O God of grace and glory, help us to spend our days in adoration of your beloved Son, our Redeemer and King, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
While all of the Feasts of the Church are occasions for us to bask in the grace and glory of God, I’ve always found the Epiphany to be particularly rich. In these twelve verses from Matthew, there are so many depths waiting to be plunged. We could explore Herod’s fear, the identity and role of the magi, the peculiarities of the star, the searching of the Scriptures, the fact that the magi go to the palace of Herod instead of the home of Mary and Joseph, and the dream of warning. It’s a text chock full of sermons. The meaning of Epiphany is also profound – that Jesus is a threat to those in power, that nature itself points towards Jesus, that from the least come great things, and that Jesus is the Messiah not only of Israel but of the whole world.
And while there is much to focus on in this text, without a singular focus it can be easy to get lost. On Christmas, you might recall that I focused in on the manger as way of considering the whole of Christmas. Well, tonight, on the Feast of the Epiphany, I want to likewise focus in on just one part of the story – the word “homage.”
The word in question means to worship, honor, bow down, or prostrate oneself. So there are both physical aspects, the bowing down, and mental aspects, the honoring, to paying homage. And what is behind all of this is the virtue of humility. Humility isn’t about humiliation, as in being made fun of, it is about being lowly and not thinking more of ourselves than we ought to, while also not thinking too little of ourselves than we ought to. This is why St. Vincent de Paul said “Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying.” Humility and worship are about seeking after the truth. And if humility is about truth, we can understand why St. Augustine would write that “almost the whole of Christian teaching is humility.” In John 3:30, St. John the Baptist says of Jesus, “He must increase, and I must decrease.” St. Thomas Aquinas, therefore, says that humility is the beginning of all Christian virtue.
And there are two things to note about humility – the first is that humility is not something that we manufacture for ourselves. In Philippians, St. Paul quotes an ancient Christian hymn that proclaims that Christ Jesus, who was in the form of God, was born in human likeness and humbled himself, even to the point of death on a cross. Humility is not something we muster up ourselves, it is something that happens in us when we get closer to Jesus, the source of all true humility. It’s one of the paradoxes of our faith – the greatest has become the least, and in doing so the least become great. Through obedience, prayer, fasting, generosity, and service, the closer we get to Jesus, the more humility grows in us. But humility is never our accomplishment, it is what happens when we spend time with Jesus and come to recognize and adore the true order of things.
The second important part of humility is the root of the word – humus. You might know that humus is the organic matter in soil. Humus where the word “human” comes from as well. From the beginning of Genesis, we know that we are made of the earth. The first creature is named “Adam,” which really isn’t the proper name for that person. Adam, in Hebrew, simply means “earth creature” and “adamah” means “dirt” or “earth.” So humility is about being like the dirt – both in the sense of being down low, but also being true to what we are created to be, nothing more and nothing less. So humility and earthiness go together. It’s why many of the people we’d call “humble” are often in tune with nature, the great example being St. Francis of Assisi.
All of that is what is behind that simple word: homage – both a nearness to Jesus and a lowliness of both posture and attitude. With that background, we’re now able to consider the places in this passage where homage is given. Before we even arrive at the first mention of the word “homage,” we have an example of it in the text with the star. To be clear, this is no ordinary star. A few weeks ago, many of us enjoyed seeing the Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter, and a lot of people were calling this “the Christmas star.” I don’t mean to burst any bubbles – but that’s not what the magi were following. If we pay attention to the text, this is obvious: “They set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was.” So we have a start that is moving ahead of the magi and then stopping over a particular house. What that was, I have no idea – maybe a rogue comet, maybe a UFO. Trying to explain what the star was is like trying to explain how the Red Sea got parted – it’s missing the point completely.
The point is that nature itself in the cosmos is practicing humility by pointing towards Christ. And this matters because even to this day, we can find signals of God’s grace and glory in nature. Whether it be the miracle of life, a beautiful sunset, a roaring waterfall, the calming waves of the ocean, these things point us to something beyond ourselves, which is what humility is all about. The first to worship the Christ-child in this passage is the heavens.
The first time the word “homage” is used is when the magi come to Herod’s palace in search of the newborn King of the Jews; they say that they wish to pay him homage. Another sermon in another year could spend more time on who the magi are, and aren’t. But for the purposes of considering their homage, it’s rather fascinating that they traveled there to follow the star. We don’t know exactly where “in the east” they were from, but it’s generally assumed they were from somewhere in Persia – modern-day Iraq or Iran. Baghdad to Bethlehem is nearly 700 miles and Tehran is 1,200 miles. Now, there’s nothing in Matthew to suggest that they rode camels, but if they did, we’re talking about a trip that would take the better part of a month one-way. And at this time, the Jewish people were under Roman oppression and occupation. There was no such thing as the Jewish army or the Empire of Israel. And the magi were certainly not adherents of the Jewish faith.
Militarily, politically, economically, and religiously, they had nothing to gain from embarking on such a long journey to pay homage. WH Auden concludes his Christmas Oratorio with the magi says “O here and now our endless journey stops.” As St. Augustine put it, “our hearts restless until they rest in God.” We are created by the God of grace and glory and only find our fulfillment when our lives and souls pay homage to the One who made us. Humble homage is what we were made for, and the magi show us this.
The next occurrence of “homage” is a false one, as King Herod says, “When you have found the child, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.” But by “homage,” Herod meant “the sharp end of a sword.” It’s a reminder that paying homage or worshipping actually has two parts – both our actions and our thoughts. We can heap up all the phrases we want, but that doesn’t make it worship. We can do all the charitable things we can, but that doesn’t it make it worship. True worship, truly honoring God happens when our thoughts and actions are aligned towards God.
When the magi arrive at the house, unlike Herod, they do pay homage, presenting gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold is a symbol of wealth and royalty, showing that homage is giving of our resources. Worship costs us something. Faith impacts our budget. Charitable giving isn’t just something that we do for a tax write-off. Generosity is a spiritual practice rooted in giving homage to God. Frankincense was something burned in religious ceremonies as an offering to God and is associated with the priestly ministry in the Temple. This makes it clear that Jesus is worthy of being worshiped as God. Incense is also about our intellects. As the Psalmist prays, “Let my prayer be set forth in your sight as incense.” Whereas gold is the fruit of our labors, incense is about the fruit of our thoughts ascending to God. And myrrh is a spice used in anointing the sick and a fragrance used to anoint corpses. Certainly, an odd baby shower gift, but a very fitting one for the Messiah. All of our lives, our pains, our sorrows, our joys, and even our deaths are opportunities to humbly give homage to God. Homage is about the totality of our being and the entirety of our lives.
And then there is a final act of homage in this text, and that is when the magi leave for their own country “by another road.” They were warned in a dream to avoid Herod, so they left without passing by his palace. In addition to the gold, incense, and myrrh, this was the magi’s final gift to the Holy Family – holy disobedience. As we know from the story called the slaughter of the innocents, Herod would become enraged at being tricked. And while the innocent children of Bethlehem would pay the price, the magi were putting themselves at risk by disobeying Herod’s order.
This past summer, Representative John Lewis penned a letter to be published on the day of his funeral. If you haven’t yet read it, it is worth the few minutes it will take you to read it. In it, he writes, “Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of [our nation] by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.” Well, that’s what the magi were up to: good trouble. And sometimes our homage to God is about getting into “good trouble.” It’s about saying “no” to what society would have us accept as normal. It’s about saying “no” to violence, about saying “enough” to poverty,” about saying “yes” to demanding justice, about saying “here” to those in need, about saying “I’m sorry” and “I forgive you,” about speaking and doing love when it makes no sense. Sometimes the things that we refuse to do in the name of worshipping God are just as important as the things that we do. Holy disobedience is a kind of good trouble that the magi show us is a part of paying homage.
What we see in the Epiphany is the importance of paying homage. For one, it helps us to worship with our thoughts and actions. Bowing down is also important, because it roots us in humility, which is the foundation of all virtues. In bowing down, we look at the ground and remember that we are made from the earth and to the earth shall we all return. But we bow not to the ground itself, but to the One who made all things and who is making all things new. If bowing isn’t a part of your piety, you might consider adding it in. Bow at the name of the Trinity, bow at the name of Jesus, bow when you approach the altar. As the book of Psalms ends, we find an appropriate response to the Epiphany: Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Hallelujah!
