St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Revd Bruce W. B. Jenneker in the Cathedral Church of St George the Martyr, on the Feast of the Epiphany, Sunday 6 January 2008

One way to uncover the meaning of the Feast of the Epiphany is approach it as a tale of two cities – Jerusalem and Bethlehem.

Jerusalem is located in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern tip of the Dead Sea. It is an old and venerable city with a history that goes back more than 5000 years - making it one of the oldest cities in the world. Since the10th century before Christ, Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual centre of the Jewish people. The story of how Jerusalem got its name begins with Abraham's arrival in it – at that time the city was called Shalem – which means complete, without defect, perfect. Abraham asked Melchizedek, the king and high priest, to bless him, and Melchizedek blessed Abraham in the name of the one God. This historic and faith-defining encounter between Melchizedek and Abraham was commemorated by renaming the city Jerusalem in their honour. The first part of the city's new name came from Yireh, which is the name Abraham gave to the Temple Mount. This was combined with Shalem, producing Yeru-Shalem, meaning the “city of Shalem,” or “founded upon Shalem.” If shalem means “complete,” or “without defect,” Yerushalayim means the “perfect city” or “the city founded on perfection.”

Bethlehem is a much smaller city, rural in character, and without any such mythic and dramatic provenance. It is located in the “hill country” of Judah, about 10 kilometres south of Jerusalem. Originally called Ephratah, Beth-Lehem Ephratah, it is first mentioned in the Bible as the place where the biblical matriarch Rachel died and was buried “by the wayside” - she whose voice was heard crying in the wilderness, weeping for her children, inconsolable because they were no more. The name Bethlehem means “house of bread.”

Two cities – the city of perfection, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem its nearby neighbour, dusty and rural, the house of bread.

When the Jews returned to Jerusalem after their long exile in Babylon, their holy city was heap of ruins, with its towers torn down and its economy a disaster. The people were discouraged and depressed, hopeless and wretched. To them the prophet Isaiah addressed a remarkable prophecy: A multitude of camels shall cover you, the wealth of nations shall be brought to you, they shall bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord. For God will do a new thing with Jerusalem, under God's mighty arm the ruined city will be restored will become a hub of productivity and prosperity, a new centre for international trade and prestige.

The depressed and wretched people of Jerusalem took this prophecy to heart. They interpreted to its promise to mean that great things lay in store for Jerusalem: all the nations will turn to Jerusalem, Jerusalem will be the centre of a global economy, great wealth will come to those who serve its purposes, power and prestige will be in their hands.

Clearly it was not only the Jews of Jerusalem who knew this remarkable oracle. It appears that far in Eastern lands there were sages who knew it as well. They had read it, and understood that they must go to Jerusalem, take with them rare spices and priceless gold with which to offer homage to the new king of all peace and prosperity.

These wise men arrive in Jerusalem, the city of promise and new possibility, and seek out Herod the king to ask about the new reign that the remarkable oracle foretells. The king is mightily disturbed by this visitation and hurriedly calls together the Biblical scholars, to ask them what this oracle could possibly mean. There is a prophecy and it is about a city, but you are looking at the wrong prophecy and at the wrong city, the scholars tell Herod the king. It is not Isaiah to whom you should be listening, but to Micah. Yes, a new age is dawning, a new kingdom is being ushered in. But it is not in Jerusalem that the new age will be inaugurated but in Bethlehem. You and the wise men, all of you are 10 kilometres off.

Two cities – Jerusalem with its pomp and splendour, its place on the world's stage, its influence and great pretensions, and Bethlehem with its modest promise of a new dispensation in which the ruler is a shepherd, not overlording it in power but tending alongside in solidarity. Two cities – Jerusalem, with its consumerist values and cultural ascendancy, triumphalist confidence and self sufficiency, and Bethlehem with its innocent trust that God is faithful, and its enduring hope that God is with God's people and its risky dependence on God's amazing grace. Two cities – one a place of arrogance and self-promotion, the other a place of vulnerability and openness.

This is where the journey of the Magi becomes our pilgrimage, yours and mine. Have we chosen the pursuit of arrogance, or have we chosen the pilgrimage of vulnerability. The one is exactly what our culture expects, honours and celebrates – no matter how many lies we tell, or deals we make, or lives we destroy. The other is counter-cultural in the extreme – the choice of an intimate relationship with God who remains in close solidarity with God's people who choose to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with their God.

Two cities – the one with all the trappings of power and all the odours of sanctity, the other, outside the geography of power, on the margins of the fields of influence, poor, voiceless, disregarded. Are we 10 kilometres off you and I, and with us our community and our nation? Are we heading for short-sighted self-sufficiency and all the consequences of our empty arrogance, or are we taking the long road that winds through vulnerability, generosity, responsibility and sacrifice? Where will we offer our homage - at the crossroads of security and prosperity or at the altar of gentleness and integrity where our spears can be turned in to pruning hooks and our swords into ploughshares?

The Eastern sages listened to the tale of the two cities and choose the road to Bethlehem and then went home by a very different way.

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