Epiphany 2013
Robert VerEecke, S.J.
I was thinking of beginning today’s homily by asking you to turn on your
mobile devices and use whatever search engine you have to find the painting
“Adoration of the Magi” by Sandro Botticelli. Feel free to go ahead and
check it out but don’t check your email while you’re there. I wanted you to
see how one artist imagined the scene in the Gospel we just heard. It is a
beautiful Renaissance painting populated with members of the Medici
family as the three Magi with a host of other nobles, their servants, and
horses. The composition betrays the beloved symmetry of the painting style
and the subject, the adoration of the magi’s beloved as well. It is quite
remarkable that this simple Gospel scene of a number of “magi” from the
East could excite the painterly imagination of Botticelli and so many
Renaissance artists.
(During this part of the homily, the Respighi piece is heard as I continue to
speak)
But then I was thinking of having you listen to Respighi’s musical
composition from his three Botticelli pictures, entitled the Adoration of the
Magi. The Botticelli painting inspired Respighi to write a haunting
composition that captures the mysterious quality of this Gospel scene, the
arrival of a number of magi, astrologers from the East. Gentile seekers who
see a star which finally leads them to the house where they find Jesus, the
newborn king, and offer gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. Gold for a
King, Incense for a God, and Myrrh for the Burial of the Crucified One.
(The myrrh is a detail that Matthew added.)
The Botticelli painting and the Respighi composition inspired me a number
of years ago to choreograph this Gospel scene for A Dancer’s Christmas. Of
course I did what pretty much everyone has done when it comes to the
stories of the birth of Jesus according to Luke and Matthew. I wove them
together so in the choreography there are shepherds and angels as well as
magi and a star.
Oh, I also thought of reading from T.S. Eliot’s poem, Journey of the Magi.
These stories of the events surrounding the birth of Jesus have stirred the
imagination of artists throughout the centuries. Painters, composers, poets,
choreographers, wood carvers? There is something about the stories that
illicit an imaginative response. It’s as if they say, yes, let your imagination
run riot. Use that wonderful search engine of your imagination and see in
your mind’s eye the beauty and wonder of this Gospel scene.
This was the direction my thoughts in prayer were taking for a homily for
the feast of the Epiphany. Then I saw the film version of “Les Misèrables”
and was confirmed in this direction. As I was watching I thought to myself:
Some things are best left to the imagination. Reading the novel, hearing the
score or seeing the stage production leaves so much to the imagination. In an
attempt to convey what “really” could have happened in 19 th Century Paris,
in an attempt to recreate and visualize the scene in a ‘realistic’ way, one’s
imagination loses its way like those Magi who lose sight of the star.
Although the music soars and the classic story of grace and forgiveness pulls
at the heart-strings (I found myself near sobs at times), the “realism” of the
film did not do nearly as much as reading the novel or seeing the stage
production.
Now if this sounds too much like “What I did over Christmas,” there is a
homiletic point. As scripture scholars tell us, these stories that Luke and
Matthew bring us about the events surrounding the birth of Jesus are not
meant to be taken as literal, historical fact, as if they “really” happened.
They are stories that are rife with theological meaning. They are the
overtures to the great symphonies that we will hear in the body of the Gospel
that has to do with the adult life, ministry, death and rising of Jesus. They
are not meant to give us the kind of family snapshots or videos of Jesus’ first
Christmas the way that we now have everything recorded. They are meant to
inspire and excite the imagination of the listener who will ask his or herself.
“Who is this child? Where did he come from? What will become of him?”
So if these stories are not meant to be taken as “fact,” are they “fiction”?
Were they just conjured up in the imagination of the Gospel writers? God
only knows .
Ever since I studied these texts in the context of the entire Gospel of
Matthew and Luke, I have felt that whatever “really” happened, there was no
better way to tell the story of the birth of Jesus and the events surrounding it
than the way it has been told. With magi and stars, shepherds and angels, in
a manger, in a home. I have now begun to think that the imagination of
Matthew and Luke was somehow aligned with the Divine Imagination.
What we are hearing in these stories is God’s imagination “run riot.” This is
what God imagines for the birth of his son, Jesus. Good news announced to
the poorest of the poor, those shepherds on the hillside. Good news
announced to Gentile seekers who had followed a star to come to a place
where their eyes were opened in wonder and they are moved to “adore” this
newborn “king.”
I hope my wondering and wanderings have stretched your imagination this
morning on the feast of the Epiphany. After all, the “Magi” are central to the
feast. Christ is revealed as the light to all Nations. Get it. I-Magi-Nation.
(Uncontrollable laughter or at least “giggles” or actually groans…..)