January 6, 2019

Readings:

First Reading: Isaiah 60:1-6
Responsorial: Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13
Second Reading: Ephesians 3:2-3A, 5-6
Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12

When my Mom was a kid, she and her sisters would put some hay and their shoes on the fire escape outside of their tenement window in anticipation of a visit from los Reyes Magos and their camels. These three sisters, who shared one single doll among them, must surely have thought they received gold the year the visitors left a bag of chocolates! Their Spanish immigrant parents, like many of their diasporic Puerto Rican neighbors, preserved yet adapted their popular practices from homelands near and far. In Catholic culturas hispanas y latinas, the feast of the Epiphany on the 6th of each January is the climax of the Christmas season, and I have come to appreciate that the popular practices of the season often enough function as performative interpretations of scriptural texts.

Matthew’s narrative of the adventures of an ambiguous party of magi with three specific gifts leaves open any number of vexing questions. Who were they — scholarly ambassadors from distant royal courts, sorcerers and magicians, wisdom figures who studied the heavens and charted the stars? Where was their home? How politically naïve were they to not foresee the potential consequences of their inquiries?

The juxtaposition of the readings in the lectionary for this feast reminds us of the influence of Isaiah 60 and Psalm 72 on the centuries of interpretation of Matthew’s text. Read through the lenses of Is 60: 1-6 and Psalm 72, the Magi become kings, the number of visitors is set at three — in part because of the number of gifts, camels enter nativity scenes, and speculation about their exotic identity ranges from Persia to Ethiopia, to Babylon, to Arabia, and even to the Iberian Peninsula. Lack of specific details fuels popular imagination, but at the same time, such traditioning does not necessarily miss profound theological insights.

Among the theological insights that emerge from the journey of the Magi is the presaging of outreach beyond small communities of Jewish Jesus followers and that the Incarnation entails a taking on of the struggles and suffering of humanity. The child to whom the Magi render homage is born into a context of imperial machinations that imperils the lives of the children of the region and in the end, violently claims Jesus’ own life.

The seeds of what is to come are sown throughout this narrative. The query about the “newborn King of the Jews” (2:2) at the beginning of the gospel reappears in the passion narrative inscribed as the charge over the crucified body: “This is Jesus the King of the Jews” (27:37). Frankincense and myrrh were resins used not only in sacred rites but in healing as well as embalming. The revelation to the Magi upon the rising of a star ends on a fearful note with a warning to avoid Herod. The revelation in the last chapter of Matthew to “Mary Magdalene and the other Mary” (28: 1-10) is accompanied by a call to avoid fear and announce the news of the Resurrection. In both instances, the encounter with the revelation of Jesus is met with responses of homage by the Magi (2:11) and the two Marys (28:9).

In his classic commentary on the infancy narratives, renowned biblical scholar Raymond Brown notes what he calls the “subsequent Christian midrash” that arose around the Magi, transitioning that continues the process of “coloring-in the outline of the magi with hues familiar from the lives of Christians of later centuries”(199-200.) While aware of their anachronisms and naiveté, Brown still affirms these reflections as a “valid hermeneutic instinct” not necessarily removed from the intent of the author of the gospel (Brown, 200). The hold of the Magi on popular imaginations across cultures and generations yield creative interpretations that communicate complex theological insights through practices, performances, and arts — sometimes even without words. These expressions are imbued with the particularities of interpreters and their respective geographies.

One such example is a Puerto Rican tradition that portrays the Magi as three kings in the company of las tres Marías. Depictions of los Reyes Magos often image the identity of the community whether in their clothing, or the types of gifts they bear, or in their racial/ethnic diversity. Mounted on horseback and sometimes wearing pavas, the traditional straw hats that are typical of the island, the kings may carry gifts representative of the Taino, African, and Spanish heritage of the land and its people. Las tres Marías reference the Marys at the foot of the cross in the passion of John, namely Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala (19:25) and intersect with the two Marías (Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary”) at the tomb in Matthew (28:1)
In the companionship of Magi and Marías, the integrity of the whole of Jesus’ life finds expression. The revelation of the divine occurs within the particularity of communities from whom a response is expected. The call to discipleship is not gender exclusive nor is it free from risk. Like the Magi and the two Marías at the tomb, homage acknowledges the presence of the divine in the most vulnerable who find themselves in the most dangerous of contexts.

In these artistic interpretations of the scripture, the identity of the Magi is tied tightly to the particularity of people, inviting communities to consider themselves recipients of revelation, called to do as the Magi did in their encounter with the divine, called to thwart the machinations of empire that imperil the lives of the children in their regions. In detention centers across the USA and on both sides of its southern border, children long for more than a bag of chocolates from los Reyes Magos. This Epiphany they hope for a rescue that can only come from people who, like the Magi, have the wisdom to recognize the revelation of God in those who are powerless. Such divine self-disclosure calls forth the type of reverence that results in the flowering of justice and profound peace.

Carmen M. Nanko-Fernández

Professor of Hispanic Theology and Ministry

Director, Hispanic Theology and Ministry Program

References

Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke (New York: Doubleday, 1999).