David and Patrick.
Click here to watch the Schitt’s Creek video referenced in the sermon.
David Rose and Patrick Brewer are a fictional television couple. You don’t have to know who they are to appreciate their contribution to the Feast of the Epiphany, but if you’re curious, you can meet them on the sitcom with a name that doesn’t sound appropriate when spoken aloud. It’s called “Schitt’s Creek,” spelled s-c-h-i-t-t. In a promotion for that show a few years ago, the actors portrayed their characters in a short interview about Christmas traditions. David and Patrick recounted their experiences as children who starred in Nativity plays. Patrick had attended an all-boys school, and got cast in the coveted role of Mary, the Christ child’s mother.
David had an even more unusual experience in his school’s play. “You know the Wise Men, who bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh?” David asked Patrick. “Yeah, you were one of the Wise Men?” Patrick replied. “No,” said David. “I was offered the part of the Wise Men but turned it down. I played Myrrh. I just thought it would be a more dimensional, challenging opportunity. And I’m sorry, the other parents weren’t coming up to Baby Jesus and asking them to sign the program.” Patrick then said, “How does a baby give an autograph, is my question.” David was exasperated. “So we’re poking holes, I guess, in the story,” he sighed. “I don’t know,” said Patrick. “Myrrh??”
David seems almost aware of how absurd he is, and the great joke of this couple — and their magic together — is that the sensible, reserved Patrick truly loves and admires David while recognizing fully how ridiculous and over the top David is. Only David would choose to play Myrrh in the Nativity play, and somehow pull it off.
But this has me thinking. Why not? Why can’t the gifts be characters in the play, too?
When our children encounter Holy Scripture in the liturgy of Godly Play, they are invited to wonder where or how they enter the story, but they need not choose a human character. In the scene where the woman anoints the feet of Jesus with expensive oil while the startled disciples look on, the child would be free to identify with any the many interesting humans in the room, but also with the oil. If you identify with the oil, you can see yourself as a priceless gift broken open and poured out, for the life of the world.
Or maybe if you’re hearing the Passion according to John, you could be the hyssop branch that carries wine to the lips of Jesus on the cross. If so, you are taking on an image of liberation and triumph that evokes the bloody Israelite doorposts of the Exodus from Egypt (in which hyssop branches were used to mark the doors).
Or maybe you want to be the thornbush on the mountain path of Moses, in which case you will burst into flame with God’s terrible presence and power. Or you could be the dusty soil on which Jesus writes something mysterious, as he prepares to respond to his challengers. The great fish who swallows Jonah – is that you? Maybe you’re the boat that threatens to break up unless the sailors throw Jonah overboard. You have lots of options.
Our faith tradition allows and even encourages us to identify ourselves with animals and inanimate objects in the parables, historical accounts, and poetry of our holy book. Even Jesus himself does it: “I am the Bread of Life,” he says, just after multiplying loaves of bread for hungry people.
So. Would you like to play Myrrh in the Nativity play? The part is available. You may also choose to be Gold, or Frankincense. You could be one of the camels who (in popular imagination, if not in Matthew’s Gospel) carry the Wise Ones to the Holy Family’s house, where the Star has guided them.
Or hey — you could be the Star.
But if you’re Myrrh, you should know that that’s a rich, intriguing part to play. Myrrh is a burial spice, which explains the decidedly gloomy
‘myrrh’ stanza in the famous carol, We Three Kings of Orient Are: “Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom; sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, sealed in the stone-cold tomb.”
But this is not a pointlessly depressing idea, the inclusion of a burial spice in the bright story of the Epiphany. This dreadful gift reveals something essential and glad about Jesus Christ, and about life in Christ: our faith confronts us with the reality of death, but our faith also teaches us that Jesus Christ confronts and defeats the curse of death with the Good News of Resurrection. And so we draw near those who are dying with hope and confidence, and we approach our own deaths without fear. We keep the myrrh around. Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead, has sanctified our graves with his own grave, and he will shatter our graves, too, in the resurrection on the last day.
If that’s all a bit too intense for you, there’s the role of Frankincense, but that role isn’t going to be much lighter. Still, Frankincense is a role that may make intuitive sense to many of us at St. Paul’s: we know about prayer, and we know about incense specifically as a dimension of our prayer life. But this strange gift from one of the Wise Ones from the east is not only about how Jesus is divine, or that Jesus teaches us to pray, or that Jesus himself prayed a lot, or that our prayers are fragrant and beautiful in God’s sight. That’s all true, but the meaning of this gift runs deeper.
Frankincense is the character in today’s Epiphany play who shows us the divine priesthood of Christ, a priesthood in which we all share. In our most ancient experience of priests, we found them in the temple, and specifically in the most dreadful part of the temple: the priests of ancient Israel oversaw the sacrifice of animals, which was done not only to offer thanksgiving to God, but also to atone for sins. Therefore, priests are present for all that God’s people have to offer, the good and the bad. Priests understand and empathize with their neighbors, all of whom are beloved of God, but all of whom are vulnerable … and fallible.
And so, in turn, in our life of faith as the priesthood of all believers, following Jesus our great high priest, we are present with one another, with our neighbor, and with the stranger. We understand and empathize with everyone. We practice radical acceptance together, taking the good with the bad, asking for and offering forgiveness, mending relationships, establishing justice, securing a lasting peace. Our work in all of this is messy and painful, but also deeply prayerful, rising like incense as we intercede with God for all people.
And finally, Gold. If you choose to play the part of Gold, well, you’ll have the most splendid costume. So that’s fun. But even gold bears a heavyweight message, announcing to the world who Jesus is, and who or what is most valuable in the dominion of God. Jesus of course is a King, the King of kings, and we could simply leave it at that: the gift of Gold recognizes his kingship, as the frankincense recognizes his divine priesthood, and the myrrh foretells his saving death. But of course this gift of gold has great depth of meaning, too.
The gold crown of Christ the King rests on a human head, and its glittering, shining presence announces the restored dignity of human nature. Whenever we stand in our worship, and wear fine clothes, and most especially wear the white robe of the baptized, we are joined in the sovereignty of Christ: we are royal. God has “wonderfully restored the dignity of human nature,” as we pray in the collect for the Second Sunday after Christmas. And so, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how little you may think of yourself, no matter what ache you might have on your heart, no matter what fear might seize you, no matter what regret might be making you feel diminished and discouraged, know this: God in Christ has lifted you, and even now is restoring you, clothing you with dignity and crowning you with honor.
I invite you to wonder, then, how you might enter this story. You could be a rare spice, fragrant tree resin, or a bar of pure gold. You could be a Wise One, or maybe it’s been a terrible couple of years, so these days you feel a bit more like Herod. Or you’re a hardworking camel, laboring to help others find their way. Or you’re the shining star, filled with God’s glory, shining with God’s enlightening Word.
Whoever you play in the Epiphany story, you may be delighted to find that the role reveals your own true self, created lovingly by God, and sent into a world that longs so deeply for what you offer. Come, dressed in fine gold if you like, and let us gather around the Christ child, and, overwhelmed with joy, pay him homage.
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Preached on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6, 2022, at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Seattle, Washington.
Isaiah 60:1-6
Psalm 72:1-17, 10-14
Ephesians 3:1-12
Matthew 2:1-12