Epiphany: The Unexpected Guest

Sermon by the Revd Dr Brutus Green
Readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:10-15'; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12

I recently read a book where an unexpected guest arrived at a house in the afternoon. It runs in a great tradition of novels and plays – Agathe Christie’s great play of that name, JB Priestly’s An Inspector Calls. The guest is polite but behaves somewhat erratically, taking advantage of the hospitality of his hosts – generally eating and drinking them out of house and home, while they uncomplainingly stand by in a very awkward English manner. He then leaves. The protagonist, Sophie, is placated only when her father arrives and takes the family out for Sausage and Chips, and ice cream. Despite their preparations, we are told,  the Tiger never returned.

It’s one of those stories that feels like an analogy of something dark and disturbing. Michael Rosen, of Bear Hunt fame – you can’t accuse this vicar of not keeping up his reading – suggested that the tiger might consciously or unconsciously reflect the experience of living with threat in her childhood in Nazi Germany, from which her family fled in 1933, her aged 9; The author herself disagreed, having written the book after visiting a zoo with her daughter;  the tiger, she said, is a tiger.

It’s a very different sort of unexpected guest we recall at Epiphany, these magi, or wise men, or kings, with their eclectic gifts. (Personally I prefer magi – wise men or kings is quite exclusively male – where magi – the Greek magoi – is a masculine plural but could include women – New Testament Greek is more woke like that – There is also, it should be said, no reference to how many arrive, but only that there are only three gifts.

[Speaking of eclectic, I was at an Epiphany service last week in Cornwall, where instead of the intercessions, the churchwarden opted to read TS Eliot’s ‘The Journey of the Magi’.  They also sang ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ to the tune written by Harold Darke, which is normally only sung by choirs. Church seems to be very high brow in Cornwall.]) But, yes, these guests seem very unexpected, not from these parts; Though equally their host is unexpected. We might say that here is the first Christian encounter: Where the unexpected God meets the unexpected guests.

TS Eliot, speaking for the magi, says: “we returned to our places, these kingdoms/ but no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation” While goodness knows what the peasant girl Mary made of gifts for kingship, priesthood and embalming. (Of course it doesn’t really matter what you get toddlers – they’re just as pleased to play with the packaging – but it still hardly counts as child-friendly. [It’s hard to see any context where myrrh could be viewed as ‘friendly’. It’s a little bit like giving someone for Christmas the hit single by Glasvegas “You’re gonna get stabbed”])

The feast of Epiphany is also known in the old English prayerbook as “the Manifestation to the Gentiles”. The magi being gentiles, and the first sign of the universality of Christ, who comes for all people. Jesus in his ministry to sinners, publicans, lepers, children, women – even, and gentiles – reveals that God has come for the unexpected guest.

Now, there are three ways in which our faith demands we take unexpected guests very seriously. The first thing to say is that You are the unexpected guest. Even if you’ve been coming to this church for 80 years. If you have lived an upright life; We must never lose sight that we are an unexpected guest. Not as a cause of guilt or shame. But simply because there is no reason why we should be invited to be friends with God. But we are all invited.

The rub comes because we have all internalised a way of thinking that we need to earn our place. Children quickly recognise that if they succeed, if they do something right, they win affection and praise. That is how we parent. And if our children are better than other children – like my children – We praise them all the more, and tell anyone who’ll listen about it. That’s called reflected glory, and it’s another way of us earning our place. So we are conditioned and condition others to believe that value comes from praise, from the regard of others. Which leads us to believe that the guests whom God invites, are the expected ones: the good people you see to your left and right today.

Only this is a cause of anxiety. I’m not as good as Steve; And I don’t volunteer as much as Gladys; I have not joined the pyramid scheme which leads to the PCC and churchwardens. So do I really deserve to be here; Do I still feel like a visitor here after 80 years? Did I peak in my 50s and now am sort of just clinging on a little, slightly ashamed thinking I’m not a very useful engine.

Let it go. God is not here for the usual suspects. They are rewarded with their own self-assurance. God is here for you. The unexpected guest.

So yes, you can eat all the sandwiches, and all the cakes, and drink all the tea and all daddy’s beer; The unexpected guest will get away with it.

That’s the theology, but the ethics are the same. So, secondly, while God treats us the unexpected guest – as the returned beloved son. So we ought to treat unexpected guests with the same love. This can be very difficult. Especially if they eat you out of house and home. At Christmas we remember again the truth of the aphorism – ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.’ But we cannot escape the command that wherever we are, and however we are pressed for time or patience, we are required to look after the unexpected guest. And as the Gospel makes painfully clear, this is especially true of all the people who struggle to fit in; The people we would be happier avoiding.

What makes this especially graphic in the Gospels is that time and again, Jesus says that in caring for these people – the outsiders, the unsavouries, the people who don’t fit in, the unexpected guests – We are caring for Christ. And when we avoid, neglect, don’t care for them, we are neglecting Christ.

Which leads us to the third and final aspect of the unexpected guest. The unexpected guest is Christ. Just as Abraham entertained angels; As Christ said ‘just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’ As the letter to the Hebrews warns: ‘Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.’ As the risen Christ appeared on the road to Emmaus, unrecognised: God is with us as the unexpected guest. And it is in unexpected grace, and unexpected joy that we are most likely to recognise him; And rediscover him, if we can but widen our hearts.

So as we celebrate the coming of the magi, let us welcome the unexpected guests amongst us, let us welcome God who has come among us, and let ourselves be welcomed in love and acceptance by the one who is revealed among us as the unexpected guest inviting all to the heavenly banquet. And as so many unexpected guests still today are pushed away and out of this world, let us invite Christ today into our homes – to use the old words – by whose stripes we are healed.  Amen.