I recently
saw Bruce Almighty, a movie in which a wanna-be news anchor finds
himself at the end of his rope emotionally, career-wise, relationally
and, at the root of it all, spiritually.
It seems that
Bruce has one big problem in life: he is so obsessed with himself that
the only things he really cares about have only to do with how they make
him happy. But now, confronted with the mess that Bruce has made
of his life and, in a last-ditch effort to stitch the pieces of his life
together, Bruce turns to God for divine assistance.
It doesn’t take long before God
responds to Bruce’s pleas.
First, God sends
a series of little coincidences to catch Bruce’s attention. Although they do catch his attention, Bruce is blind to
this manifestation of God’s presence in that Bruce doesn’t link these coincidences directly to God’s
presence. So, God then takes a more direct approach, appearing to Bruce
and endowing him with the powers of the Almighty. Of course, being the
egotist that he is, Bruce abuses these powers for his own selfish
purposes some of which, I have to admit, had me nearly passing out in
laughter.
From a
spiritual perspective, Bruce’s situation is critical. Yet, it isn’t all
that unusual. After all, while many of us might not find ourselves in
quite the desperate straits that Bruce finds himself, how many of us immediately
turn to God and implore divine assistance when we want God to straighten
out the messes that we’ve created?
For example, as
parents, we might find ourselves at wit’s end wondering what to do when
we’re dealing with a child’s immature response to the exercise of
what we call “parental prerogative.” Or, as a spouse, maybe we find ourselves at wit’s
end when we’re told yet once again that we can’t have everything the way
we want it. Searching for happiness, young adults
oftentimes find themselves at wit’s end and fantasizing about what life
will be like when they are finally living on their own and able to do
what they want, when they want, and in the way that suits their fancy.
Other people find themselves at wit’s end when tragedy strikes.
Suddenly, they’re demanding that God be present and provide an
explanation that makes sense out of the chaos.
The desire we
have that God manifest His presence and straighten the messes we’ve
created in our lives is, in reality, a tacit admission of our frail and
imperfect nature. The confusion and chaos these messes cause remind
us that we’re not the all-powerful, almighty, or omniscient beings we
oftentimes pretend to be. And, those desperate little prayers we utter are, in actuality, a
candid admission of our need for God and His providence.
In light of the
solemnity we celebrate today, we are “needy” beings whose most
self-revealing prayer is that
God manifest Himself in a personal “epiphany” (in Greek, the word
epiphany [επιφάνοs]
means “manifestation” or “showing”), which makes us just like Bruce. When events conspire to trap us somewhere
behind the proverbial “eight ball,” we hope and pray and
plead and beg and cajole God to manifest Himself. But, as today’s
gospel indicates, when God responds by manifesting Himself, it is likely
that we won’t see Him or recognize that God is answering our prayers.
For centuries,
the Jews had hoped and prayed that God would manifest His love for His
Chosen People by sending the promised Messiah. This “Savior” would
deliver the Jews from centuries of slavery, tribulation, and all of the
messes they had created by trusting in themselves rather than in God.
But, what
happened when God did respond to their prayers? The Jews didn’t
recognize the divine epiphany.
Why?
One explanation
has to do with what we call the “power of positive expectations.”
For their part, the Jews expected that God would manifest Himself as a
Messiah, a mighty and all-powerful Savior and King, not as a powerless
infant laying in a manger. Further, the Jews expected this
Messiah’s birth would take place in David’s royal city, Jerusalem, not
in a rustic town like Bethlehem, populated by lower-class, country
bumpkins, and in a royal palace not some godforsaken and stinking stable
located somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. Lastly, the Jewish
religious and civic leaders would hail the Messiah’s birth, not three
pagan astrologers from the Persian territory that forms today’s nations
of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.
In the baby
laying in a manger in Bethlehem, God had given what, for generations,
faithful Jews had been praying, begging, pleading, and hoping for. But,
because the Jews expected God to manifest Himself in they way they had
defined, the Jews were blind when, at long last, the divine epiphany
came.
Now, while we may
feel pity for the predicament into which the Jews had thrust themselves,
what is truly ironic is that we’re not all that much different.
Although we pray, beg, plead, and hope that God will manifest Himself to
us, when God actually does manifest Himself to us, we most likely won’t
recognize the epiphany. Like the Jews, we want God to come to save
us in an
unmistakable form, perhaps a burning bush, a pillar of
fire by night and a cloud by day, in water flowing from a rock, dividing
the tomato soup in two like Moses divided the Red Sea, the multiplication
of loaves and fishes at the dinner table, or perhaps walking on water. But, when God
manifests Himself in the form of a child who tests our character, a
spouse who tells us the painful truth, or when tragedy strikes, we are
blind to those epiphanies. Why? Because we’ve decided that God must
manifest Himself in the unmistakable way we have choreographed.
More often that
not, it is also the case that we will recognize God’s epiphany only long
after it takes place. Just as it took decades for many Jews to
recognize that God had manifested His power by sending His only begotten
Son as the Messiah, it
takes time for selfish people who are motivated solely by their inflated
egos to
recognize God’s presence by admitting that a child or spouse may be
correct or to give thanks for that which tragedy has taken away.
That is the very
difficult spiritual challenge today’s gospel puts to us: When we beg God
to be present in our lives, are we doing so in the hope that God will
manifest Himself to us as He truly is? Or, is it closer to the truth
to say that we want God to manifest Himself in the form of idols of our own
making?
Like the Magi,
our challenge is to seek God honestly as He manifests Himself in our
daily lives and, especially, in those stinking mangers located in the
little towns like Bethlehem where we believe God couldn’t possibly
manifest Himself. But, if we are to see God’s epiphany in these
places as the Magi
did, we need eyes that are capable of seeing God manifesting Himself as he is and
not as we want Him to be.
Last week, we
celebrated God manifesting Himself in becoming incarnate, taking upon
Himself the form of a Messiah who is human like us in all things but
sin. Today, we celebrate God manifesting himself yet once again, but
to people whose eyes see this epiphany for what it reveals.
In this sense, today’s solemnity recounts not so much the Magi’s
preparation for and response to God’s epiphany in their lives but our
own preparation for and response to God’s epiphany in our lives. Like the
Jews who allowed their expectations to blind themselves from seeing God
manifesting Himself to them, is all we see in the messes of our lives a
child laying in a stinking manger located in some godforsaken place?
Or, are we more like those pagan Magi, those heathens the Jews believed
inferior to themselves yet whose openness to God’s epiphany made it
possible for them to see what God was manifesting in the that child?
When our children
test us, when our spouses confront us, and when tragedy engulfs us, do
we wallow in our frustration and demand that God come in those
idolatrous fantasies of our own crafting? Or, do we see God as He is?
In the story of
the Magi, the Gospel of Matthew offers some rather “disconcerting”
Good News. Spiritual growth—maturing as a child of God—seems to be
predicated upon three fundamental decisions we must make, for better or
worse. First: we must decide what we want to see, namely, God’s epiphany or
the idols of our own creation. Second: we must decide whether we
will be vigilant as we prepare ourselves for God’s epiphany or
complacent about it. And third: when God does reveal Himself, we must
decide whether or not we will follow the pathway God reveals. That
pathway may require loving that testy child more exercising parental
prerogative. It may require listening to our spouse and
responding by working to change our selfish behavior. Or, it may
require that we stop blaming God for tragedy.
In Bruce
Almighty, it wasn’t until after Bruce abused the powers God had
given him that Bruce painfully recognized what characterizes true
prayer. It isn’t begging, pleading, imploring, hoping, and cajoling God
into manifesting Himself by giving us what we want. It isn’t begging, pleading, imploring, hoping
and cajoling God to straighten out the messes in our lives or to make
everyone in the entire world happy. No, Bruce finally discovered that
true prayer means begging, pleading, imploring, hoping, and cajoling
God—from the depths of his heart—for what others need.
This is how God
manifests His power and majesty. When we honestly admit in prayer that
we are weak and frail, when we recognize and articulate our absolute
dependence upon God and His divine providence, and when we acknowledge
that we ultimately have no control over the messes of our lives, we
exercise free will by inviting God to heal our blindness. Only then will we see God manifesting
His glory. And, when we do, we will return to our daily lives
along “a different way”—just as the Magi did—not along the “same old
way” as the Jews did.
Double click on this button for
a brief history
of the three astrologers.
|