Can't see the forest for the trees

          Sometimes life can bog us down.  So much so that we miss out on the important stuff, like when Jesus wants to manifest himself in our midst.  Here's to a more reflective 2014 in which we take control of our business and let Jesus be seen by us... and through us!

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Homily: The Epiphany of the Lord – Cycle A

          My guess is that most of us are pretty familiar with the saying “You can’t see the forest for the trees.”  We know that basically it means that one is so preoccupied by the details of something that he or she cannot see the bigger picture of the whole.  In other words, when one focuses too much on branches and individual leaves, he or she misses out on seeing the beauty of the forest.  We often say this about people who get so caught up in the details of their daily lives that they seem to lose focus on where it is they are going; so much that they seem to miss out on something big when it happens.

          In our Gospel reading today, we heard the familiar story of the arrival of the Magi to honor Jesus.  We find among its familiar details that King Herod was completely caught off-guard by these Wise Men from the east who announced that they had come to honor the new-born King of the Jews.  “They had been following his star,” they said.  Apparently, neither King Herod nor any of his cronies spent much time looking up at the sky, for it seems like they had no idea that a new star had appeared.  No it seems like King Herod was much more focused on what was right there in front of him—that is, his daily efforts to preserve and exploit his power as king—and so he failed to notice the rising of the star.  He was so focused on himself that he couldn’t see the bigger picture of the coming of the long-awaited One: that is, the coming of the Messiah.

          We can often be the same way, can’t we?  How often do we get so caught up in filling our lives with occupations, events, and commitments—trying to maintain and exploit our personal comfort and pleasure—that we often miss the bigger picture of it all?  Just take a moment and think about what you did during the month of December.  I mean did you really have time to enjoy it all?  Or did you spend the whole month decorating, shopping, wrapping, baking, and bouncing from one Christmas party to another?  You know, if at any time during the month you said to yourself “Is it December 26^th yet?”, then at some point you allowed yourself to get so caught up in the details of trying to make Christmas enjoyable that you forgot to enjoy Christmas!

          The Magi, however, were open to seeing the bigger picture.  In fact, they spent their lives studying the “bigger picture”, for they were astrologists.  Thus, their lives were spent studying the stars in the hope of understanding what they could reveal to us about our lives and our purpose.  And so, when something big emerged—for example, when a new star arose in the west—they were ready to respond.  They weren’t so bogged down in the details of their daily personal pursuits that they “couldn’t see the forest for the trees” and thus they were rewarded by being some of the first people to see the newborn King of the Jews.

          Every year, the Church gives us an opportunity to step back from our daily pursuits and look at the bigger picture.  We, too, have seen the star at its rising, but often lose sight of it as we progress through the year.  The Christmas Season is placed at the head of the year precisely in order to remind us of what we have seen and to give us another opportunity to respond, like the Magi did, by setting out to look for the new-born king in our lives.  It is an opportunity once again to examine our lives in order to see if we, too, have gotten bogged down in the details of daily living and thus need to reset our perspective so that we can, indeed, see the forest for the trees.

          This, in a way, is the meaning of Epiphany: for an epiphany is a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.  In other words, it is like the moment when you realize that the branch on the tree in the forest is part of a larger whole and that it can only really be understood when considered in that context.  Applied to our daily lives, an epiphany is when we can see all of our daily acts and experiences in light of the bigger picture of our lives and our vocations.  This means that whether you are chasing your children around from school to soccer to football to basketball to volleyball to dance to play or to band practice or you find yourself alone most of the day awaiting a phone call from a son or daughter or one of your grandchildren or if your daily routine of school and homework seems monotonous, you can see all of these things in the light of the Incarnation of God—Jesus Christ, our Savior—and can accept them as part of God’s plan to make you a saint.

          If you’ve not been able to see these things in this light, then today’s feast is for you; for today the Church invites you to pull back your head from the branches and the leaves so as to see the forest.  God has come down to us and made himself known to all humankind.  Therefore, if anything in our lives is blocking us from seeing that, we ought to put our focus on removing it from (or, at least, changing its importance in) our lives.

          I recently came across a poem from the former Archbishop of Seattle that I think sums up what I’m trying to say pretty well.  He writes:

If as with Herod,
We fill our lives with things,
And again with things;
If we consider ourselves so important
That we must fill every moment of our lives with action;
When will we have the time
To make the long, slow journey
Across the burning desert
As did the Magi?
Or sit and watch the stars
As did the Shepherds?
Or brood over the coming of the child
As did Mary?
For each of us
There is a desert to travel,
A star to discover,
And a being within ourselves
To bring to life.

In this new year, may our resolution be to make ourselves open to experiencing the manifestation of Jesus in our lives; an experience that we celebrate each and every week, here in this Eucharist.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – January 5^th, 2014