from those whose hardness of heart blocked their comprehension.

How can we know the meaning of the kingdom of heaven? How can we experience the promise that moved the first Apostles to follow Jesus without hesitating?

The answer’s fairly clear: we must repent. And not for fear of fire and brimstone, but in awe and wonder as we think about the kingdom. The kingdom of heaven is a kingdom of light—St. Matthew helpfully spells that out by repeating the words of Isaiah. That light shines into the hearts of people when they repent.

One scholar puts this beautifully by explaining that Jesus was not content just to preach the kingdom of God. He began to make it a reality. He made it a reality by calling people to the conversion that made it possible to experience the freedom that is granted to citizens of his kingdom. He made it a reality by inviting humanity to turn away from those things that lead towards the kingdom of darkness instead of the kingdom of light.

The Pope’s letter on the Joy of the Gospel reminds us that the kingdom makes a difference not only to the individual but the entire community: “To the extent that [Christ] reigns within us,” the Holy Father says, “the life of society will be a setting for universal fraternity, justice, peace and dignity.”

In one short sentence, he sums it all up: “The Gospel is about the kingdom of God (cf. Lk 4:43); it is about loving God who reigns in our world.”

When you come down to it, isn’t that what it means to repent—to love God who reigns in our world? To repent is not to hang down your head in shame, but to lift it high and walk into the light. Perhaps repentance is more attractive than we think
----
* Dictionary of Biblical Theology, "Kingdom," p. 293.

Baptized? Then Pray! (Baptism of the Lord)

Father Larry Richards is the priestly equivalent of a drill sergeant or a very, very mean football coach. He hasn’t the slightest idea how to pull a punch. When a young parishioner told me that Father Richards’ book Be a Man had really shaken him up, I said “welcome to the club.”

He hits pretty hard at Catholics who don’t go to church. At least I got off easy on that one—and you do too, unless you’re just reading this homily on my blog!

But he’s also tough on Catholics who don’t find time to pray, and that’s a problem for a whole lot of us. In his blunt way, Father Richards says that people who don’t pray can end up being baptized pagans, Christians who go through the motions but aren’t really in touch with God.

Pope Francis is a little gentler, but not much. In October he said “The key that opens the door to the faith is prayer.” But he went on to say that keeping the key in your pocket can lead to arrogance, pride and a rigid faith or even to losing your faith.

This kind of tough talk isn’t really my style, perhaps because I know how often I neglect prayer myself. But on this feast of the Lord’s baptism, I think we all need to ask whether we’re unlocking the riches of our own baptism through daily contact with God.

We all know that Jesus didn’t need to be baptized. We needed him to be baptized! What better way to understand the dignity, the importance and the meaning of this sacrament—especially for the great majority of us who were baptized as babies?

“The heavens were opened to him,” today’s Gospel says, but they were opened for us.

The Spirit descended on him, so that Jesus could be the source of the Spirit for us.

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord is second only to Easter when it comes to thinking seriously about our own baptism and what it means. It’s so easy to take it for granted. Only a handful of us know the date of our baptism—I don’t—and many of us hardly give this decisive moment any thought.

Yet to be serious Christians, we must know and live both the dignity and the demands of our baptism.

We all remember learning as children that baptism washes away original sin; did we also learn that baptism makes the Christian a new creature, and adopted child of God, a sharer in the divine nature, a member of Christ and a co-heir with him, and a temple of the Holy Spirit? (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1265)

Probably not: this is adult stuff. But these are truths you can get your teeth into—truths about our Christian dignity and what it demands from us.

A creature wants to know its Creator. An adopted child, like any child, wants to experience parental love, and to show love in return. A sharer in God’s own nature wants to enter into communion with him, since He himself is a communion of Persons.

And if we are members of Christ’s body and co-heirs with him, we want to hear the Father’s voice. We want to know we are his beloved sons and daughters.

Certainly if we are temples of the Holy Spirit, we need and we want to be aware of the indwelling Presence within us, and to experience its strength and comfort.

None of this will happen fully in our lives without prayer. We can read theology, we can receive the other sacraments, and we can lead good lives. But the full richness of our status as beloved children of God will remain hidden.

This sounds like bad news for those who do not pray. It doesn’t sound much better for those who—like me—find it hard to give prayer the time it deserves.

Actually, it’s good news. Good news because prayer is far simpler and easier than many of us think. Even the tough-talking Father Richards offers a five-minutes-a-day plan in his book Surrender. The wonderful examen prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola doesn’t need to take a whole lot more than that.

But it’s also good news because an ancient form of prayer is being rediscovered all through the Church. That prayer, which I mentioned at Christmas, is called lectio divina or sacred reading. It’s profound, that’s for sure, but it’s also simple.

Lectio divina is based on the meditative reading of scripture, so one of the beauties of this way of praying is that it puts us in direct contact with God’s living and active Word with its remarkable power to transform our hearts. Another is that lectio is an excellent way to pray for people like me who get easily distracted in prayer.

The basics of lectio divina are easy to learn. We’re going to try that for three evenings this month, beginning this Wednesday at 7 p.m. We’ll talk about the method for about half an hour, and then use it to pray for about the same length of time. In other words, we’re talking about no more than one hour.

The key to a closer relationship with the Lord is in your hand—and on Wednesday evening you have a chance to open a door

Gifts for Today: Epiphany

It’s a long way from Bethlehem to the frozen Canadian north. But that’s where I’d like us to go, with the help of a Canadian novel called Coppermine.

Coppermine is a story about an officer of the North West Mounted Police—later the RCMP—who is sent to investigate the death of two missionary priests in the far north. Since Corporal Jack Creed can’t speak the language of the Inuit First Nation, he takes along Angituk, a half-English, half-Inuit guide and interpreter.

While speaking at Christmas with two hunters, Sinnisiak and Uluksuk, Jack Creed offers to tell them the story of Bethlehem and the birth of Christ. I will read you a bit of it, as translated by Angituk…

“When Jesus was born, his parents, Mary and Joseph, were travelling.”
“To new hunting grounds?”
“Well, yes, sort of.”
“And the baby was coming and there was no room in the inn, or…the big igloo, so they had to go to the stable…or little igloo, and have the baby there, surrounded by cows and sheep.”
“Tell us, what are cows and sheep?”
Creed was beginning to warm to the telling. “Actually, they were caribou and husky dogs, and they loved the baby. And three wise men came, who has seen a star that marked the birth of Jesus”
“Wise men?”
“Shaman,” Angituk ventured.
“Absolutely. Powerful shamans who saw the star, and they brought gifts.”
Angituk prompted him. “Walrus oil. Narwhal tusk. Hard wood.”
“And then the shepherds came,” Jack continued.
“What are shepherds?”
“Seal hunters,” Angituk suggested quietly.
“Did I say shepherds? I meant seal hunters. A bunch of seal hunters came in from the ice edge to see the baby, because good spirits had come to them and told them that Jesus was born. But then there were enemies.”
Creed now had the hunters fully engaged in his narrative. Angituk too.
“There was a king, an evil shaman named Herod, who was jealous and sent hunters to kill the child.”
“Probably Cree,” Sinnisiak ventured, looking at Uluksuk, who nodded.
“Could be. But the seal hunters and the shamans protected the baby and the bad hunters didn’t find him, so there is a happy ending to the story of Jesus’ birth. He went on to be a great man. A teacher and the best hunter of all.”

I haven’t read the novel, so I don’t know its message. But this brief passage tells us something about today’s feast of the Epiphany: it needs some translation.

We know the story well, and we know the meaning of sheep and cows and shepherds. But do we really know what is happening when those three kings lay down their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh?

Ancient translators have helped us understand—gold for a king, frankincense for God, and myrrh for a man who was to die. But perhaps we need to understand the story in terms a bit closer to home.

So let’s leave symbolism aside this year, and be as direct as Corporal Creed was with the hunters: because every one of us can understand giving and receiving.

Today let’s look at two simple questions: What have you received from God? And what have you given back to God?

I can’t answer these questions: each person must give his own reply. But let's try to answer the first one together. What have we received from God?

In a poem for children, Robert Louis Stevenson said “the world is so full of a number of things/I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.”

We adults can be tempted to miss some of those things, which is one reason we’re blessed to live in this area where the gift of creation is so easy to see. We might be tempted to take credit for a lot of the good things around us—and people from Toronto think we do—but truly all of us see the beauty of the created world as a gift.

There are other gifts we enjoy some of the time: health, friends, family, peace in society... freedom from the sort of oppression and violence that greeted Jesus at his birth.

And our first and second readings today remind us of our spiritual gifts also. We have received the dawning brightness that the ancient prophets longed and hungered for, because the light has come, and the Lord’s glory has appeared. The mystery that was long hidden has been made known to us.

When Christ took on our human nature, St. Paul tells us, he gave us a share in his divine nature, heirs to all that God has promised.

All these things come to us, more or less obviously, from the hand of God. We might take credit for our friends, for our success—though we shouldn’t—but we sure can’t do that for most other blessings. As St. Paul said in his First Letter to the Corinthians, what do you possess that was not given to you? And if you possess it as a gift, why take the credit to yourself?

And so the next question arises: what do we give to God in gratitude for all he has given to us?

I don't suspect the three wise men are an easy act to follow... yet we're never empty handed: the wise men simply gave what they had; the gifts they placed before Jesus were simply symbols of who they were and what they had.

And we must do the same thing.

For starters, at Mass. So much of the symbolism of the Offertory is stolen by the collection! (Not that we plan to abolish it). The offering of money may seem to be the moment when we give back to God in gratitude... and so it is, to an extent. But the big moments are the procession of the bread and wine, and the offering of those gifts on the altar.

We lift up to God the gifts to be transformed into Christ's body and blood... but we lift up ourselves too, equally to be transformed in a different sense into the presence of Christ in our world.

That transformation should make us more grateful still, and eager to find ways of giving to others what we have ourselves received. The deep sense of volunteerism, by no means restricted to Christians, is something that arises from gratitude deep in the human spirit. How much more should we Christians seek to serve, we who have been so richly blessed with hope and healing by the revelation of the Word made human flesh?

And giving what we have received also means witnessing to our faith, sharing it with others, inviting them to discover more, reflecting in our lives and speech the wonders we live each week at Mass.

If I was translating today’s Gospel to someone today who had never heard of gold, frankincense and myrrh, I might rewrite the story like this: they knelt down and paid him homage. Opening their calendars, they offered him gifts of time. They told him of the people they had gently invited to the Alpha Course, and of the Monday evenings they’d spent cooking and cleaning up after the Alpha dinner.

Or they might tell of their efforts to help new parents prepare for the baptism of a child, or to share the Word of God with children or adults as a catechist.

If we understand the Epiphany in simple terms—what have I received, and what have I offered—the feast really doesn’t need a translator or a theologian. I know, for a fact, that everyone in the church this morning has received blessings from the Lord, even those who suffer, even those who may be somewhat on the outs with him.

And I know that you know—some may be more grateful and devout, some less naturally religious, but everyone here knows in his or her heart what I'm talking about: whether you're a new mother or father, a skier who just came back from Whistler, or just a prayerful soul who really felt the meaning of Christmas this year.

We know what we’ve got, and we know pretty much where it came from.

Like that Mountie and his guide, let’s bring Bethlehem closer to home. Each Sunday let us place before the altar, or place on the altar of our lives, some time, talent or treasure as our homage to Christ.

(The image above is from William Kurelek's beautiful book, A Northern Nativity.)