Thursday after Epiphany

Readings: 1 John 4:19-5:4; Psalm 72; Luke 4:14-22

The homily Jesus gave in the synagogue at Nazareth may be taken as the prototype or pattern for any homily (Luke 4:16-30). The Introduction to the Lectionary identifies four aims for the homily (§41) and at Nazareth Jesus addresses all four. These aims are

1) to lead the hearers to an affective knowledge of Holy Scripture
2) to open them to gratitude for the wonderful works of God
3) to strengthen the faith of the hearer
4) to prepare them for communion and for the demands of the Christian life. 

How does Jesus’ homily at Nazareth meet these aims? First, he chose a text from the Book of Isaiah, the passage which speaks of the Spirit of the Lord coming to anoint the Lord’s messenger, deputing him to evangelise the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, to bring sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’, Jesus says, and we are told that they ‘wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth’ (Luke 4:21-22). Literally it means the words about grace that he spoke. The passage from Isaiah tells of the grace, or favour, of the jubilee year in which a fresh beginning makes new life possible. They are heartened and encouraged by this. Later in the Gospel of Luke we hear of disciples whose hearts burned within them as he opened the Scriptures for them (Luke 24:32) but already at Nazareth all spoke well of him.

‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’. This may be taken as the fundamental task in preaching a homily, to show how the Scripture that has just been read is being fulfilled in the lives of those who are listening.  The second aim of the homily is to open people to gratitude for the wonderful works of God. These works are read about in the Scripture readings not just to recall great events in other places and at other times but with a view to showing how they continue to be effective here and now. The Word of God is ‘sacramental’, therefore, bringing to pass in the lives of believers the realities of which it speaks. We might say that it is good news only when those who listen are helped to see how the Word that has been proclaimed is working in their lives.

Jesus preaches in order to strengthen the faith of those who hear: this is the third aim of a homily. The text of Isaiah was presumably already well known to his congregation and he seeks to interpret its meaning for them. The difference in his teaching, we are told elsewhere, is that Jesus spoke with authority and with wisdom, often confirming what he taught by signs and wonders (Mark 1:27; Matthew 13:54; Luke 13:10). But at Nazareth his preaching breaks down and the situation becomes complicated.

So what went wrong? (This is presuming that something did go wrong: perhaps what happened is an example of how effective preaching can be!) Thinking of the fourth aim of the homily, we can see that Jesus is trying to prepare them for communion and for the demands of living according to his new way, but this does not go down well with them. If there is to be encouragement in the preaching of a homily there is also to be challenge. Gracious words call to generous living: to be holy as God is holy, compassionate as God is compassionate, loving one another as Jesus has loved us.

On the one hand Jesus in his homily says that the promises of God’s grace are being fulfilled even as they listen. These promises are being fulfilled in him, in his presence among them with his teaching and his works of power. Who would not be strengthened and encouraged?

On the other hand he begins to explain the implications of this time of grace by showing how it calls his listeners beyond their place of comfort to reckon with deep and demanding aspects of God’s gracious work. He reminds them of how earlier prophets brought God’s word and power beyond the confines of Israel. His preaching breaks down as he invites them to break open their hearts and lives, to be receptive once again to the grace of the Living God. The ancient text has come alive and its blessings are welcomed but its demands are not. The mood turns from wonder to anger and he must pass through the midst of them to get away. ...

This is an extract from a longer article on the homily. The full article may be found here.

 

Wednesday after Epiphany

Readings: 1 John 4:11-18; Psalm 72; Mark 6:45-62

One sentence in Mark's account of Jesus walking on the water is omitted from the parallel accounts in Matthew 14 and John 6. 'He meant to pass by them', Mark tells us (6:48). Strange that this would be the sentence that seems strange in an account of a man walking on water through a stormy sea!

The fear of the disciples is not connected with the weather conditions but rather with the strange fact that Jesus appears to them on the water. 'Take heart', he says, 'it is I, do not fear'. Ego eimi is the phrase translated 'it is I', the divine name so important throughout John's gospel ('I am') but not given as much attention when it appears here in Mark. Except to note that the Lord of the seas is God the creator, the one who sets their limits, populates them with creatures, and has the power to divide them, dispel them, or cause them to erupt in the desert.

This is another incident in which it becomes clear, it is revealed, that God is present in Jesus. It is another Epiphany then. Matthew supplements it with the story of Peter asking to imitate Jesus by walking on the water. John concludes it briskly by having them all magically transported to their destination. But Matthew and John use the same Greek phrase as Mark: 'take heart, it is I, do not be afraid'.

So within this strange story we find a sentence so strange (at least for some readerships) that it is omitted by Matthew and John, 'he meant to pass by them'. It seems that this is the sentence that tests credulity most sharply, the lectio difficilior which has a claim to being original precisely because it is a more difficult reading. Whatever weird and wonderful things the Incarnate Word got up to, however he decided to disport himself in relation to creation, there is something scandalous, it seems, in him walking past the disciples. It seems to mean ignoring them, having plans and purposes that for the moment do not include them.

Is that what is shocking, scandalous, bizarre in this surreal story? That the Son of God, the Incarnate Word, would have plans and purposes beyond the concerns of his immediate disciples? That his mind might be elsewhere, so to speak? Some interpreters get down to the task of trying to explain away the plain meaning of the text, to bring it round again to show that Jesus couldn't possibly have been intending to ignore the disciples.

The best explanation, though, is that this phrase belongs with the other phrases and characteristics of this incident that make it a theophany, a revelation of the presence and glory of God. The most famous 'passings by' of God in the Old Testament are those in which he reveals himself more fully to Moses (Exodus 33:22) and Elijah (1 Kings 19:11). Paradoxically, then, the 'passing by' of the Lord means a more intense and intimate presence of the divine mystery, that in passing by God comes closer. In coming close God also becomes more mysterious since it can only be in His nature as God that he comes close and that means in His nature as mysterious, infinite, in comprehensible. So Moses sees only God's back and Elijah is aware of God in the sound of fine silence.

The disciples are, appropriately, terrified, not because of the weather conditions but because of the one walking on the waters. But he turns to them, re-assures them, speaks to them, and gets into the boat with them. Here is a new reality, that the One who is, the Lord of the waters, in passing by, and so coming closer in the mystery of his nature, is now accessible and available, has a face and a voice, can be in the boat with them, is there to be touched and seen and heard, in the person of Jesus.

So Mark, with this strange comment, is more faithful to the language of divine theophany than are either Matthew or John who let it drop out. One of the finest texts in the Bible in which the glory of God is sensed in its passing by is Job, chapter 9. Putting it alongside the text of Mark read today we see again how in Jesus God answers Job's questions and in doing so draws us into deeper mysteries:

... how can mere mortals prove their innocence before God?
³ Though they wished to dispute with him,
    they could not answer him one time out of a thousand.
⁴ His wisdom is profound, his power is vast.
    Who has resisted him and come out unscathed?
⁵ He moves mountains without their knowing it
    and overturns them in his anger.
⁶ He shakes the earth from its place
    and makes its pillars tremble.
⁷ He speaks to the sun and it does not shine;
    he seals off the light of the stars.
⁸ He alone stretches out the heavens
    and treads on the waves of the sea.
⁹ He is the Maker of the Bear and Orion,
    the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.
¹⁰ He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed,
    miracles that cannot be counted.
¹¹ When he passes me, I cannot see him;
    when he goes by, I cannot perceive him.
¹² If he snatches away, who can stop him?
    Who can say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ ...

Feast of the Epiphany

Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 71; Ephesians 2:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

After they have met publicly with the chief priests and scribes, Herod is anxious to meet the wise men ‘secretly’. It is how politics tends to be done, through secret deals and meetings outside meetings. But today’s feast is about the opposite of secrecy. The mystery hidden in God from all eternity is made known to the world in the birth of Jesus. It is a mystery of light, a revelation, and an illumination. Like all politicians, Herod is anxious to control events and he is already devising his strategy. But another hand is guiding these events, another mind is revealed in how they unfold, and a different power is at work here for a purpose beyond anything Herod can imagine. God’s plan – for it is the hand and mind and power of God that are being revealed – will not be frustrated by Herod.

There had always been a universalist strand in Jewish thought. We find it in the prophets, who issue frequent reminders that the choosing of Israel, and her re-establishment after the Exile, are not just for Israel but are, through her, for all the nations. So the first reading already provides much of the imagery and meaning of today’s feast: your light has come, the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. In the darkness of this world’s night the nations see and are led by the light that has risen over Israel. This universalism is there from the beginning, in the original call of Abraham. He is promised a land and a people so that all the nations of the earth might be blessed through him.

With the birth of Jesus the mystery of God’s love for humanity is revealed definitively and uniquely. In this mystery, the Gentiles, represented by the three pagans who present their gifts to the Holy Family, are fellow heirs with the chosen people, members of the same body and partakers of the same promise. Following their own best understanding of how truth is to be sought, they find their way to Bethlehem. All who seek truth with a sincere heart will, sooner or later, find their way to Bethlehem. The clamorous human world gathers at the feet of this Child, not just the Jewish world of Mary, Joseph and the shepherds but the Gentile world from Midian, Ephah and Sheba. The revelation and the promise are for everybody.

5 January - Weekday of Christmas

Readings: 1 John 3.22-4.6; Psalm ; Matthew 4.12-17, 23-25

There is a poetic ring to the text of Isaiah quoted in today's gospel, words that are beautiful, images that. stir the imagination - land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the nations. Zebulun and Naphtali are two of the smaller tribes of Israel, who settled in the northern part of the land. They are in the beautiful region of Galilee where the first part of Jesus's public ministry is played out.  It is called 'Galilee of the nations', this area being near to the coastal regions and to Syria, an area through which much trade and communication took place.

The universalism we saw in the feast of Epiphany itself is continued here, Jesus beginning his ministry of teaching, preaching and healing in a crossroads of the world, almost we might say at the street corner, for anybody and everybody, and for Israel in its interaction with other nations for that was its mission from the start.

The First Letter of John tells us that they belong to God who acknowledge Jesus come in the flesh and who love each other as he loved his disciples. There are just these two criteria for belonging and nothing else is relevant, nothing racial or ethnic or linguistic or cultural. 'Come in the flesh' means born into our world, not just into a human body like ours, of blood and bones, but into human society and history, into a particular time and race and culture, with all that this entails.

He became one of us, only one of us, so that all of us might come to the new light which he is. The Messiah is given all the nations for his inheritance, his possession reaching to the ends of the earth. Once again this is confirmed in the adoration of the Magi, those seekers and searchers who have come from far away in order to do homage to the new king.

They followed the star to Bethlehem, the star being the first shining of a light that would grow ever stronger. But it is shining in the darkness and Jesus's ministry begins when he hears of the arrest of John the Baptist. So the shadow of darkness already falls across this beautiful landscape, the shadow of the cross which is this young prophet's destiny.

There is still a long road to be travelled, from Galilee of the nations to the community of disciples to which the First Letter of John is addressed. But we can say that this road is all about a light that grows ever brighter as it draws out the darkness there is in human affairs. And it will be in the moment of deepest darkness, Calvary, that the brightest light will shine, the glory that is his as the only son of the Father, revealing the depth of human sinfulness and the always greater reach of God's love. The Spirit we have received is the Spirit of Jesus that drove him into the wilderness and then to Galilee and then to Jerusalem, to his death and resurrection. The light come into the world with the birth of Jesus does not simply illuminate our situation, it transforms it, giving those who believe in him the power to become children of God.

This is the light that dawns over Bethlehem, the light that begins to radiate in Galilee. It still shines in our world in spite of the many darknesses in which we are immersed, always calling us forward to acknowledge him and to learn from him how to love one another.

Second Sunday after Christmas

Readings: Sirach 24.1-2, 8-12; Psalm 147; Ephesians 1.3-6, 15-18; John 1.1-18

As John the Evangelist composed the famous prologue to his gospel was he influenced exclusively by Jewish traditions about wisdom or was there also some influence from Greek philosophy? It is an interesting question but the answer does not really matter: what matters is the profound truth that is taught in this extraordinary text which the Church encourages us to read more than once during Christmastide.

From the Jewish side there was already the conviction that the Lord, the God of Israel, had come to dwell with his people. We see it in the first reading today: the wisdom that was with God came to dwell in the midst of the people. He 'pitched his tent in Jacob', the precise expression used by John when he speaks of the Word dwelling among us, literally pitching his tent among us. God had already done that by sharing his wisdom with the people, the Book of Sirach says. The Book of Baruch speaks in a similar way, seeing in the gift of the law the way in which God's wisdom is dwelling among his people, 'appearing on earth and living with humankind' (Baruch 3.37). The revelation of the divine name in the Book of Exodus already spoke of this presence of God with his people: 'I am who I am', or in other words 'I am the one who is and who will be with you' (Exodus 3.14).

What is new in John's prologue is that the wisdom of God has now become flesh and dwelt among us in one particular human being, Jesus Christ. He fulfils what had gone before while establishing a deeper and more intimate relationship between God and his people: the law was given through Moses but grace and truth through Jesus Christ. God's wisdom was given through Moses but God gives himself through Jesus Christ. It is what 'grace and truth' means, a phrase that describes the character of God in the Old Testament, 'steadfast love and faithfulness', which is simply another version of the divine name.

What makes it now more intimate is that it is the 'only Son', who is 'nearest to the Father's heart', who is the incarnation of the Word or wisdom or law of God. In the scriptures the phrase 'only child' is almost always used in reference to the death of that child or to the quality of mourning that accompanies his or her death. So that when John says 'we have seen his glory as the only son of the Father' he is speaking already about the paschal mystery enacted by Jesus, his suffering and death on the cross for human salvation. So the birth of Jesus is a wonderful continuation of the relationship already established with the Jewish people while at the same time giving that relationship a new height and breadth and depth.

In Alexandria and elsewhere Jewish writers and teachers were in contact with the philosophical teachings of the ancient world. The philosophically inclined will find plenty to meditate on in the prologue of the gospel of John. Most powerful is the reference to being and life and intelligence which structures the first part of the prologue: not one thing had its being but through him, all that came to be had life in him, and that life was the light of all people. There they are, being and life and intelligence.

The philosophers - Plato and Aristotle and others - had reached as far as identifying these qualities as the essential characteristics of true being, of what really is. The Jewish tradition adds 'grace' to this, the conviction that their participation in these qualities on the part of creatures comes as a gift of God the creator. That gift, already seen in our creation by God, serves an even more extraordinary purpose because, as Paul tells us in the second reading, God chose us in Christ before the world was made to live in love, to be adopted as the sons and daughters of the One who creates us.

John the Baptist is described as 'only a witness': John the Evangelist is anxious that there be no uncertainty about this, 'he was not the light', he says. And we are also 'only witnesses'. But think of what it means to be a witness to these wonderful truths. It means we have received what Paul calls the spirit of wisdom and perception of what is revealed, seeing the hope to which we are now called, growing steadily into full knowledge of the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory.

For the Feast of the Epiphany see here

3 January - Weekday of Christmas

Readings: 1 John 2:29-3:6; Psalm 98; John 1:29-34

Jesus cannot be understood apart from the history of Israel. God's covenant relationship with the chosen people -- 'I will be your God and you will be my people' -- is the golden thread running through that history. Everything recounted in the Old Testament, whether in the law or in the prophets or in the writings, records the fortunes of that covenant-relationship and looks forward to its consummation in the coming of Messiah, the Christ. Jesus himself tells us that 'salvation is from the Jews' (John 4.22).

In identifying him, John the Baptist describes him as 'the Lamb of God' (John 1.29). Lambs were slaughtered and eaten by the Hebrews in the moment of their deliverance from the land of Egypt. The blood of those lambs marked the houses that the Lord 'passed over'. The annual remembrance of the Passover that began their journey towards a promised land, still involved, in Jesus's day, the slaughtering of lambs in the Temple.

In Jesus's day also the title 'lamb of God' had become a way of referring to the 'servant of God', the figure who is the subject of four great poems in the Book of Isaiah (chapters 42, 49, 50 and 52-53). The servant is 'the beloved' and 'the chosen one of God', another description used by the Baptist to identify Jesus (John 1.34). These titles are uttered by the Father at the baptism and transfiguration of Jesus, according to Matthew 3 and 17, Mark 1 and 9, Luke 3 and 9.

These are thoroughly Jewish titles, then, and they take us to the heart of Jewish experience and faith. Jesus is the lamb, the servant, the chosen one, and the beloved. In Jesus the promise of an everlasting covenant (Jeremiah 31) is fulfilled. In Jesus, God visits His people in a 'once and for all' sealing of the covenant (Hebrews 7.27), its establishment on a foundation that can never be shaken.

We can even say that Jesus is Israel. The servant of Isaiah is an individual from among the people but represents the whole people, and stands for them so that what happens between him and God is happening between the whole people and God. But this Jewish messiah, this servant of the chosen people, carries through a work that is not just for the Jews but is for all human beings, for all creation even. He is to bring back Jacob and to gather Israel but he is also to be the light of the nations so that God's salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.

The Christian faith presents us with this paradox, that it is particular and universal. It is a call of particular individuals and communities to be witnesses to the light of Christ in the world and in its history. But this call has a universal reach because God's salvation is to reach the ends of the earth. The journey taken by Jesus in response to his call was from the outlying reaches of the Holy Land, Galilee of the nations, through Samaria and Judea to Jerusalem with its temple. There, in that very particular place, a particular story reached its climax, the covenant-history of the God of Israel.

We believe that climax to be of universal and eternal significance, relevant to all people in every time and place. From Jerusalem the word goes out, the news of our reconciliation, and it is preached in Judea, in Samaria, in Galilee and eventually to the ends of the earth (Acts 1.8).

The phrase lumen gentium has become very familiar in recent decades as the title of Vatican II's constitution on the Church. Christ is 'the light of the nations' and the Church is the sacrament -- sign and instrument -- of Christ in bringing that light to bear on human lives everywhere. 'He is their Lord no less than ours', Paul says, referring to all who are called to take their place among all the saints everywhere (1 Corinthians 1.3). He takes away not only the sins of his own people ('ours the sins he bore, ours the sufferings he carried', as Isaiah puts it). He takes away 'the sin of the world' (John 1.29).

We are in Christmastide, between the great feasts of Nativity, Epiphany, and Baptism. We see Jesus revealed to his own people -- Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, Simeon, Anna. We see Jesus revealed to foreigners and outsiders -- the magi who followed their understanding to find their way to him. Those of us who believe have seen his glory as the only Son from the Father. We have, therefore, a responsibility to be 'phosphorescent'. We are called to be 'carriers of light', signs and instruments of the light and love which the Lamb of God has brought into the world.

This homily was first composed for the Second Sunday of Year A which has the same gospel reading. It may be found also on torch.op.org.

2 January - Weekday of Christmas

Readings: 1 John 2:22-28; Psalm 97; John 1:19-28

John the Baptist confirms one of the ways in which he is described in the other three gospels. He is 'a voice crying in the wilderness', as Isaiah foretold, with the message 'make a straight way for the Lord'. So far, so good.

But he says he is not Elijah and this is unsettling because not only is he described in that way in Matthew, Mark and Luke, but it is from the lips of Jesus that he is so described: Matthew 11:14; 17:12; Mark 9:13; Luke1:17.

Is it possible that John himself did not know everything about his role in the inauguration of the messianic era? It seems so.

It is a useful warning for listening to today's other reading, from the First Letter of John. We are told that we do not need anyone to teach us, that we have received an anointing (it is the Holy Spirit) who anoints us with truth and teaches us everything.

What can it mean? It cannot mean that we receive answers to questions like 'who will have the places of honour in heaven' or 'when will the Son of Man return'. We are told explicitly that such answers are not available. It must mean, though, that we have received all relevant knowledge, everything we need to know for our salvation, about ourselves and about Jesus, as well as an instinct for the truth that will keep us on the right road. Or lead us back to it when we stray.

Like John the Baptist we will die without knowing what our precise role has been in the story of the world's salvation. It seems that it is something we do not need to know. Like all those heroes and heroines of 2025 who did what they were trained to do and used their skills and compassion in the service of others, like the Baptist who defended justice and proclaimed the truth without seeing the bigger picture, the meaning of it all, but saw clearly what love and truth and justice required - so we are to continue on our journey, living in the truth, loving what is good, seeking to build relationships that are just.

What our name or title is in the end is something that will be revealed, by the Lord, in the fullness of time (Revelation 2:17). In the meantime we are called to grow in our knowledge of God, living and true, and of Jesus Christ whom He has sent, to live according to Jesus's commandment of love, and so live already with the eternal life He promises us, already the children of God without knowing what we are to be in the future, when we see Him as He really is.