MALC - EEYORE, EVELYN WAUGH, Uncle Tom Cobley and all

A SERMON PREACHED AT ST.BARTHOLOMEW’S CHURCH BRIGHTON on the feast of the Epiphany in 2009

Don’t you just hate those idiotic pseudo-religious documentaries on Channel 4 where the editorial dept has had a brainstorming session: which bit of Christianity shall we debunk next? What trashy shock theory shall we titillate people with next?

I’ve dreamt up a suitably silly idea for them. Imagine a Ragi Omar lookalike excitedly revealing that the 3 wise men never existed because – wait for it – the one called Melchior was actually one of the asses in the stable all the time. “Malc-eeyore”. Geddit? A donkey called Malcolm.

Just my little joke. I don’t think even Channel 4 is that far gone! But I must admit our fantasy intrepid TV reporter would be on the right track if he claimed they weren’t really kings, there weren’t necessarily three of them and those names were made up later.

Nevertheless, Matthew says magoi (Greek for “wise men”) did come from the East and there is no reason to doubt him. AND there is astronomic evidence of a galactic shift at the right time producing a bright new star for them to follow.

What we men and women of faith need to do is not to worry about the debunkers but to understand the meaning of the appearance of these distinguished Eastern visitors.   

I said in this pulpit on Christmas day that God chose to come on earth not as a universal fire-breathing superman but as a poor baby born to a poor Jewish girl from an unknown family.

That is true.

But the visit of the Magi from another part of the world gives us the cosmic significance of the incarnation. They were the very first  foreigners to believe in Christ as saviour.

And they are as different as chalk and cheese to the primitive local shepherds. They are rich and exotic and intellectual. They stick out like a sore thumb.

At epiphany carol services, you often get a reading from the novel Helena by Evelyn Waugh which is based on the life of the mother of the Roman emperor Constantine.

At one point in the book, Helena is pictured attending a Greek Orthodox celebration of the epiphany and, in her imagination,  she  talks to the Magi:

“Like me”, she says, “you were late in coming. The shepherds were here long before. They had joined the chorus of angels before you were on your way.........How laboriously you came, taking sights and calculating, while the shepherds had run barefoot! How odd you looked on the road,....laden with such preposterous gifts.........Yet you came, and were not turned away. You too found room before the manger. Your gifts were not needed, but they were accepted, for they were brought with love. In that new order of charity that had just come to life, there was room for you too. You were not lower in the eyes of the Holy Family than the ox or the ass.

You are my especial patrons,” says Helena, “and patrons of all late-comers, of all who have a tedious journey to make to the truth, of all who are confused with knowledge and speculation, of all who stand in danger by reason of their talents. Dear cousins, pray for the great, less they perish utterly, pray always for all the learned. Let them not be quite forgotten at the Throne of God when the simple come into their kingdom.”

Let’s try to unpack all that. Sounds a bit complicated and maybe on the wrong track.

The shepherds represent the simple, the naive even, who take the gospel on trust without thinking about it too much. The wise men represent worldly wealth and wordly wisdom. Their motives are good. Their gifts are sincere but they are cautious and sceptical. They act prudently and rationally.

Behind the words that he puts into the mouth of Helena, I reckon the novelist Evelyn Waugh was exposing us to a little of his own raw psyche.

He was a very smart, amusing and barbed writer. A bon viveur who liked the good things of life, a stickler for social etiquette and a terrible snob. At the same time, he was a committed and devout Catholic. It is clear from his diaries and letters that he experienced an uncomfortable struggle between his personality and his faith. A friend once asked him how he could possibly call himself a Christian and be so nasty. His slightly unconvincing reply was that, if he hadn’t been a Christian, he would have been even more horrible!

Be that as it may, I don’t think Evelyn Waugh’s take on the gospel and the words he puts in Helena’s mouth - the simple-minded going straight to heaven and the clever disqualifying themselves by their smartness - is an accurate or a fair one.

When our Lord talks about the sanctity of the “little ones” or about not getting into the kingdom unless you become like children, He is not saying that those with an IQ of over 120 have had it or that adults have to start cavorting around like 5 year olds.

He is saying that we must have the openness of heart and mind which is found in the young. He is saying that, when we grow up and lose our initial innocence, we must try not to become cynical, suspicious and defensive in our dealing with others - even though we may get hurt sooner or later, may find that others let us down, betray our trust or take advantage of it.

To get a true understanding of Our Lord’s will for us, we can try using the cross as a visual aid. Not the crucifix with the body attached but just the cross as a geometrical figure.

Picture the two beams, one vertical and one horizontal.

First concentrate only on the vertical beam. Take this as representing a sliding scale: at the top, the stupid, the uneducated,  the gorblimey,  ranging gradually down to the clever, the educated, the sophisticated at the bottom.

Those in the top half, you might think from what Helena was saying, are saved and those in the bottom half are damned.

This is the continuum, or scale, which Evelyn Waugh used and tortured himself with but it’s the wrong one.

Now look at the cross again.

The vertical scale is cancelled out, crossed out, by the horizontal beam.

It doesn’t after all matter in the end how clever or stupid you are. That was never the test of true discipleship. What does matter is how you use the talents you find yourself given or the circumstances you find yourself in.

Are you clever? If so, has your cleverness made you arrogant - like the trendy atheist Richard Dawkins who is cocky enough to assure us impatiently that there is no god - or do your abilities and your insights have the opposite effect and make you ever more humble?

Are you rich? If so, do you cling on to your possessions and devote your efforts to acquiring more of them, or do you sit lightly to them and try to be generous to others?

Are you stupid or poor? If so, do you close in on yourself, let yourself wallow in self-pity, resentment, envy and bitterness or are you still open to God so that you can feel His love, compassion and support when the dice seem loaded against you?

You see, it is only the horizontal beam  that counts in this exercise, that matters in the end to you and God. The vertical beam has gone, crossed out. God doesn’t care about whether you are clever or stupid or rich or poor.

The horizontal beam is the one. It is a scale between at one end openness, generosity, tolerance, a willingness to trust and get hurt and at the other extreme slamming the door shut, stopping up your ears, hardening your heart and looking out for number one.

You know which end of that scale Our Saviour is to be found.

Follow His star. Let it pull you like a magnet in the right direction so that, in the end, like the Magi, you will meet Him face to face.