Epiphany Sunday. Today’s readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalms 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Ephesians 3:2-6; Matthew 2: 1-12.
In ‘Worship in a Violent World’, a public talk delivered twice in 2003, James Alison deconstructed false worship from true worship, starting from the theological point of greater dissimilitude from creator and creature. A year later, it was published in Studia Liturgica.
False worship is always politically orchestrated and manipulative, mimicking true worship of God. In Christianity, “true worship presupposes that the crucified and risen Lord is just there”. In false worship, the political orchestrator deliberately builds up ideological fascination around himself, climaxing into acquiring “an aura and a divinity” from the ecstatic crowd. Lately, Pope Francis admonished EU powers to “be careful not to be a vehicle for ideological colonisation”, which will only create victims.
As an example of false worship, Alison took the Nuremberg rallies, where manipulated crowds adulated the Führer as their deliverer who would wipe out the enemy close at hand. Here, unity concentrated on the artful trickster, creating a faux form of closeness feeding on fear from the other, rhetorically exposed as the foe within.
True worship, however, includes the divine, who is already self-disclosed in our midst, making up no divisive ramparts. Alison illustrated his point on true worship by citing a true story from Chris Hedges’s War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, on the Bosnian conflict, where a Muslim farmer, in defiance of his group, kept milking his cow to feed a Serbian mother and her new-born baby, ending up being persecuted by his group for helping the Chetnik. For Alison, “this is the sign of true worship... the brightening of the eyes at the contemplation of the baby in whose jagged-edged creation he had found himself playing a part”.
As rendered by Matthew, the Christmas story opens our minds and hearts to the realisation that the manifestation of God incarnate among us knows no boundaries. In Christ, Isaiah’s prophecy on the universality of the reign and worship in truth is fulfilled: “Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to you: your sons come from afar... proclaiming the praises of the Lord.” The letter to the Ephesians points out also that “the Gentiles” – perceived as the rival other – “are co-heirs, members of the same body, and co-partners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel”.
In Matthew’s narrative, the magi from the east recognise “the one who was born king” among the people, and have naturally “come to do him homage”. Their worship contrasts Herod’s manifest interest in worshipping the one born king. Being a client king of the Roman Empire and not alien to manipulative, violent tactics to keep power, Herod tried, to no avail, to gain adulation by investing in monumental infrastructural projects that generated business. He even showed interest in heightening worship through the expansive renovation projects of the Second Temple and the Temple Mount. Ultimately, Herod left a legacy of violence, disorder and divisiveness.
The magi’s true worship of the newborn king circumvents any form of idolatry. Matthew’s story demonstrates that true worship is subversive. As in Mary’s Magnificat, it gives what is due to God, who topples the mighty, scatters the proud and exalts the humble and meek.
Christians are called to be catalysts of transformation for the better in matters of justice, peace and the integrity of creation
Perhaps, of all liturgical seasons, Advent and Christmas are the most politically charged and empowering for Christians, who are called to be catalysts of transformation for the better in matters of justice, peace and the integrity of creation, opening spaces pointing to God’s reign in our midst. If we only knew the power of true “worship in spirit and truth” (Jn 4; 24).